Day -1

It's December 27, 2004, the day before our trip. My flight is supposed to leave Halifax for Pittsburgh via Toronto at 6:00am. Jason is supposed to leave via Newark at 6:30am. We spent the night before at the Airport Hotel because there was supposed to be a snow storm. For once, the forecast was correct, and there was a blizzard. Both Jason and I ended up rebooking our flights a couple of times, and started camping out at the airport at around noon. It was interesting in a weird way - we ran into Dave and Reina Green, who were flying out to Philadelphia for a conference. I saw Erik Demaine, but we didn't get to talk (I wasn't sure that the person asleep on the floor was actually him, so I didn't want to wake him - we confirmed later on via email that it was him, so next time I won't be so polite!). Anyway, as you can see from the picture from the terminal looking out the window, nothing left. Only three flights made it out that night at about 8:00pm. I was lucky, since I was on the one flight to Toronto that made it out, and I was now (re)booked on a flight at 6:00am from Toronto to Pittsburgh. Jason, however, was stuck in Halifax. The problem with all this was that our flight to Lima left the next evening, so we were starting to get a little concerned about missing our trip!

Day 0

I spent the night sleeping on the floor in Toronto's Terminal 3. Jason spent the night at Jamie's in Halifax. I made it to Pittsburgh, and was at the apartment by 9:00am, needing to leave again at 3:00pm to go to Lima. This gave me time to unpack, do some laundry, shower, pack again, and fill out some forms at CMU for payroll! Meanwhile, Jason was still stuck in Halifax, and wouldn't make it to Pittsburgh until 5:00pm. However, since he was flying through Newark, he just waited there for me, and we both flew from there to Lima. Jason had two backpacks, a little one and his hiking one. He repacked them so that what he needed was in the little backpack, while the big one had things like the Christmas gifts! Thank god for left luggage (in Lima), which is where the big backpack was put for the trip!

Day 1

We arrived in Lima at 6:00am to find a madhouse of people, all vying for your attention. One woman helped us find lost luggage (so we could stash the Christmas gifts) and get a taxi ($15USD, which is a tad expensive). The driving in Lima is insane! There is no possible way to describe it! There is only ever two feet between you and other cars, and people will recklessly change lanes. And stop signs are really only suggestions and not absolutes. From the airport to Miraflores where we were staying was 30 mintues of absolutely nuts driving!

It turns out that the guesthouse we had booked (Hostal El Patio) was wonderful! (Thanks Lonely Planet!) The hostess was very helpful, and she had a room ready for us, even though it was only 8:00am. For anyone else traveling to Peru, I would highly recommend this place. It's only $55 USD/night (if you pay in cash, $60 otherwise), and you get a kitchenette with a small fridge and hotplate, and safe water is provided. I should mention at this point that it is NOT safe to drink the tap water in Peru - you are very likely to get Hepatitis A from doing this. In addition, the plumbing in Peru is very poor, so garbage cans are provided in the bathrooms for toilet paper - you can not flush it down the toilet because it is likely to clog.

For our first day in Peru, we started by walking to a place our hostess recommended to us for lunch. On the way there, my first impression of Peru is that it is very noisy. Cars are constantly beeping (I think this was mostly taxis, trying to get our attention to see if we needed a lift). We went to a restaurant called Al Fresco. If you go, I highly recommend their ceviche (fresh raw fish soaked in lemon juice and served with a spicy sauce) - it was excellent! After that we wandered down to the beach so I could stick my feet into the Pacific.

That evening we went to the grocery market Santa Isabella, which was a wonderful little store (it was recommended by our hostess, and is also mentioned in Lonely Planet), where we picked up some bread, water, and Inca Cola for supper. Inca Cola is a very popular soda which tastes kind of like bubble gum. I really liked it, but Jason found it a bit too sweet. What was interesting here was as we were walking to the store, a man was selling candy just outside and tried to see us some, pointing to his child. If you said no, the child had been trained to look at you and look really really sad.

