Copacabana!

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone hears Copacabana and automatically things Brazil, but the Copacabana I was in is actually a tiny tourist city on the shore of Lake Titicaca, right on the border of Peru and Bolivia.

On my full day in this beach town, I decided to take a day trip out to Isla de Sol. Though I’d seen the floating islands in Puno, I’d heard and read about Isla de Sol as a completely different experience — its scenery makes you feel as though you’re on a greek island, until you see the view of the snow capped mountains over the ocean. Boats leave Copacabana at 8:30 AM and take 2 1/2 hours to arrive at the northern tip of the Isla de Sol so I was up at 6:45 to shower (with hot water and good water pressure, totally worth the splurge on my fancy hotel!) and grab breakfast as soon as my hotel restaurant opened at 7:30 AM. For 59 Bolivianos, about $8.50, I got a cafe con leech, an egg scramble with cheese, olives, onions and tomatoes, wheat bread, and a “boxed lunch” which included a sandwich, drinkable yogurt, apple, chips, chocolate bar and water bottle. Bolivia is so damn cheap!

I walked the five minutes down to the beach to catch the boat, which cost me 30 bolivianos (just over $4) for a round trip ticket. The ride to the northern part of the Island was long and cold, and there was a group of a few very loud portuguese-speaking folks who were way too loud for 9 AM in the middle of a lake. I sat next to a nice German guy named Martin, and in between attempting to sleep, we had some good conversation. He, like most people making the trip, was going to spend the night on the island at one of the many basic, but cheap, hostels. Unfortunately, since I had already booked my hotel and didn’t have more than a day and a half in Copacabana, I didn’t have time to take more than a day trip. When you go for the day, most tourists walk the 8 km from the northern tip to the southern port, where you can catch the last boat back to Copacabana at 3:30 PM.

Once we got off the boat I quickly discovered there was nobody at the tourist office who spoke a word of English. Thankfully, a super sweet French-Canadian guy who spoke some Spanish helped me translate, and pointed me in the right direction of the boleto (ticket) office and the walk I wanted to do. He was traveling with a friend and his older sister, and the four of us ended up doing the majority of the 3-4 hour walk from the north of the island to the south together.

When I read on trip advisor that some of the walk would take your breath away, I had no idea that actually meant that the walk was full of steep paths up multiple hills. There were (many) moments where I was cursing my decision to do the walk, at the same time barely able to catch my breath. Even though the altitude in Cusco is similar to the altitude in Copacabana, it seems to be affecting me a lot more down here — I’m out of breath so much more than I was on my trek, and I did ten times the amount of walking in Peru!

The first forty five minutes of the walk was uphill to a section of runs which, to say the least, were quite unimpressive. Maybe because I just saw such spectacular Inca buildings up north in Peru, but the measly wall we had walked to was definitely not worth the extra time. Oh well!

The rest of the walk was beautiful, but because the four of us were a bit concerned about making it across the island before 3:30, we did it quite quickly. It was nice to have people to push me along, since there were certainly points where I would have stopped, or simply collapsed! It was also nice to have company and conversation, even if I did have a hard time understanding their Québécois English!

Along the way, there were several checkpoints where you had to pay 10 or 15 bolivianos to pass. I’d read about this in my guidebook and was warned at my hotel, but most people doing the walk didn’t realize and were relatively unhappy about having to fork over the extra cash. It seemed silly to be upset about forking over a dollar or two, I was happy to support the locals, and in the scheme of this trip, a few dollars seemed like nothing. It was disappointing to hear so many grumbles, instead of willingness to support the locals and such a beautiful island.

