Year Abroad in Peru- Part IV, Cusco

So, now for the final part of my Peruvian journey: Machu Picchu. One of my main reasons for choosing Peru. Now, you already know that I don't deal well with altitude, so I was apprehensive when I boarded the flight to Cusco, the city that everyone stops at before they visit the ruins. I had heard that flying there was worse than getting the bus as it doesn't give your body any time to acclimatise to the altitude, but the plane tickets were already booked. A short while after landing I started to feel the effects of the altitude, so sat with a cup of coca leaf tea in the hotel lobby. The tea tastes disgusting, but it's meant to help. I ended up feeling a bit better and went out to explore the city. Cusco is a pretty city, and jam-packed with tourists, all headed for the same destination. That evening there was an outdoor concert on in the plaza de armas in aid of the local police force. There was traditional music and dancing, the participants all wearing beautifully coloured clothing.

The next day, I decided to go on a free walking tour of the city. It lasted a couple of hours and we had a Peruvian food tasting session after it ended. We went to the the huge San Pedro market where you can find just about everything: fresh fruit and vegetables, herbs with 'healing powers', chocolate, souvenirs, fabrics, traditional clothing etc. etc. We were warned not to eat from the prepared food stalls though, as, according to the guide, you need a stomach of steal to deal with that! The tour took us to various other places around the city, focusing on Inca remains, and the culture and history of the city. On the tour, I spotted a chocolate museum where they do chocolate making courses. I needed to go. I mean, technically speaking I'd already done the same course in Arequipa, but you can never learn enough about, or taste enough, chocolate in my opinion. Anyone who knows me well enough, knows that I am a chocoholic; I adore chocolate and seem to get quite grumpy if I don't have my daily fix. So I booked my chocolate course for later on that afternoon.

Yes, that is me surveying how much chocolate I managed to get all over my hands...

The course starts with an introduction to the history of chocolate, which was done in both Spanish and English. Then came the best bit: chocolate tasting. We each tried different types of chocolate, dark, milk, and white. Despite all the talk about dark chocolate being the best, the chocolate of the highest quality, the chocolate that only someone with a refined palate can appreciate, I'm still a sucker for milk chocolate. The instructor taught us how to make hot chocolate using the Ancient Mayan recipe, with chilli and cinnamon to add to the flavour. It was quite grainy and I didn't really like it all that much, but chocolate has come a long way since then! Next, he brewed us a tea made with cacao nibs, which was rather tasty. I'm not a tea person, but make it chocolate flavoured and that's enough to convert me. Finally, he taught us how to make modern-day chocolate. We got to use different flavourings, from nuts, to oreos, to coca leaf powder. Considering coca leaves are banned in the UK, and I was intending to take the chocolate home with me, I stayed away from them. We then put our chocolate bars in the fridge to set and picked them up later. The course was entertaining, affordable, and the instructor kept us all laughing the whole time.

My friends arrived in Cusco a couple of days after me, and we didn't even know that we'd booked into the same hotel until I walked down the stairs one morning to hear their familiar voices chatting away in the lobby. One of my friends wanted to go horse riding, and so did I, so we went to a travel agents and booked it for the following day. That night I started to feel ill again and couldn't sleep well at all. When I woke up I felt so bad that I rang up my friend to cancel the horse riding and took myself to the doctors. The same thing happened as had happened during my trip to Colca Canyon. Altitude had gotten the better of me. I was prescribed more medicine and told that it should get better in time for my four day hike to Machu Picchu. But in the back of my mind I was thinking about the fact that the hike climbs up to a higher altitude than Cusco city, and that couldn't be good. I spent the rest of the day in bed, feeling sorry for myself, and worrying about the upcoming hike.

The next day I felt a bit better, but still apprehensive. The girls at the G Adventures desk, the agency I was doing the trip through, told me not to make any decisions about cancelling the hike until the day before it was to take place, just in case I regretted it. But I was starting to feel like a four day hike, at altitude, with no way of quickly coming back down to the city should I need it, was not what I wanted. After lots of thought, I decided that I'd go with the tour group, but not partake in the hike and just meet them at the Machu Picchu entrance when they arrived. It felt disappointed that I wasn't going to be doing the hike that I'd been looking forward to for so long, but was also very relieved. On the bright side, at least I could look half-decent in my photos with freshly washed hair and clean clothes, which would not have been the case if I'd gone on the hike!

Eventually, I felt well enough to do the horse riding, which turned out to not be as good as imagined. The horses looked as though they weren't cared for enough and the tour was quite boring, with a Quechua-speaking guide who couldn't speak English or Spanish very well. At first I thought my level of Spanish had significantly decreased until the Peruvians started exchanging confused looks at us too, obviously not understanding what the guide was saying. We saw other groups out at the same, on much healthier looking horses, smiling and seeming to be having a good time. So I guess we just picked the wrong tour. After the tour finished we walked to the 'White Christ', a big statue that overlooks the whole city, which looks beautiful from above. 

