One of my group members could not have been more right when she said that our week in Peru shouldn’t be called our spring break trip, but rather our spring break expedition. 8 days of traveling, hiking, exploring new cultures, and touring cities was certainly both an adventure and a nice treat as the semester winds down!
Day 1: Bienvenidos a Peru!
We met bright and early at the airport in Quito to embark on our 6 or so hour journey to Cusco, Peru, via Lima. A bus met us at the Cusco airport to take us to our hostel, where we sat down to a cup of mate de coca, which is a typical Peruvian tea made with coca leaves (yes, the same leaves that cocaine is extracted from). We found the tea everywhere we went for the rest of the trip, and it was delicious! (No crazy side effects, if you’re wondering.) Coco leaves are used to help adjust to the altitude and are chewed by indigenous workers who want to take away their hunger and thirst during the day while they’re out in the field. We had the afternoon to explore Cusco on our own and eat dinner. I tried a typical dish called aji de gallina, which is chicken in a yellow cream sauce made of potatoes and cheese (delicious!). One of the tricks we learned early in the week was to ask for the “menú" at restaurants. For 12-18 soles (approximately $4-6), you get soup and/or an appetizer, a main dish, and coffee or tea!
Day 2: Felices Pascuas en el Valle Sagrado
On Easter Sunday, we woke up early to start our day tour of el Valle Sagrado, the region around Cusco.
View of the Valle Sagrado
We visited a llama farm in the morning where tourists get to walk through the llama pens and feed the animals before arriving to the demonstration of how llama wool is dyed and woven into all sorts of artisan products. Llama wool products were EVERYWHERE in Peru: hats, gloves, socks, sweater, slippers, bags, headbands, table cloths, belts.
Later, we went on a short and relatively easy hike around some Incan ruins in the valley. Our guide, Bobby, a native Cusceño, showed us all kind of cool things, like Incan cemeteries in the sides of mountains and how the terraces built into the mountains were used to cultivate plants.
Ancient and modern civilizations are neighbors!
For lunch, I tried two foods that I loved and ordered all over Peru: Quinoa soup and Trucha! (Quinoa is a very typical, high protein grain and truch is trout.) On one of the bus rides to an archeological site, we stopped at a little house marked with a red plastic bag over a lamppost. This sign means that chicha, a traditional corn beer, is made here. We learned how the beer (which is very very low in alcohol content and very very high in corn flavor) is made and got to try some. I wasn’t a huge fan, but it was interesting to say the least. After visiting the last site of the day, we visited a local family’s home to see what it was like to live there. The most surprising thing was definitely the plethora of cuys (guinea pigs) that they keep right in their home! If you remember, cuy is a delicacy in South America!
And you thought guinea pigs belongs in cages…
At night, we boarded a train to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Pichu that welcomes all the tourists and hikers to the most famous of the Incan ruins.
Day 3: Ready, Set, HIKE.
After a 2 hour hike from the hostel to the entrance to the Inka trail at Km 104 (in Peru Inca was always spelled with a k and Cuzco was always spelled with an s, so I’m going to stick to the authentic spellings!), we began climbing. We climbed about 700 meters over the course of a few hours, and hiked a few kilometers on the original Inka trail to Machu Pichu. On the way, we passed a few other Inka sites, and had a picnic lunch on the terraces of one called Wiñaywayna.
Wiñaywayna from a distance, to give you an idea of how far we hiked!
Wiñaywayna
We arrived at la Puerta del Sol after the last stretch of uphill climbing and enjoyed an absolutely beautiful view of Machu Pichu from a distance.
Zoomed in view of MP from la puerta del sol
After taking it in and catching our breath, we continued on the trail to the entrance to Machu Pichu. I was absolutely stunned by what we saw: the Inkan people were simply brilliant architects and must have been strong as mules to move so many rocks through the mountains! The pictures I took hardly do justice to what I saw. After about 8 hours of hiking, we were grateful to finally reach the end, but we were nowhere near done. We still had to climb down the 700 meters we had reached. Also, the park was closing for the day so we couldn’t walk around and take pictures.
The group overlooking Machu Pichu and looking pretty happy after 8 hours of hiking
Machu Pichu!
Thus began the descent, and let’s just say that my knees were not very happy with 2 hours of very steep downhill stairs! By the time we made it back to the city, my legs were jelly and my heart and lungs were ready for a break.
The road you can see here is for the buses; we hiked more or less straight down to the river!
