(A/N: Sorry for all the bouncing around with entries lately, I'm now picking up where I left off in my last few weeks in Lima...in real time, I head to the US in a week! Can't believe it, but I hope to crank out a ton of entries when I get home, thanks for being patient!)
Sunday May 17, 2009 11:51 PM
Lindsey’s house (fellow Multisa)
Monday
We celebrated Kara’s 21st birthday at her house with a big dinner of papas a la huacaina (potatoes with this yummy yellow, slightly spicy sauce) and escabiche (cold chicken with onions, peppers, etc). Then a big group of us went out to Barranco to dance the night away with the birthday girl!
Thursday
After classes (including our final exam for Spanish), we had two special classes set up through ISA. The first was to learn how to play the cajon, which is a rectangular box with a hole in one side. Originally used by African slaves to carry goods, they began to use empty ones as drums and created a whole new instrument. I’ve got a cool video of the whole routine we learned, check it out at the bottom of the post! Our second class was a traditional Peruvian dance. It was sort of like a double-time waltz, with lots of quick foot movements, but a lot of fun.
Later, we went to Barranco again for drinks and live music in a former 1920’s train car-turned-restaurant. It was so elegant with all its original decoration, including intricate stained glass windows and a huge silver cash register. Then it was another night of dancing! I love the discotecas in Peru – there is such an awesome mix of salsa, cumbia, American pop, hip hop & rock, and techno.
Friday
Another Intercambio, this time at a Karaoke bar! We had our own private room so we stayed there for hours and turned it into a dance party (of course). It was a blast singing to popular songs in English and Spanish with our fellow Peruvian friends.
Sunday
I went to support several of my friends getting tattoos to remember this trip (don’t worry Mom and Dad, I’m not coming home with a surprise…) and then walked around craft fairs in Miraflores with Jaime and Kara.
You can fill in all the blanks from this week with a LOT of paper writing, but that’s just not as interesting to talk about. We are heading into our final week (tear!) so I’ve been focused on getting all my work done in time. We’ve also been watching several movies in art class that depict different aspects of Peruvian life, and they are quite shocking with some of the themes they discuss, such as incestual father-daughter relations and poverty in Lima. If you ever have the chance to pick up Madeinusa, you should definitely watch it.
One more week with the Multisas, stay tuned! Coli
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Guest Blog: Parents in Southern Peru!
Coli’s Parents Visit Peru – Part 3
Friday, May 8th
We hailed a taxi ($1.70) for two of us to the Cusco airport to return to Lima and another taxi to Nicole’s host home. We’re beginning to get into the rhythm of traveling the Peruvian way. I have been talking in multiple Spanish sentences at a time, but when I do that, then I get a rapid response of Castellano (Spanish) back from the locals. When I got in a jam, I turned to the real pro - Cyndee. She had a knack at understanding the fast speaking people and responded well to help us move along on our journey.
The last two hotels had no hot (or warm) water, so it was so nice to get a shower at the house. Since our travels will take us close to when we need to get our flight home, we shopped for water and uvas sin semillas (seedless grapes) and then repacked for the flight, plus luggage to return with most of Nicole’s purchases, collectibles, and clothes she couldn’t afford to carry on her back for the extra two months in South America after her study-abroad finishes – three of the weeks will be working in a poor village outside Quito, Ecuador with “Volunteers for Peace”.
We then spent 1.5 hours with a very patient and resourceful Lucia (ISA staff) to help us schedule our weekend excursions. Lucia reserved buses, a boat, hostel, etc. We then headed back to Miraflores, to two of the biggest souvenir markets in Peru (the Indian Market and the Inca Plaza). We were hungry so we first ate at Pepe’s. I doused my chicken with aji, of course. After shopping, we headed back to Pepe’s for fresh cooked doughnuts covered with a syrup. Not enough soles (money) to pay for dessert (too many souvenirs) or for a taxi back home, so I left Cyndee at the table and headed to the ATM machine next door (pre-established the location earlier). Uh oh! “No link available”. I spent the next twenty minutes walking to seven bank’s ATMs. They all said either “No link available” or “No balance available”. All the passwords for our backup cards were back at the house. Luckily, Cyndee remembered a password off the top of her head for one of our charge cards. Whew! She saved the day (well, night). We walked a few blocks to Kennedy Parque where Cyndee got three gorgeous pairs of earings for 14 soles (less than $5.00 total). Lastly, we walked for ten minutes to the Parque de Amor
(a provocative Sculpture of Love), an artistic highlight that is associated with Miraflores.
The next morning we got a taxi to the bus (Cruz del Sur). The buses were like first class all the way – then we heard that there were even more plush seats and service on the first floor or the bus. We had leg rests, food and beverage service, and movies. Our first stop was to Paracas in order to take a boat cruise to the Islas Ballestas, Peru’s version of the Galapagos Islands that included all sorts of birds, sea lions, and penguins. It was a beautiful day with beautiful surroundings. We continued on the next bus to Oasis de Huacachina – for one of the most intense adrenal-rush experiences of our lives. We arrived a few hours early for our dune-buggy appointment, so we lounged by the hotel pool and had a snack at their restaurant. At first I thought we would all get our own dune buggy to ride the sand dunes, but NO! We had a professional racecar-style driver strap in the other 11 of us in rollercoaster style harnesses. What were we in for??? We were in for the ride of our lives!!! These were not sand dunes…these were sand mountains! Even at the top of 300, 400, and 1000 foot apexes, we could only see more sand on the horizon. Amazing! The driver’s goal was to push everything to the limits – the speed, the turns, cresting the top of the hills, going airborne, etc. There was lots of screaming going on. Four times we stopped to do some “sandboarding” – which is like snowboarding (single ski) but instead of snow we skied down sand. For most of us, we laid down on the ski more like a toboggan. That was fine for little people, but I had to work hard to keep my arms in on this little board, otherwise they would be sandpapered to death (not like snow). These driving pros timed our night to peak on the sand ridge just as a sunset was commencing. What a sight. What a rare experience!
