Last day in Cusco

We began our last day in Cusco with breakfast in the hostel, this time with the other half of our avocado from last nights dinner added in.  After breakfast we went back to the San Pedro market for some mango orange juice.

We wanted to buy a thermos like the ones we'd been seeing all over South America.  They are glass inside and plastic outside and they keep things hot or cold for a really long time.  The thermos vendor wasnt open yet, their stuff was still covered by a tarp.

 We walked up to the San Blas area to look at a restaurant Joe had suggested for dinner.  It had high reviews,  but was a little pricey.  We walked back to the market, had 2 more juices (carrot mix for Ryan and Mango mix for me), and by that time the thermos lady was open.  We bought a 1.8 liter vacuum thermos, dropped it off at the hostel, and ate our left over dinner for lunch.

After lunch we met for a free walking tour of the city at one of the Plazas.  There was a really large group.  We walked through some of the streets to lookouts, tasted alpaca filet, chicha drink, and sampled chocolate tea at a chocolate museum, and learned a little about how silver jewelry is made.

We met Joe at 3 at the Plaza de Armas.  We sat in Starbucks for a while and talked before going to look at a large fancy hotel with a church connected that dates back to incan times.  We saw an art gallery that had painting by a man from whom Joe commissioned a paiting.  Lastly  we headed in to Jack's cafe for dinner.  Just outside the door a young kid with paintings to sell was telling me he knew Barak Obama and cornering me into promising to buy a painting on the way out.

Joe ordered a strawberry juice and Ryan and I ordered lemonade with mint.  WOW did this lemoade have a strong minty flavor!  It was the best lemonade we've ever had.  I could have drank another glass.  Ryan and I split a huevos rancheros and a veggie burger, Joe ordered mango pancakes that looked more like a decadent dessert.

We talked a while, Joe ordered a lemonade for himself, and we split a piece of the best carrott cake ever.  So good.  Luckily Obama's friend was gone when we came out.

We snapped a picture of us in front of the plaza, then Ryan and I headed back to the hostel to pack for our flight tomorrow morning.  Next stop - Lima!

juice area of market

incan bricks

ryan ponders the inca

like a puzzle

san blas plaza

overlooking cusco

with joe in the plaza de armas

Cusco

We woke up to our last morning at Sacred Valley.  We were up early but stayed in bed a while because breakfast wasn't til 9 (thats at least 9:15 or 9:30 Sacred Valley time.)  The owners had some children over from a local orphanage to help with their pending move to another town.  They were all friendly and the two girls gave Ryan and I a hug when they came in the dining room.

After breakfast we walked to Urubamba, about  a 45 minute walk, to the "eco-ferrria."  There were several booths set up selling natural foods and goods.  We bought a little jar or peanut butter (to make sandwiches for the way home), a large green smoothie, a brownie, Ryan had a piece of pizza, and we bought 2 clay bowls and 2 clay mugs.  We had cafe con leches and a fruit salad at the same bakery from our first day.

We took a mototaxi back, said our goodbyes, grabbed our stuff and took another moto back to Urubamba to catch a bus to Cusco.

Cusco is about an hour away.  By the time we arrived, Ryan said his stomach was starting to be bothered by the windey, bumpy roads.

We took a taxi to our hostel once we arrived in Cusco.  The hostel was pretty empty, I think we were the only guests.  Its a very old building and the lock on the door is "a joke" in Ryan's words.

Its pretty drafty and a little run down, but hey, it will be fine.  The staff only speaks Spanish, but we're getting by.

After we dropped off our things we walked around a little, found the Plaza de Armas, and picked a spot for dinner once we were tired wandering.  Ryan got veggie kabobs, I got aan undercooked burger.  His stomach was still on the outs so we came back and went to bed.

This morning we were both feeling well, and we had breakfast in the hostel.  I went to reception to tell them we were ready, and a guy came and made us each a scramblend  egg which we had with bread, jam, fresh squeezed oj, and coffee or tea.  Not bad.

After breakfast we walked to the San Pedro market.  It's mostly food and local goods, but there are a few souvenier booths.  We had some mango juice and a snack of rice, avocado, egg, and fried all on a plate.  Pretty good!

We spent the rest of the day shopping around for friends and family.  We found a cute baby alpaca sweater set for Ryan's friend who is a new father to a baby girl.  I got Baba a read Peru t-shirt per her request.  I also got something small for each of my cousins, and a pendant for my grandma Pannunzio.