Like so many trips this semester, the hike was breathless is both ways: high altitude = hard to breathe, but with the most rewarding vistas! We worked hard and certainly earned our dinner after 10 hours of hard hiking!!
Day 4: Machu Pichu, up close and personal
After a much easier ascent to the Inkan city via bus, Bobby led us on a guided tour of Machu Pichu. He told us all about the various legends, buildings, and leaders of the ancient city. I found the history of the Inkas so much more interesting while learning about them in person than I did when I learned about them from a textbook. Being there and seeing even just a glimpse of how they lived and rules was mind boggling and very humbling. They were such a smart and advanced people in so many ways! After our tour with Bobby and lunch, we had free time to explore the park, which was my favorite part.
Clouds moving in!
A few of us hiked around rooms and paths that the tour didn’t cover and listened in to some other tour guides explanations of the different parts of the city.
We got to walk right up to llamas who call Machu Pichu home (one even trapped poor Mariana in a room!) and crawl around the rocks at our own pace.
In the evening, after some free time to relax (and finish some reading for school – a novel that, appropriately, takes place in Peru, called La Ciudad y los perros) we hit the hot springs that Aguas Calientes is named for. The baths were really nice, and not too hot, which was nice. Even in the rain, it was relaxing! The it’s-a-small-world moment of this trip was meeting some people from the south of Bolivia who we ran into the next night in Cusco!
After an early morning train and bus ride back to Cusco and some free time to eat and explore the artisan market, we took a city tour of Cusco with a new guide, Nieves, who was quite animated and loved calling us “jovenes.” (Many of the people we encountered thought we were all much younger that we are, which surprised me! It’s probably because we were so dressed down the whole time). On our tour of the city, we were all dragging because it was such an early morning. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to visit the Catherdral, which was to be one of the big stops on the tour, because the local tour guides and students of tourism were holding a “huelga” (strike) on the steps and were prohibiting tourists from entering. It was a little unclear what they were striking against, but it had something to do with rights of the tourist industry. (There was also a railroad strike when we were in Aguas Calientes which was an equally unclear protest against privatization of water?)
4 walls, each from a different time period/style of architecture
We did learn, among other things, that Cusco, the Inkan capital, was built in the shape of a Puma and about the different types of walls in various Inkan buildings.
Streets of Cusco
At the end of the day, we drove up to one last archeological site of Inkan ruins, pronounced “sexey woman” (but not spelled that way…I would butcher it!). From here, we watched the sun set over Cusco and took some nice group pictures.
View of quito from “sexy woman” ruins
Everyone seemed to catch their second wind for a oldies singalong on the busride back to the hostal and a nice dinner out to celebrate Amanda’s last night with us. Thanks to her hard work with the Quito program, BC treated her to the trip. Even after sending her students to Peru every semester for the past 14 years, she herself had never seen Machu Pichu! It was so nice to have her along for the experience! We enjoyed a nice group dinner together in her honor. I tried another very typical dish, Alpaca, for dinner. When I said llamas are all over Peru, I mean it in every way. Alpaca is a type of llama, and the meat was delicious. I know, I know, What do you mean you ate LLAMA, Carolyn? They’re so cute!! But hey, when in Rome…or Peru…. After dinner, a few of us went to a salsa club where we practiced our steps and then watched a very interesting transition from salsa to a latin version of the electric slide, danced by some local men who were very into the moves. It was hilarious!
Day 6: Puno
Some pictures from our pit-stop on the bus ride…lots of mountains and llama products for sale!!
One 6 hour bus ride later, we arrived in Puno, a city on Lake Titicaca in the southeast part of Peru. Lake Titicaca is the highest freshwater lake in the world and the largest in South America. It is simply beautiful! Though Puno was not the most beautiful city, it has a great location on the lake! Also, something that I was surprised to learn is that Titicaca does not mean anything it sounds like. It actually means “large gray puma” in Quechwa, the native language of the Andes. In Puno, we met our new local guide, Bertha, who took us to Sillustari, an Inkan burial ground. We watched the sun set over the lake and stopped at a local family’s home to see what the living conditions were like and learn about some of the vegetables and grains that they harvest. The home was very different from those we have seen in remote parts of Ecuador, and was very unique to the region. Though they had no electricity or running water, the family was very happy and healthy! Before we boarded the bus back to the city, we took a few moments to star gaze. I don’t think I have ever, or will ever, see so many stars in one night. The Milky Way was very bright and we saw 5 or 6 shooting stars in just 15 minutes. I can’t imagine going to sleep under that sky every night!
