And begun it surely has! Cusco for 2 weeks was precious! A charming city, for certain! Spanish classes were on the challenging side of things, with a 24 year old teacher who did not appear to know what to make of the two of us! Understandably! Now in Arequipa, Peru, making plans to head tomorrow to Colca Canyon for a bit of the countryside! Yay!
Lima airport.... knew we would see a sign with either our names or the name of El Patio where we had reserations.... saw a few folks with signs before entering main exit room.... what we saw in the main exit room made us dizzy! Signs in the hundreds... people galore! Which was ours.... where was our sign.... finally did discover it! Yay! He was talking like mad on his cell phone... told us 10 minutes! We waited... we wondered... eventually a young fellow from the States joined us and we all trapsed with all of our stuff to the drivers unmarked car, which is against the rules.... do not get in an unmarked taxi! We did, after making sure that all of our luggage was stuffed securely into the trunk. Blazed out of the airport parking, only to stop within moments, on a busy street, nearly midnight.... were told to get into a different waiting taxi.... what is a person to do at this hour after a very long day of travel.... we got into it and went like bats out of hell, fireworks exploding to welcome us safely to PERU!
Did keep our luggage and all worked out beautifully! Now in Arequipa, Peru, after having visited the Colca Canyon... hiked down in to the bottome, stayed a night and hiked out... caught a bus back here to Arequipa and are in a lovely place! Ahhhh.... life is good!
The Inca trail... MACHU PICHU..... WOW! 4 days and 3 nights on the trail.... the last camp being reached after dark and 11 hours of hiking mostly in the rain! This camp was tent city, muddy, and located on Inca terraces. Squatting toilets! We thought the lack of toilet seats that we experienced in many locations was a tad uncomfortable! We had to abandon our planned final night´s campsite due to a large land slide, causing us to change our route in order to avoid that section. This final day of hiking was incredibly beautiful, thorugh rain forest with begonias, orchids, amazing flowers! Passing through Inca sites along the way... up and down the most incredibly engineered Incan stone steps. The following and final morning we hiked along railroad tracks to Aquas Calientes, where we waited for a bus that had room for us.... (one of our group actually had her pack hit by the passing train in a narrow section where getting out of the way was somewhat challenging, knocking her to the ground and frightening her dramatically!The train stopped and all was well, fortunately!)bus after bus going up to Machu Pichu ruins! WEll worth the wait! Photos do not even come close to depicting this magnificently engineered wonder of the world! The vastness of it all, the amount of planning that obviously took place, the remarkable ruggedness of the terrain... all left me feeling overwhelmed in a most extraordinary way! Our 3rd day on the trail involved the high pass of 12,400 feet. The air was thin! The views were outrageous! Our 5 Brazilian co-travellers (ranging in age from 28 to 41) actually took a full half our longer to reach the pass that day, leaving us feeling fit and frisky, indeed! A bit of an ego boost never hurts! 2nd day on the trail brought us to a lovely campsite overlooking a deep valley... the toilets, unfortunately (or not!) were a fair distance away... up and down more steps! Just the ticket after a long day of hiking up and down stone steps! Waterfalls and charming bridges, as well as more interesting Inca sites kept it all more than worthwhile! Ending with our first day on the trail... which was loaded with obstacles... turns out the trekking company with which we booked sold us to a different company ´cause we were the only 2 that they had during this time frame. WE didn´t know this until later in the day... after being held up for a full 2 hours at the entrance to the trail across the bridge of the Urubamba river, in order to get our permits sorted out. There had been a lengthy delay in Ollantaytambo that morning, related to permits, as well! AND, not to mention the huge truck that was broken down on a curve of the narrow dirt road, causing us yet a further delay, Peruvian stye! Our arrival to the first night´s camp was just shortly before dark, with toilet-seatless toilets that cost a sole (2.7 of them to a US dollar) every time we had to use it! BYOP! (Bring your own paper!) The last straw was our supposed train ticket back after the trek was never provided for us, which meant we had to pay for it ourselves (a total cost of $150 USD for the two of us!) However, we visited the company upon our return to Cusco and with our list and strategy all planned out to the smallest detail, we had no trouble being reimbursed fuly and honorably! YAY! Happy ending!
As your first official member, I hereby declare that your blog works! Let the wild rumpus begin!
ReplyDeleteAnd begun it surely has! Cusco for 2 weeks was precious! A charming city, for certain! Spanish classes were on the challenging side of things, with a 24 year old teacher who did not appear to know what to make of the two of us! Understandably! Now in Arequipa, Peru, making plans to head tomorrow to Colca Canyon for a bit of the countryside! Yay!
