We woke up at about 5am to watch the condors. We had to be out of the hotel and on the tour bus to catch them by 7am, when they wake up and feed every morning.
Back in 2005 I went to Peru with a few friends from NY. We spent 2 weeks there and visited Lima, Arequipa and Cusco. We got to see condors, alpacas, some of the biggest canyons in the world and visit ancient ruins. We had friends from NY, California and Italy joining us on probably the most fun adventure I have ever been on.I took a flight from Orlando to Miami earlier in the day. I met up with Rita, her mother and Rita's boyfriend Josh, who were all flying in from NY. We all took the same flight...
We spent the next few days in Arequipa, Peru, the next populated city in Peru after Lima, with about 2 million people. We were up about 2500 meters at this point. We flew over alot of mountanous terrain between here and Lima. I didn't see much vegetation while flying over head and the same was the same on land. But the view was still amazing, even though it was hundreds of miles of rocky and desolate terrain.It was still morning when we landed. We were picked up by the hotel van. Our hotels...
Here are some pictures taken during the 3 hours bus ride from Arequipa to Colca Canyon. I think we started late morning or early afternoon. Arequipa was at about an elevation of 2500m or 8200 ft and at our highest point on the way to Colca Canyon, we were at 15,000 feet and then went back to about 2500m. I can personally tell you that at 15,000 ft you can definitely tell there is a lack of oxygen. I had this fuzzy feeling in my brain as if I was dreaming the whole time. And every step felt...
The last day and night we spent touring the local spots around our hostel. We visited a museum where they had a mummy found frozen in a mountain, that dated back about 5 hundred years ago. They named her Juanita.For dinner that night I had a mixed meat platter of Alpaca, beef and Ostrich. As I was eating my meal I started feeling sick, so went into the bathroom thinking I would throw up. Nothing happened, but I didn't feel any better later that night. I ended up waking in the middle of the night...
When I woke up in the morning I still wasn't sure what I was going to do. But it turned out Rita and Josh didn't go on the Trek either and we were able to decided the rest of the trip together. They had a Peru information book, I think Lonely Planet, and we were able to plan the rest of the trip. Our first task was to get a train ticket to Machu Pichu. We would go later that week and meet up with our friends who went on the Trek.These are some pictures of that day to get the tickets. We also...
Today we visited many of the ancient sites surrounding Cusco. We started out by taking a ride to the country side, where we were going on horseback to some of the sites. We were dropped off at the bottom of a hill, where the horses were kept in a barn. Then we took about a 15-20 minute walk with the horses up to the top of the hill. Then we each mounted one and followed our guide. The horses were very well trained and we didn't really have to know to ride a horse. I had taken horse back riding...
That morning I was still feeling sick. I wasn't feeling as weak in the knees as I did in the middle of the night. We only had a couple of hours to catch our flight to Cusco, so I went to find a bottle of Gatorade and decided to drink only that and water the whole day.The flight to Cusco was ok and lasted only about an hour. When we flew into Cusco I was still feeling sick, but more to my stomach than anything else..At the airport we were picked up by an employee of the hotel we were staying at called...
This morning we took a train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, also known as Machu Picchu Village. The train ride was about 3 hours. I slept some of the ride and enjoyed the scenery along the way. As we left the temperate forests of Cusco, we started into the more jungle like rain forest near Machu Picchu. Our train had to go through mountainous terrain and followed a river some of the route. It was impressive to see the mountains surrounded by clouds. Our train was like the ones you see in European...
Aguas Calientes is a small town. It seems mainly made up of tourists and any locals who run shops and restaurants to serve them. Machu Picchu is just on the other side of one of the neighboring mountains, but cannot be seen from the town. Upon arrival by train, we checked into our hostel, which was only down the street. I was staying in my own room that was big enough to hold at least 5 people comfortably. Josh and Rita were in there own. After dropping our day packs off, we went to a tourist center....
The highlight of our trip finally arrived. Today we were to explore Machu Picchu. As I mentioned in my last entry, Josh and I were to meet Grant and some other people at the foot of the mountain that led up to Machu Picchu at 5am. I woke up at about 4:30 already ready to go. I waited for Josh for a few minutes and eventually went to their room. Unfortunately, the food poisoning had hit him and Rita really bad and he wasn't up to walking up the mountain. They were going to catch one of...
For my last full day in Cusco, I took a tour bus ride to the various sites in what is called the sacred valley. The sacred valley consists of the towns of Cusco, Chinchero, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and Pisaq. Rita and Josh were supposed to join me today, but they were still feeling sick. So I went to Plaza de Armas by myself and met up with the tour bus at about 8:30 AM. It was a full size bus and probably about 3/4 full. The tour was a mixture of English and Spanish speaking tourists, and the tour...
