The lost city of Machu Picchu

Oh peru. How to begin to describe one of the best vacations of my life? It was incredible. My best friend from the States got to fly to Peru on her fall break and meet me in Peru as we hiked through the Inka Jungle with some of the most incredible people I have ever met from around the world on our way to the lost city of Machu Picchu. If I had to describe it in one world, I would say unreal. Never had such a perfect combination of adventure, sites, new friends, and soul refreshment combined together… ah, can never thank God enough for that one.

I am late to update, and for that I am sorry. Thank you Anna Barrs for staying on my case about it. It was a few months ago now that Caroline Rhode, one of the best surprises of my life, who I met last year when I moved into live with her and Sarah at Miller’s place in Atlanta last year, took a few extra days off of Fall Break and met me in Lima Peru. She was the first person from home I have seen since I came in July, needles to say we had a lot to catch up on. After living with 4 boys here in Chile and being surrounded by other male entrepreneurs I hadn’t realized how much I missed real girl talk. I flew to Peru a couple days earlier and just hung out with some couch surfers and saw the sites of Lima and met lots of fun people. We picked Caroling up from the airport and it was so sweet to see her again. We took off to find a place to chat and found a ridiculous bar with zebra fur seats but had plenty of pisco sours as we caught up on each others life. By the time we got to where we were staying that night we had already been asked if we were “parajas, ” “partners” in Spanish, 3 times and we gave up trying to explain our relationship and just started answering yes, yes we are a couple.

The next day Caro and I flew to Cusco- and what a flight. Peru is filled with incredible landscapes. This flight was filled with jagged mountains that were such vivid shades of green, a beautiful blue sky and incredible rivers that ran along the valleys… wow! So many colors. I feel like I was drooling most of the trip as I stared out the plane window. When we landed our tour guide and soon to be great friend Jimmy Jhon was waiting for us. Poor Jimmy didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Jimmy is a local there in Cusco, (he is actually Cetchua- the local native people’s real name NOT Inca) and he was just about the throw himself into the lions den, Caro and I spent the entire week messing with Jimmy and laughing mainly at him.

We met up with the couch surfer, Erin, who’s house we would be staying at that night, she took us lunch with her boy friend. And they were great, so welcoming and very sarcastically funny, just the way we like them. Cusco is a beautiful city. All the building and roads are cobblestone, very old with so much character and history built into them. We had a great day touring around and fighting the airlines who had decided to loose Caro’s bag for a few hours.

Then next day Caro and I were starting a 4 day Inca Jungle Trail to Machu Picchu. A lot of people have heard about the Inca Trail, rated one of the best trekking in the WORLD. Well there are actually many “Inca Trails” they are all these trails that the Cechtuas (not Inca, Inca were only the rulers, the emperors of the Cetchuas) people had created leading to their main religious city hidden high in the mountains. The one Inca Trail that people are trying to refer to is the Royal Trail, the one specific trail that only the royal family or priests were aloud to use on their journey to Mach Picchu. So the Inca Jungle Trail follows a few different Inca Trails and parts of the Royal one as it follows rivers and jungles as well as over mountains on the way to the hidden city. The best part about this trip, is that is wasn’t just hiking, every day offered new adventures.

Day 1: We left way supper early and joined a van with a group about 10 people. These 10 people were from all over the world and combined created one of the most incredible group of people to have on an adventure: an Irish couple, Canadian couple, 2 Colombian sisters, an Argentina guy, 2 Brits, a Frenchmen, 3 Eastern Europeans, Caro, myself and our guide Jimmy. The van was laded with mountain bikes for everyone and took us up to about 5,000 meters elevation at the top of many mountains in the area. It was beautiful, rolling hills and valleys everywhere. A lot of people got altitude sickness, and everyone was chewing cocoa leaves to fight off the symptoms. Mountain bikes and helmets were given to everyone ad off we got to go: to bike down through the Peruvian mountains, through amazing scenery, down to 1,800 meters. It was such a great way to soak in the majesty of the views. Faster than walking, but more IN the moment than in a car. And no peddling necessary, just going as fast you wanted down curvy mountain roads. I LOVED it. That evening we stayed in this really small town in the mountains at THE town hostel. We got to play volleyball with all the ladies in village- so much fun. Evening was filled with drinking and hanging out with locals and our group.

Day 2: We woke up real early again and started the day off by white water rafting through the mountains of Peru. Ya, I meant what I wrote. I have white water rafted in many places, but none as beautiful a scenery as this. It was gorgeous. Then we spent the rest of the day hiking an inca trail. Throughout the hike Jimmy would stop and teach us all about Inca History and life. We even got dress up in native clothes, eat tradition food and put on traditional face paint. We hiked through the jungle, over volcanoes and by a huge river. We even got to play with a monkey. It was honetly some of the most incredible views I have ever seen. All along we spent laughing and hanging out with our tour group, they really were such incredible people. We ended the hiking at natural hot spring where you got to relax off the day and hang out, letting the naturally hot spring fed water soak our muscles as we swam around. That night we stayed in a slightly larger town, it even has 1 disco-tech. apparently this is one of the few disco-techs in the world were normal dress is dirty, sweaty hiking apparel. Our whole group went out and spent the night dancing with all the locals having a ball.

Day 3: The next morning was again another early start because well, we had to go zip lining through the Inca Moutains… duh. It was pretty darn cool. The view is incredible. Mountains everywhere, river below, perfect sky. Then we trekked down one of the Inca trails going around the back side of machu pichu mountain. You could see parts of the runes as we hiked, it really helped to peak our excitement for how close we were. That night we stayed in Aguas Calihente. The fairly modern, but beautiful city, that exists only to house tourists who are headed to and from Machu Piccu. Of course we bought plenty of bottles of whine to celebrate our arrival.

Day 4: Day 4 started before 4am. Because to get to Machu Piccu you have to hike up 2000 ancient stairs, and you want to be there before sun rise to get the full effect of the mysteriousness, when it’s void of people, when the mist is just starting to raise and the sun begins to peak over the surrounding mountains, when everything is silent and beautiful. We started hiking up when it was still dark, there was a chill to the air that was quickly forgotten due to the 2,000 stairs, but it was incredible. As we hiked up the sun came out and the clouds disappeared and it was amazing. We got to the top before the gates officially opened, so when they did, we were about the 10^th people in. When one steps into Machu Piccu at sunrise for the first time, it is unreal. You feel your body jump 1,000 years back in time. The ruins are huge, and mostly intact, as the clouds begin to lift you understand for the first time the reason why the Cechuas decided this location for their hidden city.

As cool as Machu Piccu is, the reason for all the hype, the reason thousands daily come here, the reason Machu Piccu is incredible as it is, is really everything around Machu Piccu. How do I begin to describe the landscape. The ruins are placed on a saddle in between 2 tall, very skinny mountains that go straight up from the sides of the ruins. Surrounding the saddle is it an almost straight down drop to the valley where the river has carved its way through all the rock. And around are other, straight up, tall mountains, like pillars, all very green with huge rocks exposed. Some with large tress covered in vines as if hiding other ruins- very Indiana Joes style. Then off in the distance every where you look are giant mountains that go on for forever. Wow. Our guide gave us a tour, explained a lot. And then some of us hiked up the other mountain, Wnapichu- another 2,000 stairs up but TOTALLY worth it, the view from up there was even more incredible to be able to look down on Machu Piccu and see the real size of it.

Then we also hacked over to the sun gate where if you take the Inca Royal trail you actually enter Machu Piccu from there right at sunrise and see Machu Piccu from above- which would be pretty cool.

The evening ended with Mexican food and margaritas and we caught a train back to Cusco and we flew back to Lima the next day. Being with Caroline was by far the best part of the trip. Just soaking it in of how good it was to be with someone who really knew me, and who spoke English. We ended our trip together with Caroline taking me out to the fanciest, most delicious restaurant in Lima. It was a fresh sea food restaurant built out over the water. It was beautiful. And some of the BEST food I have had in my life. What a meal. It was hard to say goodbye to Peru and to Caroline. But defiantly in my top favs vacations ever.