Cusco!

Yesterday was a day of layovers. With me flying from Anchorage and Graham flying from Portland, we each had our own layovers before meeting up in Miami for a direct flight to Lima, Peru. The first layover wasn´t bad for me - a two hour layover in Chicago but the nine hour layover in Miami was a little much. Graham was supposed to join me for six hours of the layover but his plane was having mechanical trouble in Texas and didn´t meet up with me until an hour before our flight to Lima. By the time our Miami flight was ready to depart, we were both already exhausted but excited to be on our way to South America.

We arrived in Lima, Peru around 5:30am and caught a 8:00am flight to Cusco to begin our Salkantay Trek to the town of Agua Calientes where we would then visit the ruins of Maccu Pichu. We were greeted at the airport by a woman from the hostel we would be staying at that evening holding a sign that read ¨Greta Melvin¨. Navigating through the airport in Lima and Cusco, we were immediately impressed with how friendly the Peruvians are. The woman that picked us up was no exception. I spoke the little Spanish I knew, used a lot of hand gestures and was miraculously able to hold a conversation.

After arriving at the hostel, we dropped our bags and immediately started exploring but not after trying some mate tea first. Graham and I were already developing a headache from the altitude (Cusco is around 11,000ft) and we were told that tea from coca leaves helps thin your blood and alleviate some of the symptoms associated with altitude sickness. Our room at the Samy Wasi hostel was awesome - one of the walls was built into the hillside and made of rock (which Graham, being the climber that he is, loved). I was surprised to see that we had an actual toilet and shower too - a definite treat that we were not expecting.

The town of Cusco is beyond beautiful. A town surrounded by mountains with streets lined with cobbles that rise as steep as bleachers in a stadium, we were in awe at how beautiful the place is. We were tired but weren´t going to waste a second resting when there was so much to explore. We walked up the hill to Cristobol Blanco where we were greeted by alpacas (I was a little too trigger happy with the camera) and Peruvians selling their handicrafts. We bought a hat and made our way down the hill just as it was starting to thunder and rain. Walking the streets we ran into two locals (Jimmy and John ´Juan´) that gave us some beta on the hike we would be doing over the next couple days.

We bought some corn on the cob from an elderly woman sitting on the street. The corn was unlike anything we have ever tasted before. Maybe it was hominy¿ (This keyboard is in Spanish - it´s kind of weird). Anyway, the kernals were huge and more mealy than regular corn but it was delicious fresh and dried. We tried that and some dried lima beans for lunch/snack. For dinner Graham tried his first Alpaca meat, fresh fries (they serve a lot of french fries here), quinoa soup (delicious!) and crepe with banana for dessert. I had trout, rice, salad and fruit salad for dessert. We also tried the local pisco sour drink which is much like a Margarita, tried some delicious red wine, and a purple sweet drink made from corn.

That evening we crashed like we´ve never crashed before and awoke the next morning at 4am to catch a bus to Mollepata, the start of our Salkantay trek.