The Gloves Are Off

For all of you reading this from los Estados Unidos and thinking this exotic adventure is enviable, we feel a responsibility for a disclaimer. Peru sucks. Ollantaytambo is definitely a small exception to the rule but the pictures we’ve posted thus far over-emphasize the good and neglect to convey the whole picture.

For starters, yesterday marked our 10th day of cold showers in various hotels that all advertised 24-hour hot water.  (Today, we actually have no water at all and have been told that we will be showing with water from a tank this evening.) While not the be all and end all of civilization, a hot shower can turn the day around especially in a third world country where dust is in the air, on the roads, on the sidewalks, on your food, in your eyes and nose… you get the idea. We haven’t figured out the reason that hot water cannot actually be supplied on a daily basis, but we are certain that it IS NOT – not once.

Secondly, there is no getting around it… the food available for us to eat here is horrible. Since the water is NOT potable for Americans, we are unable to consume any produce washed with tap water. Apples, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, mushrooms – anything nutritious/healthy is more or less off limits even if you can find it on a menu. There is plenty of chicken and you can eat eggs until your heart’s content. Bland, chewy, fatty beef, guinea pig and bait fish are also favorites here but after taking a look around at the general population it’s clear that this diet isn’t exactly the healthiest in the world. Todd used to love ceviche but may never eat it again after Peru. A small side note: most restaurants close or stop serving the majority of their menu at 5pm.

Thirdly, (not necessarily finally) information in any form is mercurial at best. Prices, schedules, locations, distances, and availabilities are absolutely unobtainable online, in advance, remotely, or reliably.

So, while there are some bright spots (the beer is good, Pisco sours are nice, and there is some incredible scenery), we feel obliged to tell you that if we could do Peru all over again… we WOULDN’T.

MUCH better than Pisco

After luke-warm responses from virtually every other agency in the southern hemisphere, we received a great response from an agency in Montevideo and began planning our escape from Pisco. Miraculously, we happened upon two airline tickets to Montevideo on Christmas night for $288 (normally, plane tickets are $600+ dollars)!!! Staying in Pisco awaiting our flight was NOT an option, so we decided to go to the world-famous Machu Picchu before heading back to Lima to vacate this country.

Anyone who has ever traveled in Peru would know that there are no bus routes, prices or bus schedules online (besides the Cruz del Sur bus whose schedule and prices are acctually inaccurate). Therefore, in order to travel, one must show up at a bus station and cross one’s fingers. The bus prices change minute to minute based on race, nationality, gender, and other factors we cannot determine. In order to gather some information, we picked ten people’s brains on the best way to get to Machu Picchu and got ten different answers. So, we ended up taking a taxi to the Panamericana Highway and hailing a Flores bus down to Ica. Once in Ica, we were told that the next bus to Cusco was full and that the only available bus for the day would be one at 9:30pm. We decided to kill three of those four hours by going to a few wineries. The tours were pretty cool and the Pisco was good enough that we bought a few bottles.

At about 10:30pm, our 9:30pm bus finally departed and we began our “14 hour” bus ride which actually took 17 hours. The bus ride is not recommended for anyone who gets motion sickness or altitude sickness, or has hemorrhoids, as the bus ride curves and winds the whole ride up to about 10,000 ft in Cusco. We chose the cama seats for our ride, which included 2 meals, 2 movies, and seats that reclined to about 150 degrees. We think the seats were well worth the extra soles. The drive to Cusco is absolutely beautiful! There are llamas, donkeys, and cows EVERYWHERE. Not to mention the incredible mountains. Just don’t look at the edge of the road if afraid of heights.

We had heard that Cusco is ok, but it is better to travel a bit further to a town called Ollantaytambo because it is a much more beautiful village and because it is much closer to Machu Picchu (which is not actually in Cusco although everyone in Peru speaks as though it is). So, we found a taxi and paid him 50 soles for the 1.5 hour drive to Ollantaytambo. This village is definitely the best place we have been in Peru. All of streets and pathways are cobblestone and the entire village is surrounded by green, lush Andes Mountains. There are also some Incan ruins that can be hiked to for free, which we did today:

Here is a panoramic view of the village from the ruins: