Kerri

Lake Titicaca is the world's highest navigable lake (and every blog entry on the lake will tell you that) on the border between Peru and Bolivia. It's about 12,500 ft above sea level. This means it's absolutely freezing at night. Rachel and I were excited to go to the lake to see the floating islands of Uros, which are artificial islands built out of totora reeds by the Uros people. We also thought we'd like to stay the night at a homestay on the other islands, Amantaní and Taquile, because we'd heard that you get to play soccer with the indigenous women and then later they throw a party for the foreigners and dress them all up in traditional clothes (presumably to laugh at the tourists, but we still thought it sounded like a fun time). We saw Uros and spent the night on Amantaní, buuuut it wasn't quite what we expected. In fact, it mostly sucked and we want our evening on Amantaní back.

Our trip to the lake started off with a lovely 6 hour bus ride from Cusco to Puno, the somewhat depressing port town on the lake's shore. The bus ride almost wasn't so, because just as we arrived at Cusco's bus station I discovered I'd thrown away my bus ticket while cleaning my purse out the night before. Smart move. With only a few minutes until our bus left, we tried to ask the ticket lady if she could give me another copy. For some reason, and we still don't quite understand, she couldnt. We asked her to explain more slowly, and she just repeated the same unintelligible Spanish just as rapidly as before. I ended up having to buy two tickets for Rachel and I on another bus with Tour Peru (I at least understood that part!), I guess a sister company. The bus turned out to be amazing! The seats were huge, we had a place to rest our legs, and we were essentially some of the only people on the bus so we could spread out and relax. Plus the bus was direct, and unlike most other buses, it didn't stop every 5 minutes to pick up crazy people or women selling water, soda, candy, popcorn, cookies, or alpaca meat and corn kernels in bags. However, one unfortunate thing is that I happened to be sitting in front of a very, very grumpy old man. He refused to let me pull the curtain across the window when the sun was beating intensely down on my head and arms, and everytime I'd pull it halfway shut (barely obscuring his precious view) he'd grumble and swear at me and then yank it back open. I was so incrediby pissed off at him. Especially when he received a phone call as we were arriving in Puno and was talking loudly about stupid gringos and how they buy everything, clearly assuming that we couldn't understand.

Anyway, got to Puno and explored the town a bit. It is a large port town, but was oddly enough a bit deserted, even in the main touristy streets by the plaza. It was burning hot in the sun, so I stripped down a bit and put on flip flops and a thin shirt... only to discover later that evening around dinner time that the temperature in Puno drops to the 30s in the night and I was so cold I hurt. Bad idea Kerri. I somehow managed to survive the night by eating a delicious pizza and drinking some yummy hot chocolate before I had to brave the cold again and go back to the hostal. Unfortunately, my luck got even worse once back in our bedroom because a giant citywide concert was going on and echoing throughout, well, the entire city. The music was terrible and Rachel and I felt terrible since we had to wake up at about 6am to get to the port and boat to the islands. The concert didn't stop until 3am. THREE AM. I only got 3 hours of sleep that night. We asked a guy at the hotel the next morning why the hell there was a loud concert going on until 3am and he just laughed and explained that it goes on every May 3 to celebrate (something unintelligible... a saint perhaps? This is where it would come in handy to know more Spanish). Either way, whatever it was, in my opinion it didn't deserve to be celebrated until 3am! Did nobody else in the city care about the terrible music interrupting their sleep?

After our sleepless night, we made our way to the port to buy our boat tickets to and from the islands. The floating islands of Uros were only 30 minutes away by boat, so wasn't too bad of a ride. I knew beforehand that they were a bit touristy, but I wasn't quite prepared to be serenaded by a bunch of Uros women in brightly colored traditional clothing serenading Rachel and I with some pretty bad renditions of ''My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean'' or ''Row Row Row Your Boat'' as we set off on a 5 minute boat ride around one of the reed islands in a reed boat. The boat was really awesome, though... it had the head of a puma (the name Titicaca means Grey Puma) and the tail of a fish, and apparently takes 3 months to make entirely out of reeds. We also got a small crash course lesson on how exactly the islands are built... each island is about half the size of a football field in size and is anchored to the bottom of the lake (which is shallow in this area). They cut giant squares of dirt out of the lake with the reeds still attached and sort of sew together each square, and then start piling a ton of reeds on top in a criss cross pattern. As the reeds at the bottom rot, they just pile on new reeds on top as needed. When you step onto the islands, it's almost like you're on a waterbed. The floating islands started long ago for defensive reasons, when some families lived on boats... eventually living on boats gave way to creating and living on reed islands. Each island even has a watchtower (made of reeds, of course!) The islands are also a good way to avoid problems caused on land by earthquakes, or so said the local guy we asked. All in all there are about 46 floating islands of Uros, 70% of which work entirely in the tourism industry now, while the other 30% are in fishing. The islanders make money by charging for boat rides and selling handmade textiles and arts and crafts. It was kind of annoying and sad to me that their entire lives are based on tourism... I was hoping for something more authentic than seeing a tour boat pulled up to almost every single floating island and hearing ''Frére Jaques'' and ''Hasta la vista, baby!'' carrying throughout the wind. But I guess they have to make a living somehow, and for them, tourism clearly brings a stable income since we're all so curious about the nature of the islands!

