The Rest of Peru

I guess i went off on a tangent in my last post, so i`ll try to stick to my topic today, which is the rest of my trip.

So after we left Lima, we met our other friend Andi in Cuzco. Cuzco was beautiful, but too many tourists.... and its low-season! I hadn`t seen that many white people since I got here. (I say white because really, they were all caucasion. I might`ve seen like maybe 5 non-white tourists)

We rode a horse to go see some ruins there, saw a bunch of Inca walls, and ate some yummy food. Inca walls are fascinating because they are made from big rocks that are precisely carved to fit together perfectly, like a puzzle. The technology the Incas possessed is just amazing!

From Cuzco, you can take a train to Machu Picchu, but that`s like $60 USD return fare, so we took a bus as far as we could, then took a train to Aguas Calientes, the closest village to Machu Picchu. Get this, there are no roads linking Aguas Calientes to the next village!!! Taking the train like we did is the only option. Which is strange, when you think of how many tourists go to MP.

We only had 1 day to go to MP, but when we woke up that day, it was POURING rain. We groaned "nooooooooo!!" and some other words were said that would be inappropriate to write here. But luckily, it cleared up around 10am, and we were able to go!! It worked out really well because there were not many tourists that day due to the rain.

Machu Picchu was as great as we had expected. Its was a massive Inca city sitting on the top of a mountain, and was left undiscovered for about 400 years, until an American archaeologist came across it accidentily in 1911 on his way to a different ruin. They say it was built around the end of the 14th century, and was still in use in the 16th century. Apparently, between 1000-2000 people lived there. It was fun to imagine how the Incas lived in this city.

Although it was a bit disappointing to hear that about 80% of what is there now was reconstructed, it still didn´t take away from its mystic characteristics!!