Adventure #9 peru Day 3 Sacred Valley

Woke up with a headache -- (I'm just pretty much going to cut and paste this sentence into each day's post!).  Every day though, it went away a little faster. 

Today was the Sacred Valley Tour.  It was myself, Jake, Dane, a couple from Texas and our guide MarcAnthony.  There were supposed to be three other ladies, but apparently they had a BIG party the night before! LOL!

Our Sacred Valley tour included a stop at a small market, the Pisac Inca Ruins, lunch, the Ollantaytambo ruins, and then the town of Chincheros.

Before we left I went for a little walk to get some fresh air -- and as much oxygen as possible!
This is the street my hotel was on.

The main square in Cusco



The morning rush!





Kids headed for school!







This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip.  I just thought she was beautiful with all of her flowers for sale!

Then we loaded up onto the van and headed out for a full day of being tourists!  Many of these pics are from inside the van, so not the best quality.



A morning gathering



The first of many beautiful mountain views!

Our first stop was at this small market.  We were promised many shopping opportunities later on in the day, so we just stopped here for some pictures and a bathroom break.  I love the colors at the markets, and the mountains seem to grow right out of the market's thatched roof!



Many of these little taxis all over Peru.  Our guide says "cheap, but not safe!"





Dane and Jake from Alaska



Then we got back into the van and headed to the Pisca Ruins.  More beautiful views along the way:

PISCA INCA RUINS



Yes, we are headed up there!



  

OK, so I thought this was really interesting.  Peru is full of ruins everywhere -- not just at specific tourist sites, but everywhere!  In many cases people live amongst the ruins and terraces.  The terraces are all over the place.  I had always thought that they were just cut into the mountains to provide flat steps to grow things on.  Actually, the Incas built the walls, and then specifically filled them in with layers which provided the best soil to plant in!  Very cool!

These niches were for the gold statues, or idols



Dane and Jake telling me to keep climbing!





Made it to the top!



I got lost getting out of these ruins and heading back down.  It was like a maze.  I felt like I was in JFK airport all over again!



Interesting combination of foliage




Look how little the people look!




I love this pic of our guide, MarcAnthony.  Looks like he should be on a "Come to Peru" ad!




Yep we climbed all the way up there!




OK, so check out these holes in the mountain across from the ruins.  They are basically "cave graves".  These holes are where the nobility were buried -- mummified, in fetal position since the belief was that they would be "reborn" agin after death, often buried with gold idols, and mummified animals.  It is so interesting to me how many similarities there are between different religions that stood alone and had not been cross-influenced yet.   The Incan's believed in an underworld, represented by the snake, the world they lived in represented by the Puma (strength), and the heavens - represented by the Condor.  They wanted to be as high as they could, to be close to the heavens.  (Something I was not so happy about later in the week when I climbed the Inca trail!  The valleys woyld have been much easier LOL!).  Also, they lived by three simple rules.  Don't be lazy, don't steal and don't lie.  Not a bad set of "commandments".  So many similarities to Christianity -- way before the Spanish showed up!

Here's Jake with a great view in the background!

Now it was time to head to lunch!



Local High School students mark their school's name into the side of the mountains



waterfall

Most homes were painted with political campaign messages



Our lunch spot



Lunchtime - figuring out the difference between real and fake coins

The plastic bag story:  There is a local beer made out of fermented corn called "Chicha".  Many people make it and sell it out of their homes.  A red plastic bag outside of a building means "you can purchase Chicha here".  However, our guide told us you have to be careful, because different color bags mean different things.  A yellow bag means that food is also served.  A blue bag means you can also find "single people of either sex" -- a nice way of saying it's a brothel.  We saw one building with all three colors -- made in to a flower.  The guide called that place "a buffet"!  LOL!  There is one more color -- green.  Not quite sure how that works, but it means "wife is home, but husband is not".  I saw one geen bag.  I only got a picture of a red one though, see below:

Being a pharmacist, I had to take a picture of a drugstore;

Then we were on to the next ruins.

  OLLANTAYTAMBO RUINS



Yep, we are headed up there too!  And the "trek" part of the trip hasn't even started yet!





These girls wanted their picture taken with the Texans



This whole town is built on the ruins -- just build up a little, and add a roof!



Can you see the face of the Inca God?



How did they do this?  You can't even get a piece of paper in there!



Look at the size of these rocks.  They were brought here by the Incas from a rock quarry...




...8 miles away, on the other side of that mountain! 



a storage building



look closely.. the original Starbucks!!  Inca Bucks!



Last part of the trip now.  We are on our way to the town of Chincheros!

As in many S. American countries, there are friendly stray dogs everywhere!



More high schhol "graffiti"!



As we drove up, up, up, we got into the plains.

                                                  CHINCHEROS

• 

These 2 bulls with a cross were on the top of almost everyone's house.  Apparently they are for good luck, and a blessing on the house.  The bulls also represent power.  The cross says "a Christian family lives here".  This is supposedly better than any insurance policy against the "bad lawyers".  I'm not really sure what that means, but I bought a replica for a souvenier (mine is just dark brown, not fancy like the one in this picture).