From the Uros islands, we headed off toward the island of Amantaní (a real island in the lake, not a floating one). Our boat made the 35km journey in a grand total of 3 hours. So long, so boring! Of course it didn't help that my book was so absorbing that I had stayed up the night before (okay I also couldn't sleep because of the damn concert) and I read the entire thing. So I sat, I slept, I sat some more, I stared at the water, and I sat in a different position. Finally we arrived at Amantaní. It's a beautiful terraced island, I believe I read that there are about 800 families living on it and they all make their living by farming their individual terraced land plots, cordoned off by rock fences (later during our stay on the island, Rachel had the pleasure of knocking down part of a rock fence while we were snooping through some backyards). There are no roads or cars, just terraced yards, houses, a small main plaza with a couple stores, and two Incan ruins on top of the hill. We were met at the dock by a bunch of local women dressed in their brightly colored dresses, embroidered button down shirts, and black embroidered shawls/head covers. Our boat captain pointed to a girl and Rachel and I, along with an older French couple, followed her down the shoreline to our new home for the night. Along the way we passed literally thousands of tiny dried fish strewn across the grass, pebbles, and rocks. I assume they were to eat later? I'm not quite sure. When you read what happened that evening, keep in mind that throughout everything, Rachel and I still thought that at some point we were going to get to play soccer with the women and we'd dress up in traditional clothing, laugh, get laughed at, and generally have a merry good old time that night.

Our house was cute and even had a nice flower garden out front, with gorgeous views of the lake and the mountains along the Peruvian shoreline. The girl showed us our room and then disappeared without saying anything else... you know, like perhaps she'd introduce herself and the rest of the family, tell us where the bathroom was and where we could wash and brush our teeth, tell us when and where dinner was, etc. All normal things. But no. She was gone. We unpacked our stuff and then discovered a cute 4 year old boy in the courtyard. He was to become our only entertainment for the evening, since nobody else cared to talk to us. We tried to talk to him but he was a bit shy. He smiled a huge smile and nodded, however, when we asked him if we looked funny.

We were served lunch in what would later become our jail cell. A potato, quinua and veggie soup (with about 3 pieces of tiny vegetables in it) to start, and a giant bowl of two types of potatoes, 1 piece of squeeky cheese, and a piece of tomato for our second dish. Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes. The one that looked like fingers was really sweet, almost desert-like.

The girl, who turned out to be our host sister (though we never met or saw the parents or really ever found out how many people even lived there), came into our room and plopped down a giant bag. ''Look,'' she said, and unwrapped it. We expected to see an animal perhaps, but no, it was a giant bag of beanies that she wanted us to buy. When we said no thanks, since we already had hats, she seemed upset. We tried to pacify her by telling her we brought presents. Would you like them now or later? we asked. ''Now!'' she said, and took our bags of plums, apples, bananas, and quinua without so much as a thanks. (Tourists usually bring gifts of fruits or cooking supplies since it's not so often that the locals can go to Puno to buy those things.) I tried to make conversation with her about the fruit, asking her what the Spanish name for ''plum'' was, but she just stared at me, half smiled, and then took the fruits and hats away.

At this point we just decided to take a walk and explore the island a bit since our host sister had taken our fruit and left us to hang out with her friends and we didn't really know what else to do. We walked up, up, up the dirt pathway... past some donkeys and sheep in people's backyards, past a small girl and boy shooing some sheep down the small road, and finally made it to the small, mostly deserted plaza. Some older men sat on a bench talking, a group of kids peeked their heads out from around a corner. We started to walk down from the plaza back towards the beach, but soon found ourselves in someone's backyard. Across the field a man saw us and came over to help us out. Oddly enough, he wanted to talk to us! Imagine that. Our host family should take a lesson. He asked us where we were from, about our lives, and what we'd been doing in South America. Finally he told us that even though we were in someone's backyard and there was no path to the water, we could just walk through all the yards anyway and it would be fine. We started down the hill and on the way a man and his daughter decided to also start talking to us and lead us down to the water, even though it was completely out of their way. We chatted a bit as we made our way through the fields of corn and flowers and along the way became friends with the man's 4 year old daughter, ALI... son (it's how she pronounced it). She was so excited and happy to see us and immediately grabbed my right hand with both of hers and started swinging it up and down while she skipped next to me. She posed for a few pictures for us along the way. Once we got to the water, the man and his daughter left us and went back the way we'd come back to their house. Afterwards, we walked along the waterfront a bit (all pebbles and rocks) and then headed back to our house for dinner. Plus it was starting to get preeeetty chilly as the sun was going down. Uh oh.

Once back home we played kickball with our 4 year old friend in the front yard for a good 30 minutes. It soon got dark and we couldn't see much of anything, much less ourselves or the ball, but we kept playing with him anyway. He loved it. We asked him absurd questions like whether he had cooked dinner himself, or whether the pet guinea pigs could play ball with us... he just smiled and said nothing, the same answer he gave us for even normal questions. We were ridiculously hungry but still no word from any of our host family as to when we could eat.

Finally dinner arrived. We were served in our cell again, and the French couple in theirs. Not very well designed for any interaction between any of us, which made us a bit sad. Guess what our meal was? The first course was potato soup, and the second course was potatoes and rice. Incredible. At least we had a really delicious tea with a sprig of spearmint in it.

After dinner, we were left alone. And it stayed that way for the rest of the night. The children in the house closed their doors, the women disappared, and it took us a while for it to finally sink in that there would be no soccer game or playing dress up. Or even a conversation, any kind of cultural exchange. Even worse, we had no light in the room and had to make do with my measly flashlight and a candle. We resorted to staging a photoshoot, telling as many random stories as we could, calling our parents and laughing hysterically at our bad luck while we tried to explain our experience to them (thanks Mom and Dad for thinking we had taken drugs!), and then, well... I just laid in bed since there wasn't anything else to do. Rachel read a bit and then we both crashed at about 9pm. Late night for us crazy girls.

The next morning we had some hard bread, a tiny flat pancake, and our favorite tea for breakfast before we had to go to the dock at 8am to catch our boat to Taquile, a neighboring island. On the hour long trip to Taquile we made friends with a couple on our boat. Turns out the girl is from Tecate, Mexico! Her boyfriend is from South Africa, they met while backpacking in Italy atop Mt. Vesuvius, and now they both live in Chile in the Atacama Desert (driest in the world!) where her boyfriend is working in a mine for 2 years. It was fun to talk with them and share travel stories. We arrived at Taquile a little while later, only to discover that we had to climb up 500 stone steps to get to the town... on top of the island. We huffed and we puffed and along the way passed some locals carrying 50kg bags of who knows what on their backs. We finally got to the top, where we realized the island was pretty sleepy. We had 2.5 hours before we had to be back to the boat so we spent our time wandering around the small cobblestone streets to the main plaza on the other side of the island. That side had gorgeous! views of the snow-capped mountain peaks of the Cordeillera Real in Bolivia. The water was also cleaner and more turquoise on that side of the island (as it supposedly also is on the Bolivian side of the lake, which unfortunately we couldn't go to as planned because the Bolivian government recently imposed a $100 visa for Americans to enter the country. Boohoo!). Men and women in traditional clothing hung out around the church and along the paths selling fruits, knitting, and herding sheep and donkeys. The clothing here is a bit different, I noticed... the men had interesting, wide, embroidered belts and vests, and also wore really long, sock-like beanies that hung partially down their backs. A female tourist in the plaza wore a black tube top and really stood out and looked quite awkward compared to the locals.

After our short morning exploration of Taquile we got back in our boat and made the long, boring 3 hour journey back to Puno. Once back in town we walked down the main street to the bus station to buy our tickets for the next day's trip to Arequipa. The road was crazy and bustling with people doing everything imaginable... from driving tuk tuks with the Batman logo on the back, to a tailor sewing clothes on the sidewalk, to two gross old men peeing on the sidewalk in front of everyone. Stray dogs criss crossed the streets, expertly dodging cars, buses, and tuk tuks, and women sat at stalls and on the ground selling fruits, bread, candies, you name it.

All in all, glad we went to Uros, could have skipped the other islands since we just sat around alone in a jail cell most of the time (and had to boat 3 hours there and back to experience it!), and kind of glad to be away from Puno's cold, cold weather and midnight concerts! More on Arequipa, The White City, next time.

A bunch of random stories, facts, and weird occurances from my travels, in no particular order (some may be repeats from earlier blog entries, but I can't remember what I did and didn't write about already)...

-So there are some weird breeds of dogs here. What prompts me to write about this first above any other strange stories is that this morning,while eating breakfast at a way too expensive restaurant in Aguas Calientes, Rachel and I realized that the entire town of A.C. is populated by a really odd type of mutt. They must have all come from the same male or female. The dogs are all long and skinny like dachshunds, have the face of a pug/pekingese, and some have the curly hair and coloring of a cocker spaniel. Some of them are incredibly ugly and look like aliens, but others seem to have gotten all the cute genes.

