Well the day is here-our final day in Peru. This is Elizabeth writing to sum up our amazing trip. The final few days were filled with fun. Seven of us got to go to Ica, and the Nazca lines which were awesome. We also got to go dune buggying, and sand boarding which was quite an experience and were glad to have made it back safely. The flight over the Nazca lines was very bumpy and left a few of us pretty nauseous, but the lines themselves were very cool and we are glad to have seen them! The few that stayed in Lima had a nice couple days of relaxation and exploring the city.
Overall this trip has been full of new experiences. It has taken us to many different types of places- the cold of Puno, Lake Titicaca, the amazing city of Cusco, the jungle of Machu Picchu, the city and beaches of Lima, and, for some of us, the desert of Ica. We still haven’t gotten used to having to wait hours to get a meal, and we all just recently embraced the idea of ‘Peru time’ (being late)-something that we struggled with at the beginning of the trip. Although we hit a few little bumps on the way with the changes in travel plans, excursions, and sites, we have all learned to ‘go with the flow’- something that we are all happy to have gotten out of this trip.
Peru has given us all a wonderful sense of peace and happiness and I believe we all embraced the country and its culture to the fullest. Thank you to Lisa, Willaru, Rafael, and Luis, and everyone else who we got to spend time with on this amazing trip that we will all never forget!
See you soon families! :)
Hello family and friends, it’s Blyss again! It’s not long until you will see our beautifully farmers tanned faces back in America!
Today was a bittersweet day for us. We woke up for breakfast for our last day in Cusco before we left for Lima. As many of you probably know, Cusco has been our favorite city to be in while in Peru. It’s a wonderfully old and historic city with many modern updates. It’s beautiful and full of life, yet you still feel like you are in Peru with the cobblestone streets, adobe brick buildings and huge cathedrals with Catholic influence. Knowing that we were leaving meant was sad for a lot of us. We spent a lot of our trip in this city and loved the specific restaurants and the shopping along with fun hang out spots. We loaded up all of our more than 50 lbs bags up the block to the bus. Along the way Megan stepped in dog poop and we all got a good laugh! She was a great sport about it!
We arrived to the Cusco airport and were surprised with a visit from Luis, one of our other tour guides who traveled and bonded with us. He had said goodbye very quickly the night before, but for him to surprise us at the airport was like out of a movie! It was sweet and genuinely touched all of us. Lisa had tears in her eyes as we all hugged him good bye and continuously thanked him.
The flight was a quick one but had delicious snacks. When we got down to baggage claim, only 3 bags showed up out of 12. You can tell we have been in Peru for a while because no one got upset or complained. This trip has been a lot of going with the flow and practicing patience. We sat for a bit hoping it would magically appear on the conveyor belt. Nothing. A man from the airline approached us to say that our bags had been so heavy that they split them off onto another flight that would be arriving 15 minutes later. Almost an hour later, still no complaints, our bags rolled out. We had been joking about not having underwear and the bags arrived!
Because it took so long at the airport, we didn’t get to eat lunch until 4:30. It was too early for dinner and too late for lunch but we were starving! It was phenomenal food as usual. The group split up after to explore Lima. It is like a big city in America. It doesn’t feel like Peru except for all the PDA [public displays of affection :) ], Peruvian time, and the Spanish speakers. We enjoyed churros filled with manjar at a cart in the little garden square and walked around. I even had starbucks iced drink! This city is a big place! While some of us go to Nazca, the others will have a lot of the city left to explore! Keep your eyes peeled for more posts!
Today was the day for fun in the sun, waterfalls and hot springs. After breakfast we all hiked to the waterfalls which was about a 7 mile hike in total. It was a scenery change, viewing all of the beautiful orchids and fauna of the rainforest. The only sound was the force of the water hitting the rocks. The air was cool under the canopy shade. The water itself was cold, only allowing for toe dipping. The return hike took us past the railroad tracks, giving view of the famed Hiram Bingham train. When we returned back to town, lunchtime it was. After lunch, we visited the hot springs from which the town was named, Augas Calientes. It was not the experience we expected, but we enjoyed it none the less. The springs consisted of pools with varying degrees of hot and warm water. It was possible to even enjoy an adult beverage while wading in the baths which made it all the more enjoyable. A cold sprint ensued as we raced back to our hotels for showers before dinner. A few of us enjoyed the best dinner yet, at The Tree House. It was a small restaurant with natural wood paneling and an exceptional menu. Unfortunately, we are leaving town tomorrow, otherwise it would be dinner there again. It was a terrific meal to celebrate a once in a lifetime experience, Machu Picchu. How greatful we all should be…. Melissa
Hello everyone!