Two young girls enjoying the sun



The Spanish built on top of the Incan ruins here.  There was a beautiful, funky church, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

We got to visit a little shop where women cleaned, spun, dyed, and wove alpaca, and sheep wool.  Items made out of Baby Alpaca wool are very desired.  The joke is that at most markets, you aren't really getting "Baby Alpaca", you are getting "Maybe Alpaca".

They said that these girls can spin yarn while cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, and even can give their husbands a kiss and not stop spinning!

Another tea that helps with the altitude.  The plant is called something that sounds like "Moonya"



She grated a root that then made soap suds to clean the wool with, because "the Alpacas do not take showers"!





She asked for 2 male volunteers. uh-oh!





Then she rubbed something in her hands that made a bright red paste. She said they not only used it do dye wool, but also for lipstick!



Watch out Dane!



The Peruvian kiss!  What we found out later is that the thing she smushed in her hand to get that color is a tiny gray parasite that lives on the prickly pear cactus!  Yuck!



Then after a long day, it was time to head back to Cusco!

The police pull people over quite often just to check paperwork.  We never had any problems, but I snuck a picture to add to the atmosphere of the trip album!

Back in Cuscos, we had an orientation meeting to prepare us for the the trek that we would be on over the next 4 days.  There were 15 in our group all together.  Quite a few people from Australia.  There were only 4 girls, and two were there with boyfriends.  So Annie from Australia and I determined that we must be tentmates.  I had told Dane and Jake about the restaurant I had been to the night before and they wanted to try it.  So after orientation, Dane, Jake, Annie, Joe (also from Australia, but from the opposite coast from Annie) and I all walked over to Greens and had a great dinner. 

Dane and Jake from Alaska at dinner

Joe and Annie -- both from Australia!

After dinner, it was early to bed as we had to meet in the square at 5:20am for the next chapter of our adventure:  the 4 day Inca Trail trek!

Adventure #9 Peru Day 2 Rafting

So.... I woke up the next morning.  Good start I figured.   Still had a heache.  It did not help that there was a skylight right over my bed.  BUT the nausea was much better.  I got dressed and headed down to breakfast.  Now I mostly just felt a little slow and hungover, but much better than the day before.

My thoughts at that time about the altitude thing were that I would not be attempting Mt Everest any time soon.  Or ever for that matter.  But looking back to the previous day, I remembered sitting on the floor in the bathroom, clammy and shivering and laughing out loud to myself  "well you DID say you wanted an adventure!"

Breakfast was light and perfect.  Fresh fruit and sweet little flaky rolls.  The coffee... Holy Crap!  It came out of a regular coffee pot, but was soooo strong.  Like a full cup of espresso.  Hit the spot!

Breakfast sat well in the belly, and some Motrin and the caffeine helped the headache.  So I nervously decided to go for it.  White Water here I come!

There were 5 of us on our trip, a guide and a safety kayaker.  Two of the guys - Dane and Jake -  were from Alaska and it turned out we would be on the same tour for the rest of the week.  The other two were a brother and sister.  Her name was Cindy, and I can't remember his, because it was a name given to him by a Yogi.  His sister called him Tay -- his real name I assume.  They were originally from NY, and oddly enough they both went to University of Michigan!  (not Taylor's school, but close by).

We had a 2hr bus ride to the river -- started not feeling too good again, but once I got back out into the fresh air it was fine.  The rafting was fun.  Not the Class 4 and Class 5 rapids like we experience on our Maine trips, but enough 3 to 4's to make it fun.  And the scenery was breathtaking.  I don't have any pictures of this day unfortunately because I didn't want to take my camera onto the river.

We lost Cindy into the river during one of the rapids, but she was pulled back in fairly quickly.  Our guide Primo asked where I had been rafting before and I decided to believe that he only asked that because I was doing such a great job!!!

Lunch was eaten river side -- rice salad, pasta salad, (chicken for the others), and a banana.  It felt so good to eat and not feel nauseaus!!!

I wrote in my journal that afternoon "I can't believe I'm in Peru , in my hotel room, watching the travel channel!" LOL.  But I was actually just taking a rest before heading out to dinner solo.  I asked Victor for a recommendation that was walking distance, safe to go alone, and would have some vegetarian options.  He sent my to Greens which was just a few blocks away and wonderful.  Usually when travelling I like to be adventurous with food and eat "local".  But this was more of a "Gringo" restaurant -- good organic food and just what I was looking for after being sick the day before.  I ordered mashed sweet potatoes flavored with orange and mint, rice with seasonal vegetables, and ratatouoille.  Yum!

Adventure #9 Peru Day 1



    Adventure #9 is definitely the biggest adventure yet.  I knew I had a week off, and I knew I wanted to do something big.  I had started out thinking I would go to a yoga retreat in Costa Rica or Mexico (still on my "to do" list).  The other alternative I was considering was a Galapagos Island Cruise (now on next year's "to do" list I think!).  At the last minute I decided on a very reasonably priced 8 day Peruvian trip which included a 4 day "trek" to Machu Picchu.  It turned out to absolutely be the best decision I could have made.  It was definitely the most challenging choice - mentally, emotionally and definitely physically; and in the end, the most rewarding and empowering thing I have ever done. 


