Going back a bit to what I've missed since out since Costa Rica. Peru. Machu Pichu, Aguas Calientes, Cusco, Tambopata Rainforest Reserve. I'll make a head start on describing some of these!
Our first visit to Peru is with a tour company called Gap Adventures - or G Adventures since they've lost a battle with GAP clothing. Normally, not one for tour trips with the structured itineraries and whizzing timelines. But here, having considered that we need to carefully cater to the children in order to hope to see Machu Pichu, we have chosen to use a tour company.
We flew into Lima (arriving late at night due to the delays in Miami) and were initially surprised to be driven 45 minutes from Lima center to Miraflores, a shiny new district with a modern, trendy, cosmopolitan feel. Our hotel, La Castellana, was a smaller more traditional looking one, but just round the corner from the big modern buildings, reminding me of San Francisco's financial district. Aside from a very drunken American girl wandering about wearing only a t-shirt and nothing else(!), the hotel was quiet and cosy, nothing much to write about.
There wan't much time to see Lima in any event as we were whisked off to the airport in a minibus the following morning with another family joining the tour and our tour guide Augusta. At the airport, we found that airlines work on a Hurry-Up-And-Wait system, where it is not unusual for planes to be delayed by 1 to 24 hours and gates are like musical chairs adn don't even bother much with explanations. Nobody was too worried about this, after the Miami midnight debacle, and our plane was only an hour or so off-schedule (with 3 gate changes).
Arriving 3,000+ meters high into Cusco, a city literally floating in the clouds, was a whole different world. Walking around took more effort than usual. Surrounded by giant velvety-green mountain peaks and topped by lazily floating cloud clusters, Cusco sprawls out in muted clay and cream colors. The old town, where our hotel Cusco Plaza is located, is lined in stone walls that bring the first images of Machu Pichu to mind.
The boys hung out with Kiana, the 8 year old daughter of the Lambert family joining our tour from Australia. They were all happy to be at a hotel, feet on the ground, and allowed some electronics to play as a reward. Once the electronics games are doled out, the children huddle together in a corner and are not heard from again until batteries have drained.
Although we were handed a spreadsheet which listed our major destinations for each day of the tour, the details for when we were leaving the hotels, taking planes, trains and buses, or having free time were provided on an as-needed basis by Augusta. It took me time to adjust to having little or no control over these sorts of things, like being a child in school ... but there are some definite benefits to not having to manage all of this information as well.
We left for Aguas Calientes early the next morning. This meant a 2-3 hour bus ride around picturesque mountain roads to the small town of Ollantaytambo to catch the Machu Pichu train. Walking to the train, we passed the steady ants trail of porters carrying huge bag of camping and hiking equiptment for those who were to be hiking the Inca trail to Machu Pichu. I'd love to do that hike someday as I think it would be the best way to approach the site ... but it's out of the question with little ones.
The train was spacious and comfortable and had an old-world feel to it. We were served the Coca leaf tea again - which helps with altitude sickness and is a standard hot drink in these parts. Snacks of crispy, salted plantain chips and sweet-coated brazil nuts were distributed as well. The views of the Andes mountains were dramatic and breathtaking. The children weren't as caught up in the scenery and did get a bit bored, but were mostly well-behaved.
Aguas Calientes, also known as Machu Pichu town, is surprisingly not as high in altitiude as Cusco, but still feels high.
Departing the train, we took the main road up through town, steep and slippery in the rain. We were all soaked through and through by the time we arrived at our little hotel 15 minutes later. The hotel was full of others heading to or returning from Machu Pichu and there is an air of excitement, a single vision uniting everyone.
Although there was some time for scouting around town, it was pouring it down with rain and cold as well. We did a little wandering about, passing the folks calling out 'Friend! Some food? massage?'. We ended up choosing a restaurant because it had a kitten out front. Sam and Andy fell in love with it and, as it was mealtime, that's were we stayed. We had exorbitantly priced wine and beer while the boys love-tortured the small creature, who did not choose to leave when it had some opportunities.
Wake up for Machu Pichu was at 4:30 AM! This did not go well with Andy, our night-owl, who hollered and yelped and clung to his blankets. But we had to be downstairs at 5 AM for breakfast, ready to depart at 5:30 for the bus to carry us up. We found Ben already having breakfast at a separate table with a German group.
The bus ride up to Machu Pichu was hair-raising and beautiful at the same time. The drivers would go hell-for-leather up and around steep corners, often almost running into a bus going into the opposite direction - at which point one would retreat as the other could inch past - I still don't know how they find the space to pass, it's like the Harry Potter magic bus. Looking downwards as the bus bounced and swayed was not a good idea as the drop-off, feet from our wheels, falls steeply for hundreds of feet!
Arriving at Machu Pichu's entrance, we found there was already a huge line waiting to enter and the doors weren't open til 7 am (so why did we have to leave at 5:30?!). There is only one toilet and it is outside the Machu Pichu gates, so we prepared to each have proof of entry and a passport in the event of needing to make the trek outside for the loo.
Once inside, our guide Augusta, recommended we climb the trail to the Sungate before returning to visit Machu Pichu itself. We had not idea how steep and far the trail went as we set off ... but figured it out soon enough as we huffed and puffed our way past groups of returning hikers with their climbing sticks in hand. The children had to stop and rest regularly. Michelle, Kianas mum, and I panicked occasionally as our children veered to the left edge of the narrow footpath. One bad slip or accidental step could send a person falling to their death down the dangerous, unforgiving moutainside. And the path was slippery from the constant rain. And we had 3 boys who love to push and play fight as they walk. No handrails to spoil the beauty. Yes, I did bite some fingernails on the way up.
When we reached top, the Sungate, there was a huge sigh of relief. We climbed the even steeper sets of stone 'stairs' to the flat surfaces just above and enjoyed the view of sweeping mountains topped in wispy floating clouds, a chocolate brown river tumbing by hundreds of feet below. There were too many clouds for us to see the focus of this point - the Machu Pichu site. Sungate is one of the 3 sites where the postcard images of Machu Pichu are taken from just above, showing the maze of walls of and buildings. But not unusually, the clouds covered everything and we strained to see anything of the site. Still the mountains are amazing from that point. When the sun rises at equinox, the light goes through the gates of the Sungate and shines directly onto Machu Pichu sun temple.
We performed an Inca ritual with our guide Augusta as that is something she likes to do when visiting. She took 3 coca leaves and, as we stood i a circle, she thanked the 3 entities: the Condor of the skies, the Puma of the earth (PachaMama) and the serpents of the underworld. We all said thank you to mother earth for our individual reasons and Augusta left the coca leaves in place under a bush. The younger children giggled a bit, but I think Andy thought it was interesting.
We stepped, slipped and slided and our way back down to Machu Pichu again. Everyone was relieved to see the children on more solid ground and we were all quite tired from the hike. But nothing could detract from the raw beauty of seeing Machu Pichu for the first time, hanging in the air ahead of us, majestic, guarded by mountains, shrouded in clouds.
The children were in awe on this occasion as well, if only for a few minutes. Then they noticed the llamas that walk around the ruins freely. At that point, the ruins could not compare. We all headed straight for the llamas to attempt to pet one - and the children didn't even mind that they couldn't really pet the llama, but were quite happy to be standing near it. I'm not so sure the llama reciprocated such loving feelings, but it tolerated us.
We were provided a guide by Gap Adventures and he tok us around the site, describing the layout - where the nobles would have lived, the storage facilities, the common peoples homes, the temples (sun, water and earth 'pachamama'). We walked in and out of the maze of ruins for a couple of hours learning about the way the stones would have been lifted and chiseled perfectly to fit together without mortar. We saw the irrigation systems re-routing water from the top of the ruins down the mountain in a gentle, unobstrusive way so that the land could be preserved and not flooded or lost.
In the end, we were all exhausted head-to-toe and made our way back to the bus for Aguas Calientes. I tried not to look down from the window as our bus made harrowing turns and honked people and other buses out of the way.
Back in Aguas Calientes, we decided to reward our sore muscles with a hot springs soak. The hot springs were actually not natural, but swimming pools created in concrete and tiles .. but with the spring water imported via pipes and heated - the original springs are not around any longer. It seemed half the town was in the now-man-made springs at the same time. We were elbow to elbow with others in the pools and the pools were just luke warm rather than hot. The water was a yellowy-browny-green and reeked of what we hoped was minerals! Needless to say, I wasn't a big fan .. but, hey, we tried it.
No matter the hot springs experience, we were all left with a residue of excitement from our visit to Machu Pichu. It was a fairytale view that will stick with us for a long time.
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