Peru: Machu Picchu 2013

Machu Picchu! Known as the Lost City of the Incas; this is why you go to Peru or at least what Peru is known for when it comes to travel. This was the reason why Krista wanted to go to Peru and I'm so glad she did and that I went with her because this trip was amazing. Machu Picchu is this ancient city and civilization that nobody knew about until an explorer found the ruins. All of the facts about this place is speculation. I can't believe I'm doing this but here is a link to Wikipedia for some reader's digest facts about Machu Picchu.

PeruRail
We took the PeruRail from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes. It was a beautiful ride and they fed us breakfast; which we got really excited about and high-fived each other. We bought our tickets ahead of time on their website. Be careful when selecting your trains; our return train only went half way back to Cuzco (we picked the wrong destination, woops, but our solution was memorable and I blog about it at the end of this post).

They just announced over the intercom that we would be getting breakfast!



Aguas Caliente
The only civilized city near Machu Pichu is Aguas Calinete. It reminded me of a Peruvian Park City; not in comparison to the wealth, no not at all, just the idea of having a city tucked up into the mountains. There are no roads to Aguas Caliente and so there are no cars. The only way to get there is by the train. There are busses there to take you up to Machu Picchu so we figured those were brought up on a train. We saw people all over pushing carts and wheelbarrows around to transport supplies and other things. We stayed at the SuperTramp Hostal; haha yes, that is the real name of it. It has a sketchy name but it had great reviews on Trip Advisor and we really liked it. We even met these two girls from Switzerland, who had been traveling through South America for about 6 weeks, there.

The view of Aguas Calientes while on a hike



Mount Putucusi
Since we had spare time on our first day in Aguas Calientes we decided to go on a hike. A friend of mine had told me about this hike and Krista had read about it in her Peru book. This hike was difficult but I absolutely loved it; it was worth every step, every raindrop, every break after two switchbacks... it was worth it! Krista's book said it was a simple hike, ha! Hardly, but again... worth it! The hike started at the base of the mountain with the destination being... THE TOP. Now this mountain didn't gradually get taller, nope, it went straight up, had a hill at the top and then back down again. The first half of the hike was actually climbing these incredibly tall ladders up the side of the mountain. Scary you might ask... nah... It was fun!

At the top

Climbing the ladders

After the ladders we had switchbacks for about 40 minutes. They looked easy but at a higher elevation it was hard. The area around Machu Picchu is about 3 times higher than Salt Lake City. After every two switchbacks we would have to stop and catch our breath. Krista even said, "This is so sad! We are very in shape! You're a crazy runner and I'm an active soccer player!" We had a lot of laughs on this hike. I'm making it sound like we climbed Everest... no, this hike is doable, we just had to slow down and be sure to take breaks.
When we got to the top we walked through some bushes, around some boulders and then... wham! Right in front of you, across the valley, is Machu Picchu! It was such a beautiful scene we were so excited that we both jumped up and cheered!

Machu Picchu is framed between us in the distance

Our preview to Machu Picchu

On this hike we met our second most favorite person on the entire trip: Wellington! He was this 60-year-old Peruvian man from Lima who basically sprinted passed us up the mountain. At the top he laughed at us when we cheered, took pictures of us in front of Machu Picchu and then taught us about the history and restoration of Machu Picchu. On the way down the mountain it started pouring and so he stayed with us to make sure we got down safely. We were perfectly fine but it was so cute how concerned he was for us and even though he kept about 10 paces in front of us, he would patiently wait for us, if we got behind, and then point out a slippery rock or remind us to keep 3 points of contact on the ladder at all times. One of our regrets of the trip was not getting a picture with him. *hitting hand to forehead*

Machu Picchu
We got up at 4am in order to eat a good breakfast and be over to the busses by 5am to take us up to the entrance of Machu Picchu. We were one of the first people into Machu Picchu and we literally sprinted to the lookout over Machu Picchu (once we got there we had to catch our breath for a minute). We first did a run through Machu Picchu getting as many scenic pictures as we could without tourists in them; it was amazing. Once we went through Machu Picchu on warp speed we then went through it again at our own pace and took our sweet time as we learned about the structures and the culture. We referred to Krista's Peru book for most of it but once in awhile we would listen in on other tour groups and their guide. We did have few times where we would guess the facts and stories about things we saw and then later figure out what it really was. Oooooh!

Machu Picchu is quite a maze and so each time we would go through it we would find something new OR we would see an area from an overlook area and have to try to figure how to get to the area we were looking at.

Oh! If you ever go to Machu Picchu, get your passport stamped! They stamp your passport for entering Machu Picchu; I had them stamp it next to my stamp for entering Peru. It's not advertised, you have to know about it and ask; luckily someone told us about it.

