Happier Here: Images from Peru: Lima – Cuzco

My boyfriend, Dan, and I went to Peru in January, 2010. We arrived in Lima, and spent a few days getting settled in with the time change.

We saw the colorful slums on a distant hill.

We went to the Museo del Convento de San Francisco, where we saw loads of bones in the catacombs.

There were lots of pigeons in the courtyard.

We stayed in an awesome hostel, that had these cool murals on the walls.

And my new favorite quote in the bar.

After a few days of risking our lives in Peruvian taxis we flew to Cuzco.

We saw giant stones that were carved by the Incas.

And pretty llamas.

And Lambs.

And it rained.

But it was still awesome, despite the rain.

The roads were very narrow.

A few days later we got on a train.

We met two guys on the train. Paul, from Canada, and Basil, from New York.
Basil could immediately tell we were from the San Francisco Bay Area, which was a bit freaky.

And then then the train was stalled.

Then the train moved again. But it was stalled again shortly after that. The rain had made part of the train tracks impassable. So we looked out the window at the sheep.

The Perurail authorities made everyone get off the trains.

And then we waited. It was hot, there wasn't much shade. We Didn't know what we were waiting for.

We were in a tiny town, with little kids and old women and this little sheep

We had a decision to make: Go back to Cuzco, or hop on a bus and go on to Aguas Calientes, the small town outside of Machu Picchu.

We got on a bus to Aguas Calientes.

We soon discovered that the bus driver was falling asleep. We were on a ridiculously windy road going through the Andes, and the Perurail employee sat behind the bus driver, poking him whenever a big turn was coming up.

The bus got awfully close to the edge of the road.

We got to the town of Ollantaytambo, where we though we would be able to hop on a train to Aguas Calientes. Instead, we were given two choices. We could either take a bus back to Cuzco, or we could exchange our tickets and try to take the train tomorrow.

We stood in line at the train station for three hours. We finally got our tickets exchanged, with the help of four Argentenian chicks.

After exchanging our tickets we trudged up the main road to the hotel. There was massive amounts of traffic and absolutely no sidewalk (or even side of the road on which to walk) which meant we had to weave between cars and walk behind busses that excreted the most nauseating smell of diesel fuel.

The next morning we got on the train, and took an excruciatingly long train ride. When I say long, I mean time-wise. We actually didn't go very far, but it took three hours nonetheless, and I am assuming it's because the Perurail authorities were afraid that the track, and the train along with it, could slide into the thick churning water of the raging Urubamba river.

The whole time we were on the train Basil would look at the brown rapids, with the splashes jumping 20 feet into the air, and declare "You know what that is? That's death!"

When the train finally stopped in Aguas Calientes, and we got to stretch our feet and traipse over the rain-slicked sidewalk, we thought, well, at least we've made it.

It rained all night.

The next day, after we'd woken up at 6am so we could get a full day at Machu Picchu, we found out it had been closed and that the train tracks were non-functional.

A funny thing happens in Peru when a small-scale disaster-situation arises, nobody in Authority is at their work stations. The info center sat vacant, the train station looked like a ghost town, and the Machu Picchu info center (where we had gotten our tickets the day before) was empty.

We walked down the road that ran parallel to the river, looking in awe at the grand scale of the rapids. We came to the bridge that you'd have to cross to enter the trail that leads up to Machu Picchu. I saw a silhouette of a wall.

This is as close as we could get to Machu Picchu.

There was a flooded butterfly house in the river.

We learned, on day three, that the train tracks had been washed away. And that this was the worst flooding in at least15 years. Helicopters would begin coming to take away the elderly and the children.

We thought the helicopters would begin coming in regular intervals on day three (or two, I can't quite remember the exact sequence of events, but bear with me). So we packed our stuff, checked out of our hostel, and went to what we thought was the helicopter landing ground. There were hundreds of us, waiting in the heat. But there were no helicopters.

Just kidding.

We checked back in to our hostel, but opted for a 6 bed dorm rather than our private room. Our money was running short, and the only ATM machines that still had money left in them only took Visa, and we only had Mastercard. Our new room smelled like mold, and the think layer of water that perpetually covered the bathroom floor, combined with poor electrical wiring, lead to a nasty shock for Dan one day after he came out of the shower.

Since there was no way in or out of town supplies could not be brought in on any regular basis. This meant that the restaurants began to run out of food.

The Peruvian military helicoptered in bag lunches that were given out at the municipal building. Peruvian women cooked food in giant pots that were set up on the train tracks in the middle of town, and they gave out free food to hungry tourists. Rice, beans and onions. Surprisingly tastier than I expected.

They set up tents for people to hang out in.

There was a kitty at our hostel.
I liked the kitty

Every day we thought we would be getting out, plopped on a helicopter and rescued. We had "American Meetings" where a man from the state department or from the US Embassy would talk to us, let us know that the American Drug Enforcement Helicopters were coming down from Colombia, and that we'd likely be taken out first. Rumors spread, rumors that rich Americans, Bristish, and Japanese had bought their way onto the first helicopters. We were told to walk in groups because many people were upset with the Americans.

We must have signed a dozen lists. Lists that included our name and passport number, which was supposed to be given to the embassy. I think most people were just signing lists so they would have something to do. Being the town adjacent to Machu Picchu, Aguas Calientes is a tourist trap where the only things to do are eat and shop, but when you have no money it's difficult to do either.

The buildings by the river began to fall in. (this photo was taken by Paul)

I emailed my parents when I could, letting them know the updates. The power worked only intermittently, and so some days I would write "I think we're getting out today" but I would write again the next day, "nope, still here."

In the beginning there was sheer chaos with organizing who would be getting out on the first helicopters. Finally it was decided that it would simply go by age, starting with those 60-69, then 50-59, then 40-49 and so on. Which meant that us 20-somethings we left til the end.

A few days into our ordeal we took another walk down the bus road that ran parallel to the river, but it had been reduced to only three feet across in some areas.

It was quite impressive.

I got an eye infection on one of our last days. Thick goop was congealing in the corner of my right eye. I went to the make-shift clinic that was set up in the municipal building. A woman looked at my eye and wrote down a prescription for eye drops. Luckily there was a pharmacy in town, and the prescription was only $3.

The last night our stay we got a free night in Gringo Bill's hostel, a nice place run by an American couple. They knew many people were running out of cash, and so they offered a ridiculously nice room to us. the towels were even shaped like animals. That night, since it was just the 20-somethings left, there was a big party in the Plaza de Armas, the main square. Volleyball nets had been set up, and there were many sack races taking place. We got a box of wine.

These were the signs posted in town.

The last day we waited in line for a very long time...it must have been four hours before we got to the helicopter pad (a large patch of flat grassy area, right next to the raging river).