We had lunch at Jack's cafe near the plaza.  i had chicken and veggie soup, Ryan had muesli and yogurt.  We went back to the market and bought a clay pot and wooden ladle that we can cook with at home.  We saw that they used one in Sacred Valley.  The issue now is how to get all this stuff home in one piece.  I already hear something rolling around in the retablo, which is all wrapped up in newspapers and taped.  I think the girl shoved the newspaper into the inside of it too hard and probably broke a piece that I'll have to glue when I get home.

We cooked out own dinner with the lentils and quinoa that we still had left, and some veggies picked up from the market.  We talked with the owner of the hostel for a while (spanish practice).  We are now trying to figure out how to pack everything up for our flight to lima and our flights home.  Wish us luck.

Pisac

Ryan blogging:

We woke up refreshed after a busy day at Machu Picchu.  I went for a short run and Steph worked on the blog.  I ran through a farm trail and passed several sheep and a few cows, one of which was blocking the path.  When I got back we had a leisurely breakfast outside in the garden.  Avashi had shown us some clay pots that he uses for cooking so we decided to go to the village of Pisaq and buy one.  Our directions for getting to Pisaq were "just grab any vehicle going in your direction and ask them to take you there".

We began flagging down vans and buses, none of which seemed to be going to Pisac.  After 20-30 minutes of walking we realized that we would have to take one of the buses to the village of Calca and then get another bus from Calca to Pisaq.  We hopped on a small crowded bus and began our journey.  The bus was crammed with locals one of which had an infant in her arms and sitting behind her was a women with a live chicken in a bag.  Towards the front of the bus sat a guy with a kitchen sink wrapped in plastic.  Only in South America do you see everything including the kitchen sink in a bus.  We arrived in Calca and hopped on another bus and eventually made it to Pisaq.  This whole process took some time but only cost us $4.50.

We quickly found the market and bought a few souvenirs for family and friends.  We had a delicious vegetarian lunch and looked around town for the clay pots.  All of the stores were closed, but Steph did manage to find a beautiful handmade Retablo.  She has been hunting one down ever since we landed in Santiago.  We walked back to the street where the bus dropped us off and got our series of buses back to town.  The second bus was so full that we had to stand up in the aisle for half the drive.

We arrived to the retreat, had another healthy delicious dinner and went to bed.

Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

The next morning we woke up and got ready to be led on a "Meditation Walk" by Avashai's friend Avery.  We were joined by Daniella who we think is Avery's girlfriend/wife/daughter/we'renotsure.  We set out and right away he let us know "this might be weird."

We started walking backwards up the trail, then went through "excercises" to explore our senses.  We closed our eyes and listened, we tasted alfalfa, smelled some herbs growing around us, touched the rocks and water.

Next we were told to walk with one arm over our heads, then do the next.  I'm not totally sure what this was supposed to illustrate.

Finally after walking backwards a little more, we had a "ceremony" on a small bridge over the stream.

Now, Ryan is a no-nonsense kind of guy, so I could only imagine what he has been thinking this whole time.  At one point after walking with one hand over his head the leader asked him "what did you feel during that?" And Ryan replied "nothing."

Anyway here we are standing on this bridge and we have to make a wooshing sound as we cast off negative things like fear, doubt, etc.  Ryan actually did it 2 times while everyone else was.  What choice did he have?  Haha!  Then we faced the oncoming water and opened ourselves to accept positive things like contentment, happiness, etc.

This concluded our walk and we went back to the retreat to enjoy a great breakfast.  Avocado, eggs, bread, honey, butter, brown rice with mike and potatoes, apples.  It was really good.

After breakfast Daniella joined us for the Moray Incan ruins and for the Salt Mines.  I thought the salt mines were really neat.  You'd think we'd have seen enough salt by now, but it was a lot different looking than the Salt Flats.  The terraces at Moray were cool as well, such perfect circles dug into the mountain.  We bought a small weaving from the tables outside the ruins.

We were dropped back off in Urubamba were we bought some pastries, had some papaya juice, and bought a few things at the market for snacks the next day.

We were back in time to enjoy another delicious dinner of leftover soup, 2 kinds of salad, olives, bread and crackers, and avocado.  We are loving the food here.

We went to bed and woke up at 4:15 to have some breakfast at 5 and head to Machu Picchu.  Avashai made us some quinoa porridge and gave us fresh yogurt and honey with it.  He even let us use some of his peanut butter that Avery brought him from the states for our sandwiches for the day.