Once we reached the southern part of the island, I was relatively close to wanting to pass out. I hadn’t eaten in several hours but luckily had my very cheap boxed lunch, so while the group of Canadians continued walking to a section of restaurants, I took a seat on a shaded concrete staircase with a beautiful view of the lake and ate my sandwich (which, unfortunately, turned out to consist mostly of a disgusting mystery cheese, so I mostly ate the bread, tomato and cucumber). While I was sitting, another group of English-speakers (two English guys and a girl from Iceland) passed and started talking to me about the unimpressive ruins we’d seen on the beginning of the walk. I gave up my seat and walked the rest of the way to the harbor with them, a good distraction since we had to make our way down some seriously steep, rocky stairs. One thing is for sure: I’ve had enough with the narrow, steep stairs!

My new friends didn’t bring lunch with them, so I sat with them at a restaurant and shared some of my trail mix (Trader Joe’s cran-almond-cashew mix shlepped all the way from Boston — so worth it in that moment) while they ate their over-priced and unimpressive pollo sandwiches.

Then came the boat ride from hell. Okay, I exaggerate. But between the harsh rocking of the very small boat, the loud talking of everyone around me, and the very harsh, hot sun beating down intensely on the back of my head and neck, I was not a happy camper. The ride back to Copacabana was only an hour and a half, but by the end I was seriously convinced I was going to hurl out of the side of the boat. Luckily I didn’t, and was able to (somehow) stumble up the stairs from the beach and back to my hostel to sleep off the nausea.  My plan was to nap for an hour and a half and then sit in the TV room of my hotel with my laptop and catch up on blogging, eat some dinner and relax. Instead, I woke up at 10:30 PM completely confused, and soon realized the restaurant was closed and I couldn’t get dinner. So instead, I changed into sweats and passed back out. I woke up in a cold sweat at 5 AM from a dream that I’d somehow misunderstood the time of my bus down to La Paz and therefore missed my only chance out of Copacabana. So unrealistic, but definitely not a fun way to wake up!

I slept on and off for the next two hours, then woke myself up to triple check the time of my bus (13:00 PM, just as I had thought, but I’m consistently paranoid about misreading 24 hour time). I also realized that on my paperwork, the company I had booked with said I should have a voucher ticket in my email, which I of course never received. So I spent the first hour and a half of my day emailing/chatting them, trying to get the voucher and figure out if I needed to print it. I also made a friend while I sat in the kitchen eating my leftover breakfast from yesterday: an orange cat who decided her new favorite spot was my lap, and absolutely refused to move from her spot on my thighs no matter what I did. She kept me warm though, so I didn’t complain, at least not until she started crawling all over my keyboard in an attempt to snag some of my breakfast.

After I got my voucher situation sorted out, I checked out of my room, stuck my stuff in storage and made my way “downtown.” Copacabana itself is a relatively unimpressive town — it’s on the lake and nestled between two mountains so the scenery is great, but the actual town leaves something to be desired. Similar to Puno, it’s very hilly and mostly filled with hostels, hotels, and tourist “pizzeria” restaurants everywhere you turn. It was, however, a perfect picturesque place to do some relaxing (or in my case, lots of sleeping) without feeling like you’re missing anything. I did some wandering and considered making my way up one of the very steep mountains to some ruins, but the combination of feeling short of breath from the altitude, realizing how sore my legs were from the walk yesterday, and simply looking up the path, I decided to just appreciate them from the base of the hill. During my wandering, I happened upon a concrete plaza with a small church, which actually had some really beautiful views of the lake and town, so sat in the shade and talked to a guy from Rhode Island whose wife, from Boston, was making her way to the top of the lookout.

From there I went to a small, ex-Pat run cafe and got a deliciously sweet banana milkshake and some eggs, then walked back to my hotel to grab my bags and get a taxi to the bus station.

Turns out the “bus station” I thought I was going to was actually just a small storefront, where Vicuna Tours has their office. I was told specifically to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to the departure of my 1 PM bus, but I sat in an empty office between 12:25 and 12:45 until someone finally showed up to check my ticket. Naturally, since I was there so early, our bus didn’t actually leave Copacabana until closer to 1:30. I’m learning this is very typical — South American time is something else!

