Viva Peru!

If you ever get the chance, go to Macchu Picchu! I am extremely grateful that I took advantage of my proximity and decided to go. It was AMAZING! The Incas were truly a genius culture and their ruins are incredibly intact because of this. It was crazy to see almost whole buildings still standing after 400 years, including withstanding enormous earthquakes (in the 1600s and 1700s).

Josh and I flew first to Lima, Peru, then to the city of Cusco. From there, we took a number of buses around to other Incan ruin sites, Pisac and Ollantaytambo. One of the train routes to Macchu Picchu leaves from Ollantaytambo, so we stayed the night there. In the darkness of 4:30am we headed for the train station on Friday. The train arrived in Aguas Calientes, a town at the base of the mountain where Macchu Picchu is. A quick hair-pin turning bus ride and we were there!! At 7:30am it was still fogged in which lent a cool, eerie feeling like we were the only ones there and trying to discover what lay beyond our visiblity. Later in the day it cleared up and we were able to take amazing panoramic pictures and the typical postcard pictures too. After trekking around most of Macchu Picchu we hiked up Wayna Picchu, another ruin very close by that is at the top of a very, very steep peak. It was quite the climb! An hour and a half climbing straight up tiny stone stairways but simply astonishing views at the top. It´s so hard to describe in words all that I saw, really only pictures do it justice.

We spent the rest of our time in Peru in Cusco, a beautiful, very Spanish influenced city and also very touristy. We saw gorgeous churches and some more astounding Incan ruins where the stones fit so perfectly together you can barely see the creases where they meet. In the Cathedral there, we took an audio tour (super unseen here in South America! we were shocked!) and learned a bunch about how the Spanish mixed indigenous ideologies into the architecture and art to appeal to the native people. Also in the Cathedral is the first cross to ever arrive in South America which was brought on the expedition of Francisco Pissaro in the 1500s. For lunch one day, we tasted alpaca, an animal like a llama that is very popular in Peru. It was actually really good! Kind of like a more tender and juicy pork chop?

Well, I would love to write more but I´ve got to get going and pack for a school trip tomorrow to the Amazon jungle! Pray that I don´t get eaten alive by mosquitos!