-Nobody has change here. Not in Ecuador, not in Peru, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that it's the same in every other Latin American country. Today alone we had to apologize to 4 different businesses because we didn't have anything smaller than a 20 or 50 sole bill (about $10.40 and $25.60). And this is when we only needed about 6-10 soles back in change. At the restaurant we had dessert at tonight, the poor chef grabbed my 20 sole bill and began to run back and forth between all the businesses in the street to see if someone had 7 soles in change... all the while wearing his white uniform and tall chef's hat. I apologized, but what am I to do when the ATM only gives me 50 and 100 sole bills? (I don't even want to think about how I am going to manage to get my four 100 sole bills changed in the next few days when I run out of smaller bills... haha.)

-Comments of the day:
¨OH... MY... GOD!¨as Rachel and I walked past a teenager on the street corner.
¨Hey baby, you need some dinner?¨as I walked past a restaurant.

-Everything has the word ¨turistico¨in it... and it´s considered a good thing here. Restaurant turistico, Bus turistico, Clothing shop turistico. I guess it's higher quality when it´s ¨touristy¨so the locals here think that tourists want to go to a place that´s blantantly labeled ¨tourist spot!¨. Not quite.

-Hassidic Jews are everywhere... standing on a street corner, walking on a hill in the middle of the Peruvian countryside, strolling through the bus station in Quito.

Yay Machu Picchu!!!! This is what we were thinking as we groggily woke up at 4:45am this morning in order to catch the 5:30am bus to the ruins. We had heard that if we went early we'd miss the hoards of tourists and have the ruins mostly to ourselves. Not true! We stumbled to the bus station in the dark (the stars were beautiful) only to discover that 200 other tourists had the same idea as us. Local women knew it, too, and were prepared with baskets full of orange and banana cakes, sandwiches, mate de coca tea and candy (to help with altitude sickness), you name it. We couldn't refuse some good orange cake now, could we? We boarded one of the 8 buses that were there to shuttle us to the top of the mountain. The road passed along the rio, across a bridge, and then started zigzagging up the mountain... after about 20 minutes the sky had lightened a bit and we could make out juuuuust how high up we were (and just how narrow the dirt road was that we were on!). We arrived at the main entrance gate and had to wait a few minutes before the started letting the crowds in. It was a bit chilly up there at the top of the mountain, but surprisingly not as cold as I thought (and later I'd be really happy I'd dressed so lightly since it was already burning hot at about 8am).

We were good little girls and followed the ¨no food¨ policy... though we did bring a ton of food since it's ridiculously overpriced at the cafe up there, we checked it all at the storage room before we entered the ruins. However, later we realized that everyone else had brought food anyway and they got to have nice little picnics on top of Huayna Picchu and we didn't. Boo. So much for rule following. I really liked the other rule printed on the back of the entrance ticket, though, which specifically stated that walking sticks could only be used by ¨old people¨. Way to be blunt.

Experts aren't actually quite sure what the purpose of Machu Picchu was, and can only made educated guesses. Past theories have included the belief that it was a city of chosen women, since many female skeletons were discovered there, but later it was found that the city had close to a 50/50 ratio of males and females. Other theories are that it was built as a prison for people who had committed terrible crimes against the Inkans, that it was a defensive retreat, or that it was the original birthplace of the Inkan people. Today many people believe it was the estate of Inca Pachacuti. It was built around 1450 but was abandoned only 100 years later. It's believed that the Inkans there were wiped out by smallpox before the Spanish conquistadors even arrived. The Spanish never discovered the ruins, and so they remain very well preserved compared to other Inka sites. The jungle grew over the ruins and it was only in 1911 that they were ¨discovered¨again by Hiram Bingham (even though some local Quechuans were living amongst the ruins at the time) while he was on a quest to find the last refuge of the Inkans during the Spanish conquest. Because of the vast numbers of tourists who visit each day (sometimes up to 2,500 people), Machu Picchu has been placed on the most 100 Endangered Sites in the World watch list We're just some more tourists added to that giant mass... but at the very least we tried to respect the rules and minimize our physical impact on the ruins, as should every other visitor.

Anyway... once we got through the gates, we made our way up to The Hut of the Caretaker of Funerary Rock from where the classic Machu Picchu postcard picture was taken. Of course we had to take the same picture.

We also chanced upon some strategically placed photogenic llamas, who may or may not have been placed there on purpose for the tourists. They patiently held position as I photographed them gazing over the ruins in the background. There was a baby llama, too, which was super cute Llamas, alpacas, vicuñas... Peru has most of the camelid family and it makes me happy since they're all so funny looking. Down below us to our right we could see some of the cultivation terraces going down the hillside. The greens were so vivid. The terraces seemed to go down forever, and I later discovered that there are actually still some more terraces way down below, almost at the river, which are still being excavated. All around us were those beautiful, jagged mountains again, this time mostly covered in jungle growth... some far away mountains were snow-capped and since the sky was incredibly clear so early in the morning we could see for miles and miles.

Despite the fact that there were more tourists at 5:30am than we were expecting, I still think it was a great time to view the ruins and surrounding landscape just because the sky was sooo clear and the morning light striking the ruins was so amazing.