DeleteYes it works. Have a GREAT trip and sure will enjoy hearing about it as you go along!! Love --
ReplyDeleteFinally figured out how to actually do this... photos are still a mystery! Speaking Spanish, or trying, is an adventure in itself!
DeleteSo how are the mountains, Pacha?! :)
ReplyDeleteAre you wondering why you have not seen a word out of us here..... wonder no more!
ReplyDeleteLima airport.... knew we would see a sign with either our names or the name of El Patio where we had reserations.... saw a few folks with signs before entering main exit room.... what we saw in the main exit room made us dizzy! Signs in the hundreds... people galore! Which was ours.... where was our sign.... finally did discover it! Yay! He was talking like mad on his cell phone... told us 10 minutes! We waited... we wondered... eventually a young fellow from the States joined us and we all trapsed with all of our stuff to the drivers unmarked car, which is against the rules.... do not get in an unmarked taxi! We did, after making sure that all of our luggage was stuffed securely into the trunk. Blazed out of the airport parking, only to stop within moments, on a busy street, nearly midnight.... were told to get into a different waiting taxi.... what is a person to do at this hour after a very long day of travel.... we got into it and went like bats out of hell, fireworks exploding to welcome us safely to PERU!
ReplyDeleteSo did you get to keep your luggage? Was this something dangerous??
ReplyDeleteGlad you made it safely to Peru anyway!
Did keep our luggage and all worked out beautifully! Now in Arequipa, Peru, after having visited the Colca Canyon... hiked down in to the bottome, stayed a night and hiked out... caught a bus back here to Arequipa and are in a lovely place! Ahhhh.... life is good!
ReplyDeleteThe Inca trail... MACHU PICHU..... WOW! 4 days and 3 nights on the trail.... the last camp being reached after dark and 11 hours of hiking mostly in the rain! This camp was tent city, muddy, and located on Inca terraces. Squatting toilets! We thought the lack of toilet seats that we experienced in many locations was a tad uncomfortable! We had to abandon our planned final night´s campsite due to a large land slide, causing us to change our route in order to avoid that section. This final day of hiking was incredibly beautiful, thorugh rain forest with begonias, orchids, amazing flowers! Passing through Inca sites along the way... up and down the most incredibly engineered Incan stone steps. The following and final morning we hiked along railroad tracks to Aquas Calientes, where we waited for a bus that had room for us.... (one of our group actually had her pack hit by the passing train in a narrow section where getting out of the way was somewhat challenging, knocking her to the ground and frightening her dramatically!The train stopped and all was well, fortunately!)bus after bus going up to Machu Pichu ruins! WEll worth the wait! Photos do not even come close to depicting this magnificently engineered wonder of the world! The vastness of it all, the amount of planning that obviously took place, the remarkable ruggedness of the terrain... all left me feeling overwhelmed in a most extraordinary way! Our 3rd day on the trail involved the high pass of 12,400 feet. The air was thin! The views were outrageous! Our 5 Brazilian co-travellers (ranging in age from 28 to 41) actually took a full half our longer to reach the pass that day, leaving us feeling fit and frisky, indeed! A bit of an ego boost never hurts! 2nd day on the trail brought us to a lovely campsite overlooking a deep valley... the toilets, unfortunately (or not!) were a fair distance away... up and down more steps! Just the ticket after a long day of hiking up and down stone steps! Waterfalls and charming bridges, as well as more interesting Inca sites kept it all more than worthwhile! Ending with our first day on the trail... which was loaded with obstacles... turns out the trekking company with which we booked sold us to a different company ´cause we were the only 2 that they had during this time frame. WE didn´t know this until later in the day... after being held up for a full 2 hours at the entrance to the trail across the bridge of the Urubamba river, in order to get our permits sorted out. There had been a lengthy delay in Ollantaytambo that morning, related to permits, as well! AND, not to mention the huge truck that was broken down on a curve of the narrow dirt road, causing us yet a further delay, Peruvian stye! Our arrival to the first night´s camp was just shortly before dark, with toilet-seatless toilets that cost a sole (2.7 of them to a US dollar) every time we had to use it! BYOP! (Bring your own paper!) The last straw was our supposed train ticket back after the trek was never provided for us, which meant we had to pay for it ourselves (a total cost of $150 USD for the two of us!) However, we visited the company upon our return to Cusco and with our list and strategy all planned out to the smallest detail, we had no trouble being reimbursed fuly and honorably! YAY! Happy ending!
ReplyDelete