About an hour into our bus ride, the driver’s assistant came into the back of the bus (the bus has a separate front section for the driver and front passenger with a door to the main cabin of the bus) and made an announcement in Spanish. My paranoid self decided he was saying that the bus wasn’t working properly (I’d seen them fiddling with the engine while I was patiently waiting to board at the office in Copacabana) and that we needed to buy a ticket for another bus. Thankfully, the nice American man sitting next to me translated and explained that we had to get off the bus to buy a ferry ticket across the lake. Uhm, what?

Turns out there is no bridge across the lake, and the only way to cross is by tiny motor boat. Meanwhile, the busses are boated across on wide, wooden platform boats that look like they’re going to spring a leak and sink into the lake at any moment.

Silly me, I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t get on another boat this trip. Little did I know…

This boat ride was also rather rocky and nausea-inducing, luckily it was only a 7 minute trip to the other side. From the shore, I watched our bus teeter its way across on its own ship, convinced at any minute it was going to topple into the lake. Once our bus (miraculously) made it across 15 minutes later, we hopped back on and were on our way. I didn’t ask the obvious question to anyone I interacted with during that half an hour excursion, but all I can think, to this day, is “Why don’t they build a damn bridge?”

The bus dropped us off in La Paz on a random street corner, handed us our luggage and disappeared. I, along with many of the other passengers, were totally confused and had read lots of things about the dangers of taking unofficial taxis in Bolivia, so a couple from London and I finally flagged down a Radio taxi that we shared to the other side of town where we were all staying.

Once I got to my hostel in La Paz it was already 7 PM and I was unmotivated to wander the city past dark on my own. I was relatively exhausted and happy to have a regular, working wifi connection, so I stayed in, caught up on blogging and sorting through my photos, ordered a caprese sandwich from the bar and called it a night!

Floating islands tour and crossing the Bolivian border

Posted on by
Reply

After my conversation with both the receptionist at my hotel and the tourist office on the main square the night prior, I got the impression that Puno isn’t exactly a safe, happy tourist town the way Cusco is. It certainly isn’t beautiful or picturesque either, and I’m glad I only had 24 hours there, I definitely wasn’t upset upset to be leaving so soon. My floating islands tour was a bit frustrating — I was with a group of 5 Argentinians speaking in very loud, fast spanish, a Russian couple who shoved their way to the front of everything to get a ridiculous number of photos, and a Japanese woman who got on the boat and immediately took her socks and shoes off and began scratching her scab-covered feet. So bizarre.

Our “tour” was supposed to be bilingual but it wasn’t much of a tour at all. Our guide didn’t speak a word the entire 30 minute boat ride to the islands, and once we got off onto one of the floating islands he explained a few things for less than 10 minutes, almost entirely in Spanish. When I got frustrated and tried to tell him I couldn’t understand the Spanish explanations, he said “Oh, sorry” and then continued speaking in Spanish. And on top of that, the Argentine girls kept yelling and shouting things over everyone else, asking questions and getting answers that I also couldn’t understand. Regardless of the weird group, the floating islands and our boat ride were really interesting, and I’m glad I got to see them, even if I didn’t really enjoy them. It was a strange reality to observe these families living on individual islands, meant just for them and their close family members. It was hard in many ways to tell what was authentic about their lifestyle and what was a sort of show for the hundreds of tourists that come to their island each month.

I will admit it was a very unique experience to be standing on an island made entirely of reeds, suspended above an enormous lake. Lake Titicaca from the Peruvian side is beautiful in its expansiveness, and very calm, in comparison to Bolivia’s side. If I were to do it again, I’d probably skip Puno entirely and spend more time in Copacabana instead, but I’m glad I had the chance to do them both, and I know for next time!

