Machu Picchu!

After we left Uruguay, we arrived in Cusco on January 2, and what an adorable town! Although it is touristy, it is so beautiful and charming, I could have stayed there for weeks. Our first afternoon there, we found a hotel right in one of the central plazas for $25 a night, which is a pretty good deal! We walked around and stumbled upon a little festival where there were a bunch of street food vendors cooking up some local treats. We decided we had a few days to cushion our trek in case we got sick and we saddled up to a women serving "typical plates". This consisted of a piece of dry beef, some sort of sausage, chicken, guinea pig (yes, we ate it... twice. Wouldn't do it again), corn, seaweed, fish eggs, and cheese. And a beer, of course. It was alright, but there were other street meats I enjoyed more.

We walked around some more, went to the office of our Machu Picchu trek and found out that I dont know how to read a calendar and our trek left Sunday and not Monday. Which was fine. We just hung out around Cusco the next day, went to an AMAZING market and ate some more local food. You can get a huge plate of food for $1, and we did, obviously. We left for Machu Picchu on Sunday morning.

Overlookin Cusco

Lady serving up our traditional plate... thats a guinea pig in front

Unfortunately, the day of the trek, I started feeling a little less than fresh, and on the car ride up had to have the driver pull over where I blew chunks on the side of the road. I thought I would be able to walk with the group, but I was so week they drove me to the first camp site where I stayed in my tent the whole day with the chills and a pretty bad fever. The guide told me that if I didn't feel better the next day, which was the hardest and longest day, I could go on horse. The next morning I felt like a new person and didn't need the horse, which was good, cause we had 5 horses but one of them fell off the side of the mountain on the way up so we were down to 4 horses. If you saw those trails you would know, they are narrow and drop off into the steepest valleys I have ever seen... except in Colorado.

From our first Campsite, that was the Salkantay Mountain which our trail was named after

There were 5 of us in the group, with our guide Bandero, which was good, we got lucky with a small group. We hiked through mountains, jungle, towns, waterfalls, everything you can imagine for 4 days until we reached Aquas Calientes which is the town closest to Machu Picchu. On the 5th day, we woke up at 4 am and started the climb to Machu Picchu at 5. It was cloudy and rainy so we didn't get the best pictures, but it was still unbelievable to think that just about 100 years ago, this place was undiscovered and covered in jungle. It was massive and just breathtaking. Highly recommended.

Our Group at 15, 253 ft

Met this woman on the trek, hiked with us for 8 hours... she is 85 years old

Gary looks like the biggest tourist EVER

View of Machu Picchu

Our Machu Picchu shot

We spent about 7 hours at Machu Picchu and then headed back to town, and of course, as soon as we got back it was sunny and beautiful out! We headed back to Cusco that night and did some serious relaxing.

The next day, we walked around again, there is a lot to see in Cusco! We got an hour long full body massage for $6 each, $7 including tip. Can't beat that!

One of my favorite pics, Gary talking to a local kid

On Saturday, we went to the Sacred Valley, which is a series of towns that all have Inca ruins. That was cool too, driving through all the local towns and seeing the landscape. All of which was just breathtaking, I can't say enough about how beautiful this area is.

Sunday was Gary's last day. We ate some delicious breakfast sandwiches for the third day in a row, walked around, I cried, he left, and I cried some more. Now I have to get back in the swing of being alone and meeting new people everyday. Which is fine, its what I am here for, but I miss my travel buddy!

Spent the last few days in Lake Titicaca, pictures and stories to come.