We arrived at Lima fairly late and had to take a taxi to a hostal. We stayed near the historic center which was pretty cool. Our hostal was a bit decadent and overdecorated with tons of pseudo Greek sculptures. We also had a terrace with a bunch of exotic animals. The next day was Christmas Eve so we walked around and admired the Christmas decorations. It was fairly American with tons of Santa Clauses and Christmas trees. Even churches joined in the commercialization. They had the usual nativity scenes, but with flashing lights and sometimes they even had electronic beeping versions of jingle bells going on. Lima was pretty cool though. The main square was huge and had some pretty impressive churches and the President's house. We also walked to a water fountain park. They did pretty cool things with the different fountains such as making a tunnel of water that you could walk underneath. For dinner we went to a fairly fancy restaurant where our waiter pretty much ordered for me. I ended up with a huge plate filled with seafood. It was delicious. That night they shot off fireworks for Christmas. It was awesome. We had a nice view from the roof of our hostal.
On Christmas day we walked around and watched a variety of parades going on. People were dressed up in indigenous clothes or animal costumes and were dancing in front of churches. I ended up getting a hug from what I think was a gorilla in a red hat. Other people wore antlers or bird wings as hats. There was also a slow procession where people carried a throne with a baby Jesus on it. They would stop every block or so and people would hand a priest stuff to get blessed. The priest would then take the object (this could be anything from a card to a child) and hold it up to Jesus and mutter some prayers. Then the procession would continue. In the afternoon we had to leave however, so we took a bus to Arequipa. The bus ride lasted about 16 hours. The beginning of the journey was during the day so we could see how we were riding past a big desert on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. It was pretty nice. They showed movies on the bus, but unfortunately they were all chick flicks and/or really stupid comedies. The bus (Cruz del Sur) was pretty comfortable so I got a pretty good nights sleep. We arrived in Arequipa pretty early.
Arequipa is a colonial town where most of the colonial buildings are built out of a white volcanic rock. It was pretty cool, but there wasn't much to do in the town. We spent a night there and we spent our days visiting some of the many churches and museums. They also had some old colonial mansions that were fun to see. The best part of Arequipa was an old convent they had. It was pretty much a miniature city in itself. There were plenty of little houses and alleys one could visit. After Arequipa we decided to head to Cuzco. This bus ride was a bit shorter and was only around 10 hours I think. We found a cheaper option than the first bus company, but this turned out to be a mistake. Although the movies they showed were much better, there was absolutely no leg room for Stephan and me. I hardly got any sleep and was exhausted the first day in Cuzco.
Cuzco was probably my favorite part of Peru. It had tons of churches although they all looked alike. Luckily they all looked cool. Since Cuzco is relatively safe, we didn't have a problem aimlessly wandering around back alleys and streets. We ended up finding a street market where they sold just about every part of animals. This included wheelbarrows filled with sheep heads. Besides that little adventure, we spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to get to Machu Picchu without spending a fortune. Eventually we figured out how to get there the next day. This was pretty cool because that was also my birthday. The only down side was that we had to get up at 4 to be able to catch a bus to get to the train station in time.
We got to the train station on time and from there took a very scenic train ride to the town of Aguas Calientes. The whole town is based on tourism. They sell tons of overpriced junk and every restaurant in town was a pizzeria. We had to spend the night there because all trains back were full. So we went to the cheapest hostal there and then headed up to the ruins. Machu Picchu was absolutely amazing. In the morning there was light rain, but the ruins were covered in fog and looked pretty magical. Eventually the sun came out and we had great weather the rest of the day. There were tons of llamas hanging around. There were lots of tourists but it wasn't overwhelming. Not too many people go on vacation to Peru during the end of December so it was pretty nice. We spent several hours walking around the ruins. Back in Aguas Calientes we decided to have pizza for dinner, given our many options.