We then made our way down into the main ruins area through the prison, industrial, and residential areas. It was almost maze-like at some points. I couldn't quite tell where I was within the ruins since I was just surrounded by stone walls and there were a lot of twists and turns that just led to dead ends/empty rooms.

Again I somehow managed to lose Rachel again... at one point I discovered her a level below me while I was videotaping, but by the time I made it down to where she was, she had disappeared. We finally bumped into each other again and decided to head toward Huayna Picchu (the large, steep mountain the background of the ruins) before it reached the maximum of 400 hikers per day.

We had to wait in line to register to hike up Huayna Picchu. It felt a bit like Disneyland, like we were waiting in line for the Matterhorn, ¨jungle style¨... especially with the large group of Japanese tourists in front of us. While in line we met a 20 year old guy from Newport Beach who was touring around Peru with a group of photographers to build his portfolio... and as an added bonus, our new friend Philip introduced us to his hilarious guide, Marcos, who just happened to look like a Peruvian version of Donny Osmond and Richard Simmons. Philip told us how even though they'd traveled just about everywhere in Peru already, Marcos always seemed to know everyone... to illustrate this point, Marcos happened to disappear just as Philip was telling us this, and suddenly he reappeared in the registration booth and closed the gate on us, telling us he was terribly sorry but there were too many people on the mountain and we couldn't enter. Marcos ended up adopting us on our hike up Huayna Picchu, producing an Andean flute out of the blue and serenading us with some cheerful music as we hiked up and up and up the Inkan stone steps. I felt like I was on another planet... Richard Simmons prancing along the trail behind us, background music to our hike? Haha.

The hike to the top was steep. Our guidebook said it was steep, yet you did NOT have to be related to a mountain goat to climb it. I disagree slightly and I think Rachel does even moreso. I am smiling here, but my thighs were hurting and I was covered in sweat. Machu Picchu was getting smaller and smaller in the background the further up we hiked...

After an hour of climbing up and down (but mostly up) tiny Inkan stone steps, ducking under a rock, and climbing up a small ladder, we made it to the TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN! The view was absolutely amazing... you could see the tiny ruins of Machu Picchu below, the river even further down, as well as all the majestic mountains surrounding us. I couldn't stop taking pictures. Well, actually I could since my camera battery started to die very unexpectedly and I had almost filled up my SD memory card that I'd just bought the day before. But at least I'd already taken pictures of almost everything at that point. Once at the top, Richard Simmons directed a photo shoot of Rachel and I on a rock that had a prime viewpoint over the ruins of Machu Picchu.

He then hopped and skipped about the rocks a bit, mysteriously produced some bottles of water out of nowhere, before asking us if we were ready to go with him and Philip on a second hike to the Temple of the Moon on the backside of the mountain. We went along, not quite knowing what we were getting ourselves into. Richard assured us the hike was all downhill, even the return bit. He was true to his word, partially... it was all downhill to the ruins. Just not back up. As we hiked down, down, down I could feel the air get thicker as we trekked into the cloud forest. Here and there we came across some steep ladders and 30 or more tiny stone steps carved out of a single boulder that we had to walk down. Donny pointed out the tinest orchids in the world on a tree branch as we paused to take a breather... the flowers were about 1/4 the size of my pinky fingernail. We finally got to the ruins, which are really well preserved for how old they are. The temple is essentially a giant cave with ¨cleansing¨areas carved into the rock inside... we weren't clear if they were for spiritual or physical cleansing. Our floutist friend said that once he'd spent the night there (though I thought it was illegal to sleep over in the ruins) and watched the moon rise while hanging out in the cave. He also mentioned that he'd managed to run (not walk) the Inka Trail in 8 hours during a competition once. Normally it takes hikers 4 days to hike.

Our return journey turned out to be entirely uphill. From the lower backside of the mountain all the way back up and around to Machu Picchu again. Richard lied! He said the Peruvian tradition was to just enjoy the surroundings and not think about the actual hike itself, which makes sense, though I still couldn't help wondering when we'd ever get back to the registration gate. It had to be a good hour and a half hike up tiny stone steps... and up some more... and some more... neverending! I was soaking wet with sweat, and even though my thighs were screaming ¨help me!¨I was enjoying the hike just for the adventure of it and once we got up out of the cloud forest again and could see the views of the mountains it was just so gorgeous. I kept pushing myself to go further and faster because there were people on the trail who were older than I was... some in their late 50s or 60s... and I thought if they could do it, I should be able to, too! For some reason I only drank about half of my water bottle during the 3.5 hours of hiking... I'm not sure why I wasn't thirsty, but it seems to be a common thing for me on this trip. Rachel drinks about 2 bottles of water for my 2 sips. I hope that nothing is wrong with me, but I just don't feel thirsty very often and I don't seem to be feeling bad from it, so I'm guessing it's okay. Just to be safe, though, I drank a whole bunch after we finally finished the hike.

