Here is my last entry for Peru 2010!

I left of getting onto the plane from Peru to Mexico City. The flight left at 12:30 and luckily I was able to get some sleep. I had a middle seat, which always sucks when your trying to sleep, but I was able to open the seat tray and lay my head on that. I’ve been carrying my sweatshirt and this was precisely the reason why. I’m not sure how much I slept but I was in and out. I definitely missed the entire in flight movie and any food/drinks that were offered.

I’m not sure why, but the immigration line and customs line were packed at 7am this morning! I had no idea there were so many international flights coming in that early. I took about an hour to get through both of those lines, which j guess really isn’t that bad. The layover in Mexico City wasn’t too long. I remembered that I had forgotten to get a pen to fill out the required paperwork for customs, so I went to one of the bookstores in the airport. Apparently a simple pen costs $4! What a rip-off! I think I borrowed a pen for every piece of paperwork I’ve had to fill out on this trip. Maybe I should be more prepared for these kinds of things… Maybe another time (or not).

That brings us to now. I’m on the flight from Mexico City to Houston. Nothing really that exciting to report. I borrowed a pen to fill out my customs form, but that’s not surprising.

I guess that will do it for Peru 2010. If you’ve read all of my posts, then I hope it wasn’t too boring for you! I’ll be putting some pictures up on Facebook and on my blog. Feel free to check back on each days’ post for a small selection of pictures that were taken that day on the trip.

Some words/phrases I’ll be more than glad not to hear for some time lol:
-Anti-step
-Maybe later
-Happy ending
-Massage

Next question: where should i go for next years’ big trip??

Everyone got up around 7:30 this morning, although I’m really not sure why. Rick ended up calling the doctor this morning to figure out what’s going on with his leg. It was doing well for a while, but go significantly worse towards the end of the trip. She gave him a prescription over the phone so hopefully that will help. We all just kind of bummed around in the morning, finishing up some last minute personal things. Whitney, Michelle, and Dillon ended up going back to the Cuzco market for some last minute gifts. I lounged around in bed until 9:15 or so then j went down to the hostel bar for some breakfast. It was the first full meal that I had in the bar, and the French toast was really good!

We all met back in the room to pack up because we were all leaving the room, if not the hostel. Whitney was the first to leave around 11am. The rest of us played cards in the courtyard until 1pm or so when Rick and I had to leave. It was sad saying goodbye to Michelle and Michael (Dillon). I hadn’t seen them in a long time and it’ll be many months before I can see them again. I guess that’s what email and phone are for, but it’s just not the same.

Rick and I shared a cab to the airport to begin our 24 hour journey back to the motherland. We ended up having the same flight to Peru and the same leaving time from Peru to our other connection locations, so we kept each other company. It was much nicer to have someone to share the layovers with so that you don’t get bored out of your mind. We made it through the Cuzco airport to our gate and watched the World Cup final game. We missed the last few minutes of the game, but the captain of our Cuzco-Peru flight came on the loudspeaker and told us who won while we were mid-air. Wow, that was a lot of “W” words in a row. Once we got to Lima, we had about 6-7 hours to kill before our flights took off. Time was spent playing cards and reading for the most part. I don’t know how the time went by so quick, but it really did. Like I said, a benefit to having someone with you during long down-times. 12:30am rolled around pretty quick and I was on my flight to Mexico City.

That will do it for today’s run down. I’ll post 1 more entry tomorrow to recap the rest of the trip home. Night!

Today was 1 early morning! Wake up call was at 3:30am. We had to get moving so that we could get to the tourist checkpoint right when it opened at 5:30. Apparently it gets really crowded and hard to get into the trail later in the day. Breakfast was very light today because we were saying goodbye to the porters and cooks. It was hard to see them go because they’ve been with us since the first day of the trek. After breakfast, we packed our gear and walked about 5-10 minutes down the trail until we got to the checkpoint. It was weird walking in the dark and I was having some issues with my feet since I rolled them the other day. We ended up having about 1.5 hours to wait until the checkpoint opened and I think we were the 3rd group in line to get through. During the extra time, I think most of us slept although it wad hard to see in the dark.

