Peru +1

We go to exotic places like Manchu Picchu and take photos of mountains. 

I have gotten in the habit of typing on my Note application before copying-and-pasting into Blogger (which crashes all the damned time). The disadvantage here is that I might type for an hour or so, select all, go to hit "copy" but end up hitting paste, and deleting everything with no undo option. Yep, spent a good 90 minutes one-finger poking out a Peru postcard the other night only to lose it to a well-placed speed bump. 

Awesome. 

I have a couple of options in how I can frame this trip write up. Do I want to focus on the fact it was one of those occasional trips which is becoming more and more common where I am travelling with someone? And not just "someone," but my mother, Terre, who just finished her first trip abroad. Or, do I was to use politics as a framing device since this trip began at a national conference, was impacted by protests, and ended with a connection to the governor of my home state, Nevada? 

Or I can just journal this and make my life easier. 

Ha ha ha! I am still carrying this around! 

Without rehashing the epic journey from Newark to Puerto Maldonado, let me just get to the part where we arrived in the middle of both the Amazon rainforest and a huge protest spanning across multiple cities/regions in Peru. Instead of being met at the airport, all of us bleary-eyed tourists grabbed our bags, found someone from our ecolodge or hostel, and marched out of the airport, through the protest roadblocks, and about a mile to minibuses or tuk-tuks. 

They didn't SAY no photos, but this was the only place where I really felt "no photos."

Now, guidebooks and websites use words like "melting" and "sweltering," but when we arrived, it was freaking freezing. Okay, not freezing, but probably down in the lower 40s Fahrenheit or 5C at night. No hot water. No heat. Hell, no glass on the windows or electricity most hours of the day. These were selling points to me before the uncommonly cold weather thing happened. 

A frozen Terre determined to enjoy her hammock. 

Aside from those fantasy animals you aren't really expecting (jaguars and the like), we saw most of the animals I was hoping for. Capybaras (Terre was not impressed), tarantulas, parrots, monkeys, technically a sloth (my eyes suck), caimans, funny bugs... I think, while our jungle time was cut short, we felt satisfied with our hikes and activities. 

Don't be fooled. It's cold. 

From the forest to the city. Back into the airport, yay, but only for a quick hop over to Cusco. We had a couple of days here to acclimate to the altitude, though neither of us were really affected (Terre got travel fatigue and I got Strep throat, but that isn't the altitude's fault). 

We spent a lot of time in the main square. 

Cusco is one of those cities you could hammer out in a day or make last for a month. Plenty of walking within the sprawling city that pushes up into the surrounding (aren't we high enough???) hills. A dozen or more museums. Tons of churches (that we skipped for the most part 'cause I ain't paying for a Catholic priest's lawyer). Markets, cafes, plazas, and oodles of day trips. Rainbow Mountain. Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Tipon. Pisco. We couldn't do them all!  Not only that, but the protesting really fascinated us and we found ourselves drawn to marches or rallies pretty frequently. 

I didn't have my phone the day of the major rally, stuff like this was everywhere. 

More Cusco pics. 

Narrow streets. 

Cool views. 

Ruins you can walk to. 

And it was the week of Peru's Independence Day. 

We focused on a couple things that really caught our eye, walking Cusco historic district throughly and venturing out into the hills, for our two full days before the big ticket item: Machu Picchu. 

Mission accomplished. 

And it was a close thing!  Trains and buses to MP were screwy 'cause of the protests. The tickets I purchased from the Peruvian official website were cancelled. When I repurchased the tickets, I messed up by not reconfirming the date, so we arrived at MP to find our tickets were for the day before. 

I kinda lost my sense of humour for a moment after the first MP tickets were cancelled. "Mary isn't here, Mrs. Torrance."

Luckily the alpaca gods smiled on us and security waved us through anyway.  Like, they probably saved a few lives that day. 

Machu Picchu was exactly what I was expecting. It's gorgeous and photogenic and historic, and something I think would be Less if going alone. At one point Terre and I just found a secluded spot and played cards waiting out the clock hoping for a nice sunset. 

Because we are awesome. 

Oh my god. Yes. Alpacas. 

Plenty of books and resources online exist if you feel you haven't gotten your Manchu Picchu fix. For us, it was time for another night into the cute (yet home to the worst food in all of Peru) town of Agua Callientes. 

It's super cute, but bring your own food if possible. Nothing but overpriced and nasty pizza, pasta, and "Mexican." 

Getting back to Cusco was another epic tale. We had train tickets from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo, the hallway mark to Cusco. From there, I figured we just catch a bus into town. Ah yes. Protests. There are no tourist buses running. 

Road blocked.

A shared minivan cab brought us to a different town's bus terminal where we caught a local round-abouty bus through multiple villages in Sacred Valley before getting us back to Cusco. Lucky us, we were dropped off three blocks from our last Airbnb. 

Lucky!!!

And so we found ourselves with our last day in Cusco. All the major attractions we pretty much hit and we got too late of a start to venture to far from town, so we busted out out Cusco Tourist Pass Ticket and decided hit up all the museums we had already paid for. 

You know what I like. 

Modern art museum featuring The Babadook. 

Less modern featuring Tiffany who just can't even. 

And it was in Cusco my mom and I parted ways. She for Las Vegas and me for La Paz. As far as first trips go, my first to South America and her first trip abroad, it went well enough. Enough drama and chaos to be interesting but not so much we have scar tissue or need therapy. Perfect! 

Catch ya later, Peru!