Machu Picchu

So, Machu Picchu: It was incredibly beautiful and hard to get to. First the getting there part: We took an overnight bus from San Pedro to Arica, the northernmost city in Chile. Our arrival time was supposed to be 7am, but there was an accident so we were sitting on the bus from about 6:30-9:00am. We were on the side of a mountain in the desert, and all we could see to our left was clouds. When we finally got to pass the accident, we saw that it was a truck carrying fish that had crashed, and there were fish all over the road and right up to the edge of the cliff. Very bizarre.

We crossed the border in a taxi and got to meet a Peruvian couple who were both doctors coming back from a conference in Argentina. The really stressful part began when we arrived at the bus station in Tacna, the first city in Peru. All our sources had informed us previously that it was only going to take 10 hours to get from Tacna to Cusco: in fact, it takes 16 with a stop. The bus left at 12:30 (luckily there’s a time difference of an hour between Chile and Peru, because we arrived in Tacna at 12:30 Chile Time), and was to arrive in Cusco at 6:00am. Our train, which we had already paid for and is the only way to get to Machu Picchu, left at 6:30. So, if the bus were late at all, we weren’t going to Machu Picchu! It was terrible and also meant spending a second night in a row on the bus, but in the end it all worked out, because we got there on time and everyone we met was really helpful.

Then we were finally in Machu Picchu! We stayed one night in a hostel in the town of Aguascalientes, which is not much but is where you have to stay when you’re there. The next morning we took the bus up the mountain; it’s a narrow dirt road that has switchbacks all the way up, and if there’s a bus coming down when you’re going up, somebody has to pull over to the side—a little scary! It was raining in the morning, but we wanted to get in there and climb Waynupicchu, which is the mountain behind the citadel, which doesn’t look so tall in the pictures, but it is! It was an hour of climbing on stone steps (exhausting!) and we were in a cloud the whole time. When I first caught a glimpse of Machu Picchu through the clouds, it was breathtaking.

When we were coming down it started to clear up and we could get an idea of how high up we were: very high! Besides the fact that the Incas made almost no engineering mistakes in the architecture of Machu Picchu, its being perched on top of a huge mountain is also incredible. We were allowed to walk all over the city; there are some suggested routes, but you can explore by yourself, too. A tour guide, Ernesto, was nice enough to invite us to join his group, some Americans from a financial company in Mississippi (really), so we followed them around for a while. We also met two women from Belgium who had been helping to build a school in Peru. The weather turned out to be perfect, too. Near the end of our day we went up to the other side of the city and sat for a while where we could see the postcard view, and hung out with some llamas. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I’m really thankful I got to go. It was worth all the challenges to get there and back!

When we got back to Arica, we had a morning to see the city before our flight back to Santiago (good decision not to take another 35 hour bus ride). Arica is getting famous for its surfing; we stayed in a hotel called Arica Surf House and got meet some of the surfers, two women from England and New Zealand. There’s a huge rock formation by the beach called the morro, which was impressive. And, it was 19 September, which in Chile means Fiestas Patrias! We missed the 18, which is independence day, but Chileans party all weekend. All over the country they set up ramadas, which are stands with games and typical food. Emily and I had asado de pollo (grilled chicken, very tasty) in a ramada called “Ramada Las Chicas Superpoderosas” (Powerpuff Girls Ramada). I don’t know why they all have cheesy names, but it was pretty funny. On our flight back, we had the most Chilean airline meal ever: empanadas de pino, bread, a salad with just tomatoes and onions, and a dulce de leche cake. Also we made two stops—we had three takeoffs and three landings within four hours.

Since then I’ve been studying and enjoying the fact that the weather is getting warmer. Next Saturday we have a tour of Santiago that highlights the political history of Chile. On Wednesday I had my first day as a volunteer at a girls’ school in Valparaíso helping to teach English. It was not easy because the girls behave so badly that the teacher can hardly do a lesson at all. But I got to talk with some of them who really wanted to learn, and I think working with them will be fun and worth it.