I just ate guinea pig. A whole one, head still attached. All they really do is kill them, put a hole in their stomachs, and remove the insides. After that they are stuck in an oven and then served to you. It looks exactly like a guinea pig, all crispy and brown. Its good too, not incredible, but good. Ana ate the eyes out of hers, but I didn´t.
The salkantay trek was awesome. Including machu picchu it was about 50 something miles of walking between monday and friday. We started out in the mountains and the first night of camping it got below freezing, lame to sleep in. The second day we walked 10 hours, first climing up to Salkantay (big mountain) to the highest point in the trip, 4600 meters. It is really tough to breathe, and one guy brought an oxygen tank. If you take a quick hit of oxygen, its instant rejuvenation, kind of cool actually. Coming down the other side of Salkantay you enter into a big valley, the whole trip is lord of the rings ish. The valley turns into Jungle, and you walk along cliffs with the urubamba river about 1000 feet or so beneath. This is when mosquitos come out, and around 5 o clock on the second day we found our camp, which is reminiscent of predator, especially when we found carved out chunks of cow meat on the roof of one of the buildings. That night our tent wouldn´t close so I slept under the mosquito net.
By the next day some of the sand flies and mosquitos had bitten, and they itch like hell now. We walked another 6 hours or so the next day, through the jungle and down closer to the urubamba until making camp in Santa Teresa where there were nice hot springs. Thursday was a good deal of walking, though the ground was flat which made it easier, the previous days was constant up and down. We arrived in aguas calientes (the city outside machu picchu where you have to stay a night before seeing the city) to heavy rain and lightning. Its very yosemite looking, only the valley is narrower and the mountains steeper. I took my first hot shower since Lima, and on Friday we woke up at 330 to climb the 400 something vertical steps up to the entrance of the city. All in all, really cool.
Tonight we leave, a bus to Arequipa and then I´m taking one to Pisco. I´ll leave Pisco Wednesday for Lima and get on our plane Thursday morning. Woot.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Last Day in Cusco
The month has come to an end. Its really strange because it flew by. The only thing I will not miss are cramped bus rides. I´m going to eat guinea pig tonight if all goes according to plan. The only other strange food I´ve eaten here so far is cow heart, which you can buy on the street, and alpaca meat, which isn´t that strange but really good.
Tomorrow we leave on our trek for Machu Picchu which means that our trip is essentially over. We leave at 4 or 5 am and get back to Cusco on Friday night. Saturday night I´m leaving to go back to Pisco, where I should arrive on Sunday around noon. Then its Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday back to Lima for our flight out on Thursday morning. It is going to go by fast. The bus I´m taking first goes to Arequipa, and then to Ica and Pisco. A few days ago a bus crashed going to Arequipa from Cusco and 13 people died, and since it happened so recently I´ll probably be safe because there aren´t often deadly bus crashes in the same location twice in one week.
We went to lake Titicaca on Tuesday and Wednesday since we got 2 days off for Peruvian Independence Day. The bus ride was about 6 hours and we arrived at 4 in the morning and had to wait 2 hours or so to be picked up by our tour people. They took us to a hotel, where we sat in the lobby for about 30 minutes, and then a bus came and they told us to get on. The lake was cool, but not cool enough to want to hear about, except for the fact that there are people who live on the lake on islands they have made out of dirt and reed.
Friday was the last day of teaching. One class bought me cake and soda and a scarf and a backpack, it was pretty cool. This was the class that I had had to teach by myself for 2 weeks since a lot of the professors left. It was tough, but a good time, and I got cake and soda and a scarf and backpack out of it so it was all worth it in the end.
The trek to Macchu Pichu is 5 days. On the second day we hike somewhere around 15,000 feet, really high up. It is supposed to be ridiculously cold the first two nights, and then hot and mosquitoey for the rest of the trek. From everything we have heard, it is supposed to be awesome.
Theres lots more thats been done and a lot more to say, but I forget everything as soon as I sit down to write. I´ll have better stories when I get back.
Tomorrow we leave on our trek for Machu Picchu which means that our trip is essentially over. We leave at 4 or 5 am and get back to Cusco on Friday night. Saturday night I´m leaving to go back to Pisco, where I should arrive on Sunday around noon. Then its Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday back to Lima for our flight out on Thursday morning. It is going to go by fast. The bus I´m taking first goes to Arequipa, and then to Ica and Pisco. A few days ago a bus crashed going to Arequipa from Cusco and 13 people died, and since it happened so recently I´ll probably be safe because there aren´t often deadly bus crashes in the same location twice in one week.
We went to lake Titicaca on Tuesday and Wednesday since we got 2 days off for Peruvian Independence Day. The bus ride was about 6 hours and we arrived at 4 in the morning and had to wait 2 hours or so to be picked up by our tour people. They took us to a hotel, where we sat in the lobby for about 30 minutes, and then a bus came and they told us to get on. The lake was cool, but not cool enough to want to hear about, except for the fact that there are people who live on the lake on islands they have made out of dirt and reed.
Friday was the last day of teaching. One class bought me cake and soda and a scarf and a backpack, it was pretty cool. This was the class that I had had to teach by myself for 2 weeks since a lot of the professors left. It was tough, but a good time, and I got cake and soda and a scarf and backpack out of it so it was all worth it in the end.
The trek to Macchu Pichu is 5 days. On the second day we hike somewhere around 15,000 feet, really high up. It is supposed to be ridiculously cold the first two nights, and then hot and mosquitoey for the rest of the trek. From everything we have heard, it is supposed to be awesome.
Theres lots more thats been done and a lot more to say, but I forget everything as soon as I sit down to write. I´ll have better stories when I get back.
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