Day 7: Life on Lake Titicaca
On our last full day of exploration, we left our hotel very early in the funniest taxis I’ve ever taken. We sat two by two in these little carts pushed by men on bikes…quite environmentally friendly for such a big city! After a short boat ride, we disembarked on las Islas Uros, which are a group of small, manmade islands in the middle of the lake. The islands are built on the roots of tortora plants, which grow in the water. The islands float in the water and are home to 7-8 families each. On the island, we learned how the islands are constructed, toured the homes, and got to try on some of the local people’s attire.
After dancing and singing in the traditional clothing, the women showed us their handmade products. One thing I noticed while in Peru is that everyone is a salesperson, from the 3 year old girl carrying bracelets on the mountainside for 1 sol to the 85 year old women showing off their goods. Artisanship is definitely one of the biggest sources of income for the indigenous people, and for good reason…all their products are beautiful! After another boat ride, we lunched on another island and learned about the local typical clothing, one piece of which is partially made with women’s hair!
In the afternoon and evening, we hiked to the top of the island Amantani, where we watched and helped our guide perform a local ritual offering to the Pachamama, the goddess of mother earth. Over the course of the trip, we had learned a lot from our guides about the traditional Andean religions and local customs and influences from the Catholic. The ceremony was very powerful and very uplifiting. After building a fire, we built an offering that represented luck, love, harmony, peace, happiness, and other happy things. We were each given something to add to the pile (I got raisins, which represent “dulcera”, sweetness) and then burned the pile, along with candles for people we know who are sick.
Our offering
We said a very simple prayer as a group and hugged everyone else present (S&L, think hugs of peace!) and poured confetti on each other. It was a very powerful and happy ceremony, and I felt very privileged to be a part of it. Afterwards, we climbed to the temple of the Pachamama and watched an incredible sunset over the lake again.
When it was dark, we hiked down to the bottom of the mountain and were greeted by local families who would be our hosts for the night. I stayed with a lovely young woman named Olga along with Jenny and Hallie After eating an absolutely delicious, natural, and typical dinner of rice and locally grown vegetables with Olga, her parents, her daughter and niece, and our guide Bertha, we were surprised with yet another set of traditional outfits to put on. Olga and her husband Zacharias helped us get dressed in the skirt (which would have been scandalously short on me had I not had jeans on underneath…the locals are much smaller than us!), top, and scarf, they led us to a gathering where we met up with the rest of our group and their host families. A local group of musicians came to play for us, so we all danced both inside and outside around a fire. We had so much fun and looked beautiful in the traditional clothing.
Needless to say, I slept very well back at Olga’s house after such a long day! The house was ready for guests; there were extra beds that were very comfortable and warm and plenty of food for all of us! It was obvious that they were prepared for tourists, but it was still nice to eat and talk with a local family. One of the most interesting parts of the evening was when the three of us were in the kitchen with the grandmother, who didn’t speak Spanish. While we all acknowledged that we couldn’t understand each other, we talked to each other anyway, and all laughed to acknowledge that no one really knew what was being said. Though the younger people on the island learn Spanish in schools, the older generations only speak Quechwa! The younger adults and children are all bilingual out of necessity, which is SO amazing to me! It was very interesting to be communicating in my second language with other people who learned Spanish as a second language!
Amaranti in the daylight
Saying goodbye to Olga!
Day 8: Harvest to Home
After waking up with the sun, we hit the fields early in the morning with Zacharais to learn how potatoes are harvested. Our timing was great because April is the month of the harvest! We helped dig up some small veggies that the family would dry out to eat for the rest of the year. They were delicious! Our journey home began at 8:30 with a 3 hour boat ride back to Puno, a bus to Juliaca, a flight to Lima, a 7 hour lay over, and then another flight back home to Quito. We arrived around 3:30 am, which was oddly reminiscent of the first time I landed in Quito and went through migration in the middle of the night…
All in all, the trip was an perfect blend of cultural and touristy activities. Our guide, Javier, who was with us the whole time, did a great job of planning the trip and organizing our travels, guides, and tours. We worked hard and were all exhausted by the time we got home, but I am very well aware that this was probably a once in a life time opportunity, and I am SO grateful that it was part of my study abroad experience! Big time thank you if you made it all the way to the end!