After a delicious dinner, we took a local bus to Nasca for tomorrow’s excursion. Fortunately another hostel’s guy met the bus. When we told him we already had reservations, he have us a general direction for our hostel. When we got close, none of the locals knew of the hostel or the street it was on. The three women were cooking foods outside their laundry mat. But they were so nice and a young boy went around trying to help us from his bicycle. We found the hostel just one block over and half a block up from them. And those people didn’t even recognize the name of the street. Maybe they keep renaming the streets or the locals have their own names
We had reservations for 9 a.m. for a van to take us to our 20 minute flight over the famous Nazca lines. The ancient Nazca civilization dug these massive figures between 500 BC and 500 AD, but they weren’t discovered by modern civilization until they were noticed from an airplane in 1927. Like Nicole said in her blog, we saw all the famous figures such as the monkey, spider, whale, and hummingbird (to give you an idea of the size, the hummingbird is 217 by 315 ft). The six-seater plane was very comfortable until the pilot would tip the plane sharply so the wing’s tip would point to the figures. This led Cyndee to make a contribution into the little bag from the seat pocket. Our flight was allocated to us almost two hours after we were told, so I had to beg the van driver (with money too) to drop off the other three people, take us to our hotel to pick up our things and he got us to the bus station with 15 minutes to spare - another close call. We had the plush bus again as we traveled 4.5 hours north back to Lima and the house. Aaaah!
We packed everything up, thanked Austry for her hospitality, got a taxi to the airport, and got to the check-in line at the airport. I told the airline that I would need to pay for an extra check-in bag. They said only one bag per person. I told them that we had all of our daughter’s stuff and there was no other option. I also told them that their website said that I could pay for a second bag. I was then told – “Oh, that is only for domestic flights. In the small print it says only one bag per person for international.” So our creative juices started flowing since “failure was not an option” (Apollo 13 motto). We got out of line and put anything heavy into our carry-on and then merged the three bags of stuff into two bags. I kept dragging the bag to be weighed until we got both maxed out on weight. Fortunately the third bag could collapse a lot to be considered a “carry-on”. Now the exciting part – Nicole was expecting to be returning to the airport around 9 p.m. from her excursion and we had to be through security at 10 p.m. We were looking forward to seeing her on Mother’s Day and trade a few stories over food. We kept waiting, but no Nicole. We found out later that they didn’t arrive until 11 p.m. This put us late into the security lines. In fact, when I was at the security processing point, a guy said “Are you Randon”, I said “Yes” and he took us through a special door to our gate. As soon as we got on board, they closed the door to the plane! There was never a dull moment on our trip, however everything always worked out.
*** We have to honestly say that our visit to Peru is one of the highlights of our life!
It wouldn’t have happened without Nicole broadening her horizons, inviting us to visit, and planning an unforgettable itinerary…and the joy of working things out along the way in a foreign country. Thank you Nicole and the kind people of Peru for this experience!
Abrazos y besos (hugs and kisses)
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand)
(AN: Wow, this is actually the first time that I found out what my parents did after we parted on Monday. I'm so happy they had the chance to experience some of Peru's highlights - and hopefully you enjoyed reading about them from another perspective!)
Friday, May 8th
We hailed a taxi ($1.70) for two of us to the Cusco airport to return to Lima and another taxi to Nicole’s host home. We’re beginning to get into the rhythm of traveling the Peruvian way. I have been talking in multiple Spanish sentences at a time, but when I do that, then I get a rapid response of Castellano (Spanish) back from the locals. When I got in a jam, I turned to the real pro - Cyndee. She had a knack at understanding the fast speaking people and responded well to help us move along on our journey.
The last two hotels had no hot (or warm) water, so it was so nice to get a shower at the house. Since our travels will take us close to when we need to get our flight home, we shopped for water and uvas sin semillas (seedless grapes) and then repacked for the flight, plus luggage to return with most of Nicole’s purchases, collectibles, and clothes she couldn’t afford to carry on her back for the extra two months in South America after her study-abroad finishes – three of the weeks will be working in a poor village outside Quito, Ecuador with “Volunteers for Peace”.
We then spent 1.5 hours with a very patient and resourceful Lucia (ISA staff) to help us schedule our weekend excursions. Lucia reserved buses, a boat, hostel, etc. We then headed back to Miraflores, to two of the biggest souvenir markets in Peru (the Indian Market and the Inca Plaza). We were hungry so we first ate at Pepe’s. I doused my chicken with aji, of course. After shopping, we headed back to Pepe’s for fresh cooked doughnuts covered with a syrup. Not enough soles (money) to pay for dessert (too many souvenirs) or for a taxi back home, so I left Cyndee at the table and headed to the ATM machine next door (pre-established the location earlier). Uh oh! “No link available”. I spent the next twenty minutes walking to seven bank’s ATMs. They all said either “No link available” or “No balance available”. All the passwords for our backup cards were back at the house. Luckily, Cyndee remembered a password off the top of her head for one of our charge cards. Whew! She saved the day (well, night). We walked a few blocks to Kennedy Parque where Cyndee got three gorgeous pairs of earings for 14 soles (less than $5.00 total). Lastly, we walked for ten minutes to the Parque de Amor
(a provocative Sculpture of Love), an artistic highlight that is associated with Miraflores.
The next morning we got a taxi to the bus (Cruz del Sur). The buses were like first class all the way – then we heard that there were even more plush seats and service on the first floor or the bus. We had leg rests, food and beverage service, and movies. Our first stop was to Paracas in order to take a boat cruise to the Islas Ballestas, Peru’s version of the Galapagos Islands that included all sorts of birds, sea lions, and penguins. It was a beautiful day with beautiful surroundings. We continued on the next bus to Oasis de Huacachina – for one of the most intense adrenal-rush experiences of our lives. We arrived a few hours early for our dune-buggy appointment, so we lounged by the hotel pool and had a snack at their restaurant. At first I thought we would all get our own dune buggy to ride the sand dunes, but NO! We had a professional racecar-style driver strap in the other 11 of us in rollercoaster style harnesses. What were we in for??? We were in for the ride of our lives!!! These were not sand dunes…these were sand mountains! Even at the top of 300, 400, and 1000 foot apexes, we could only see more sand on the horizon. Amazing! The driver’s goal was to push everything to the limits – the speed, the turns, cresting the top of the hills, going airborne, etc. There was lots of screaming going on. Four times we stopped to do some “sandboarding” – which is like snowboarding (single ski) but instead of snow we skied down sand. For most of us, we laid down on the ski more like a toboggan. That was fine for little people, but I had to work hard to keep my arms in on this little board, otherwise they would be sandpapered to death (not like snow). These driving pros timed our night to peak on the sand ridge just as a sunset was commencing. What a sight. What a rare experience!