Waiting just outside the gates to go into Machu Picchu

The overlook of Machu Picchu

We went up and down a lot of stairs that day, I thought they should be documented.

Here's an example of the cool rocks that were chiseled perfectly to fit together without anything holding them together.

This is a rock that gives scientists the theory that Machu Picchu may have been abandoned quickly because it is just laying there in the middle of production. I was trying to help put it back where it needed to go.

Try and guess what this is!

I guessed a mountain goat and Krista guessed a mountain.

It is a condor and it was in the temple of the condor.

Machu Picchu Llamas

In the area of Machu Picchu where there are a lot of "homes" each home had an alter like this. I decided it was a pulpit where the family would give talks.

While wondering around in the maze we passed this "X" several times and every time I would get excited that it would be a place we could go into and then see the x and I would say, "El Stupido X!"

This crazy rabbit-rat thing we saw

Machu Picchu Giant Centipede

Tourists

This was cool! These boulders are shaped to look exactly like the mountain rage behind them in the distant.

It started raining on us... we stayed for two more hours.

Waynapicchu
Connected to Machu Picchu is the mountain Waynapicchu that you can hike to the top of. In order to hike it you have to get a permit; luckily we got ours ahead of time. This was another steep hike that ended with a rewarding overlook of Machu Picchu. This hike did not have ladders but it did have extremely narrow stairs; so narrow that you had to walk sideways up and down them. If I HAD to choose be Waynapicchu and Putucusi I would choose Putucusi but I'm glad we did both.

At the top of Waynapicchu

While we were taking this picture an old Australian man came around the corner, fist pumped the air and said, "I'm 70-years-old and I just hiked Waynapicchu!" He then asked if we would take a picture of him.

On top overlooking Machu Picchu

Oh yeah! I can't remember where we got our tickets for Machu Picchu and Waynapicchu (if you want to hike Waynapicchu I would recommend getting your tickets in advance because you have to have a permit to hike it) but I know we got them from a website that Trip Advisor recommended; here are two of them:
http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/
http://www.ticket-machupicchu.com/

Collector Van
As I said above, for our train home we chose a stop before the Cuzco stop by accident, oops. We tried to change our train ride ticket but we waited until it was two late but the train attendant did tell us there would be busses that we could take from our stop over to Cuzco. Long story short, we ended up catching what is called a collector van, instead of a bus (it was cheaper and Krista felt comfortable with it and so I was onboard). It's a van where the driver drives around shouting out their window, "Cuzco! Cuzco!" and then you flag them down and they collect people as they drive through the streets and once they are full they take off to the destination. It was amazing, we would drop people off at these tiny villages along the way and pick more up. My heart ached for these people who lived waiting for something to work out for them; i.e. a car headed in the direction of their home with space in it.
As the car started off the first time, the car took off flying through the streets I said to Krista, "Should we put our seatbelts on?" Then we both said, "Nah!" and busted up laughing... famous last words... right?

Peru: The Amazon 2013

The Amazon trip near Puerto Maldonado

Our first big adventure, once getting to Peru, was a three day trip in the Amazon. We signed up through Peru For Less to stay in a "lodge" in the jungle. This was probably in my top three of things of the trip that we did while in Peru. We took a flight from Cuzco to Puerto Maldonado (the flight was only 30 minutes long and we never plateaued, we just went up and then down). It was a great experience because everything was taken care of for us in the trip; we just had to show up at the airport baggage claim and be ready for an adventure.

The view of the Amazon River from the plane

The River
The Amazon River was incredible; I absolutely loved it. Even though it was muddy on the edges and probably full of parasites I thought it was beautiful, calm and natural. In order to get to the lodge we had to take an hour boat ride on the river to get there. Once at the lodge we still took a boat to get to our adventures; the claycliffs, hikes, and the piranhas!

On our way to the lodge. The only time we actually wore our life jackets.

Our tour guide handed us each a banana leaf that was folded and had a tie on it and told us it was lunch. I was a little skeptical but it tasted so good! It was just rice, egg, cheese and veggies stir fried, I loved it.

On the river one morning with a little fog over the river

The Lodge
The lodge was basically a giant grass hut. I felt like I was slightly living with the Swiss Family Robinsons. The ceiling and the walls did not meet and so there was air flow. At night I could hear bats flapping around up in the top of the ceilings. The lodge only had electricity in the dinning area and the water was turned off every night at 9pm and turned on again at 6am. We had little candles for lights at night in our room.
There were two tour groups at the lodge; our group and then a college class group from North Carolina. We felt like were back in college again and living in the dorms; it sounds annoying but the students were actually really cool and fun to talk to. One night this cute lady in our group came running into Krista's and my room and told us we had to hurry and see something in her room. We ran into her room where she showed us a spider the size of my hand on her curtain doorway (I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE LET US WALK UNDER THE CURTAIN!) Some of the college guys heard us gasp at the large harry spider and ran into the room to take a picture of it. Long story short the spider dropped off the curtain, every screamed and laughed A LOT and the boys killed it for us.