Anyway, after that hike we were pretty much pooped. It was only noon. We had originally planned to do another hike to the Sun Gate, but at that point Rachel's hip tendonitis was acting up and she was not in any shape to do another hike and hurt herself even more. We enjoyed our cheap lunch on the picnic benches outside the entrance gate while everyone else around us ate $10 sandwhiches and drank $7 drinks. I am so excited that we had the chance to visit Machu Picchu and do those insane hikes... the only things I regret are not bringing my Nikon camera (South America is not as dangerous as I thought it was) and not having another day to go back and explore the ruins some more. I feel accomplished that we managed to hike Huayna Picchu and see the Temple of the Moon, and I am really lucky to have had the chance to see the Inkan ruins of Machu Picchu. Even though they are a bit too touristy for my liking, the entire complex is incredibly fascinating and beautiful... because of its interesting Inkan history, complex stonework, and perfect location in the mountains. I need to go back... next time with a better camera and more time

The salt flats of Salinas and the giant, bowl-like Inkan terracing of Moray were next on our list of places to visit in the Sacred Valley after Pisaq. We caught a 65 cent, 1 hour bus ride to Urubamba, where our (not so) trusty guidebook assured us that we would be able to hire a taxi for $16 to take us to both Salinas and Moray and back. Wasn´t that easy, folks at Lonely Planet. We arrived at the bus station, got off the bus, and Rachel immediately dropped her fleece, prompting a bunch of men to start laughing at us. Then we walked inside the small station to use the bathroom... only to be laughed at again by fellow bathroom goers when the woman charging entry asked us what exactly we were planning on doing in the bathroom (apparently it costs 30 cents more if you are going to, well, be there for a while). Then we went to search out the taxi drivers, only to discover that there were no taxis in the vicinity, only tiny colectivo buses. We stood in the doorway looking throroughly confused, when all of the sudden we were bombarded by a bunch of men asking us where we wanted to go and throwing out random high prices at us. They were also laughing at us. They told us it was so expensive because the road was terrible and the places we wanted to go were far, far away. After we told them about 20 times that we couldn't afford their high price, and once they'd gotten the laughs out of their system, we finally got a guy to agree to take us for just a dollar or two more than the price we originally wanted. Our driver turned out to be our age and pretty nice, so it all worked out well in the end. During our drive he started chatting with us, at one point asking us if we had any children. Definitely not the first time we've heard that question, but still really odd to hear it asked so often. It's normal here for women here to have children by the time they're our age so we must seem a bit weird as two 20-something year-old females travleing alone... without kids or a husband!

Salinas is about 6km outside of Urubamba. It's essentially a few hundred rectangular salt pools in a small valley that are used to create salt for cow licks (guess they have a lot of cows here!). Salt laden water is diverted into the salt pools, and then the water eventually evaporates leaving giant pans of salt. Our taxi drove us down into the valley on a thin, windy road, and as we arrived we were treated to a really cool view of the entire salt pan valley from above. We were then able to walk down onto the actual salt pans themselves and see them up close. Some pools were still pretty watery, while others were already hard, white salt. There were a few local workers scattered throughout the salt pan area, occasionally whacking the ground with giant shovels (it seems like they were trying to keep the salt pools level). We walked along the irrigation channel, which was particularly interesting because a lot of salt had built up on the sides of the channel and all the salt crystals looked just like snow.

After we'd had enough salt for the day, we got back in the taxi and headed off to Moray. The countryside on the way there was gorgeous... high, jagged Andean mountain peaks surrounding us, some still covered in snow, and the rest was just rolling hills with cows, sheep, donkeys, and the occasional indigenous woman carrying large sacks trying to flag down a ride. We passed through a small town called Maras with most of its buildings built entirely out of clay and straw and soon we were at our destination. Moray is a series of three terraced, bowl-like holes in the ground that the Inkas created centuries ago. From above the terracing looks like a bunch of huge, concentric circles. Nobody is exactly sure what their function was, but the concensus seems to be that they were used to figure out the best growing conditions for different types of crops. Each terraced layer apparently has its own microclimate. At the very bottom, some traditional Inkan crops have been replanted to give an idea of what they might have looked like before. We climbed down to the very bottom, only to realize that we actually had to climb back up in the burning sun. We were drenched with sweat by the time we got back to the top where our taxi driver had fallen asleep waiting for us.

Once we got back to Urubamba we caught the next colectivo bus heading to Ollantaytambo, our next stop in El Valle Sagrado. I can't remember how pronounce the name of that town for the life of me and it's really embarrassing... especially when we had to ask at the bus station when the next bus to ¨Olly.... oya... ollytah.... uhh....¨was. Taking the colectivo bus meant squeezing into a minature bus/van with a bunch of school children drinking liquid chocolate from a bag. It looked weird, but they seemed to like it. Our bus was full as we departed, but halfway through 5 little schoolboys flagged us down and they somehow managed to squeeze on in! At least the ride was only about 30 minutes long.

