Peru

A collection of photos, videos and stories from my spring break trip to Peru

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In Peruvian culture, the legend of the pishtaco, a vampire-like monster that kills people by sucking the fat from their body, is spread throughout the majority of it’s rural culture.  This monster looks human, and is usually a white stranger.  One month ago one was spotted in the Cuzco region of Peru (pictured above).

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Zip-lining through the Andes!

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Day 8: back to reality

After two routine flights back to Orlando, I was dismayed to see my home country once more.  I think it’s safe to say that traveling is comparable taking drugs; while traveling you are excited, eager, happy, etc., but once you return home you feel like all your dopamine has been used and you are tired and unsatisfied by your regular life.  That is definitely how I was feeling when I returned to America.  It took a nice long beach weekend to recover from that rush. But still to this day, I long to return to Peru and relive the experience.  Somehow, writing this blog serves as a method of reliving the trip.  Remembering each memory filled me with nostalgia, and although I didn’t record down all that I thought and felt during the trip, all of those feelings returned to me through the writing process.

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Day 7: last day fast day

On our last day we woke up in the best honey moon destination I’ve ever seen.  We were staying in a converted monastery which is now an amazing hotel with beautiful everything.  Unfortunately they we only stayed there for one night, but I could have spent a lifetime there.  Once we left we went off to explore more Inca sites.  At this point I was so in love with Peru, and I knew that I would be leaving for the airport at 3:30 the next morning, so I was feeling a bit anxious.  I did not want to leave Peru, and knowing my trip was coming to an end made me pretty grumpy the last day.  About six times that day I considered running off into the mountains and relocating to the Sacred Valley.  But luckily the realist in me took over, and I was able to save myself from spending lord knows how long lost in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and have no money.  At lunch we went to a buffet, where I filled myself up with as much Peruvian corn as I could because I knew that I would miss that the most.  Then we went off to Pisac, which I wish we were able to spend more time exploring.  The archeological site was, of course, amazing, and even more fun was the market.  I was able to haggle a vendor into giving me a pipe for 5 soles, and another one into giving me an alpaca sweater AND a Cuscquena jersey for 50 soles (SCORE!).  After that we headed back off into the city of Cuzco for our last night until we headed back to America :(

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Day 6: MACHU PICCHU!!!

At this point the entire trip had been amazing, but this was the day I was really looking forward to.  Today was the day we went to Machu Picchu (my favorite of the Seven Wonders of the World, probably because it was the only one I’ve ever been to).  Although waking up at 4:30 AM wasn’t my favorite thing ever, the rest of the day was.  The majority of the group chose to walk from our hotel in Aguascalientes and then hike up Machu Picchu, but I was one of the three who chose to ride the bus up.  Unfortunately for the others, as soon as they set off it started pouring rain.  One we rode up to the top of the mountain we waited for the hikers to slowly emerge, one-by-one, out of breath, wet and sweaty off the train.  Although they looked miserable, I could see the sense of pride in each of their faces, which almost made me regret not hiking but I’m a pretty big whiner so I guess I made the right choice.  Once I got into Machu Picchu I was disappointed to see that the entire mountain was surrounded by clouds, you could barely see ten feet in front of you.  Although this trip was occurring during Peru’s rainy season, every day had been sunny and warm up until this point.  As we made our way through the site the clouds began to clear out, and as they did the river and mountains emerged to show, yet another, incredible view, but this one was by far the most beautiful of the many views I had seen up until this point.  I tried my hardest not to be basic, but let’s just say I ran out of storage on my phone I took so many pictures.  Also, our amazing tour guide Fernando was so well versed in the history of this site and the Inca culture, so I learned a lot about what the different features of the site were and what they were used for.  I’m really glad he was there because the experience would not have meant as much if I hadn’t had all of that knowledge and was just aimlessly wandering through Machu Picchu.  Hands down, this day was one of the best days of my life and I wouldn’t change one second of it.

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Day 5: zip-lining and Aguascalientes

After an early morning wake-up call, and lots of coffee, we were off through the mountains once more to make our way to go zip-lining!  I had been zip-lining once before, but it turns out you haven’t really gone zip-lining until you’ve done it in the Andes.  Also, you haven’t really seen the Andes until you’ve zip-lined through them, so basically go zip-lining in the Andes.  Something about the bird’s eye view is unreal. There is absolutely nothing like it; the mix of the fear and adrenaline with the excitement and awe you feel looking over the beauty of the Sacred Valley—amazing.  There were four lines, on the first I was shaking with fear but after the initial push off the ground I was over it.  We lost a few to fear, and the really ambitious rode upside down (not for me), but we all enjoyed it and I will always remember it as one of the most breath-taking sites I’ve ever seen.  Afterward we caught a train over to Aguascalientes and spent the day seeing the town—and a lot of my hotel room as I was feeling pretty beat by the end of the day and I knew I’d have to be well rested for the big day that followed…

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Day 4: making our way through the Sacred Valley

