Cusco and Machu Picchu

We arrived in Cusco on a very chilly morning (they’re all chilly in Cusco actually) and tried to check into our hostel. We didn’t realize though that they had to move us from the hostel we wanted to book to the same company’s other nearby hostel, which was freezing cold inside and had chilly showers. Cusco is a tad annoying because almost no establishments have heating and most hostels have these incredibly pathetic electric water heaters which double as the shower head. They basically heat as the water comes through and it lightly sprays down at you, warm, but not hot, while you stand in the freezing air, hoping for the water to warm up. If you fiddle with it though, you will shock yourself (one PSFer actually electrocuted himself and went to the hospital), which is why they’re so lovingly dubbed “suicide showers.”

We tried to switch hostels, but only found a similar, yet cheaper one. A local on the street saw us walking around with our bags and showed us his friend’s hostel, which was a great price, but the beds and showers left us searching again after two days. Looking for a decent and decently priced hostel in Cusco is basically pointless. It’s the most popular tourist destination in the country and probably the most expensive too. The Peruvian man who “helped” us find the cheap hostel also “helped” us get a horseback riding tour of some ruins nearby. We were promised to see something like 7 ruins and to be able to tour inside three of them. But what we really got was a couple of underage “tour guides” who spoke no English and their Spanish was fast and slurred, and we saw the outside, distant view of one ruin and got to tour another (by ourselves, with no help of course from the guides). Then when we got back, we had to walk to another ruin and then back into town, but the boys didn’t tell us how to get to either of those places. Luckily some English girls nearby helped us out and we found our way back. What a complete rip-off. You must be careful when signing up for tours! Lesson learned: always book inside an establishment and get a receipt with a full description of what you’re getting!

(Cathedral at the Plaza de Armas in Cusco)

(Cathedral at the Plaza de Armas in Cusco)

(devil mask in the market)

(La Pizza Carlo in Cusco, with a real wood fired pizza, yum!)

(In Norton Rat's pub, I amazed myself with my consistency at darts - the last one is stuck in the tail-end of the first!)

(Guinea pig anyone?)

(Buying real tobacco in the market in a strange roll)

(An area in the market where you can take things to get fixed by a seamstress)

(In the days preceding the summer solstice, there were many parades around the Plaza de Armas)

(In the days preceding the summer solstice, there were many parades around the Plaza de Armas)

(Strange sign on a building, I wonder what they mean!)

(Ross and I getting ready for our horseback tour of the ruins near Cusco)

(Moon Temple of Cusco)

(Moon Temple of Cusco)

(Inside the Moon Temple - this altar is where they would sacrifice black llamas to the gods. Black was the color of purity for pre-Incans)

(Inside the Moon Temple - a snake on the wall. Snakes symbolize wisdom.)

(On top of the Moon Temple - male and female condors, which symbolize peace)

(Just below the condors, male and a pregnant female puma, which symbolize fertility and strength)

(Sacsayhuamán - ruins the Spanish tore apart to build their own buildings)

(Tres Cruces or Three Crosses which overlook the city of Cusco)

(El Cristo Blanco or White Christ which is lit up at night and seems to float over the city)

(View of Cusco from El Cristo Blanco and Tres Cruces)

Luckily on our way back, we decided to take a detour along some neat Spanish-style neighborhoods and down some narrow stairs back into town. While wandering, we found a door with a sign saying “Casa Ayni: vegetarian 3-course lunch and spiritual community, healing, etc.” or something like that. Intrigued and not even that hungry, we went in to what basically looks like a person’s kitchen with a dining table, and sat down for lunch. There was no price on the sign, and when we asked, they explained that it was by donation - we could pay whatever we felt the lunch was worth! They wanted to change the thinking of people. The guy who runs it even gave me a quick energy healing session while we were there because I was suffering from a constant side ache - the kind you get from running, but I hadn’t been running! Later he and another healer would give me a full energy healing and music therapy session for another side ache and both of them reported afterward seeing this intense energy cloud during the session that looked like heat rising off a hot surface in the summer. My side aches went away the next day both times. I am excited to get back home so I can learn reiki, a form of energy healing that I have experienced several times in Peru and feel a connection with.

(Casa Ayni. Casa means "house" in Spanish and Ayni means "reciprocity" in Quechua, the old language of Peru and Ecuador)

After a couple of days, two other friends from PSF came and we were happy for the company. We had fun in Cusco together and then went on to Machu Picchu together. There are basically three ways to Machu Picchu, the famous and terribly expensive Inca Trail, the Sulcantay Trail (along the Sulcantay Mountain), and the Inca Jungle Trail, through the jungle valley that leads to Machu Picchu. We chose the latter because you get to cycle, trek through the jungle, then zip-line if you choose before hiking up to Machu Picchu, all over the course of four days. It was also the cheapest, and you get to stay in hostels instead of camping on freezing mountains.

(Richie and Monkey, two friends from PSF who we met up with)

(Monkey keeping warm in my poncho)

On the first day we cycled down a curvy mountain road that started out high and cold and ended near the warm jungle. It was really cool to see the views and experience the quick change in climate! That night we all stayed in a hostel, in dorm rooms with six people each. The beds were comfortable, but the shower was freezing (a common problem in and around Cusco), and I could hear at least two, probably three different people snoring that night, including the people sleeping in the room below us.