After a delicious dinner, we took a local bus to Nasca for tomorrow’s excursion. Fortunately another hostel’s guy met the bus. When we told him we already had reservations, he have us a general direction for our hostel. When we got close, none of the locals knew of the hostel or the street it was on. The three women were cooking foods outside their laundry mat. But they were so nice and a young boy went around trying to help us from his bicycle. We found the hostel just one block over and half a block up from them. And those people didn’t even recognize the name of the street. Maybe they keep renaming the streets or the locals have their own names
We had reservations for 9 a.m. for a van to take us to our 20 minute flight over the famous Nazca lines. The ancient Nazca civilization dug these massive figures between 500 BC and 500 AD, but they weren’t discovered by modern civilization until they were noticed from an airplane in 1927. Like Nicole said in her blog, we saw all the famous figures such as the monkey, spider, whale, and hummingbird (to give you an idea of the size, the hummingbird is 217 by 315 ft). The six-seater plane was very comfortable until the pilot would tip the plane sharply so the wing’s tip would point to the figures. This led Cyndee to make a contribution into the little bag from the seat pocket. Our flight was allocated to us almost two hours after we were told, so I had to beg the van driver (with money too) to drop off the other three people, take us to our hotel to pick up our things and he got us to the bus station with 15 minutes to spare - another close call. We had the plush bus again as we traveled 4.5 hours north back to Lima and the house. Aaaah!
We packed everything up, thanked Austry for her hospitality, got a taxi to the airport, and got to the check-in line at the airport. I told the airline that I would need to pay for an extra check-in bag. They said only one bag per person. I told them that we had all of our daughter’s stuff and there was no other option. I also told them that their website said that I could pay for a second bag. I was then told – “Oh, that is only for domestic flights. In the small print it says only one bag per person for international.” So our creative juices started flowing since “failure was not an option” (Apollo 13 motto). We got out of line and put anything heavy into our carry-on and then merged the three bags of stuff into two bags. I kept dragging the bag to be weighed until we got both maxed out on weight. Fortunately the third bag could collapse a lot to be considered a “carry-on”. Now the exciting part – Nicole was expecting to be returning to the airport around 9 p.m. from her excursion and we had to be through security at 10 p.m. We were looking forward to seeing her on Mother’s Day and trade a few stories over food. We kept waiting, but no Nicole. We found out later that they didn’t arrive until 11 p.m. This put us late into the security lines. In fact, when I was at the security processing point, a guy said “Are you Randon”, I said “Yes” and he took us through a special door to our gate. As soon as we got on board, they closed the door to the plane! There was never a dull moment on our trip, however everything always worked out.
*** We have to honestly say that our visit to Peru is one of the highlights of our life!
It wouldn’t have happened without Nicole broadening her horizons, inviting us to visit, and planning an unforgettable itinerary…and the joy of working things out along the way in a foreign country. Thank you Nicole and the kind people of Peru for this experience!
Abrazos y besos (hugs and kisses)
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand)
(AN: Wow, this is actually the first time that I found out what my parents did after we parted on Monday. I'm so happy they had the chance to experience some of Peru's highlights - and hopefully you enjoyed reading about them from another perspective!)
Guest Blog: Parents in Machu Picchu
Coli’s Parents Visit Peru – Part 2
Tuesday, May 5th
After a few hours of sleep, we were up at 4:00 a.m. to head to the Lima airport for a 5:40 departure. Nicole bade us farewell as we sped off in a taxi. We wished her well in D.C. Cyndee did a fantastic job of packing her stuff for our upcoming excursion. Everything had to be carried on our backs for four days, plus a hip bag.
Check-in went very smoothly. We got through security and arrived at the gate to find out what? It couldn’t be…fog in Lima? Imagine that!!! I thought that the challenge of our trip to Peru would be to climb Machu Picchu. Little did we know that an even bigger challenge was the journey to get to the base of Machu Picchu (Aguas Caliente) by the end of the day. Already, we had a tight schedule in Cusco for visiting the sites and then make all of our transportation connections. At first, the delay was one hour. Then another announcement – another 3 hour delay. They speak good English at the airport, so I asked them “Is that three hours from now? Or three hours from the original time?” They told me “from now” which would make it 9:40 a.m. That was quite a while, so we decided to sleep for a bit. I set my travel alarm for 9:00, in plenty of time for boarding. I don’t know how, but at 8:30 something subconscious made me wake up to find one of the four gates with people lining up. That was our flight! I ran into line and whistled three times to awaken Cyndee. Our van transport left 10 minutes later with all of us aboard. I don’t know about other sleepers and those that went upstairs to cushier places to recline and eat. They said since the sun burned the fog off sooner, the plane leaves soon to alleviate the backlog of flights. I can’t imagine what impact missing that flight would’ve been.