The last bit of advice for anyone going to Lima - 4D (Quattro D) has great gelato! :)

Day 2

Up bright and early again - our flight to Cusco left at 6:00am, which meant that we had to be at the airport at 4:00. We had a great taxi driver - Fernando - and made arrangements for him to pick us up again when we returned. We flew into Cusco, which is 3800m above sea level. While getting our luggage, there were a number of little shops selling things, such as train tickets and tours. I suggested that we buy our train tickets to Macchu Picchu here, so we went to one of the booths, where we met Maria and Francisca. After talking to them for a bit, we got sucked into buying a complete package - taxi from our hotel to the train station, return train tickets on the Vista train, the bus ride to and from Macchu Picchu from Aguas Calientes, a day pass for Macchu Picchu and a guided tour while there, all for $170 USD each. (BTW, if you ever do this trip, train tickets are now $105 return for Vistadome and $75 for the backpacker train. Plus the bus ride is $12 return. And the day pass is $20. Going to Macchu Picchu is VERY expensive!) We paid for this in cash (fortunately there was a working ATM in the airport), after which Maria flagged down a taxi for us to get into the city.

While here, we stayed at Rumi Punku ($40/night), which is kind of neat. It has a nice open courtyard and three stories of rooms. One of the walls is an old Incan wall, which was very neat. We arrived very early (again!), and so no room was ready for us, but we were invited to go to the dining room for some tea while our room was cleaned. The tea in question was actually coca tea, made from fresh leaves (which is legal in Peru)! It's actually a very nice tea, and (we learned later) is supposed to help with tourista (traveller's diarrhea) and altitude sickness. After our tea, our room was ready, which was on the third floor. By the time we reached it, our heart's were pounding! (Jason described it as his "budgey heart"!) I do not recommend flying from sea level to 3800m!

After dumping our stuff, we decided to go for lunch and then wander through the city for a bit. Lunch was at Quinta Eulalia (again from the Lonely Planet - don't leave home without it!), which had traditional Andean food. I had choclo con queso (corn with a local cheese that's a bit like feta). Jason had a chicken dish. They had cuy available, but neither of us were feeling quite brave enough. (Cuy is guinea pig.) Someone at another table ordered it, and it came out whole, and looked like the poor thing was caught in mid flight. I'm not sure how one would go about eating it! Another neat thing is that three guys came in part way through the meal (which was just on a patio) and started playing some musical instruments, asking for a bit of money in return.

After lunch we went to the main plaza (Plaza de Armas) and just wandered the streets a bit (oh, and hit the bank to get some money - nearly everything is cash only). The picture here is of the main door of the cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. I put this picture up just because I kind of like it.

Since we were travelling around the New Year, all the children were off from school. (This would have been true for January to March too, since it is summer break for them.) So there were a tonne of children in the Plaza trying to sell things, ranging for small water-colour paintings to little finger puppets. Usually, we were pretty good at just saying no and walking away (warning - do NOT show any interest at all, unless you want to spend the next five minutes saying no!). However, one little girl asked us where we were from. We told her we were from Canada, so she named it's capital, the current prime minister and the previous prime minister. After that of course, we had to give her a little bit of money (3 soles, which is about $1 USD).

Jason and I went for a tour of some of the ruins just outside Cuzco, doing the tour on horse-back. As always happens when we do this, we were asked if either of us rode. Since I do (did? :( ), I always get the best horse, which annoys Jason no end! At one point, we were riding along the edge of a cliff, and Jason felt like his horse was a little too close to the edge. He thought his horse was trained Western, when in fact it was English. So he kept trying to direct the horse away from the cliff. However, the way he was doing it made the poor horse think that Jason wanted it to go off the cliff! Apparently the horse had his head thrown back and was looking at Jason with very large round eyes! Fortunately, the horse was not suicidal and so ignored Jason.

This is a picture of someone spinning wool at Tambo Machay (one of the ruins), which I think turned out quite nicely.

Unfortunately, on our way back from the tour, it started to rain, and got quite cold. We were expected to take a bus back into town (something we didn't know - we had been led to believe that there would be a cab). This was a problem, given that we had no change, having given it all to the spinner. We managed to communicate this to our tour guide, and were lucky enough to flag down a cab (cabs don't go to that area at night, apparently). So, as a warning, make sure that all this is worked out in advance! :)

When Jason and I made it back to the city, we went to one of the cafes in the main square and had a most excellent hot chocolate. On our way back to our room afterwards, we stopped in one of the silver shops, where Jason bought me a beautiful necklace and pendant that was hand-made from pure silver.

Day 3

On day 3 we got up early and caught the train to Aguas Calientes, which is the town at the base of Macchu Picchu. We saw some children who waved at the train as we were passing. I noticed this less on the way to Aguas Calientes than on the way back. On the way back I was really struck by the number of children that would wave to the train as it passed. In one memorable case, there were two women standing in a doorway while the train passed - one was probably in her twenties and the other her mother. Both were waving to the train and laughing, as if they were reliving being children.

