Muchacho Polaco

We caught the train early this morning from Aguascalientes to Ollantaytambo where we caught a local bus to Cuzco. It is a really beautiful train trip through the Andes at a very high altitude – we saw lots of snow. It was really neat seeing small villages of remote Peru.

We arrived in Cuzco early enough to catch a good meal and find a nice place to stay (where I am using their computer at the moment). I have learned to negotiate the price of everything and we´re paying about half the normal rate where we are presently staying. We bought a lot of nice things from the market today, including the sweet Alpaca sweater I am presently wearing along with a sweet new hat for my collection.

As we are getting a bit tired of Peruvian food (it all tastes the same to me and it isnt spicey!), we went out for fire cooked pizza. It was really good. After that we went to a second floor pub overlooking the main square. It was especially nice because of the wood burning fire (its really cold here!).

It was neat to finally get an update this evening from Matt and Dana in Dublin. It appears all is going well with them now and apparently they were waiting in the welfare line today…? Not sure what that´s all about, but we´re assuming they´re on welfare or something like this…

We arrived at Aguascalientes last night around 10pm from Ollantaytambo by train. As it was night, we couldn´t see much. The market in Pisac was really nice to visit yesterday, as were the ruins of Urubamba. We did an enroumous amount of hiking and I took hundreds of photos. Our guide explained how the Incan fortifications were destroyed by the Spaniards upon their conquest. We ended our tour yesterday in Ollantaytambo which also had a massive amount of Incan ruins and terraces. Their architecture was quite amazing. We spent 4 hour in the town and then caught the train to Aguascalientes. We had the cheapest tickets on the train, but it wasn´t so bad. We met a young guy named James from England, a student of Chinese at Cambridge who has been traveling throughout South America for the last few months. He had many interesting stories to share – he has been robbed twice (both in Quito).

When we got to Aguascalientes we immediately arrived at out hostal and then went to bed as we were exhausted and had to get up early this morning at 4.45am. We had initiall yintended to hike to Machu Picchu from our hostal, but decided against it (I was way too tired), so we decided to take the bus for 18 soles. We were quite glad that we chose this option as the hike is incredibly difficult (we hiked to our hostal from Machu Picchu). We arrived at MP very early and found it absolutely amazing (especially at this hour with the rising sun and clouds). Pictures are insufficient to describe the majesty and splendor of this place – it is absolutely amazing. We spent hours touring the ruins and learning about the place and Incan culture.

We really enjoyed Machu Picchu and it was clearly the highlite of this trip. The hike back to our hostal was brutal, particularly since we hadnt eaten all day (it was too early to find anything when we left), and it is a LONG hike. To compound the difficulty, it started pouring rain a few kilometers from our destination, so we arrived soaked with no way to dry our clothes. When we returned to our hostal – we fell asleep exhausted for over 4 hours.

We flew into Cuzco this morning from Lima, an absolutely beautiful flight over the Andes. We departed very early though and fortunately didnt have to check our packs, so we could quickly get through the airport and on to Los Ninos, an orphange we are staying at our first night in Cuzco. We were greeted upon our arrival with coca tea, which allegedly is suppose to help with the altitude sickness. I can´t say for sure if there was any effect, but I´ve been doing quite well thus far. We left Los Ninos early to walk around town. We visited the market where we were tempted to buy the skinned dog or pigs heads. They also sell guinea pig here which they claim is a delicacy. There is a restaurant in town that specializes in guinea pig. We found a travel agency (for lack of a better word) to help us with our train tickets and such for Aguascalientes. We intended to leave on Wednesday, but due to limited availability on the train, will be leaving tomorrow night instead and staying in Aguascalientes two nights. We will be in Machu Picchu on Thursday and on Friday we fly back from Cuzco to Lima.

We saw a lot of really neat ruins today. I´ve nearly used up one 2gig chip already. We toured a number of churches and convents as well. I dont remember the names of where we went and I dont have my pack with me at the moment (I am at an internet cafe). We saw many llamas and alpacas today and I found some nice new hats to add to my collection. Clothes made from alpacas and llamas are really cheap here. We don´t exactly have space for many things though.

Tomorrow we will spend nearly the entire day visiting ruins and towns in the “Sacred Valley” before catching our train at 8:30. We didn´t eat much all day, so when we returned to Cuzco today we found a nice place to eat. I had a very nice and large bowl of chicken soup, steak and rice, with french fries, and some strange dessert – all for $1.25 each (Yunuen got something similar). The food here is ridiculously cheap.

I still dont have the ability to upload photos as these computers are pretty cheap and I dont have my pack with me anyway….Not sure if I´ll have internet access in Aguascalientes!

ciao…

Yunuen and I are in an internet cafe in Miraflores…something like 30 cents an hour to use. We woke up fairly early this morning to have our “breakfast” at our hotel and then went to the shopping area we were at last night. We went to a travel agent to buy our plane tickets to Cuzco. It was really nice to find the prices to be significantly less than what we were finding online and buying them locally meant we wouldn´t have to pay the high taxes. We have spent most of the day walking around Miraflores. We went to some parks and saw a lot of hang gliders. It is very beautiful here, but quite cold (mostly in the 50s). We were ridiculously cold last night, so we had to get some extra blankets for our room (the rooms aren´t heated here).

We had lunch about 30 mins ago at Restaurante Pericos. I had papas a la huancaina which was cold potatos with a strange yellow sauce and a black olive. For my main meal, I had a slab of beef, on top of rice, with a egg on top and a cooked banana on top of the egg, with french fries on the side. Yunuen had corn soup and a similar main dish. She loved the banana.

We have to be at the airport at 4am tomorrow morning which is going to be a tad difficult. Fortunately, we´ll be in Cuzo early and will be able to spend the entire day relaxing, trying to get used to the elevation (nearly 12,000 ft above sea level). We went to a pharmacy just a few minutes ago and bought some drugs that allege to help with altitude sickness. The pills are called Sorojchi pills and are from Bolivia. We have been told that when we arrive at the orphange we are staying at in Cuzco they will be giving us coca leaf tea which is likewise suppose to help with altitude sickness.

As I didn´t bring my cable to upload pictures, I won´t be able to do that now, but perhaps later tonight….

Yunuen and I arrived in Lima, Peru a few hours ago. We rocketed through customs and were met by Augusto, a driver we had arranged to take us to our hotel in Miraflores. We are staying at Hotel Ducado. The rooms are pretty minimalistic, but the location is exceptional. We went for a walk not long ago and found a beautiful shopping area just off the ocean – we were somewhat surprised to find everything open after midnight! We bought some food and I had a Peruvian beer “La Cusquena”, which wasn’t exactly that great. We are in an extremely beautiful area and are excited about exploring things tomorrow. Another exciting find was a cigar shop which we will return to tomorrow! They had a window case full of cubans, but I am hoping to find something domestic. We are extremely exhausted now having not slept last night….Hopefully we will be able to add pictures tomorrow.