My Machu Picchu tour eventually began, and we spent the first day making our way to Ollantaytambo, the village where the hike starts and also where the train sets off for those who want to arrive to Machu Picchu in style (and comfort). On the way to the village we stopped off en route at an animal rescue shelter, various archaeological sites, and had a huge lunch that was probably more for the hikers' benefit than my own. We arrived in Ollantaytambo, my home for the next few days whilst the others hiked, and it soon became clear that I would have nothing to do there. It's tiny, very pretty, but tiny. There are a few markets, some ruins which we visited with the group, and some restaurants. It was going to be a long three days alone...

I said goodbye to those hiking the following morning, and had no idea what to do until my train to Machu Picchu. So I decided to have a wonder around the markets. However, once you've been to one traditional market in Peru, you have kind of see them all; all the same handicrafts, just a different city name stitched onto them. I'm not saying they're not interesting, they are, but I'd already been around so many markets, and bought so many souvenirs, that all I was trying to do was pass a little time. I walked into one shop that sold hand-crafted jewellery. The shop owner struck up conversation and was impressed I could speak Spanish, as most of the tourists don't. We chatted for a while about Peru, about my time there, and also about la pachamama, Mother Earth. The guy had dreadlocks, and was sat on the floor threading bracelets with beads on them. He told me that, if I wanted he could put a braid in my hair, and I agreed, as what else did I have to do in the village? He told me that he was putting special beads in my hair that represented the four elements. He thought the braid was very spiritual. I thought it was very Gap Yah. But hey, new experiences, new people. After he had finished, he said that maybe we could go up the mountain to pay respects to pachamama with a coca leaf offering. I said maybe we could, but wasn't all too keen on the idea, and decided to avoid the area where the shop was for the rest of the day.

At lunchtime, I went to a restaurant, and not the kind that they recommend tourists to go to. I'd eaten in so many dodgy places in Peru that I just decided to risk it. Unfortunately, the risk backfired when I cut myself on a broken glass table and ended up back at the hospital to treat it. I did think that maybe pachamama didn't actually want me to make it to Machu Picchu! 

After my days of isolation, the train journey to Machu Picchu finally arrived. The train, which is pretty fancy, takes you to the village below the ruins, and I was to stay there overnight before getting the bus up to the entrance. Everything in the village is overpriced because all the tourists have to pass through it before visiting the ruins, but I stayed in a relatively cheap hotel where the staff were friendly. I was starting to get excited for the next day again, after all the drama. Finally, what I'd been waiting for was just around the corner. 

I had to wake up in the early hours of the morning to get the bus in order to meet the hiking group that I'd left a few days before. The bus ride up was really bumpy and quite scary, winding up and around the mountain, the driver dodging the buses making their way back down on a road that really should have a one-way system. When the bus arrived at the top, the entrance showed no signs of the Machu Picchu I'd seen in so many photographs. There was a café, a restaurant, and a big arch indicating the start of your Inca adventure. After a short time of waiting outside the café, I finally saw the group, looking run down, yet elated. They told me it was incredible, very difficult, but incredible, with stunning views. It made me wish I'd done it, but I was glad just to get to the entrance not feeling ill. We were told to show our tickets at the entrance and get a special Machu Picchu stamp on our passports on the way out. Once we entered the gates there was a short walk, and then we stopped. You could just about make out shapes in front of you; the fog was thick. You could feel how tense everyone was, had they walked all the way here to see nothing for the fog? 

Our tour guide, who was so knowledgeable and passionate about the Incas (he'd also walked the Inca Trail over 500 times), started to tell us about the history of the ruins, booklet in hand with photos showing Hiram Bingham, the person who revealed the ruins to the rest of the world, at the citadel. During his talk the fog started to clear and we could finally see what we came for. It was a surreal feeling standing among the ruins that I had only seen on Google or from my friends' Facebook photos. They truly are stunning, and the whole place, nestled in the mountains, is breathtaking. 

A misty Machu Picchu

We continued on the tour for two hours, learning about small details about each of the main constructions, taking lots of photos. After that we were told we had some time to walk around freely, so I headed up a hill to take the photo that everyone has to take when they go to Machu Picchu.

It doesn't count if you don't have your arms spread out...

I don't think it's possible to get a photo without masses of tourists in it but oh well, the backdrop sure does make up for it. 

And sometimes a llama will get in your way...

But all that doesn't really matter too much because you're at one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and it's beautiful.

My Peruvian adventure ended soon after that, and when I saw the Coca Cola advert outside of Jorge Chavez International airport for the last time I couldn't believe how much had happened since the first time I saw it. I know it's cheesy to say, but I really did feel like a different person. I'd grown up.