Touring Peru

April 25, 2017

Here is a synopsis of my week in Peru:

I started in Miraflores (a tourist area in Lima) and stayed at Casa Andina Select, visited Barranco, then flew to Cusco and stayed at Kokopelli and Illa Hotel, hiked the Inca trail, saw Machu Picchu swallowed by clouds, ventured in Machu Picchu town (Aguas Calientes), hiked Machu Picchu and actually got to see it, and ended up back in Miraflores at the Casa Andina Select.

One thing we consistently recognized was the effort on cleanliness and recycling no matter where we went, inside or outside. We hope Venezuela will catch on to this trend one day!

We cheers to night one, when we had no idea how the week was going to go! Will joined us from Canada (friend of Sara and Mike's) and Amber joined us from Chicago (friend of Vicky's).

Rustica is a bar/restaurant/karaoke bar/ night club. They are absolutely everywhere!

A view from Larcomar, a mall built into the side of a cliff.

I didn't realize that Paddington Bear starts in Peru!

El Parque de Amor: The park of love!

Translated: Love is like light; I belong to you like my body belongs to the Earth.

This is adorable!!! Translated version:

Rocia: You are my favorite person; thank you for showing up in my life i the right moment. I love you a lot a lot. Every day I love you more and more my love. To my bones you make me happy. Together every moment, my love, my life, my everything, my johnny.

My Venezuelan tour guides!

This drink is called "Vertigo", you can imagine why; They garnished the drink with a burning stick of cinnamon... I'm glad it wasn't mine!!

Breakfast at Haiti next to Parque de Kennedy ("Cat Alley" as Sara nicknamed it). This park is essentially a sanctuary for cats. There is food and water for the cats to drink, and people actually pick the cats up and play with them. As you might imagine, there are so many of them.

Day 2 at Larcomar; we ate at Mangos

On Monday night, Sara and I went to another area called Barranco, about 15 minutes from Miraflores. This picture is of a famous bridge called the Bridge of SIghs.

This is a mural next to the bridge.

For dinner, we ate at Barranco Beer Company! You'll see below they had the most perfect Dana-size class--it's the super tiny one!!!

And to Cusco we flew! A man from the tour company picked us up from the airport. He warned us about the altitude, and said that in order for our bodies to adjust, we need to relax for the rest of the day and have a lot of liquids, including soup. So I ate my quinoa and vegetable soup (Peru is really well known for quinoa, something I learned there) and it was time to go zip lining.

Vicky had booked the activity through a company that her sister's friend used a few weeks before us... We drove an hour from Cusco, up a mountain, to get to this spot. It is called "The Eye of the Jaguar". It is the longest zip line in the world, spanning 1.3 miles (2,130 meters) of uninterrupted cable. The pictures will never explain the terror that truly took over me that day. I was desperate to drive back down the mountain with the man who drove us up. In the picture below, try to see how steep the cable is. And then picture me going down. Yes, it was interesting.

I said some pretty desperate things to the man who was taking care of us. He told me to put the harness on, and when I told him I wasn't going, he told me to just put it on for the picture and then I could take it off. But I wanted him to know I wasn't falling for his tricks, so I told him that exactly, especially that, "I know you do this to everyone. This is your plan. I'm not going to fall for it!"

In the end, Vicky convinced me to go, after she went down and could communicate with me that it would be okay. LOL. I had a blast, but I don't know if it was truly worth the anxiety.

After a crazy day, we got to enjoy a bit of Cusco at night.

The next morning we woke up at 5 am to begin our journey on the Inca Trail!

This was definitely one of the highlights. It was at the top of our 2 hour extreme up-hill hike, and the rain held out until then.

However, the rest of the day it rained, and rained, and rained some more.

Here we have Sun Gate: the first sighting of Machu Picchu. Annnnnd the clouds won't go away. The bottom right corner is what we could see of it. LOL #dissapointed

At this spot, they researchers found a mummy, that is now stored along with many other Inca artifacts at the Peabody Museum, which is only 20 minutes from my house in Connecticut! Our tourguide was amazed that I live so close to it!

Aguas Calientes--Machu Picchu town!

And at last, we see Machu Picchu!

This photo shows how the Incas built the foundation below the ground-- I was amazed to find that what I was seeing above the ground wasn't even half the work they used to create this village.

This was basically their workshop, where they had all of their tools and created the impressive stonework that is seen all over the mountain.

I'm standing in front of the Inca's most sacred temple.

This was a "typical Vicki" moment, when she dropped her pancho off the side of the cliff. I asked a tour guide if he could use his umbrella to get it back. He was our life saver!