One of the family members of the island we visited spoke relatively good English, so he took me inside his home and showed me around. He explained that he goes to Puno once a week to get groceries and anything else the family needs, but that high school children go to the city every day. Elementary school children are educated in the island community on the “main island,” another floating island just a few minutes away by boat. Once we paid an additional 5 soles, the family took us on an extra boat ride around the islands on their personal boat. Though I was happy to give them the $2, I felt sort of obliged to go on the boat ride. I also felt a lot of pressure to buy the unimpressive souvenirs they were selling. Saying “no, gracias” just didn’t seem good enough, and it was frustrating that I’d pay to go on a tour to feel pressured to spend more money. The whole experience felt very touristy and very routine, which I didn’t enjoy.

When I got back to Puno after the tour I had an hour or so at the hotel before I had to be at the bus station, so I asked the guy at my hostel for a good local restaurant recommendation. His answer? He couldn’t suggest anything good in the area aside from the restaurant I’d already eaten at last night. Not so impressive, and also made me glad I was leaving! I ended up walking down to the main square and getting a cheap chicken sandwich at a local heladeria. Not great, but for 4 soles, it did the trick!

A few minutes after I got back to the hotel from lunch, a woman rushed into the lobby, calling my name frantically. For some reason I still can’t figure out, she had my bus ticket for the bus to Bolivia I was getting on in an hour and a half in her hand. I was under the impression I needed to pick up the ticket with my passport at the actual bus station, which is why I was planning to get there an hour early, and was super confused as to who she was and what was going on. I kept trying to ask questions, but she and the hotel clerk spoke to each other in Spanish and didn’t really explain anything to me, all I know is that she somehow was connected to GTB, and she had my name on the bus ticket, spelled “Racel Cusman.”

In the end she just handed me my ticket, called me a cab, and warned as it pulled away that I shouldn’t pay more than 4 soles for the ride. When I finally got to the bus station, I had to ask 3 people questions before I figured out I needed to pay a 1 soles tax on my ticket out of the city. Sweaty and frustrated, I finally found my bus.

The guys in charge made sure I had all my paper work, a photocopy of my passport, a photo for my visa, and my paperwork from entering Peru. Their diligence in checking my paperwork made me feel a bit reassured, but not much. I was very anxious for the entire 2 1/2 hour bus ride — crossing the border to Bolivia was something I had read a ton about and was the most nervous for during the entire 10 days of my time alone. I had heard such crazy things, including my friend Sarah getting left at the visa office, of people being scammed, etc. As we were driving, I kept thinking we were finally at the border but it turned out we weren’t even close.

The actual border crossing wasn’t as horrific as I had imagined, but it was quite bizarre. When the bus pulled up, the driver made the 3 Americans get off first, in anticipation of us taking the longest. First, I had to get my passport stamped out on the Peruvian side twice, in two separate offices, one right next to the other. Then I had to walk up the hill to Bolivia and into the visa office, a tiny whole-in-the-wall building that looked far from official. There, I had fill out a visa application form. Once I handed the officer my application, all of my customs forms, the copy of my passport and my passport photo, I then had to watch him deeply inspect my $20 bills (Americans have to pay $135 as an entrance/visa fee) for any possible tiny rip or flaw. He could have cared less what was actually written on my forms, what I was doing in the country, where I was going or who I was, but because one of my $20’s had a slight line at the top, middle part of the bill where it had been folded, he simply crossed his arms and said he wouldn’t accept it. Luckily, another guy in line from my bus, also from California, had extra $20’s on him, so he was willing to trade one of his bills with me. Not sure what I would have done otherwise — seriously ridiculous!

After the officer finally accepted my money, he put a visa sticker in my passport saying my entrance fee gave me until 2017 to come back to visit the country, then sent me across the room to another border control officer who took my immigration paperwork, very slowly stamped my forms and my passport, then wrote a “90” next to my stamp, which apparently means I can be in the country for 90 days on this visit.

My heart racing, I left the building and was more than relieved to see my bus was sitting outside, my luggage intact. It was a very short drive from the border into Copacabana, but I got to see an absolutely beautiful sunset over the lake, which was very calming!