Ollantaytambo is a really cute town in a beautiful valley surrounded by a ton of nearby Inkan ruins. Its also the starting point for the 4 day Inka Trail hike, but we ¨cheated¨ according to my mom and took the train and a bus to Machu Picchu instead. Ollantaytambo has tiny cobblestone streets that are so small that cars can't even pass through, and a lot of the buildings are actually made of stone as well. It was also the site of a major Inka battle fought against the Spanish conquistadors. The Inkan fortresses and temples were built high up the slopes of the mountains, and when the conquistadors entered into the valley below, Manco Inka flooded the valley with pre-made channels built for that purpose and was able to slow down the conquistadors and their horses. Unfortunately, the Spanish later returned with more men and defeated the Inkas anyway in the end.

We spent our first evening at our hostal watching Man on Fire, Ratatouille (HILARIOUS... seriously, a rat who dreams of being a chef? And who cooks by controlling a human by pulling on his hair from under a chef's hat? Who thought of that?), and playing with the hostal owner's two white cats... one wearing a knit sweater, and the other with a cast on its broken foot.

On our second day in town, we walked the two minute walk to the ruins and explored them for most of the morning. We got pretty winded walking up the never-ending steps to the top, but so did all of the other elderly tourists (why were we the only young ones?) so I didn't feel too bad. Even with our few days in Cusco and time spent in the Sacred Valley, I guess we still didn't quite become acclimatized. The view from the top was a beautiful panorama of Ollantaytambo at the bottom of the valley surrounded by insanely high, jagged mountains and a few more ruins scattered around some of the slopes. At one point I lost Rachel within the ruins and thought she might have climbed up the hillside a bit further. I started up a path, only to suddenly hear a loud whistle and discover that a guard was furiously whistling and waving at me to get down. I somehow managed to go into an off limits area on accident. Oops. Once I found Rachel, we discovered a path that hugged the mountain side... we followed it to another set of small ruins and then made our way down the terracing to what looked like residential housing and baths below. Amazingly the Inkan watering system was still working and water from the nearby river was flowing through tiny channels and out of water spouts all over the place. Those Inkans were some smart cookies.

(Really sad side note: right when we got to the top of the ruins, Rachel tried to change her photo settings to a higher quality picture, only to discover that by pressing ¨format memory card¨she had instead deleted ALL her pictures from southern Ecuador in Cuenca up until now!!! At least I took mostly the same pictures of everything, but she still felt terrible.)

In the afternoon, after our amazing find of lunch for just 4 soles ($1.60ish) in some random woman's house (everything else was ridiculously high tourist prices for the same exact food), we headed toward the train station to go to Aguas Calientes. Almost to Machu Picchu! We had to take the more expensive Vistadome train since ¨supposedly¨the backpacker train was booked. But I won't complain since we were treated like royalty, complete with airplane style meals (except delicious, rather than disgusting) and windows on the ceiling of the train so that we could appreciate the views of all the impressive mountain scenery just a bit better The train employees wore wore one professional-like uniform to serve us our snacks, but later changed into a hilarious tour guide type get-up, complete with a khaki vest and large khaki hat when they came back down the aisles to try to sell us Machu Picchu tourist shtuff. Did they think it made them seem more believable, hence we'd be more likely to buy overpriced picturebooks, baseball hats, and postcards from them? We followed the path of the Rio Urubamba and after about an hour and a half we arrived in Aguas Calientes, aka Machu Picchu Pueblo... the tiny, oh so touristy town that marks the start of everyone's Machu Picchu journey... well, those of us who are too poor and/or too lazy to arrive in Machu Picchu on the Inka Trail instead. Even though the town is almost microscopic, we somehow got lost after leaving the train station and ended up on the local's side of the river rather than on the crazy touristy side. Thanks again Lonely Planet, this time for your great mapping skills.

The town itself is in a great location, right at the base of the cloud forest, surrounded by beautiful green mountains and straddling the clear river that cascades down through the middle of the town. However, the town thrives on tourism since so many tourists pass through here to take the bus up the hill to Machu Picchu... so you really can't get away from all the people trying to get you to eat at their restaurant every step you take. ¨No thanks, no, no, no gracias, no, we already ate, thanks, no, no no NOOooooo!.¨Funny thing is, it seems that all the restaurants serve the exact same food and are all decorated similarly inside with slight variations. They all offer 4 for 1 happy hour drinks to entice you to come in. We allowed one of the waiters to convince us to eat at his restaurant for dinner (don't tell anyone)... well, he DID give us a 3 sole discount and threw in an offer to give us free wine the next night if we came back. Wouldn't you eat there, too? We shared one menu del dia for dinner (appetizer, soup, main dish, drink) since we had been fed so well on the train a few hours prior... the waiter thought we were a bit odd, especially when we started slurping soup from the same bowl, but that didn't stop him from talking to us and becoming our new buddy. We even taught him the word ¨clumpy¨in English, which he can now use to his heart's desire. After dinner we had to pass back and forth past his restaurant another 5 times or so since there is only one road up to our hostal, which was a bit awkward, but each time we passed by we received another compliment from the other waiter in training.... he started with just a simple ¨Hey ladies¨, but by the end he was saying ¨Son hermosas!¨(You´re beautiful!).

