Yes – the time has come. We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to see and hike upon one of the Seven Wonders of the World – Montaña Machu Picchu. Don’t skip straight to that yet, though. There are plenty of other really cool things you should read about too:
CONSTRUCTION:
Work has been filled with laughter and music (Maddy’s personal highlight: Time of my Life from Dirty Dancing) our past few work days per usual, and we had a few new volunteers join us at our construction site. One volunteer, a girl named Esti who studies architecture in the United Kingdom, is a new member of our “Peru Crew.” We’ve just met her today and done several excursions with her and have planned several more for later this week. Today in construction, we finished varnishing the table, chairs and benches for the classrooms. We are starting a new construction project in tomorrow morning. We will be building shelters for stray dogs with our construction leader, Marco, and we heard that we may have to opportunity to play with the ~40 dogs we are building houses for!
FOOD:
This week we really branched out in our food choices. On Friday, we indulged in pizza. On Saturday and Sunday, we enjoyed Mexican quesadillas and fajitas. Today, we ate Korean food. Yes, I know, it doesn’t sound like we’ve really been immersing ourselves in traditional Peruvian food. But actually, we’ve been eating lots of it as well, we swear!
After a week of hearing about the classic Peruvian drink Chicha Morada, we finally had a chance to try it on our bus to Machu Picchu. We were unsure of what to expect, but the consensus was overwhelmingly positive. Essentially, Chicha Morada tastes like herbal grape juice.
Today, we visited Choco Museo (the Cusco Chocolate Museum). On our tour we learned about the chocolate making process, but more importantly got to try lots of chocolate. We tried cocoa beans, chocolate tea, dark/milk/white chocolate from various places in Peru, chocolate jam, and chocolate liqueur. We all walked away very satisfied, but longing for more.
MACHU PICCHU:
This weekend we were fortunate enough to visit one of the seven wonders of the world.
The weekend started with a pre-departure meeting where we received our train, bus, and entry tickets. We were urged to check our names and passport numbers, as the entrance to Machu Picchu is supposedly very strict with that information. Let me assure you they are not. Both Hannah Shilian and Hannah Scharpiro, both with incorrect passport numbers, were allowed in (despite my name actually being Hannah Schapiro).
After spending a day in Aguas Calientes (hot waters) where we relaxed in their “hot springs” (which ended up being small semi-warm but actually kind of cold pools in which people rubbed rocks on their faces), we crashed early so we would be well rested for our early morning.
Our alarms went off at 4AM Sunday morning and we joined the other 400 people in line waiting for the buses to start running at 5:30AM. It was finally our turn and we ascended to the entrance half an hour up the mountain. We were initially a bit underwhelmed and bummed because of the lluvia (rain), but it ended up being a blessing because….
We hiked up a mountain.
Now if you’re keeping up with our blog posts, you know that some of us are not as fit as we believe and walking up 3 stairs leaves us breathless. Now imagine instead of 3 steps it is actually hundreds of steps hugged by a cliff on one side and dirt/rocks on the other. Oh and don’t forget the high altitude. Without the rain the sun would’ve been shining and we would’ve been much hotter and much sweatier than we were three and a half hours later at the end of our hike.
I don’t really need to say much more about how worth it the hike was- look at these pictures and you’ll understand. It was mysterious and mystical being at the top of the mountain looking down on ruins from hundreds of years with clouds surrounding us.
After maneuvering down the hundreds of slippery steps we went on a tour of the actual ruins. Machu Picchu, which translates to “Old Mountain” in Quechua, is divided into three distinct sections: agricultural, residential, and religious. We saw the Sun Temple, the Temple of Condors, some residential homes, and flat terraces built into the mountain. The population of Machu Picchu was somewhere between 800 and 1,000 people.
Post-tour, we started another hike to the Inca Bridge, but bailed halfway to play Cambio. Stay tuned for an in depth explanation of our new favorite card game and addiction.
Five exhausted EGLers headed back to the train. Our exhaustion lasted about 40 minutes when the train suddenly stopped, on came salsa music and a wolf-clown came dancing down the aisle. Then there was a fashion show for Perurail-specific Alpaca clothing. This is probably the weirdest experience we have ever had on a train, but let me assure you we were not dreaming. Here’s proof:
Overall it was an amazing experience that left us all in awe. We are so fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit one of the most beautiful places on earth.
The excursions haven’t stopped after Machu Picchu, there are still so many more places in Peru that we haven’t seen yet.
Today we went to Cristo Blanco and Sacsayhuaman… Take some time… Sound it out… Yes it really does sound like “sexy woman.” But when we got there we figured out that it was actually just some pretty spectacular Incan ruins.
One of the coolest parts of these ruins were the slides that were built into the natural stone for young Incans to enjoy. We of course took the opportunity to slide down these as well and the “best lungs” award went to Maddy in a landslide.
KEY LEARNINGS:
- Chocolate tea (tasted at the Choco Museo) offers the same health benefits as chocolate and has a similarly great taste
- Llamas, seen at almost every historic site such as Machu Picchu as well as Sacsayhuaman serve as natural lawn mowers, as they don’t pull the grass out by its roots but only shorten it
- You can barter not only at markets but at restaurants as well – especially those near Machu Picchu. Waiters changed the prices of the menu in a snap due to ‘happy hour’ or other random circumstances to get you to eat there. Once I asked how much the quinoa soup was (which wasn’t even on the menu but I’m a big fan so I get it almost everywhere) and the waiter replied “uh 15 soles”
- If you plan on being able to hike up Montana Machu Picchu, plan to arrive in the line at 4:30 a.m. to get there between 7 and 8 to start your hike. The line is incredibly long – but surprisingly not boring as we were all reading the Michigan Engineering Common Reading book “Spare Parts”…
- You never know what’ll happen when you get on a train in Peru. On our train ride back, we experienced an incredibly unforeseen fashion show by the very people who had served us food and drinks just minutes before
- If you’re in a hurry at a restaurant, ask for la cuenta (the check) early on, or else you may be there quite a while
- Outlets in Peru are pretty cool because they work for both US and European plugs. Why aren’t all outlets shaped like those here?
- Michigan Wolverines are EVERYWHERE. We’ve now heard “Go Blue” a total of four times on our just over one-week trip
- There are much too many opportunities for Mexican food near Machu Picchu. Not sure why, but also slightly ashamed that we ate it twice. Sometimes you just really want a quesadilla.
- At the Machu Picchu Incan ruins, doors that faced east were once houses and doors that faced any other directions were for storage. Thought it would be helpful to know if you were looking to live there. After seeing our pictures I’m sure it’s tempting.
EGL Family Abroad 