When I got off the bus in town and tried to ask a handful of people if they could help me get a taxi, no one would help or even give me a map. Finally, one guy told me I couldn’t get a taxi, that my hotel was just 2 blocks “up” and that I had to walk. So with my purse, backpack and very heavy duffel bag, I shlepped myself up the relatively steep hill, thankful to see signs with my hotel name, pointing me in the right direction. Even though I’ve been up in Cusco since Saturday evening, the altitude in Copacabana immediately started getting to me — I had a major headache from sitting on the bus, and I was huffing and puffing by the time I got the three blocks, uphill, to Hotel Cupula. So much for being in shape after my trek!

After I checked in I spent an hour or so in the TV room, watching Rain Man with a couple from Sweden (I’m telling you, there are SO many couples traveling around South America — who knew?!) and reading about Isla de Sol and Copacabana online. I had a quinoa salad for dinner at the hotel restaurant that would have been good had it not been absolutely drenched in balsamic vinegar. It was wonderful to have a private room at my hotel, even though I was paying $20 a night instead of the $10 average at most hostels in the city, I was in desperate need of a room to myself — well worth the extra $20 splurge!

Back in Cusco, then heading down to Puno

Posted on by
Reply

On my first day back in Cusco after the trek, I was planning to let myself sleep in as late as possible but when you sleep at a hostel in an 8 bed dorm room someone is bound to wake you up. That, and I think my body has officially adjusted to early alarms!

When I had stayed at the Pariwana hostel before my trek I really liked the girls in my room, but my second time there I had a mix of not so friendly roommates which was kind of a bummer. Three of them were friends traveling together from New Jersey, so I was excited to have some east coast bonding time, but they weren’t at all interested in talking to me or hearing my advice about Machu Picchu, so I gave up trying. The other two girls were Norwegian and nice enough, but fairly loud at odd hours, and not very interested in making friends either.

That morning, the Norwegian girls warned me that the shower was ice cold, and needless to say, I was not a happy camper. A half hour later I decided to try it out anyways and luckily there was scalding water coming through the shower head. There is no such thing as a nice, hot shower in South America. You’re either burning your skin off or freezing cold, it’s nearly impossible to find a happy medium.

Since I hadn’t met anyone at the hostel I wanted to spend time with, I spent the majority of the day wandering the streets of Cusco, having Rachel time, and falling even more in love with the city. It was definitely an adjustment to go from having 5 constant companions and a tour guide to coordinate everything to suddenly being on my own again, and I was a little emotional that the trek was over, since it was the part of my trip I was so highly anticipating. Regardless, I had a really wonderful Sunday!

I walked over to the local San Pedro market and saw more dead, skinned animals that I’d like to remember, wandered up the hills to San Blas square and ate at Jack’s Cafe, an amazing restaurant run by an Australian guy, where I had one of the best veggie burgers of my life. I went souvenir shopping and perusing, then ended up back at the Plaza de Armas to watch a huge festival/parade. I got a fresh passionfruit-pineapple juice at a local juice market on the square, then wandered into McCoy, an English-run pub that Stian and Gene had told me about on our trek. Coincidentally, I walked upstairs and there they were!

I hung out with them for a bit, then Hege pointed me in the direction of the amazing, and very cheap, massage place she’d tried out earlier in the week. For 25 soles, just over $9, I got a great back and neck massage. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to let her massage my legs because they were seriously sunburnt from sitting in the sun at Machu Picchu all morning the day before. Oops.

I went back to my hostel to do some research on places to stay in La Paz, committed to a large, but very cheap, party hostel because it seemed like the best option, then met Stian and Gene back at McCoy for dinner.

When I walked back into McCoy, I ran into one of the girls we had gone rafting with on our trek — she was from another group doing the same trail at the same time as us. It’s a very small world in Cusco, since everyone is there mostly to go to/from Machu Picchu, and it was great to run into her again!

