Peru (Be-Doo-Be-Doo)

It's been a little over a month since we returned from our South American adventure. We left from Newark on a Friday evening with a stopover in Miami - I'm convinced we were the only mid-night flight out of there as there was literally no one around as we trekked across the terminals for a good half hour (and what felt like 5 miles) until we finally found our Lima flight, departing at 2:00 am. Well, one good thing that came out of this was that Dave found a Dunkin' Donuts where they still served his favorite sandwich on a French roll, rather than on pretzel bread which is now the menu's norm. Here's Dave relaxing in between terminals:

After the red eye flight on the lovely LAN Airlines, we landed in Lima, had an airport coffee, and hopped on the plane to Cuzco. Upon arrival, the first ad you see is for altitude sickness pills which is kind of hilarious:

The only stand that seemed to have an official taxi service was a complete ripoff, so we found some guy outside to take us into the city. After we left, it became apparent that he didn't know where our hotel was, and when we finally got into the center of town, he dropped us off somewhere that was not our hotel. It turned out that our hotel was located in an undriveable alley, but still he could have gotten us closer (seriously, it was difficult walking around with a suitcase in a high altitude and no sense of direction.) When we finally found our hotel (Unaytambo), they seated us in their lovely, but freezing courtyard to fill in our documents, and gave us cocoa-leaf tea (yes, that's the same cocoa leaf that is used to make cocaine.) Locals and tourists either chew the cocoa leaves or put them in the tea to "help with the altitude sickness." I drank it at every opportunity I had, "just in case," but no, there was no high gotten off of this very mild tea.

Cocoa tea:

Immediately after settling in, we went on a mission to find the office that sold the Machu Picchu tickets. I had been trying for the past 3 weeks to buy them online, but I continuously received processing errors (as did most people on the Trip Advisor forums.) We walked around in the rain and cold (it felt like it was in the 40s), and after asking a few people directions in my high school level Spanish, we finally located the office on some random back street. On the door was a small hand-written sign posted in Spanish saying that the office had moved...grrrr! I shouldn't have been too worried, as Machu Picchu lets in about 3,000 people per day, and the day before, there were still over 1500 tickets left, but I did not want to get all the way there and not get in because it had sold out. After a ton of more walking and figuring out where we had to go, we found the new ticket office, and they were actually able to process our tickets. Phew!

Starving, but finally relaxed, we had lunch - I had a beef steak which was very tasty, and Dave had an alpaca steak (also quite tasty - sorry, guys.) We walked around Cuzco and the Plaza de Armas, bought Alpaca clothing (which I actually had to wear most of the time because I was so cold), and got "suckered" into getting $7 one hour body massages. The massage room was freezing, but totally fine when we got under the covers. And might I add that they had us put our belongings under the tables which we stuck our heads through, so we could keep an eye on our stuff the whole time - nice touch!

Plaza de Armas:

Following that, we went to the Museo del Pisco, which was a Pisco Sour bar (the national drink of Peru made with egg whites.) Some of the tourists got to go behind the bar and actually make Pisco Sours, I was definitely having pisco envy. After some exploration in the local supermarket (we found cocoa candies and quinoa cereal for sale), we were so exhausted that we went back to the room and skipped dinner.

Pisco sours:

My new Alpaca hat:

When we booked the hotel, we had selected a double room, and after the booking went through, they notified us that only a room with twin beds was available the first night. Sleeping in the same bed was an absolute necessity due to the freezing cold, but this was NOT comfortable after a red eye flight. They had a portable heater, but between that and the people having a good ole time on a Friday night outside, I barely got any sleep. I will give them two thumbs up for the hot shower (I made sure to book places that had reviews stating that there were hot showers, as many places do not actually have this), as well as a nice little breakfast where they brought you eggs however you liked them cooked. Also, to emphasize how cold it was, the people who worked at the front desk all wore winter coats while they worked.

Anywhooo, the tourist books all say to have the hotel call a taxi for you whenever possible, which is what we did when departing the next morning. This didn't appear to be a legitimate taxi (no signage depicting it was), and the driver also tried to overcharge us for the ride to the Poroy train station (luckily, the hotel staff told me how much it should cost so I bargained him back down with no issue.) When he dropped us at the station, he asked when we were coming back from Machu Picchu because he wanted to pick us up. We hadn't made any arrangements for the ride back, and it's not like you can just hop on a bus when you get off the train, so I again tried to explain in my elementary Spanish that we were coming back the next day on the Vistadome train with only the departure time rather than arrival, and gave him only my name - fingers crossed we were going to get back to Cuzco from Poroy (remember this story for later.)

The train to our next destination was the mid-level train (in between the cheaper backpacker train, and not even close to the Hiram Bingham which is owned by the Orient Express - rides each way cost $400 a pop on that!) Our train was comfortable with leather seats, delicious snacks and nice Peruvian music with tidbits of information provided along the way. This journey (on any of the 3 trains) is notorious for being the most expensive train for the distance you are going - for us, about $90 each way for a three hour ride that is actually less than 60 miles from it's destination - but hey, it's Machu Picchu so I can't complain.

Awaiting our meal (in my alpaca sweater):

YUM!

The train had windows on the ceiling so you could see the mountains through them:

More views:

The train takes you to the town of Aguas Calientes which is at the foot of Machu Picchu (you can't actually see MP from there.) We chose to stay there for a night so that we could get an early head start the next morning. Aguas is a complete backpacker town - tons of restaurants, drink specials, a souvenir market, hostels, and places that solely sold you a hot shower. Dave found this hotel and it was brand new, located right between the train station and the river (and a great value, as is everything in Peru.) Here are some views of the river taken by us hanging out of our window:

We pretty much had the whole day to walk around the town. They've got a few nice bridges (that were very scary once you stood on the actual planks), so I made sure to take some photos on them:

Me:

Whee!

Apparently, I like to pose this way when I wear this jacket, like at Glastonbury last year:

But, I digress...

Quinoa is a big thing in Peru, so I had some quinoa risotto, which was okay, and we were served Coke Zero in wine glasses:

The train goes through the town so we also watched that in excitement while we ate:

Here's a sign for a hot shower (top right):

Here's the main road that is way steeper than it looks:

This town is known for their hot baths (hence the name Aguas Calientes.) I had read many mixed reviews about the thermal baths online, mostly negative, but I was thinking that everyone was being really prissy, complaining that it was full of stinky people who had just come down from trekking Machu Picchu + locals who were literally bathing in the lukewarm bath-like water. We decided to do it anyway, because frankly, when in Aguas Calientes...?

On the way to the baths, you can rent bathing suits (just writing that made me throw up in my mouth), as well as towels. Here we are on our way to the baths:

When we got there, they would not allow us to wear our sneakers over to the baths (flip flops only), which I did not have, so I also threw up in my mouth from that (don't worry, I was extremely careful in the changing room to never let my body or my clothing touch the floor, ewwwwwwwww, my worst nightmare!!!!)

The baths literally turned out to be 5 little pools, the warmest one (not hot, warm) was the most crowded so we stayed in there for about 20 minutes. The temperature was tolerable and my arm hair turned yellow from the sulphur, but it was totally fine after the terrible expectations I had from the reviews. Not to mention the view was spectacular. 

Here's a shot of the pools (taken when we were leaving): 

This was half time during a local football match as well:

In the evening, all of the restaurants were selling 4x1 drinks. Yes, I said 4x! We went for 2x1 though because we wanted to live to actually see Machu Picchu the next day.

Here's the town square:

The restaurant had all these tchotchkes on the table, including Jenga:

4x1 baby! 

End of part I - Macchu Picchu next!