We took the train the next day to Ollantaytambo which is the end station of the train. On the train we met a couple of Argentinians. It was pretty cool because I could recognize their accent which kinda gave me a feeling for how much my Spanish has improved this semester. Anyway, in Ollantaytambo there were several ruins overlooking the town so we decided to visit them and head to Cuzco that night. Apparently, one of the ruins was the site of one of the few victories of the Inca over the Spanish. The ruins were lots of fun because there was virtually nobody there. The town itself was also cool. It had loads of tiny alleys. When we decided to return to Cuzco we ended up finding a taxi driver who had a fixed price which would be cheaper for us if we found two more people. Luckily there we ran into two girls called Rachel and Alba who were also going to Cuzco so we ended up sharing the taxi there. Our taxi driver was called Rolando, and it turned out that he was a guide. He gave us a free tour on the way back where he stopped at several places and told us about them. He also taught us how to chew coca leaves. He then offered us a full tour the next day which we decided to do. We ended up eating guinea pig for dinner, which was, as usual, delicious.
We ended up meeting with Rolando in Cuzco early the next day. We went to a market and bought a huge loaf of bread, a huge chunk of cheese, various fruits, and wine for a picnic lunch later on. Then Rolando took us to various religious sites where we made sacrifices of coca leaves and wine to Pachamama (mother earth). We also went to a sacred stream where we all got healed. Then we visited several other ruins. Since I was the only one of the four of us who could speak Spanish, I ended up being Rolando's translator which was pretty cool. We got done with our tour in the early evening. Since it was New Year's Eve, Stephan and I met with Rachel and Alba later that night to celebrate. In Cuzco, the tradition was to go to the main square and then run around it at midnight. We got there much earlier though, but fireworks were going off starting in the early afternoon. It was packed but loads of fun.
Stephan and I spent the next day visiting other ruins around Cuzco. We took a bus about 8 kilometers away and then walked back, hitting up four other ruins along the way. It was a nice walk and most of the ruins were cool. Since Ecuador barely had any, this was a nice change. Pretty much all of them were more impressive than Ingapirca in Ecuador. The next day we took another bus to Puno. This bus ride was only 6 hours long. Puno is a city right next to Lake Titicaca. We ended up agreeing to a tour of the main sights on the lake for the next day.
Lake Titicaca was pretty cool because of how big it was, but it was way too commercialized for my taste. Our first stop on the lake were reed islands. These were entirely built out of reeds, as were the houses on it. While it sounds really cool, it seemed that the people didn't actually live on them and only pretended to so that they could sell us a bunch of useless junk. From there we took a boat another two or three hours to a different island. This one was inhabited by a bunch of people who wore hats that resembled hats that Santa's elves would wear. Depending on the color you could tell if a guy was married or single. Again, this seemed pretty fake and only there to get tourists to buy their souvenirs. After that island we headed back to Puno. At this point, we only had about two days to get back to Lima in order to catch our plane back, so we had to book a bus back. There were no direct buses so we had a one hour layover in Arequipa. The total bus journey was 22 hours. It actually wasn't as miserable as I would have expected. We ended up with seats at the front of the bus. Since we were on the second floor, we had a huge window where we could see where we were driving. Plus we played a game of bingo, and I'm pretty proud to say that not only am I a Peruvian Bus Bingo Champion, I'm also undefeated in bingo in the Southern Hemisphere.
We didn't do much in Lima besides walk around and get to the airport. We flew back into Guayaquil but immediately took a 6 hour bus back to Cuenca. In Cuenca we did most of the things I did back in November. There was some parade going on the first night there for Epiphany. Almost everyone was dressed in costume, even those who were not in the parade. From Cuenca we took a day trip to Cajas, and then returned to Quito. I said goodbye to my host family and picked up my suitcase, ate an entire box of ice cream with my brother in the park Carolina before heading back to the US. Unfortunately my flight from Miami to Philadelphia was canceled due to bad weather, so I had to spend the day in Miami. I took a bus down to South Beach, but got several weird looks because I was wearing indigenous pants because they are incredibly comfortable and I had no other clothes with me. I ended up sleeping on an airport bench overnight before leaving ridiculously early to catch a different plane to Philadelphia.
That's pretty much it from the last things I've done in South America. I doubt I'll update this again, since my life in the US is much less interesting. Thanks for reading.
The convent in Arequipa
A park in Guayaquil with iguanas chilling
Reed Islands with locals peddling their goods
I am incredibly proud of this picture.
Christmas procession with baby Jesus
