But, from the time we got off our plane in Lima to the time we left Cusco, I don't think we ever stopped fighting people. In Lima it was the airline representatives, and in Cusco it was every hostel we could find! We stayed in 4 different hostels within the first 24 hours. The first place lied about having hot water and internet, so we asked for our money back. To get our money back I first had to be yelled at by the owner's wife, begged by the hostel worker to leave so she wouldn't get in trouble, and then I had to leave the hostel to call the owner. Eventually we were victorious...with the first hostel at least :)
We eventually settled in a magical place with cold showers and no internet...but because of the altitude and the hills in Cusco, we were too tired to find another place! After a few days of shopping, we headed out on a bus to Santa Maria where we caught a taxi bus to Hidroelectrica where we started our grand hiking adventure out to Aguas Calientes (the town by Machu Picchu). We had been told “you just have to follow the railroad tracks and they will lead you straight into town!” Excellent...we thought. After 7 minutes of hiking we came to the end of the tracks...wah!? We then had to scale a small mountain where we came acrosss an Indigenous woman who spoke no Spanish who “told” us that we were now going the right way. Of course we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble by simply taking the tourist train into town...but we wanted the adventure and the significant financial savings!
Shortly after nightfall we straggled into town where we had been told “don't book a room, it costs 3x to book ahead, just get a hostel when you get into town!” Excellent... we thought. Seeing a pattern? We ended up visiting over 30 different hostels and ALL were full. Eventually we settled into a nicer-than-our-norm place and fell asleep in preparation for our Machu Picchu adventure the next day.
We got up at 4am in order to get on one of the first buses. Even as early as we were, we were still on the 18th bus. Who cares, you ask? Everyday the park only gives out 400 tickets to climb Wayna Picchu, the massive mountain over Machu Picchu...and of course Andrea and I felt that a trip to Machu Picchu would be worthless unless we could climb the mountain and get the “standard photo!!”
That's when the fun started... once our bus stopped at the park I scrambled past the lines to buy our tickets (while Andrea held our place in line). Inside the gate, the footrace began. No, literally we all RAN through Machu Picchu ignoring the llamas and the ruins in order to beat everyone else to the WP line. Andrea even had to jump over a couple of people :) Ugh, and then the waiting began!! We had waited in line for an hour when people began turning around saying that there were no more tickets. Andrea and I are very stubborn headed and refused to leave until we heard something official. This worked out well because pretty soon a uniformed man came through line and gave each of us a number...and told us that there were no more tickets. Confused by our new number, we continued to refuse to leave :)
Eventually, after 2 hours in line we made it through! We didn't realize what a hike lay before us. Between the elevation, the steep climb and narrow stairs, we were fairly sweaty by the time we got to the top...great for pictures. We then got in trouble for going “the wrong way” despite having been directed that way, so we ended up summiting the mountain TWICE. Oooof. We then considered hiking down to see a cave, but people started turning around halfway there and they looked absolutely dead!!! So we hiked back to Machu Picchu where we quickly saw the things we wanted to see and evacuated back down to our hostel where we got cokes and were relaxing on our beds when the hotel manager came and KICKED US OUT!! Seriously, what a trip. So we had to go back on the hunt for a new place to stay (which turned out to be easier than the night before)! Oh the craziness.
The next day we hiked back out on the tracks...significantly easier than the hike in (and we didn't get lost...well not really, haha) and caught a taxi to Santa Teresa where we sat for 2 hours waiting for a taxi to give us a reasonable price back to Santa Maria (I eventually secured us a ride with a bunch of other foreigners, but we paid half what they did). Once in Santa Maria we got in a small bus and were assured “this bus is just for you 6 all the way to Cusco!” Excellent... you can see this coming right? We ended up picking up a mom and daughter who sat on me and a drunk man who yelled at the driver the whole way back to Cusco. The driver then dropped us off on the side of some random road and “wished us good luck”...very similar to our adventure in Paracas!
Oh this is where the fun starts, I hope you have hung in this long!!
We had our taxi drop us off as a different hostel from where our stuff was stored because we wanted to find a place that actually had hot water and internet. After finding out that the hostel was full I was busy badmouthing the world when a girl walked up behind us and said “haven't you guys heard? I can't believe you haven't heard!!” Ok... This is where reading my past e-mails will help you! Remember the last time I was in Peru I had to evacuate because of a massive riot in the north and then the road to Cusco was closed thanks to other protests? (8 years ago the government began selling rights to natural resources, and the indigenous people are the ones now suffering...so they are fighting back!) Alright well now the government is trying to enact some laws about transportation and planned a transportation freeze in order to...um...advertise? Who can explain the things that happen here. Anyway, there was a countrywide transportation shut down which meant that our bus (that we had already paid for!!!) for the next day would not be running. AND it meant every hostel in town was full because people were hunkering down in preparation. Oh geez.
Despite having already paid for our bus tickets, this was a big problem because Andrea had plane tickets for the next day. Did I mention oh geez yet?
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