One note for any of you planning on visiting Machu Picchu – don’t miss it! But be aware that the demand and pricing has risen tremendously the past two years. For two weeks I tried to get a decent price on a flight from Lima to Cusco. The cost for the one hour flight was in the range of $460 to $590 U.S. dollars per person. Occasionally a deal would pop up for a few minutes that was in the $260-$280 range. Both times, Nicole and I went back a few minutes later and the deal was gone. I scoured internet travel sites to get some feedback and advice. I saw a number of people saying “What’s up with these absurd prices?” One advice was to look on Spanish websites – that that was were the better prices were…that the English speaking sites had higher prices listed. After hours of searching the internet (I didn’t want to pay $1,000 for a one-hour flight for two people), I got lucky when I noticed some paid advertising sites in the right margin. By the way, there are essentially only two airlines that make this trip – the big one Air Peru and a smaller one – Taca Airlines. Anyway, I clicked on eDreams.com. I found a roundtrip price for $161 per person. I grabbed them. Guess what – it was a website from Spain, with the monies booked in Britain, to fly on Taca Airlines in Peru. I checked the Taca Airlines website directly then and other times and the cheapest was $460 each! Wow!!! The new global world of business J
We get a taxi, outside the airport gates, where the fares are in half, to get to the heart of the most visited tourist area of Peru – Cusco at 12,000 feet above sea level. As you know, we were shorter on time. We met Nicole’s ISA travel agent connection to get our train tickets for our final leg of the day’s trip and the following days return to another city. He preferred the money in U.S. dollars. We walked to an ATM and our card kept getting rejected. Finally we went to another bank and everything worked fine. We took Nicole’s advice and got the combo ticket for many highlites of Cusco and the Sacred Valley region. We went to the Plaza de Armas (main square) and toured the cathedral. Then on to a number of diverse and interesting museums. We didn’t have time to stop to eat, so we munched on granola bars and cheese crackers that we brought with us. We had train tickets for a 7:00 p.m. departure in a city that was two hours away, so we had to find a special local bus location called a “colectivo”. It was very unique because they had three buses sitting there for three destinations mostly for locals. We said we were going to Ollantaytambo which was bus #2. We paid 5 soles each ($1.70 U.S.) to go two hours through the Andes Mountains! The unique thing though is that the bus doesn’t leave until it is full. Then we take off and another empty bus will take its place. We had to have some faith that the bus would fill soon enough to get us to the train on time. The trip was scenic through the Andes, but quite curvy as the bus would ascend and descend the mountain passes. Oh, the drivers like to be fast and aggressive. Yee-haaaaa!!!
We made it to Ollantaytambo with a half hour to spare. On the platforms of the train station there were a number of women cooking a variety of foods in these portable charcoal grills – like camping sized. I had the most delicious fried egg sandwich and Cyndee had a bowl of chicken and spaghetti. It warmed the body because the temperature dives into the 40’s after the sun disappears. It was usually sunny and very warm during the sunlit hours. We had reservations at a nice hotel (Thanks Nicole!). The owner took us at 9 p.m. to the ticket office for Machu Picchu (“MP”) so we were set for the morning.
Wednesday, May 6th
The only other thing we needed was to purchase the bus tickets that took us up to the entrance gates (which they wanted in US dollars only ($14 each) – strange!) The hotel owner had told us that people line up at 5 a.m. and the first bus leaves at 5:30. Both Fodors and Fromers said the first bus left at 6:30 a.m. Visiting Machu Picchu is a rare experience. The only thing rarer there are passes to climb the adjacent mountain (Wayna Picchu) to get the best views down onto the Machu Picchu site. Only four hundred distributed per day…first come, first served. We got on the fourth bus, so I figured that’s about 200 people, but I didn’t know if tour guides get to reserve some ahead of time. So I thought we might be okay. When we got through the entrance gate, we had to sprint across the whole span of the Machu Picchu site to get the Wayna Picchu (“WP”) passes. We got there at 6:15 and they said they have a few left for the 7:00 or we could wait till the 10:00 gates opened. We opted for 7:00 before the heat of the day was too intense. We registered at the gate and began our trek. Only 100 are let in for the four time periods. Sadly we had to walk down MP before we could ascend WP. It took us 1.5 hours to get to the top of WP. We hovered at the top for 30 minutes and the descent took one hour – 3 hours in total. I have found that at 9 to 10,000 above sea level incapacitates me pretty quickly when I climb. Cyndee and I took a very measured approach – we climbed a ways, then paused till our heart stopped racing. We saw snow-capped mountains, various birds and flora. But the most spectacular experience was the various views down onto Machu Picchu. We did a lot of photos and video all along the way. One thing that was very bizarre is that I only drank one inch of water, two mouthfuls for the whole climb up WP.
Then the real purpose for being there – Machu Picchu. It was hard to imagine the effort to build such immense agricultural terraces and houses and religious structures out of stone that fit together so snuggly that it was waterproof. How fortunate we are that Hiram Bingham (from U.S.) revealed the hidden site to the world in 1911. From 1912 to 1916, the National Geographic and Yale University worked to uncover and secure the site. It was built between 1460 and 1540. Also, that the Spanish conquerors hadn’t found out about MP, since they destroyed or dismantled many of the other religious sites throughout the Sacred Valley of the Andes. What a glorious day we had exploring the site from 10 until 1:30 p.m. We took the bus down to pick up our belongings and headed to the train station.
We noticed a communication error. Our agent had our train returning to Cusco tonight instead of our plans to visit three more sites first. We went to the train station to see if I could change the ticket and maybe get an earlier departure. NO changes within 24 hours. After multiple attempts at broken Spanish, I found out that they stop to pick up passengers in Ollantaytambo (“Ollanty”) where we wanted to stay overnight. We boarded. For numerous reasons the train would stop on the tracks and resume. At one point it hit me. I yelled to Cyndee “Get your stuff and get off the train NOW!!!” We ran to the steps and the conductor kept saying “no salida” (no departure). I said ‘Si para nuestro hotel aqui esta noche’ (Yes, for our hotel here tonight), so they let us pass. Wow!
Thursday, May 7th
Ollanty is the only Inca-designed town that is still inhabited. In fact our hostel was right in the heart of it all. The next morning we got up early to climb the architectural ruins. There were amazing storehouses way up in the cliffs. Then we did another ‘colectivo’ bus to Pisak and climbed another breathtaking (literally and figuratively) archeological site. In town is the immensely famous Pisak market – hundreds of vendors with everything imaginable, as well as a fresh fruit, vegetable, and meat section. Another colectivo to Saqsayhuaman one hour before sunset. We walked those ruins – the most sacred of all the Inca locations. Taxi to Cusco and we attended a cultural folk-music and dance show. After that, we had a delicious meal – an eight inch cordon bleu with a large plate of fries, a salad and soda for $4.00 each! Of course, I got my aji fix there too.
One last thing…I’m a little hesitant to share this, but it was a big part of my three days experience. I think I was on an Andes Mountain high (you’ve heard of Rocky Mountain highs (John Denver)). I don’t believe I slept for three days. I laid in bed for four hours each night but wide awake with the noggin reflecting on the past day and planning the upcoming one. I climbed mountains and major archeological sites but I never had a sore muscle. I was energetic and alert and ready to go…and go…and go…the whole time.