The view from the plane flying into Cusco




Dad took me to the airport in Boston on Monday night.  My flight left at 7:30pm, went to JFK (for some reason I could not reserve the same flight by driving to JFK or I would have).  Then from JFK, straight to Lima, then a flight to Cusco and I was scheduled to get in at about 9:30am the next day.  I got a little lost in JFK, and rode the Airtram for a while until I found my terminal, LOL.
I was really excited to see that I got two meals on the overnight flight to Lima.  Not because I like airplane food, but because I can't remember the last time I flew anywhere that was a long enough flight to get anything more than a bag of peanuts.  We got served dinner at 11pm (my vegetarian option was not bad -- pasta, steamed veggies, a salad).  Breakfast was at 5am.  I have no idea what it was and did not eat it.  It looked like a half of a sandwich on wheat toast that contained some white stuff that looked like a cross between cream cheese and feta, and a sliced green vegetable -- maybe a pickle?  Toto we are not in Kansas anymore!
 My next adventure was in Lima.  I got off the plane, went through immigration, exchanged some dollars for Soles, rescued a lady from almost leaving her passport at the money exchange counter, and made it through customs all by myself.  Their customs gate is pretty funny.  It's like being on a game show -- you get to push a button.  If the light comes up green you get to pass "Go" without getting your bags checked.  If the light shines red, you head over to the customs table.  Mine was green!!  At this point I am feeling very proud of myself -- a solo world traveller!  So I head out of customs and start to try to find my way around.  I find the booth at which to pay my airport tax, and then find myself in the security check line.  Only then do I realize that I still have my big suitcase with me.  I forgot to recheck my luggage!!  So one of the security guys was nice enough to escort me to the ticket counter for staff so that I didn't have to wait in line, but I still missed my flight.  Luckily there was another flight leaving to Cusco only a half an hour later.
So I get into Cusco and there is a man waiting for me with a sign with my name on it!  Yay!  He waited for me even though I missed my flight!
We get in a taxi, and I arrive at my hotel.  From the street that the hotel is on, you would have no idea that there was such a pretty hotel behind the door.  The first thing they did was serve me some Coca leaf tea.  (Yes, that's Coca, as in cocaine, not Cocoa as in chocolate).  The Coca leaf is supposed to help with altitude sickness, and many of our hiking porters just chewed on the leaves.


The front courtyard in the Hotel Marquese



My Coca Leaf tea

Then I was shown to my room.  Very nice except for the 2 inch carpeted step inside that I tripped over EVERY time I walked into my room!  LOL!

My lovely room

A room with a view -- the back courtayard

 So once I got settled I realized that I had a little headache and was sleepy -- just tired from the overnight flight I thought.  So I figured that I would lay down for a while and take a nap.  Then a full migraine hit.  I found out later that taking a nap at altitude is not what you should do when you first get there, because you breathe less deeply while sleeping, and thus get even less oxygen.  I was supposed to go on a city tour at 1:40.  It was optional, so I was going to just skip it, but they came and knocked on my door to remind me.  So I made my way down to the SAS (my tour company) office which is the next door over from the hotel.  Just walking down there though, I realized I was really sick, so I got in there and told them I was going to opt out of the tour.  However, I still had a lot of paperwork to do for the rest of the trip. As I sat there I felt worse and worse -- started looking for the nearest trash can.  Then I went back to the hotel. I tried to use the computer room to email my dad and tell him I made it, but I couldn't even focus on the keyboard.  This was like a combination of a hangover and a migraine at the same time.  Made it up to my room just in time to vomit into the toilet.  And that's about all I did for the rest of the day.  I tried to sip on some of the coke from the fridge because I could also tell I was getting dehydrated.  I was soooo miserable, and afraid my whole trip was ruined. I kep thinking -- "yoga on the Mexican Beach = sea level", Galapagos cruise ... boat = sea level".  What have I done??  It was a little scary too, because altitude sickness can progress to something more serious - and it seems to be a crap shoot as far as who that happens to.  So, being that sick, all alone in a hotel room in a foreign country - not knowing if and when it would get any better was a little disconcerting.  Finally at about 7:30pm, after another bout of throwing up, I went down to the front desk and asked for some oxygen.  "Victor" brought it up to my room and was so nice -- he hooked me up and sat with me while I inhaled and exhaled deeply for 12 minutes.  Then I went back to sleep and slep through most of the night.  He promised I would feel better the next day.  I could not imagine actually maiking it to my whitewater rafting trip!

A well stocked fridge

Here is a funny little story about the well stocked fridge above.  In that plastic bag was an ear of corn still in the husk.  Still not sure if that was some Peruvian custom, but I'm figuring it was more likely something the previous guests left.  Also, that yellow bottle of soda is "Inca Cola".  Tastes like Bazooka bubblegum!

The floor where I sat with my head on the toilet for most of day 1



The computer room.



Another pic of the back courtyard