Hola

So I'm back from Peru. There is so much to tell and so many pictures to upload. But for now, I'll give you an overview.

Getting there: It was not half the fun. Our flight from Boston to Miami was delayed to such an extent that we could not make our connection from Miami to Lima (and then from Lima to Cusco). After telling us there was no way to get there, the ticket agent magically found us another flight from Miami to Lima. This was still a pretty tight connection, especially for an international flight. So after getting off the 3-hour-long flight from Boston to Miami, Todd and I ran across the Miami airport -- It was all very Amazing Race. And after booking it across several terminals, what did we find? That our flight from Miami to Lima was also delayed, by about an hour, I think. It finally left at about 3 am.

When we finally arrived in Lima, the airport was mobbed. Apparently, the airport in Cusco had been on strike the day before, so many people who had been trying to get there from Lima were still in Lima. We missed our original connection because of all the delays, and at first the ticket agent told us that there were no more flights. But then, magically, LAN (the airline) produced one in several hours. We arrived in Cusco about 7 hours later than was originally planned. The funny thing is, Todd had made a mistake in telling the hotel when to pick us up from the airport. But it turned out to be exactly the right time given the delays. Ha!

Cusco and the Sacred Valley: Cusco (or Q'osqo, if I'm going to use the traditional spelling), means "The Navel of the Universe" in Quechua, which is the native Andean language. It was the heart of the Inca empire, and it is surrounded by a valley that is dotted with many Inca ruins. It is also at a very high altitude, since it is in the Andes. I'll talk more about the ruins when I've uploaded the pictures -- they were pretty cool. Anyway, Cusco is very touristy, being the jumping-off point for Machu Picchu and other sights. Which means that everybody wants to sell you something, including pictures with them wearing local dress. Cusco also has tons of stray dogs and garbage in the streets. Well, not as much garbage as other places probably have. But the poverty of the locals is very clear and very sad. There are also signs everywhere discouraging sex tourism and slavery. Do you really need signs for that?

The Inca Trail: Oh. My. God. Where do I start? I'll say more when the pictures are uploaded later. But what I will say now is that this was the most difficult physical experience of my entire life, and I have never been so sore. Todd and I realized that we are not trekkers, and will probably not do anything like this again, although we're glad now that we can say we did this.

The bathrooms along the trail were terrifying. I had been somewhat excited to learn that there were toilets along the trail. However, although they were called "flush toilets," they really amounted to "flush pits." I am not good at squatting to do my business, especially when other people's shit is all over the floor. And the toilets at the campsites would eventually get plugged up. Squatting is also hard when you've been hiking for 9 hours a day in the Andes. This is a time when a girl needs to sit, thank you very much.

On the first day of the trail, I began to get very ill. I thought it might be food poisoning, and our wonderful guide gave me some Immodium, which helped me for the remaining days of the hike. Imagine how much (insert assorted curse words here) fun I had pooing constantly in those flush pits!! Anyway, I never got better after the hike and eventually saw doctor in Lima the day before we left. I've been invaded by bacteria and have lost almost 10 pounds. I'm starting to feel better though, and I imagine that soon my collarbone and hips won't jut out so much.

As I mentioned before, our guide was very helpful. We had 2 other people on our tour, a couple from France, who we liked very much. The porters, who are the hardworking men who carry the camp equipment to each site, set up and break up camp, and cook (you know, the servants) are the hardest working bunch of people I have ever seen. They are paid so little, and yet it's probably more than they get at their other jobs, which are usually farming. They are young men (usually in their early 20s) with old faces that look marred by hard lives. They carry huge loads of equipment up steep mountains. There is supposedly a 25 kilo limit on how much they can carry, but we saw some who must have been carrying more. They get to the lunch or campsites before the campers, set up dining tents and sleeping tents, cook amazing food (the best food I had in Peru was made my German, my group's cook), and do it day after day after day. Class divisions were very apparent, as the porters and cook served us, but then ate after us, not with us. They also didn't get to sleep in proper tents, just the non-waterproof military tents that served as the cooking and dining tents. This was especially problematic on the night that it rained really hard. We also never really got introduced to them until the last night, which seemed strange. We were all very uncomfortable with this arrangement. We (the group of us) kept pushing our guide for answers about this, and asking to have meals with all of us together. I'm not sure that our guide knew what to do with this, but we did all eat together on the last night.

Lima: We were supposed to fly from Cusco to Lima the day after we got back from the trail, but that didn't happen. Why? Well, when we missed our original flight from Lima to Cusco, LAN cancelled the rest of our itinerary. Just because. They did, however, get us on a flight for the next day and they put us up in Cusco at a very, very fancy hotel and paid for our meals. I loved that fancy hotel room. Which is good, because I spent the day inside of it, close to the very elegant bathroom.

We only spent 2 days in Lima, and didn't get to see much, since I was so sick. We stayed in a part of Lima called Miraflores, which is close to the ocean and probably the prettiest part of this big, dirty city. We walked to the Pacific Ocean and just for a minute I thought I was back in Santa Cruz. While in Lima, we also went to the saddest zoo I have ever seen. The animals had very small enclosures. The one sea otter they had was in what looked like a stained swimming pool (alone -- not good for such a social animal) and was eating some garbage that people had thrown in. We didn't stay long there.

Our hotel in Lima was fabulous, but not in the ostentatiously fancy way that most people would define "fabulous." It cost $40 per night and was super clean. There was unlimited free drinking water, and tons of hot water in the shower. The Internet was free, and when it was clear that I was getting worse and not better, they called a doctor for me who provided me with free care. Amazing.

There was also some free entertainment: A bus crashed into the hotel. People in Peru drive even more crazily than in Massachusetts, and on the first night that we were there, there was a bus vs. beamer accident. The bus crashed into the stone wall and security gate outside the hotel. The owner said this was the second time in 4 years that this had happened. For those of you imagining large city buses, take heart: This was a colectivo, which is more of a mini bus that you can take for about 1 sole (.60 US) and gets crammed more full of people than you thought possible. Todd and I took several of these around Cusco and the Sacred Valley -- it can be nice to travel with the locals. And we realized we could have easily been on the one that crashed into the hotel. Scary. One man had to be carried away on a stretcher.

And now we're back. Our flights back went fairly smoothly. Now, of course, we need to start packing to get ready to move. But I might go back to bed first.