The lodge

Our room and the mosquito nets around our beds

I'm not going to lie, I was a little paranoid about bugs crawling on me in my sleep but I got over it.

The doorway to our bathroom... yes curtains for doors

Our shower

It was too hot to truly shower but we would take a cold shower every night to feel somewhat fresh.

One of the pathways at the lodge... this one led to the "dinning room" ... very important route

Just hanging out in a hammock with my super dirty socks and one of my most favorite travel snacks

Just acting not my age and playing with the fossils

(It's ok, our tour guide thought I was like 16 so it was easy getting away acting like a dork)

Our Tour Group!

Elaine, me, Juan, Krista and Guiermo

We had a small group and an odd group but we loved it. Elaine late 40s nurse from Canada who said "Aye" a lot. She was our "mom" (in a good way!) of our trip and made our top three list of people we met. Juan was a super nice smart recent college grad who hated bugs, hikes, climbing stairs and getting dirty. Not quite sure why he signed up for this but we're glad he did. Every time we had to climb the stairs from the river up to the lodge he would say, "Sheesh!" when we made it to the top. Krista and I said "Sheesh!" every time we had to do anything physically difficult the remainder of our time in Peru.

Guiermo was out tour guide and NONE of us in our group knew what his name was until the last day of our Amazon adventure.

Clay Cliffs
There are these cliffs along the river that are made out of clay and they are called Clay Cliffs. Haha, I bet you didn't see that coming. In the early morning birds, mostly parakeets and some macaws, like to fly to the cliffs and lick the clay for nutrients. We got up at 5am to go down the river to a tree house to watch the birds.

The parakeets on the cliff. There were some vines hanging just over the cliffs and sometimes the birds would grab onto those and swing around; it was pretty entertaining

Bird watching

The treehouse

Nature Walks
Guiermo took us on several nature walks and taught us about the plants and animals that we saw. While we learned about the plants Guiermo would tell us what they would use the plant for, especially in the "medicine" department. We laughed because almost every plant was, "Good for the stomach." I didn't get a chance to take many pictures of the animals but we did get to see a tarantula, spider monkeys, possum rat, night monkeys, fire ants, capybaras and caiman (little mini alligators). I REALLY wanted to see a sloth but we never did. We did keep teasing Guiermo that we wanted to see a jaguar, I don't think he knew we were kidding, and he would just look at us like we were crazy.

A Saba Tree

Guiermo kept telling us that this was the Avatar tree because it is the tree from the movie. It took me awhile to realize that the didn't believe they actually filmed the movie here but that this tree was like the one in the movie. This tree is very sacred to cultures in Central and South America.

A Walking Palm Tree

This tree's roots are above the ground and when it needs to shift in a way to get more sun light it grow another root to help it shift towards more light.

A Capybara!

This is the world's largest rodent; looks like a big guinea pig.

While walking on a path I saw this giant root and  casually said, "Oh cool, Snake." Juan jumped and turned around to check it out. Oops.

An abandoned snail shell. I had Krista put her shoe next to it so that you could see, comparably, how massive the shell was.

Banana Trees

Bananas

It was fun, they had these clusters at the lodge for us just to grab a banana to snack on whenever we wanted. I liked it because it was a covered fruit so I could eat it.

Flowers

On one of our nature walks Guiermo dressed us up in plants like the natives, that live in the area, do for parties and celebrations.

We thought it was just going to be the "skirts"

Nope, he put things on our heads and faces too.

We secretly think these tour guides make this up and just put these plants on tourists and then laugh about it later telling their buddies, "Guess what I got some tourists to wear today!"

Piranhas!
Our last adventures in the Amazon was going on a hike into the jungle to a lake with Piranhas. We got to fish for piranhas and eat them for dinner! I thought they tasted like chicken.

The lake

The boat without a motor but with this strange paddle that motorized the boat.

Krista and I went swimming with the piranhas; they only nibbled on our toes a little bit. Just kidding, I didn't even notice the piranhas.

When we got back to civilization and emailed our families about our Amazon adventures Krista received an email back from her mom forbidding her to go swimming in anymore murky bodies of water because of "unknown germs." We had a good chuckle about the email.

Fishing

My catch of the day!

Headed "Home"

Since I had limited clothing options for the trip I decided to wear the same outfit the entire time we were in the Amazon as to only dirty ONE outfit. As Krista and I were getting ready to board our plane, Juan turned to me and said, "I didn't want to say anything the past few days but now that we are parting ways... I've noticed that you have been wearing the same shirt the entire time." Krista and I busted up laughing and I just replied with, "Yup! This is true!" No shame, I embraced the gross life of backpacking on this trip.