This is Will blogging again from Peru. Today we had a free day in the town of Aguas Caliente, our last day here at the base of Machu Picchu. We all woke up around 9 to check out of our hotel and then we hit the town around 10. We all split up into a few groups and decided to just do whatever we could do to fill our day. Some people went to the Machu Picchu Museum at the base of the mountain, a short walk from our hotel. They were raving about it and said that it was full of great information and awesome artifacts, after leaving the museum they all went and got hour-long massages and said it was really relaxing. Another group just explored the town and did some shopping and the beautiful jewelry stores and boutiques and enjoyed some of Aguas Caliente’s finest food at a restaurant called Indio Feliz. The rest of us just hung around a few restaurants that had out door seating and enjoyed the awesome weather and then at 1:30 we found a place with a huge TV and watched soccer with some locals. The game was the semi-finals of FIFA Eurocup 2012, Portugal v. Spain. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. After the game we caught the 5pm train back to the Sacred Valley where a bus met us to bring us back to Cusco for the night. We arrived to the Los Angeles Hotel around 9:30 and now some of us are getting ready to go out on the town for a little bit. Our days here are getting short but we are enjoying every minute of it to the fullest and it looks like our last week here is going to be a truly incredible one. See you all in a week!
June 25th
Machu Picchu - Waynu Picchu
Today we awoke to the sounds of the river rushing by. If we woke up in time we had a lovely breakfast. They had an assortment of fruits, juices, breads, etc. So many choices. Unfortunately, some of us didn’t wake up in time and had to find breakfast elsewhere but it was just as good.
By 9 am, we boarded the bus to go back up the mountain to Machu Picchu. The sun was starting to come out and we all slathered on our sunscreen and bug spray.
It was then time to get our tickets out so we can could get into the Machu Picchu site again. For some reason today, they wanted to see our student ID’s. Once we pulled them out, they weren’t satisfied with them and said they weren’t official school ID’s. So it was a big fiasco in the beginning and thankfully Lisa had a notarized letter saying that we were nursing students on a study abroad. After some phone calls and wary glances they finally let us, the hardened criminals through.
To get to Waynu Picchu, you must walk through the Machu Picchu site. It was still quite early in the morning but the site was already bustling with people. A huge change in the number of people since yesterday. Now for Waynu Picchu, only 200 people are allowed up each day. They used to make you line up outside the gate in the morning (roughly 5 am) to possibly get a ticket in (admittance at 10 am). This year though, they let you buy them in advance. When we walked through the gate at 10:30, I was the 90th person in for the day.
As we have said before, a day in Peru wouldn’t be complete without some hiking involved. We sure did some hiking today. At times we were going up a sheer cliff. It took every muscle in our bodies to stay balanced. One misstep and you could be over the mountain in an instant. At times they had cables hooked into the side of the mountain for support. The steps apart from eachother were sometimes like 3 - 4 feet.
After an hour or so of torture, we all finally made it to the top. Although Bethany, Will, and Rafael made it up in record time. You could see all throughout the valley and we were practically in the clouds. Machu Picchu looked so tiny beneath us. It was so crowded at the top and we were all literally balancing on a few rock slabs.
Once we all were done for the day and made it down to the town it started to rain. Torrential downpour. The electric went out and the roads momentarily flooded. The rain was not letting up and was pelting down on us. It rained from noon to almost 9. The locals said it was very strange for it to rain that long. It gave us all time to take it easy and decompress.
Only a few more days until our trip is over. It will be bittersweet. Until then - Katina
Hola!
Today was a big day. We woke up early to get breakfast and to the train station by 8am, for a 9 o’clock train to Machu Picchu. The train went slowly and lasted close to 2 hours. As the train descended, the barren land that we have seen almost the entire trip so far turned into jungle- with lots of vegetation, and green! When we arrived, we checked into our hotel, grabbed sandwiches and took the 25 min bus from the town, up to the actual site of Machu Picchu. Our plan was to hike the mountain, but once there we found out that to actually HIKE the mountain, we would have had to buy another ticket, a new implementation, so we ended up hiking to a couple other places. The first, a nearby Incan bridge that was made so the Incans could defend their territory by removing the wooden planks of the bridge when an invasion came. Afterwards, we hiked around the mountain to the sun gate- the very end of the four day, three night hike of the Incan trail, and the point where the first Incans, and all those hiking the Incan trail, first get to see the amazing site of Machu Picchu. This was a hot and long hike, but nothing compared to what hiking the mountain would have been like, i’m sure!
After hiking back down to the ruin city of Machu Picchu, we explored the site for a while. So many pictures were taken, but absolutely no picture you could ever take would come close to experiencing, and seeing the site firsthand. I, for one, took about 500 picture of the same view and could not find a way to capture it. We all explored for a little over an hour, and then we came home in time to get ready for a great group dinner. We ate at Indio Feliz, a quirky little reataurant. We all had a great meal and went to bed with our stomachs full, and our bodies tired from the long day of hiking!
Hey it’s Mary again. I’m writing about yesterday. It was our last day of clinical so half of us went to the clinic and the other half went back to the school. At the school, they played games with the kids and all seemed to have a great time. At the clinic, we followed and OB and an emergency room doctor. Later in the day we went to the temple of the uterus. We all had our turn laying in the uterus. This site also had some caves that were interesting to see. Dinner was a group dinner at a nice hotel alongside the mountain and a river. We went their to celebrate Bethany’s 22nd birthday. It was a buffet and the food was really good. We sang happy birthday and had a cake for her. The restaurant also started a bonfire outside for us. We brought marshmallows with us so we could roast them. It was fun just sitting around the fire hanging out and talking with everyone. When we got back we all hung out for a little before going to bed.