(Our group including another girl from PSF, Sarah, tired after riding down the long road into the jungle)

The second day was a 9-hour day including all the walking, lunch, and hot springs at the end. We walked for ages through jungle and eventually along the Urubamba River, which runs through the valley leading to Machu Picchu. In the jungle we got to see coffee plants and suck on the raw beans, which are sweet. We also got to see coca plants, the leaves of which are used for many many things. We drink the tea and this can help with stomach irritation and altitude sickness, we chew the leaves which stave off hunger for long periods (how the Incas walked so far without carrying tons of food and water), and of course, people use their leaves to make cocaine. About 95% of the coca leaves grown in Peru are used illegally to make cocaine. It takes something like 1,000kg of leaves to make 1kg of coke, our guide told us. We later learned that the largest coke factories are in Bolivia, many run by Colombians. As far as I know, only southern Peru, Bolivia and possibly Colombia are allowed to grow the plant. Unfortunate too because the leaves are incredible when used medicinally.

(We walked along part of an original Inca Trail, which were mostly destroyed when the Spanish came so they could not find Machu Picchu)

(A fruit we found on the way - our guide told us how it's used to dye clothing, then we tried it out on our faces)

(Coffee beans on the bush)

(Coffee beans squeezed out and ready to dry)

(A few coffee beans (left) and many coca leaves (right) drying at a farm in the jungle)

(Pet monkey tied to a tree, waiting for a treat)

(Smiling monkey!)

(Our friend Monkey happily feeding the monkey some of his passion fruit juice)

(A Peruvian rodent-type animal apparently related to pigs?)

(I guess I can see the pig snout resemblance)

(A little boy at this farm who knows he can use his cute smile to get a treat)

(A pretty white tree surrounded in coca bushes)

(Nearly ripe bananas)

(The Urubamba River)

(Our group at the highest point on an Inca Trail with orange fruit dye on our faces and coca leaves in our mouths)

(Urubamba River view from the jungle)

(There are REALLY big spiders in the jungle, it's longer than my hand!)

(Trekking along the river on our way to some hot springs!)

(I dropped my sock into the river when we took a dip so I had to use Ross's big sock, ha)

(Getting pulled across the river on a strange cable car. Two soles please!)

The third day was quite a bit easier than the second. We started off the morning with zip-lining across some of the valleys. We climbed up and experienced zip-lines up to 400 meters long and about as high! It was really cool to just fly over rivers and tall trees; these valleys and mountains are gorgeous. The rest of the afternoon we walked the last three hours to Aguas Calientes, the town near the base of Machu Picchu, so called because of its hot springs. Ross and I went in them, but they were nothing special and had nowhere in the pools to sit! That’s not very relaxing. Aguas Calientes is one of the worst tourist towns I’ve seen. Everything is over-priced and people are just constantly nagging at you to eat at their restaurant or get a massage. It’s like the touristy area in Cusco, but with worse food and more expensive.

(One really long zip-line!)

(Ross coming in for a landing)

(Setting out for our last long trek to get to the base of Machu Picchu)

(Danger, don't walk on tracks!)

(Our first view of Machu Picchu - you can just see it at the top of the mountain)

In the morning, we got up and left at 4am to get to the bridge just to wait for it to open at 5am so we could ascend the mountain and be one of the first 400 people inside. That way, you can be one of the two 200-person groups who can climb Huayna Picchu, the mountain next to Machu Picchu that overlooks the ruins and has its own awesome, steep ruins on top. They limit the number because of the damage we tourists are doing to that mountain and the ruins on its peak. We made it, of course, and went in to meet our Machu Picchu guide. He was pretty horrible, obviously prideful of his country’s ruins, but not very knowledgeable. But nobody really knows what Machu Picchu was used for. The Incas had no writing system and when the Spanish came, they had to destroy the trails to Machu Picchu (thus preserving it) and the knowledge was only passed orally and not well. Theories are that it was used as a religious site because of the incredible scenery and evidenced by some of the temples there, also that it was just another Incan city, as the layout is the same, or maybe that it was used for farming experiments because the terraced plots on the steep mountain had different microclimates. I accept that nobody knows Machu Picchu’s use, but this guide couldn’t even explain how it was built, instead he used a sad little souvenir puzzle to show how well the stones fit together, but we could see that ourselves. After our boring tour we got to spend the day walking around and exploring the structures, open spaces, carved waterways, Huayna Picchu and its eerily steep steps, and finally the llamas grazing at the top of the city. It was full of tourists, but since it’s so vast, you can get away for a picnic and a rest on the well-maintained grass. After the four days of trekking, I was ready for rest and had a hard time convincing my feet to climb down again!

(Macchu Picchu's urban area in the background of terraced agricultural bits)

(Ross and I after we conquered the long dark trek up the mountain)

(Notice the stones carved out to make the shape of the window in the middle one)

(The windows of the Temple of the Sun are placed so the sun hits them directly ONLY on the two solstice days)

(My favorite part of Machu Picchu, these incredible carved stairs and stonework below the Temple of the Sun)

(A cooking area)

(Stones carved with knobs for easy building)

(Alleyways in the urban area of Machu Picchu)

(View from climbing up Huayna Picchu)

(The ruins on Huayna Picchu)

(See the bird and lizard together?!)

(The group having a picnic on Huayna Picchu, checking out the view of the ruins below)

(Machu Picchu's incredible stonework - you can't stick a piece of paper through the cracks)

(Machu Picchu from the other side - Huayna Picchu is the tall peak behind it)

(Carefully petting llamas grazing atop the mountain)

(It's a rabbit! No, it's a squirrel! What is it?!)

(On our way out, I noticed this plaque that is the exact date of my birthday. That means this year, when I turn 25, Machu Picchu celebrates 100 years since its discovery)

Back in Cusco, we found out that the borders to Bolivia had reopened (strikes near the border in Peru were causing travelers much trouble in passing through), so we decided to try to spend a couple weeks in Bolivia before returning to Lima to fly into the jungle. Finally off to another country! I was very excited and very ready to go!