It never caught up with me either. That was the Twilight Zone experience of my life.
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand)…to be continued
Tuesday, May 5th
After a few hours of sleep, we were up at 4:00 a.m. to head to the Lima airport for a 5:40 departure. Nicole bade us farewell as we sped off in a taxi. We wished her well in D.C. Cyndee did a fantastic job of packing her stuff for our upcoming excursion. Everything had to be carried on our backs for four days, plus a hip bag.
Check-in went very smoothly. We got through security and arrived at the gate to find out what? It couldn’t be…fog in Lima? Imagine that!!! I thought that the challenge of our trip to Peru would be to climb Machu Picchu. Little did we know that an even bigger challenge was the journey to get to the base of Machu Picchu (Aguas Caliente) by the end of the day. Already, we had a tight schedule in Cusco for visiting the sites and then make all of our transportation connections. At first, the delay was one hour. Then another announcement – another 3 hour delay. They speak good English at the airport, so I asked them “Is that three hours from now? Or three hours from the original time?” They told me “from now” which would make it 9:40 a.m. That was quite a while, so we decided to sleep for a bit. I set my travel alarm for 9:00, in plenty of time for boarding. I don’t know how, but at 8:30 something subconscious made me wake up to find one of the four gates with people lining up. That was our flight! I ran into line and whistled three times to awaken Cyndee. Our van transport left 10 minutes later with all of us aboard. I don’t know about other sleepers and those that went upstairs to cushier places to recline and eat. They said since the sun burned the fog off sooner, the plane leaves soon to alleviate the backlog of flights. I can’t imagine what impact missing that flight would’ve been.
One note for any of you planning on visiting Machu Picchu – don’t miss it! But be aware that the demand and pricing has risen tremendously the past two years. For two weeks I tried to get a decent price on a flight from Lima to Cusco. The cost for the one hour flight was in the range of $460 to $590 U.S. dollars per person. Occasionally a deal would pop up for a few minutes that was in the $260-$280 range. Both times, Nicole and I went back a few minutes later and the deal was gone. I scoured internet travel sites to get some feedback and advice. I saw a number of people saying “What’s up with these absurd prices?” One advice was to look on Spanish websites – that that was were the better prices were…that the English speaking sites had higher prices listed. After hours of searching the internet (I didn’t want to pay $1,000 for a one-hour flight for two people), I got lucky when I noticed some paid advertising sites in the right margin. By the way, there are essentially only two airlines that make this trip – the big one Air Peru and a smaller one – Taca Airlines. Anyway, I clicked on eDreams.com. I found a roundtrip price for $161 per person. I grabbed them. Guess what – it was a website from Spain, with the monies booked in Britain, to fly on Taca Airlines in Peru. I checked the Taca Airlines website directly then and other times and the cheapest was $460 each! Wow!!! The new global world of business J
We get a taxi, outside the airport gates, where the fares are in half, to get to the heart of the most visited tourist area of Peru – Cusco at 12,000 feet above sea level. As you know, we were shorter on time. We met Nicole’s ISA travel agent connection to get our train tickets for our final leg of the day’s trip and the following days return to another city. He preferred the money in U.S. dollars. We walked to an ATM and our card kept getting rejected. Finally we went to another bank and everything worked fine. We took Nicole’s advice and got the combo ticket for many highlites of Cusco and the Sacred Valley region. We went to the Plaza de Armas (main square) and toured the cathedral. Then on to a number of diverse and interesting museums. We didn’t have time to stop to eat, so we munched on granola bars and cheese crackers that we brought with us. We had train tickets for a 7:00 p.m. departure in a city that was two hours away, so we had to find a special local bus location called a “colectivo”. It was very unique because they had three buses sitting there for three destinations mostly for locals. We said we were going to Ollantaytambo which was bus #2. We paid 5 soles each ($1.70 U.S.) to go two hours through the Andes Mountains! The unique thing though is that the bus doesn’t leave until it is full. Then we take off and another empty bus will take its place. We had to have some faith that the bus would fill soon enough to get us to the train on time. The trip was scenic through the Andes, but quite curvy as the bus would ascend and descend the mountain passes. Oh, the drivers like to be fast and aggressive. Yee-haaaaa!!!
We made it to Ollantaytambo with a half hour to spare. On the platforms of the train station there were a number of women cooking a variety of foods in these portable charcoal grills – like camping sized. I had the most delicious fried egg sandwich and Cyndee had a bowl of chicken and spaghetti. It warmed the body because the temperature dives into the 40’s after the sun disappears. It was usually sunny and very warm during the sunlit hours. We had reservations at a nice hotel (Thanks Nicole!). The owner took us at 9 p.m. to the ticket office for Machu Picchu (“MP”) so we were set for the morning.
Wednesday, May 6th
The only other thing we needed was to purchase the bus tickets that took us up to the entrance gates (which they wanted in US dollars only ($14 each) – strange!) The hotel owner had told us that people line up at 5 a.m. and the first bus leaves at 5:30. Both Fodors and Fromers said the first bus left at 6:30 a.m. Visiting Machu Picchu is a rare experience. The only thing rarer there are passes to climb the adjacent mountain (Wayna Picchu) to get the best views down onto the Machu Picchu site. Only four hundred distributed per day…first come, first served. We got on the fourth bus, so I figured that’s about 200 people, but I didn’t know if tour guides get to reserve some ahead of time. So I thought we might be okay. When we got through the entrance gate, we had to sprint across the whole span of the Machu Picchu site to get the Wayna Picchu (“WP”) passes. We got there at 6:15 and they said they have a few left for the 7:00 or we could wait till the 10:00 gates opened. We opted for 7:00 before the heat of the day was too intense. We registered at the gate and began our trek. Only 100 are let in for the four time periods. Sadly we had to walk down MP before we could ascend WP. It took us 1.5 hours to get to the top of WP. We hovered at the top for 30 minutes and the descent took one hour – 3 hours in total. I have found that at 9 to 10,000 above sea level incapacitates me pretty quickly when I climb. Cyndee and I took a very measured approach – we climbed a ways, then paused till our heart stopped racing. We saw snow-capped mountains, various birds and flora. But the most spectacular experience was the various views down onto Machu Picchu. We did a lot of photos and video all along the way. One thing that was very bizarre is that I only drank one inch of water, two mouthfuls for the whole climb up WP.