Monday, June 18 — Driving from Cusco to Puno

On Monday morning, I was up bright and early for my 10 hour tour bus ride from Cusco down to Puno. I got to the tour office at 7 AM, as suggested, to find that my name wasn’t on the reservation list. Considering I had booked this bus over a month ago, I was relatively pissed, but thankfully a phone call to the tour company’s main offices and then another to the GTB offices got everything sorted out.

The drive down to Puno from Cusco is between 7 and 8 hours and most people, like Dan and Millie, opt to do it overnight. I chose to do a day trip that stopped at four different ruins sites, plus a fifth stop for a buffet lunch. It was a nice way to break up the drive, and I love staring out the windows at the scenery, so I was happy to do the drive during the day instead.

I was traveling on a relatively luxurious bus with a group of 50 tourists, including 15 older Australian tourists, most of whom were grandparents. They were super cute and kept asking me lots of questions about LA and traveling by myself, much different from meeting young, dirty, hostel-staying travelers like myself!

The first ruins we stopped at were Inca ruins and were really interesting — much different than anything I’d seen in Northern Peru as they were constructed with adobe, not just stone. Our second stop was a very ornate church that had been used by multiple denominations — interesting, but absolutely FREEZING inside! Our third stop was at La Raya — a gorgeous outlook where we officially left the Cusco region of Peru where you could see the beautiful snow-capped mountains. Our last stop was a pre-Inca museum that was very run down and almost entirely in Spanish, so unfortunately, it felt mostly like a waste of time.

Our buffet lunch, however, in between all of our stops was delicious, and we got to hang out with llamas and alpacas in the fields outside the restaurant after we ate, which was pretty sweet. Check out these action shots from when I tried to pose with the llama — it tried to spit on me!!

When I got to my hostel in Puno, I was very proud of myself for carrying on a conversation with the receptionist almost entirely in Spanish. Granted it was very basic Spanish, but it was much better than giving a blank stare and a typical gringa “No Habla Espanol” answer.

I wasn’t quite hungry when I got in, so I wandered down to the main square and went into a tourist information office to ask a few questions. I was going to be ambitious and wake up early, before my 8:45 AM floating islands tour, and hike up to an outlook I’d read about in my guidebook. The woman at information, however, told me it was relatively unsafe to do on my own, especially around sunrise, and even though I was disappointed, I took her advice and chose not to go.

I got dinner at a cute restaurant I’d read about in my guidebook and recomended by my hostel. I had an adorable table on the second floor overlooking the plaza and ordered a traditional peruvian dish of chicken breast in mint sauce, over sweet potatoes and quinoa salad — delicious!

I headed back to the hotel with the intention of catching up on blogging and emails, but the internet connection was terrible, so I just passed out early instead. What is vacation for if not to get an excessive amount of sleep?

Trek to Machu Picchu: Day 4

Posted on by
Reply

Waking up at 4 AM isn’t really so bad when you know you’re finally going to see the thing you’ve been waiting (and killing yourself) to see over the last three days: Machu Picchu. We dragged ourselves out of bed, put our luggage in storage , then walked in the pitch black, freezing cold up to the bus line, which at 4:50 AM was already a full block long.

I was seriously beginning to question everyone’s logic who suggested we get up at that crazy hour to be on the first 5:35 AM bus up the mountain, but I was already up, so that was that. The bus ride was dark but slightly nauseating so I didn’t get in the nap I was hoping for, but the adrenaline and excitement kicked in once we were finally at the entrance gate. Just after 6:15 they began letting us through the gates.

It was bizarre, yet incredible, to see this huge ruins site in person after I’d pictured it, and seen it in so many pictures, for so many years.