After a nice morning of finally getting to sleep in, we packed up our bags and headed out into the mountains.  Our first stop was at an overlook on the way to Moray.  The view was absolutely astonishing and we all whipped out our iPhones and started taking pictures.  After a few group photos and a quick altercation with a fellow American we were back on our way to Moray.  The drive to Moray might have been more aesthetically pleasing than Moray itself.  Although Moray is cool, there’s something a bit unsexy about crop circles. Although the architecture is cool, I wish that the site was used for something cooler like human sacrifices or dinner parties.  After that we were off to the salt mines, and like Moray, the drive was way cooler--or in this case life-threatening. Driving down the road to the salt mines was so terrifying, the road was extremely narrow and there was no barrier protecting us from the thousand fppt drop that met the side of the road.  It was really nice when a car started coming toward us and we had to go around them (I was pretty sure at that point that was it for me).  But we safely made it down to the salt mines and got to eat all the free salt you could imagine!  It was actually really cool to see how it all worked.  Then we were off, driving through the Sacred Valley on the way to our next hotel was a very beautiful site--for the fifteen minutes of it I saw until I fell asleep anyways. When we finally got to our hotel I felt like I was at a celebrity rehab center.  It was so pretty and the surrounding mountains were like nothing I’d ever seen before. All in all it was a very long day, and almost immediately after dinner we were all asleep.

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Day 3 pt. 2: sexy women at Sacsaywaman

The final site we explored up in the mountains of Cuzco was Sacsaywaman (also known as Sexy Woman, which is seen in Sexy Martin’s pose, pictured above), which was amazing.  The Incas had made slides out of rock that we got to use, and land in mud, but it was still so cool that they even had that as part of their society.  All I could picture when I saw it was a bunch of Inca leaders in full ceremonial dress going down the slides together (lol).  The site itself was also amazing, standing at the edge and looking over Cuzco was so beautiful, no photo can truly capture how amazing it is (at least no iPhone photo taken by someone with no camera knowledge whatsoever). Another amazing feature of Sexy Woman is the rocks used to construct the site, which weigh about 5 tons, where cut from rock a few miles away and moved by the manpower of the Incas. Wow. 

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Day 3: Exploring sites in Cuzco city

Day three (my favorite day) was spent traveling through the surrounding mountains of Cuzco and Cuzco itself with our new tour guide Fernando.  Fernando was awesome and took us everywhere.  We started out going to a few ancient Inca site in the mountains that were amazing.  They were so beautiful and just looking at the mountain ranges around us was so incredible. It was absolutely unlike anything I’d ever seen before.  Riding around in our tour bus was equally as exciting as exploring the sites because I got to take in so much breathtaking scenery. We also got to go see the Jesus statue that we had been seeing from below in the city, which was a bit of a disappointment.  I think we were all expecting it to be cooler, but regardless everything we saw that day was so amazing it’s something I can never forget.

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Day 2 pt. 2: authorized exploring

Once we all went out exploring together I was even more in awe of the city and its beauty.  We went and got our first Peruvian meal (which was really good) and then went to the Machu Picchu museum.  Walking through the Plaza de Armas was so incredible, it is such a beautiful site.  Then we went to the market, which was when I first felt a sense of culture shock.  There is a definite difference in the way they handle their meat... There are full animals hanging from vendor’s tables and they eat much more of the animal than we do and much more animals than we do.  Above you can see what I mean--pig heads, hanging intestines, and full dog bodies are all typical meats in Peru.  As unsettling as it was, I loved seeing it.  It was really interesting to be able to see such a drastic difference between our culture and another.  Late that night we went to see a cultural show that represented all the regions of Peru, which was cool but freaked me out a little bit.  At this point everyone was so tired they could barely keep their eyes open, the long day of exploring and walking all over really wore us down and we were ready for bed.

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Day 2: breaking the rules to do some exploring

After sleeping off a long day/night of travel I woke up and was ready to explore Cuzco.  With two other people from my group, I headed out to make my initial ascent into the city (which apparently we were instructed not to do, but I guess none of us listened).  The first thing that struck me was all of the vendors in the street coming up to you and trying to sell you whatever they could.  Luckily “looking’s free” so I got to look at some really cool stuff.  After walking around some more I was excited for what was to come.  It was such a cool city, with amazing architecture and landscapes. I was excited to explore all that it had to offer.

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Day 1: a collection of travel selfies

12pm Friday our group of twelve--ten English majors and two professors--met at our college to embark on our journey.  We headed off to MCO in a van bursting with excitement, which quickly died down when it came time to check bags and go through security (not the most fun).  We spend a little under an hour waiting at our gate, congregated around the iPhone charging stations.  Once we were on the plane, everyone took their seats and got ready for the five hour flight to Lima.  The good thing about this flight was that I got to relax, read and enjoy the five-course meal they brought us (and I got two ice creams).  The bad thing was that once I got to Lima, through immigration and to the terminal for my connection to Cuzco, I realized that my wallet had been left on the plane.  As bad as losing your wallet--comprised of my driver’s license, debit cards and cash--in a foreign country sounds, I got lucky, retaining my passport and having a group of 11 other people with me.  To be honest, it wasn’t that much of an issue after all, except that I no longer have the cute Kate Spade wallet my mom got me for Christmas.  Anyways, after boarding my flight to Cuzco, at around 3am, I passed out until we landed.  The minute I stepped outside I was completely captivated by the beauty of the mountains.  Driving from the airport to our hotel everyone was looking out the windows, trying to observe all they could.  I think what was the most shocking was seeing the many stray dogs running around the city (which I thought was because they were indigenous to Peru for about half the trip, until Dr. Russell told me that was not the case).  When we reached our hotel everyone went to pass out in their hotel rooms to rest off the exhaustion 18 hours of traveling bestows upon the human body.