Then the real purpose for being there – Machu Picchu. It was hard to imagine the effort to build such immense agricultural terraces and houses and religious structures out of stone that fit together so snuggly that it was waterproof. How fortunate we are that Hiram Bingham (from U.S.) revealed the hidden site to the world in 1911. From 1912 to 1916, the National Geographic and Yale University worked to uncover and secure the site. It was built between 1460 and 1540. Also, that the Spanish conquerors hadn’t found out about MP, since they destroyed or dismantled many of the other religious sites throughout the Sacred Valley of the Andes. What a glorious day we had exploring the site from 10 until 1:30 p.m. We took the bus down to pick up our belongings and headed to the train station.
We noticed a communication error. Our agent had our train returning to Cusco tonight instead of our plans to visit three more sites first. We went to the train station to see if I could change the ticket and maybe get an earlier departure. NO changes within 24 hours. After multiple attempts at broken Spanish, I found out that they stop to pick up passengers in Ollantaytambo (“Ollanty”) where we wanted to stay overnight. We boarded. For numerous reasons the train would stop on the tracks and resume. At one point it hit me. I yelled to Cyndee “Get your stuff and get off the train NOW!!!” We ran to the steps and the conductor kept saying “no salida” (no departure). I said ‘Si para nuestro hotel aqui esta noche’ (Yes, for our hotel here tonight), so they let us pass. Wow!
Thursday, May 7th
Ollanty is the only Inca-designed town that is still inhabited. In fact our hostel was right in the heart of it all. The next morning we got up early to climb the architectural ruins. There were amazing storehouses way up in the cliffs. Then we did another ‘colectivo’ bus to Pisak and climbed another breathtaking (literally and figuratively) archeological site. In town is the immensely famous Pisak market – hundreds of vendors with everything imaginable, as well as a fresh fruit, vegetable, and meat section. Another colectivo to Saqsayhuaman one hour before sunset. We walked those ruins – the most sacred of all the Inca locations. Taxi to Cusco and we attended a cultural folk-music and dance show. After that, we had a delicious meal – an eight inch cordon bleu with a large plate of fries, a salad and soda for $4.00 each! Of course, I got my aji fix there too.
One last thing…I’m a little hesitant to share this, but it was a big part of my three days experience. I think I was on an Andes Mountain high (you’ve heard of Rocky Mountain highs (John Denver)). I don’t believe I slept for three days. I laid in bed for four hours each night but wide awake with the noggin reflecting on the past day and planning the upcoming one. I climbed mountains and major archeological sites but I never had a sore muscle. I was energetic and alert and ready to go…and go…and go…the whole time.
It never caught up with me either. That was the Twilight Zone experience of my life.
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand)…to be continued
Guest Blog: Parents in Lima
(A/N:) While you patiently wait for more updates from me, I thought I'd add some "bonus footage" - three guest blog entries directly from my parents on their visit to Peru. Enjoy!
Coli’s Parents Visit Peru – Part 1
It was 10:40 a.m. on April 9th. I got the word. Nicole (aka Coli) found that the week of May 3rd would be a good time for us to visit her in Lima – yeah! There were no excursions, and the university workload seemed decent for that week. Coli told us that she was leaving “this afternoon” on an excursion and would be back to internet access on Monday. At once Cyndee and I reviewed our commitments, assessed what our busy son Brandon had planned, and found someone for him to stay with for the 12 days. Whew!
Fortunately, we had heard about a very reasonable airline that flies to Latin America, the Caribbean, as well as the U.S. – Spirit Airlines. The cost of flying to South America is usually worse than going to Europe because there is very limited competition or choices. We got roundtrip tickets for $310 each!!! With pride, the next day I sent her a note with the good news that we were booked for May 1st to the 11th.
Monday, we get a note back. “Great news that you’re coming, and by the way there was another note awaiting me – I was chosen as a Thomas R. Pickering finalist and guess what? They are flying me to Washington, D.C. for an interview on behalf of the State Department……the same week you are coming to visit me in Peru.” Well, we were so proud and knew that we would just work around it and at least we would have the end of that week together, which was also Mother’s Day. How perfect was that?
Well, stay tuned J
The first weekend we were to arrive, we knew that Nicole would be in Iquito (the Amazon region of Northern Peru), so she planned a weekend of activities for us that she had enjoyed south of Lima. In the middle of her busy week she worked many hours with the ISA staff to lay-out an itinerary for our whole week and a half. Thank you Coli!
It was early the morning of May 1st. Everything was arranged, we were packed, and we got to the airport to find that the flight was cancelled until the next day…due to “the fog” in Lima. At first, I thought this was a cover story, but as you’ve read in Coli’s blog, we also came to ‘not like’ the fog in Lima. It was true. In fact, her trip to Iquitos was also cancelled due to “the fog”. Now her trip was rescheduled to the following weekend - yes Mother’s Day weekend. Nicole had found out that her flight back from D.C. was arriving at 4:40 a.m. Friday and her flight to connect up with the rest of her group (Multisas) in Iquitos was to leave from the airport at 7:30 a.m. so we were not going to see her at all that weekend…maybe a lucky 15 minutes in the airport on Sunday as she flew in to Lima as we were preparing to fly back to “the States”.
We were desperate to let Coli and the ISA staff know that we were cancelled and that all the detailed reservations that were made on our behalf for that weekend would have to be reworked for another time. Luckily the ISA staff in the U.S. had cell phone contact with the ISA staff in Lima, because that Friday was a holiday for them – like our Labor Day.
The good news was that Nicole would be in town Sunday with us and Monday, working around her classes. She surprised us by meeting us at the airport Saturday night (Spirit Airlines was terrific). That was good, because she hadn’t had a chance to teach me how to negotiate with the taxi drivers yet. When her house mom, Austry, heard that we were coming to Lima, she offered to let us stay with them. This was such a loving gesture from a lovely lady. Nicole kindly let us use her queen-sized bed, while she used a small bed in another bedroom that was currently used for storage. She had unique gifts for each of us, including Brandon, which included shirts, Peruvian treats, Inka Kola, carved gourds, jewelry, etc.