Juan Carlos spent the first two and a half hours of the morning walking us around the ruins, explaining the history and showing us the various temples on the site. We saw the sun rise, which was spectacular over the jagged peaks, and at around 8:45, Juan Carlos said his goodbyes and left us on our own to explore and wander. Mat had disappeared somewhere on his own, but the 5 of us found a spot in a corner overlooking part of the site and sneakily ate some of our snacks and bagged breakfasts the hostels had supplied us (you’re not supposed to eat at the site… oops).

From there we walked up toward the Guard House, which is where the perfect picture overlooking the ruins is taken. We sat on the edge of the cliff for a while and took too many pictures, then decided to let some other tourists in and made our way to the start of the walk to the Sun Gate, which is the very end of the commercial Inca trail where many hikers arrive into Machu Picchu. We were all exhausted and Juan Carlos had really been able to show us the entirety of the ruins, plus Dan’s leg was starting to ache, so instead of splitting up, we decided to pick a spot in the sun overlooking the ruins, sunbathe and enjoy the view.

We hung out and watched the crowds completely fill the site — hoards and hoards of gigantic tour groups were making their way up the stairs. I had to leave the ruins to pee at one point, and it was like working my way against Los Angeles rush hour traffic. Only then did I appreciate waking up so early to be at the site before sun rise — it was really great to be able to have a guide explain everything without being swarmed by other groups.

There really are no words for how stunning Machu Picchu is — there’s no doubt in my mind why the Incas chose the spot they did, nestled between beautiful mountains, overlooking the gorgeous river valley — but it’s mind blowing to try and grasp how they built such an intricate city at such a high altitude in the middle of nowhere. Where did all of the stones come from? How did they manage to be so precise, so many hundreds of years ago? The questions are endless, and as we were sitting taking it all in, I decided I had to read Hiram Bingham’s (the man given credit for discovering Machu Picchu) “Lost City of the Incas” when I got home.

After 6 1/2 hours in the sun at the ruins, we made our way down the steps to discover two llamas seriously goin’ at it. Be thankful you’ve never had to witness llama sex, it is one of those train wrecks that you can’t look away from. Hundreds of tourists were taking pictures, and the noises as we walked by were just… scarring. Apparently these two llamas like to get it on at the ruins, because as we lined up for the bus, one of the many Peruvian souvenir sellers tried to sell us the “llama sexy time” postcard. I guess humans are humans, wherever they are in the world, everyone is obsessed with sex, even llama sex!

Dan, Millie and I went back to our hostel, grabbed our bags then perused our way through the souvenir market on the way to the train station. Our Inca Rail train from Aguas Callientes to Ollantaytambo was quite luxurious — we had complimentary beverages and snacks, and a beautiful view through huge windows and smaller windows in the ceiling of the beautiful mountain scenery we had walked through the day before.

When we arrived in Ollantaytambo a van was waiting to drive us back to Cusco. We thought it would just be the three of us, but the driver and a woman assisting him crammed it full with locals looking for a cheap ride back to the city, so we were relatively crammed for the hour and a half drive.

The van dropped us off at the plaza just a half block from my hostel, so Dan and Millie came with me to grab my suitcase and re-check in. I quickly changed and stuck my stuff in my locker, then hopped in a cab with them down to the bus station in the southern part of the town. Instead of staying the night in Cusco, they were taking an overnight bus down to Puno that night, since they were only on vacation for just over 2 weeks, they wanted to save some time.

Being at the bus station was a big slap in the face — it’s so easy and so cheap to book bus tickets between cities in South America, prepaying for all my busses was not only a huge rip off but a big mistake. I wasted a ton of money booking my “hop” through Green Toad Bus, but of course I could have only known this after coming down to SA and doing the traveling myself. You live and you learn I guess — next time, I know!

Once they got their bus tickets we went back to their old hostel, grabbed their bags and got some dinner. My lasagna was relatively unimpressive, but they had some good pasta. Then we had to say our goodbyes, and I was off to my hostel to find my sweats, take a long hot shower and pass out!

The internet at my hostel is very slow, but I will try to upload the rest of my MP pictures ASAP!