There were only a couple of stops along the way to Aguas Calientes. At one of the stops, there were people who were selling stuff through the windows, including food and different crafts. For some reason, I really like this picture of one of the women selling dolls.

Once we made it on the train (backpacker, since the Vistadome was sold out, it being New Year's Eve and all), we realized we had no clue about the guided tour. We figured, oh well, we'd drop our stuff off at the hostel and head up on our own. About 30 minutes before our stop, some guy comes by and asks Jason if he is "Yason Rouffe". We figured that was close enough and said yes. Turns out he was our guide. So, when we got off the train, we found someone with a sign that said "Gringo Bill's" (which was our hostel for the night), dumped our bags with her, and went straight up to Macchu Picchu. This explains why, in this picture, I am dressed this way. The jeans and boots were because it was cold in Cusco (even though it was hot on Macchu Picchu - we didn't have a chance to change), and I'm wearing Jason's shirt to keep my sunburn from getting worse (since the sunscreen and bug spray were in our backpacks). If you go to Macchu Picchu, I highly recommend both sun screen and Deet. (On Day 4, when I wore shorts, I got about 20 bug bites before I sprayed myself with Deet - not smart.)

We spent the day wondering around Macchu Picchu, and then went back to the hostel for the evening. We had pizza for supper (!) along with a glass of wine, and then settled in to spend a quiet New Year's Eve together. Well, it was quiet up until the turning of the year, at which point someone lit lots of fire crackers. Also, the next morning, the streets were littered with confetti.

Day 4

On our second day at Macchu Picchu we were watching the llamas calmly grazing when a dalmation came out of nowhere and started chasing them. This was interesting, since the llamas can easily climb all over Macchu Picchu. As a result, there were llamas running by people in very narrow walkways between fields. The other interesting bit was that one llama decided to take on the dalmation, and won!

Below are some of the photos we took from Macchu Picchu.

In the afternoon, we returned from Macchu Picchu and browsed through the craft market for a while. We then went to Indio Feliz for supper, based on a recommendation from the Lonely Planet. While I normally swear by the Lonely Planet, I have to say that in this one case, we weren't impressed.

Day 5

On our last day in Aquas Calientes, we got up really early and caught the first bus to Macchu Picchu, which leaves at 6:00am. If you ever have the chance to go to Macchu Picchu, I highly recommend that you go first thing in the morning, for two reasons. The first is that you can watch the mist clear, which is amazing. The second is that there is almost no one else there, since most tourists just do day trips from Cusco and so don't arrive until around noon.

We came back from Macchu Picchu around noon, and went to one of the restaurants in Aguas Calientes for lunch. I had picante de quinzia, which was quite good. After that, Jason and I wondered around through the market for a while, but then Jason's tourista got the better of him, so we needed a restaurant with a good bathroom! We went to Toto's House, which sits between the tracks and the river, with a nice view of the river. We had some coca tea and dessert, and Jason fled to the bathroom the first chance he had! Unfortunately for the customers, the window of the bathroom opened onto the front of the restaurant. The front of the restaurant was clear when we left!

Late in the afternoon, we caught the train back to Cusco. I snuck this picture using the digital camera of a girl who was waiting for someone, while we were waiting for everyone to board and the train to leave.

On the train back from Cusco, it was suppertime and there was a thunderstorm. We ended up passing a number of people (both men and women) who were herding their cattle back home. For some reason I really like this picture of it.

Returning from Cusco, we took the Vista train instead of the backpacker train. This train had nicer seats, and everyone was facing forward, and their were more windows, but it was full of a lot more kitsh (since, I guess, the "rich" tourists take the Vista train!) and was much less friendly. One of the funny events was the playing of some Peruvian music with a "devil" who would dance up and down the aisle. What was fun about this is that he stopped at Jason, stroked his hair, and coo'd to him!

Day 6

- Lima - more shopping - fondue at La Tiendicita Blanca: playing the Corrs (Alanis Morisette also popular) - Santa Isabella was torched :( - woman with child selling candy outside craft market :(

Day 7

- Lima - catacombs at San Francisco Monastery (garbage in one) - APC when we turned the corner! (president's house) - llama on head at San Miguel (?) - pisco sour at Hotel Bolivar - child with basil begging - would throw pieces in the window at you and then stick hand in for money - brother was also doing cartwheels in the street trying to get money

Outside the courtward in the San Francisco Monastery

Stairs in the San Francisco Monastery

Skulls in catacombs - note the garbage :(

Day 8