Once the checkpoint opened at 5:30, we had a ways to walk until we got to Machu Picchu. As usual, I was struggling – but that’s no surprise nor was it a problem. The hardest part was getting to the top point before the ruins, known as the sungate. It was a neat spot, but not that significant in my book. Although I may have missed some of the importance because I was trying to catch my breath after climbing to the top. After reaching the sungate, there was about a 45 minute hike down to Machu Picchu. Once the ruins were within sight, it was unbelievable! The place was way bigger than I was expecting and the scenery was so cool! After we got there, we walked out the tourist exit so that we could drop off our gear. They don’t allow a Loy of stuff in the area because of how busy it gets and in order of protecting the ruins. So we did all that and then went back into the ruins for our tour and history lessons. We saw various temples including the temple of 3 windows and the temple of the sun. Many areas of the former community were built out of a single piece of stone, making it very hard to imagine how such a thing could be done. Our tour lasted a few hours and then we were let out to roam the ruins on our own. Our guide left the park for a few hours and told us where to meet him later for lunch, which none of us thought to write down the name of the location. More on that part later. We all went picture taking around the area and then took a nap on one of the farming terraces around 11am, since we had been there for like 3 hours already.

After we got all of our pictures, we started heading for the exit so that we could reclaim our packs and gear. Right as we put our gear on, it started to pour – the first time since we left the states. We figured that was our sign that we had spent enough time at the “Old Mountain” and that we needed to leave.

We jumped on a bus that took us to Aguascalientes, a small town at the bottom of the mountain. It was about a 30 min bus ride which was interesting given that the roads were like mud slides. When we got to the bottom, we had to find our tour guide for lunch. Well, he told us the name of the place, but either we weren’t listening or we just forgot because we roamed the town for a while as a group until we decided to split up and try to find it. At this point we didn’t know what to look for, other than our guide. Let’s just say that he tends to blend in with other natives if you aren’t used to it. Well, we did find him and got to ordering our lunch. He passed out the trek evaluation forms as well as our train tickets to get back to Cuzco. Well it turned out that we had to scarf our food down because they decided to rush us like usual. It was fine because the food wasn’t that great. When we got to the train station, we found out that the train was delayed about 45 minutes, so we didn’t have to rush as much as we had thought. The 5 of us ended up playing cards at the station while waiting for our ride and watched part of a World Cup semifinal game. The trip back to Ollyntatambo was long – about 2 hours, then another hour or so drive to get into Cuzco. We finally got back to the hostel around 7-8pm.

Once we checked into our last hostel room, a few of us showered and then went to dinner. Prior to the trek, we had learned that a Peruvian entree is coy. Translated into English, coy is guinea pig. We had tried many things on this trip that we never expected to try anywhere else, so 4 out of the 5 of us made an agreement that our last supper as a group would be coy al horno. I’m not sure what the “al horno” means, but we got the coy for dinner. It looked like one of those pigs that you see as a table centerpiece. It really didn’t taste bad, and as ironic as it is, the guinea pig tasted a lot like chicken. We definitely finished it, along with other things that filled our last supper dinner table.

By the time dinner was over, we were all pretty worn out from the day. We ended up going back to our room and crashing. I did get a chance to look at my foot for the first time when we got back to the hostel. It’s not swollen but quite bruised. I hope I ends up healing alright. Also, helllo blisters! I didn’t feel them when they were forming but there definitely there now. Let’s see how long until they go away. Anyway…

It’s hard to believe that this is the last night in Peru….

I did it! Haha. It really shouldn’t have been that monumental of an accomplishment but I am thoroughly satisfied. Here’s the daily recap.

We got started a little earlier this morning because we wanted to beat the other trek groups to the fun stops along the way, including the hot showers at the end of the day. We were on the trail around 6:30am, and yes, I was carrying my full backpack. The beginning of the trail was almost straight uphill, which worried me because of how much that was going to suck having to do that climb all day. Luckily that was the hardest part. Around 45 minutes into the day, we stopped at an archeological site and go a chance to explore for a bit. We were able to go at our own pace after that until lunch, which as always was delicious. We had a barley soup, some vegetables, hamburgers, and a pasta salad dish. Soo good. Our group has decided that the porters need to create a cookbook so we can duplicate some of these recipes at home.

After lunch, we did a little bit more hiking until we got to another archeological site where they used to practice sacrifices, at this location it was specifically llamas. The remaining few hours of hiking were at our own pace until we reached the campground. I’m not sure when everyone else got to the site, but I got there around 4:15, 35 minutes later than the normal time. But guess what, I finished!! I made it the entire day carrying my pack, and still finished with energy left. I felt much better about today’s part of the hike and am not feeling as much of a wimp as I did yesterday. The only bad part was that I rolled both of my feet the wrong direction on the downhill. I stepped on a rock funny and my foot bent the wrong way. Then my other food did it, shortly after. Oh well.

Tonight is “happy hour,” similar to yesterday except I hear there may be wine. I think they might be trying to put us to sleep early tonight seeing as tomorrow is the earliest start yet (I’m hearing wake up is at 3:30). More to come!