Images from Peru: Lima – Cuzco – Aguas Calientes

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).

 I read a book while waiting.

The train tracks were gone. This picture is of where the train tracks used to be.

Rescue!

My first helicopter ride.

 View from the helicopter: fantastic.

But we still never saw Machu Picchu!

Dick Around

Paint it Pink

Hope and a Cure by Mngojuice featuring a bra dress

A broad, Abroad.

This CANNOT be a toilet (but oh, it was....Italy)

Upon arriving in Amsterdam with my dad, my first time in continental Europe, we discovered that our luggage did not quite make it as far as we would have hoped. We were supposed to have a mere 20 minute layover in Dublin, yet we quickly found out that 20 minutes is not enough time to find our way through the maze-like airport and finagle the system of customs. So instead of 20 minutes, we had two hours. Somewhere along the lines our luggage was sent to oblivion.

Schiphol airport in Amsterdam gave us a complimentary toiletry kit to make amends for not knowing if our luggage would ever be found. I hardly thought that the flimsy toothbrush and spackle-tasting toothpaste was a compliment.

Despite being summer it rained in Amsterdam the first day of our visit. Fortunately I like the rain. Unfortunately I only had one pair of pants, a sweatshirt that reeked of stale airplane air, and a scarf that was about as warm as wrapping an extremely long wet noodle around your neck. My dad and I were both very excited when our luggage arrived a day and a half after we did.

The bathroom at the hotel we were staying at was slightly janky. The toilette was located right outside out room in a room no bigger than a standard linen closet and each time you flushed you had to shimmy to the left to avoid the jet of water that spurted out of the sink.

A week later my dad and I made our way to Germany via the train. We had to hop from one train to the next, literally throwing our luggage and boxes of books out of the door of one train, and then traverse the train station so that we could throw them onto the next train. We attended a small game convention in a castle overlooking the Rhine. I did not attempt to fulfill the 10-pints-of-beer-a-day quota that most of the convention-goers managed to pull off with relative ease. After the convention I my dad traveled back home, leaving me to fend for myself for the rest of my vacation.

My hotel in Monterosso, Italy, catered mainly to groups of young travelers. Three bedrooms were connected by a large seemingly unused common room and a central shared bathroom. I was wary of the bathroom door which didn't lock let alone shut all the way. A few days into my visit of stunning Cinque Terra I ventured down to the corner store and bought a bottle of veet, the no-shave shaving cream. I headed back to the hotel, hoping that none of my fellow room mates would be in for I was yearning for some privacy and wanted to use the bathroom without much interruption. To my surprise and delight the door to the bathroom actually shut. I went about my business, veeting my legs and showering. After emerging from the bathroom I began to feel a slight burning sensation on my legs. I knew I wasn't allergic because I had used the product in the past, so thought little of the odd sensation. When I attempted to open the door to the humid and foggy bathroom I found that the door was resisting the impulse to open. I found it odd that the door that would not lock was now the door that would not unlock. I opened the window above the sink to bring some fresh air into the progressively claustrophobic room. I tugged on the handle of the door, hoping that the door had just gotten wedged shut and needed some persuading. No luck. I bent down and tried pulling at the door from the bottom. The door was hollow and was made of weak particleboard, so as I pulled all I managed to do was pull off clumps of wood, embedding small splinters into my already-sore fingers. By this time my legs were taking on quite a distinguishable burning feeling that was increasing unpleasant. Desperate to escape the confines of the bathroom I considered climbing onto the sink and out crawling out the window. I had, however, no idea where the window led. I could see some sort of foliage outside, but was confused because the bathroom was on the second story of the hotel. I could just imagine me climbing out of the window onto a rooftop garden of some neighboring building, freaking out some unsuspecting Italian folk enjoying a nice cappuccino. I laughed at myself, wondering when or if the people staying in the other bedrooms at my hotel would be returning. I considered what was worse, them returning to find me pawing at the bottom of the bathroom door, making strange noises and emerging with bright red legs and a flushed face, or them finding half the door lying in broken pieces on the bathroom floor. Becoming frantic at the thought of either predicament I began to pull furiously on the door handle. I noticed, after many rigorous yanks, that the handle had begun to disconnect itself from the door. Fantastic. I could just imagine how embarrassed I would be if they had to break the door open with an axe to free me. I rummaged through my toiletry bag. Rustling trough bottles of antibiotics and herbal sleep aid I finally found my nail clippers. Using the flattened end as a makeshift screwdriver (I felt awfully like MacGyver) I managed to screw the handle back on the door, which promptly popped open. Slinking into my room I lied on my bed to wait for the burning to subside. A few minutes later I heard the neighboring hotel-guests enter the common room. "Was this door like this before?" I heard one of them ask. I kept quiet and waited for them to leave again before emerging.

How was I supposed to know that my train from Venice to Munich would be arriving ten minutes late? Sucked to be me because my train from Munich to Prague left ten minutes after the first train was supposed to arrive, leaving me exactly zero minutes to race across the station and hop on a train. Sucked to be me because the next train to Prague left at 5:00pm, a whole 10 hours after I arrived in Munich. I killed time by taking pictures of random lion statues that littered the city.

The train ride to Prague went by uneventfully. I had an entire compartment to myself, which was a little lonely but better than being stuck with a fat German guy named Franz. I arrived in Prague at an eerily dark 11:30 pm and, upon exiting the train, realized that I had no idea where the hell I was. Not only did I not have a map, phone card, any form of Czech money, or sense of direction, but I didn't speak any Czech (aside from learning that the word for beer is Pivo, as I read that in a book on the way over) and it seemed that nobody around spoke any English. I flagged down many unsuspecting Czech people, most of whom quickened their pace as I approached. One nice Czech lady, however, told me (in broken English) that I had to go one stop down the line on the subway to get to my hostel, but after that she had no clue where my destination was. So I hoped on the train and exited at the Florenc station.

So now I was faced with industrial-looking buildings, more oblivious Czech citizens, and absolutely no idea where I was going. I had a prepaid cell phone, which allowed me to make one frantic phone call to the hostel. The girl on the other end, however, just mentioned something about being behind a McDonalds before my time ran out. There was no McDonalds in sight. I decided right then and there that I was either going to 1. have a nervous breakdown, go into hysterics and end up sleeping in the train station or 2. find my fucking way by walking, even if it did mean getting abducted in the same country that the movie Hostel is set in. I began walking down the street in the direction that looked the most promising. I tried to ignore the fact that I had a huge backpack strapped to me, so if someone decided that I looked like a good target to victimize I would be shit out of luck because running was definitely out of the question. I walked up to some men sitting outside of a hotel and showed them the address of the hostel, which I had written on a piece of scratch paper. They told me to ask the concierge inside (duh!). The concierge produced a map of the surrounding area and traced my route to the hostel. A Plus hostel was indeed located behind a McDonalds that wasn't actually too far from the metro station, yet the McDonalds was completely obscured by a huge tree, which made the whole "behind the McDonalds" directions utterly useless. I lumbered up the stairs to my room at 12:45 in the morning, mentally and physically exhausted. All I needed was a shower and a good nights rest. To my horror I discovered that the showers were communal.