Now on to our daily itinerary in Peru. Since no one can compare with Nicole’s descriptive writing style that we have all enjoyed while reading her daily blogs, Cyndee and I will tell you where we visited and the unique experiences we had, which were quite numerous.
Sunday, May 3rd
Starting in the morning, Coli took us to see two terrific museums on pre-Columbian civilizations. The first one was the Museo de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia and then on to the Museo Antropolgico de Rafeal Herrera, which was incredible (see Coli’s blog for details). I couldn’t believe my eyes (ojos) as I watched Nicole negotiate with the taxi drivers. She even turned them down if they didn’t accept her offer and walked to another taxi and ended up getting an okay. For example, later we went to downtown Lima (El Centro) which took 20 to 25 minutes for 7 soles (about $2.30 US) for three people! I spent the rest of the trip trying to emulate her success. It was a fun part of the cultural experience throughout Lima. I also couldn’t believe my ears (orejas) when I heard the words come out of our American daughter’s mouth. It was like a Latino ventriloquist was speaking through my daughter’s lips. She has become so fluent with the Spanish (Castellano) language. One of the ISA staff members mentioned that Nicole had become very natural with the language and had done an excellent job of erasing any “U.S. accent”. Bravo Coli!
In mid-afternoon, we went to Ashley and Caroline’s house where they hosted a big barbeque. We were able to meet all the fellow students (Multisas) that were doing the multi-country study-abroad with Nicole. Each student was fascinating to talk to and as a group they had a great spirit about them. We had a buffet of foods to select from – various vegetables (especially potato) and fruit varieties unseen in the U.S.
Later that afternoon, the three of us headed to el Centro (city center) and Plaza de Armas, the main historic plaza. We visited the stunning Iglesia de San Francisco with its intricate altars and then fortuitously saw a line of people outside the Government Palace (Palacio del Gobierno) for a free special exhibit inside the on la tomba del Señor de Sipan. It was the result of a major archeological tomb discovery - sort of Peru’s King Tut tomb equivalent with quite a bit of gold artifacts.
Nicole had a special treat in store for us tonight. It was dark when the taxi dropped us off outside some lavish gates. We were at Las Piletas Mágicas (the Magic Fountains). There were acres and acres of lighted water-fountain technological displays. Some had changing colors, classical music, video clips in water sprays, and a number of playful water-parks. Coli took the dare and headed into a set of concentric circles of water jets. They would take turns spraying and not…jump up 2 feet, then 10 feet, then nothing. Those who dared, but guessed wrong got drenched. Cyndee and Nicole walked through a “tunnel” that was totally created by arching jets of water while I videotaped and photographed them.
The best part of the day though for Mom and Dad was just being with Nicole – lots of hugs (abrazos) and kisses (besos), and just catching up on her experiences and the adventures in store for us during the upcoming week.
Monday, May 4th – Our final day with Nicole
After Coli gave us a tour of her University de Pacifico and the ISA office, we left to tour
the Barranco barrio (neighborhood) to see the over-century-old Bohemian architecture. We came back to the house for lunch to eat a typical homemade Peruvian meal of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice). When Nicole headed to class in the afternoon, we headed back to the city center to take a stroll to many churches and historical buildings. Lots of stunning architecture. Nicole met up with us after class to catch the last tour of the catacombs of the Iglesia de San Francisco, where over 25,000 bodies were buried. At one point, we were in the level below the cathedral floor. I yelled up through the grates for someone to save me, but I guess my Spanish wasn’t good enough because they left me to rot.
For dinner, Nicole had another special treat planned for us at Junius. It was an elegant buffet and dinner show in the hip and classy Miraflores suburb of Lima. Cyndee and I were introduced to dozens of Peruvian dishes of all kinds of meats, fruits, vegetables, and desserts. I was introduced to my favorite new condiment, called ají (pronounced ah-hee). It is more delicious than the variety of salsas, buffalo-wing sauces, or concoctions we have in our barbeque joints. Yum-yum! I made sure to ask for it wherever I went. It comes in various grades of hotness too. The highlight of the evening though was the dancers that were clad in sophisticated traditional clothing, tools, and decorative items while accompanied by a talented musical ensemble.
We headed back to the house for our final chats and preparations for our morning adventure to visit one of the top historical sites in the world – Machu Picchu!
All we can say is that those two days with Nicole were magical and special for us. What she has experienced in the three months since we saw her last!
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand) …to be continued
Coli’s Parents Visit Peru – Part 1
It was 10:40 a.m. on April 9th. I got the word. Nicole (aka Coli) found that the week of May 3rd would be a good time for us to visit her in Lima – yeah! There were no excursions, and the university workload seemed decent for that week. Coli told us that she was leaving “this afternoon” on an excursion and would be back to internet access on Monday. At once Cyndee and I reviewed our commitments, assessed what our busy son Brandon had planned, and found someone for him to stay with for the 12 days. Whew!
Fortunately, we had heard about a very reasonable airline that flies to Latin America, the Caribbean, as well as the U.S. – Spirit Airlines. The cost of flying to South America is usually worse than going to Europe because there is very limited competition or choices. We got roundtrip tickets for $310 each!!! With pride, the next day I sent her a note with the good news that we were booked for May 1st to the 11th.
Monday, we get a note back. “Great news that you’re coming, and by the way there was another note awaiting me – I was chosen as a Thomas R. Pickering finalist and guess what? They are flying me to Washington, D.C. for an interview on behalf of the State Department……the same week you are coming to visit me in Peru.” Well, we were so proud and knew that we would just work around it and at least we would have the end of that week together, which was also Mother’s Day. How perfect was that?
Well, stay tuned J
The first weekend we were to arrive, we knew that Nicole would be in Iquito (the Amazon region of Northern Peru), so she planned a weekend of activities for us that she had enjoyed south of Lima. In the middle of her busy week she worked many hours with the ISA staff to lay-out an itinerary for our whole week and a half. Thank you Coli!