Anyway, fell alseep to the lovely sounds of something (animal? lost child?) pitter pattering across our tin roof and some loud Americans in the hallway trying to speak Spanish to each other in terrible accents. Great way to prepare for our early morning wake up the next morning at 4:45am and visit to Machu Picchu.

The Sacred Valley is in the southern Andes of Peru and was revered by the Inkas for its special geographic and climatic qualities. And I just think it's beautiful, is all! The towns along the Urubamba river from Pisaq to Ollantaytambo still have many Inka ruins around them and so not only is the Sacred Valley a great place to stop before Machu Picchu to get acclimatized to the high altitude, but it also has some great day hikes to the ruins.

We started off our visit to the Sacred Valley with a stop in the small market town of Pisaq. It's not much more than a few blocks of tiny crisscrossing streets... except on Sunday, which is market day. We happened to be there when everyone and their mother came to sell their alpaca slippers/hats/gloves/scarves/shawls/wall hangings, watercolor paints, corn, inka calendars, silver jewelry, woven belts, you name it in the central Plaza. Our hostal window looked right down over the plaza, too, which was awesome. I took a lot of stalker-ish pictures of the people below from my window. It was really fun walking around... I bought a few things here and there, but really enjoyed spending my time taking pictures of everyone in their traditional costumes in the food section of the market. Women sat around on giant piles of potatoes, or in the middle of every type of fruit imaginable, and children ran around screaming (there is an unnecessarily high proportion of screaming children in Peru I´ve noticed). In the middle of the madness, I managed to meet a student from SDSU! A woman tried to convince me to buy some watercolors from her, but I ended up buying some corn seeds (of about 25 different types). I told her that we don't have corn like this in the US, and she was so excited to tell me that I could actually plant them and grow a ton. Wahoo!

The best story of the day happened when I was stalking another indigenou woman. Well, I was really just taking a picture of a cute cobblestone street and she happened to walk into the frame. As I stood there with my camera pointed down the street, the woman paused, turned around to look in my direction, and then squatted. I thought she was just mad that I was photographing her and was sitting down in protest. It took me a moment to realize she was peeing in the street. She soon stood up, ruffled her skirt, and set back off down the street like nothing happened. I still can't figure out why she even bothered to look behind her to see if anyone was watching, since clearly I was standing there with a camera pointed in her direction and I know she saw me.

That evening the market winded down and people started dismantling all of the stalls around dinner time. We went out to eat at around 8:30pm and the plaza wasn't much more than a bunch of kids kicking a soccer ball around and some women and men sweeping up trash and wheelbarrowing some wooden stakes away to an unknown location. (Oddly enough, the next morning we awoke to discover that at some point in the middle of the night they had entirely rebuilt the stalls and another giant market was going on! Why they took everything down only to put it back up, I really have no clue.) We went to a really cute restaurant for dinner, which seemed to be the only place open at 8:30pm. It was called Ulrike's Cafe. Of course there would be a German cafe in the middle of a tiny Andean town.

That night we didn't sleep well because the air was so dry. It didn't help that at 6am the church bells started ringing non-stop. I believe it was a 10 minute affair, possibly even longer. We were PISSED. I don't think the town wanted anyone to sleep in. I mean, it was another market day, after all. We should be shopping at 6am, not sleeping.

We watched the men set up their stalls thorugh the window as we ate breakfast in our hostal. I also spent most of my breakfast staring lovingly at a cute, white mutt dog who was trying so hard to sleep under the stall closest to us. He kept changing his position every few seconds. I don't think the cobblestones were very comfortable. I told Rachel I wanted to take him home with me, along with all the other billion street dogs. I asked what kind of dog she thought he was. She said probably a mix of 100 different dogs. I'm confident that in time I can manage to mate enough dogs together that I'll end up with his type.

Speaking of street animals, I really can't stop my desire to want to pet them and give them some love... even when they look rabid. (Just kidding, none that I've cuddled with have actually been rabid.) The hostal we stayed at had a cute white cat that unfortunately had a dreadlock problem. I don't know if it ever learned how to groom itself. I had to urge to give it a bath, and I probably would have if I didn't think the hostal staff would think I was a complete psycho. The cat had one blue and one amber colored eye and was really sweet. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that one night in Lima I spent my entire walk home petting every street dog I saw. They were all curled up on the sidewalk, alone and shivering, and it was a really sad sight so I figured it wouldn't hurt to make them feel loved for once in their lives. My hands turned black afterwards (from their dirty coats), but... oh well! Haha.

Anyway, more to come about our adventures in Salinas, Moray, and Ollantaytambo soon...