We were out waiting for our cab at 5:30.  At 5:45 he picked us up, dropped us at the train station at Ollentaytambo and he were off.  We grabbed 2 cafe americanos to go and got on the train.  The train was pretty comfortable and they passed out drinks for us half way through.  We each had the manzanilla tea with sugar.  In about 90 minutes, we were dropped at Aguas Calientes where we would meet our guide.  Or so we thought...

We were told that someone would be standing there with a sign with our names on it.  There were several guides, but none of them were for us.  We waited and waited, even walking down to the bus station to see if the guide was down there.  Negative.

We asked a different guide if he could help us.  I dug up Avahai's cell number from an old saved email.  There was no answer, but he did call back a few minutes later, and said he would call the guy and send him.

After a grand total of about 40 minutes waiting a guy named Raul walks up.  He takes us to buy our tickets and says "the tour starts at 11."  It's 9am!

We explain to him that we came in on the 6:40 train so why on earth does the tour start at 11?He tells us we can go into the park ourselves, but some back out and meet Patrick, the guide with a white flag, at 11.

Fine, whatever.  We go in, see the beautiful ruins while very irritated at the entire tour situation.  We roamed around for about an hour or so before going back out front to find this Patrick character and his white flag (bandera blanca).  From 10:50 to 11:25 we waited.  No Patrick, no white flag.

It was comical at this point.   We decided to just go with it and try to have a good day.  We went back in and gave ourselves our own tour which consisted of us wandering around the ruins and taking a million pictures from every angle.  We walked up a long trail to a lookout point and had some passion fruit that we bought at the market the day before.

After a lot of sitting and walking all over the ruins we headed out to get the bus back to Aguas Calientes.  We had dinner at a good yet overpriced restaurant in the tourist down. Walked around the souvenir shops, and had coffee and hot chocolate at a cafe before getting our train back to Ollentaytambo.

We made it back in time to catch the tail end of a Shabbat celebration at our retreat.  We had some tea, discussed an interesting Incan water jug, briefly told Avashai the tour was a bust, and went to bed.

waiting and searching for our guide

the stones fit together like a puzzle

there were so many terraces

Moray

salt mines

salt mines

Arequipa to Sacred Valley

We woke up at 4:30 to be ready for our taxi at 5:30.  We had a smooth flight to Cusco, and out pick-up was waiting there with a "Sra. Williams" sign.  We were starving and thirsty by the time we got to The Sacred Valley Retreat and B&B.  The owner would be another hour before he arrived (It was about 11:30).  One of the staff showed us to our room and where the filtered water was.  In an hour the owner was here and we inquired about lunch.  A few cups of tea, biscotti, and a grand tour of the small retreat later, and he told us one of the staff would make lunch for us.

At 2:30 we sat down for a lunch of fresh salad from the garden, bread, giant corn, olives, cheese, and a purple corn lemonade-style drink.  It was all very good.  Nearly all of the ingredients are from the garden on the property, and we were in the mood for some fresh veggies.  We sat with Fernando, the staff member that prepared it, and Martina, the one who showed us to our room.

Fernando is learning English, so we talked a little bit back and forth about this and that, trying to understand eachother.  For the most part it was a quiet lunch.

Afterwards Ryan and I hiked up the mountain behind the retreat for an hour or so before coming back down and stopping in the tiny town for 2 cokes and a muffin.  I made Ryan hide the empty coke bottles in his backpack because I didn't want the all-organic natural staff to see them.

On our way in we saw a family of pigs (A mom and at least 7 piglets) being ushered along the road by a local woman.

We talked on the balcony with the owners friend who has been staying here 3 weeks.  He is some sort of therapeutic pain-eraser.  He demonstrated by trying to lengthen Ryan's spine by adjusting his posture.  The jury is still out.

Time for pity-corner.  I have a huge bug bite on my right ankle, actually about 3 or 4 bites but only one is huge and swollen.  Why?!  Every where we go they find me.  I have been spraying every bed we've slept in with a preventative bed-bug deterrent so I don't think its bed bugs.  It's from Arequipa, but how or why I don't know.  Oh well... could be much worse.  Pity-party is over.

Here are a few more pics from the last several days:

Suriplaza, Putre

It was windy and cold

Awesome colors with the blue sky

The tire shaped grave it dug

filled in with rocks - again!

hopin' and a prayin' that it works!

It worked!  Ryan lays in the ditch that tried to eat our front tire

The back yard of out retreat in Sacred Valley, Peru

Burro's coming up the trail this afternoon

Sun starts to set

sunset over the mountains