It was early the morning of May 1st. Everything was arranged, we were packed, and we got to the airport to find that the flight was cancelled until the next day…due to “the fog” in Lima. At first, I thought this was a cover story, but as you’ve read in Coli’s blog, we also came to ‘not like’ the fog in Lima. It was true. In fact, her trip to Iquitos was also cancelled due to “the fog”. Now her trip was rescheduled to the following weekend - yes Mother’s Day weekend. Nicole had found out that her flight back from D.C. was arriving at 4:40 a.m. Friday and her flight to connect up with the rest of her group (Multisas) in Iquitos was to leave from the airport at 7:30 a.m. so we were not going to see her at all that weekend…maybe a lucky 15 minutes in the airport on Sunday as she flew in to Lima as we were preparing to fly back to “the States”.
We were desperate to let Coli and the ISA staff know that we were cancelled and that all the detailed reservations that were made on our behalf for that weekend would have to be reworked for another time. Luckily the ISA staff in the U.S. had cell phone contact with the ISA staff in Lima, because that Friday was a holiday for them – like our Labor Day.
The good news was that Nicole would be in town Sunday with us and Monday, working around her classes. She surprised us by meeting us at the airport Saturday night (Spirit Airlines was terrific). That was good, because she hadn’t had a chance to teach me how to negotiate with the taxi drivers yet. When her house mom, Austry, heard that we were coming to Lima, she offered to let us stay with them. This was such a loving gesture from a lovely lady. Nicole kindly let us use her queen-sized bed, while she used a small bed in another bedroom that was currently used for storage. She had unique gifts for each of us, including Brandon, which included shirts, Peruvian treats, Inka Kola, carved gourds, jewelry, etc.
Now on to our daily itinerary in Peru. Since no one can compare with Nicole’s descriptive writing style that we have all enjoyed while reading her daily blogs, Cyndee and I will tell you where we visited and the unique experiences we had, which were quite numerous.
Sunday, May 3rd
Starting in the morning, Coli took us to see two terrific museums on pre-Columbian civilizations. The first one was the Museo de Antropología, Arqueología e Historia and then on to the Museo Antropolgico de Rafeal Herrera, which was incredible (see Coli’s blog for details). I couldn’t believe my eyes (ojos) as I watched Nicole negotiate with the taxi drivers. She even turned them down if they didn’t accept her offer and walked to another taxi and ended up getting an okay. For example, later we went to downtown Lima (El Centro) which took 20 to 25 minutes for 7 soles (about $2.30 US) for three people! I spent the rest of the trip trying to emulate her success. It was a fun part of the cultural experience throughout Lima. I also couldn’t believe my ears (orejas) when I heard the words come out of our American daughter’s mouth. It was like a Latino ventriloquist was speaking through my daughter’s lips. She has become so fluent with the Spanish (Castellano) language. One of the ISA staff members mentioned that Nicole had become very natural with the language and had done an excellent job of erasing any “U.S. accent”. Bravo Coli!
In mid-afternoon, we went to Ashley and Caroline’s house where they hosted a big barbeque. We were able to meet all the fellow students (Multisas) that were doing the multi-country study-abroad with Nicole. Each student was fascinating to talk to and as a group they had a great spirit about them. We had a buffet of foods to select from – various vegetables (especially potato) and fruit varieties unseen in the U.S.
Later that afternoon, the three of us headed to el Centro (city center) and Plaza de Armas, the main historic plaza. We visited the stunning Iglesia de San Francisco with its intricate altars and then fortuitously saw a line of people outside the Government Palace (Palacio del Gobierno) for a free special exhibit inside the on la tomba del Señor de Sipan. It was the result of a major archeological tomb discovery - sort of Peru’s King Tut tomb equivalent with quite a bit of gold artifacts.
Nicole had a special treat in store for us tonight. It was dark when the taxi dropped us off outside some lavish gates. We were at Las Piletas Mágicas (the Magic Fountains). There were acres and acres of lighted water-fountain technological displays. Some had changing colors, classical music, video clips in water sprays, and a number of playful water-parks. Coli took the dare and headed into a set of concentric circles of water jets. They would take turns spraying and not…jump up 2 feet, then 10 feet, then nothing. Those who dared, but guessed wrong got drenched. Cyndee and Nicole walked through a “tunnel” that was totally created by arching jets of water while I videotaped and photographed them.
The best part of the day though for Mom and Dad was just being with Nicole – lots of hugs (abrazos) and kisses (besos), and just catching up on her experiences and the adventures in store for us during the upcoming week.
Monday, May 4th – Our final day with Nicole
After Coli gave us a tour of her University de Pacifico and the ISA office, we left to tour
the Barranco barrio (neighborhood) to see the over-century-old Bohemian architecture. We came back to the house for lunch to eat a typical homemade Peruvian meal of arroz con pollo (chicken and rice). When Nicole headed to class in the afternoon, we headed back to the city center to take a stroll to many churches and historical buildings. Lots of stunning architecture. Nicole met up with us after class to catch the last tour of the catacombs of the Iglesia de San Francisco, where over 25,000 bodies were buried. At one point, we were in the level below the cathedral floor. I yelled up through the grates for someone to save me, but I guess my Spanish wasn’t good enough because they left me to rot.
For dinner, Nicole had another special treat planned for us at Junius. It was an elegant buffet and dinner show in the hip and classy Miraflores suburb of Lima. Cyndee and I were introduced to dozens of Peruvian dishes of all kinds of meats, fruits, vegetables, and desserts. I was introduced to my favorite new condiment, called ají (pronounced ah-hee). It is more delicious than the variety of salsas, buffalo-wing sauces, or concoctions we have in our barbeque joints. Yum-yum! I made sure to ask for it wherever I went. It comes in various grades of hotness too. The highlight of the evening though was the dancers that were clad in sophisticated traditional clothing, tools, and decorative items while accompanied by a talented musical ensemble.
We headed back to the house for our final chats and preparations for our morning adventure to visit one of the top historical sites in the world – Machu Picchu!
All we can say is that those two days with Nicole were magical and special for us. What she has experienced in the three months since we saw her last!
Mom and Dad (Cyndee and Rand) …to be continued
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