I thought I knew what Cusco was like: crowded and pretty. Little did I know that there is a whole different side to Cusco until some of the locals took me and my friend on an adventure!
Waking up at 5:20 am wouldn't be so bad except Peruvian standard time is very delayed.
I woke up last Saturday thinking that I would be leaving on a hike at 6 am. Right as I had finished getting ready and was headed out the door, I received a message from my friend saying they changed the time to 7. So I sat on my bed for an hour just waiting. I finally headed out to meet up with my friend Natalie, and realized when I got there that she was still asleep. After waking her up, we finally made it to the meeting place at about 7:25. No one was there. We thought that we had been left, but about 10 minutes later, as we were trying to find something else to do, the first person shows up. Needless to say, we were all there at 8 am; a whole hour after the planned meeting time.
The Bus Ride up...
The place we were going was on the very top of a mountain in Cusco, near Cristo Blanco. We opted to take a bus rather than walk the 5 miles up the mountain. A few stops into the bus ride there was a girl that got on and realized that she didn't have any smaller bills than a 50 soles bill and the bus driver told her that he couldn't give her change for the .80 cent ride.
With my 1 sole piece in my hand I reached out and handed it to her. She was so grateful; she wouldn't stop saying thank you until she got off of the bus. As she walked by she handed me a .50 cent piece and said thank you one more time. Needless to say, it made my day, and because the whole thing was in Spanish the fact that I was able to understand what was going on boosted my confidence a lot.
The adventure...
There were 4 girls and 2 boys going on this hike and we were all so excited. Me, Natalie, and the two boys were a little more ambitious and willing to take risks; sometimes we would accidentally leave the other two girls behind. I definitely pushed myself out of my comfort zone on this hike and I have never been so happy about being outside my comfort zone.
The first part was fairly easy, just a long walk to a valley where a river ran through it. But on the way back we decided to go through the mountain following the river instead of going around the way we came.
Our feet definitely got wet and the waterfalls were nerve-wracking to climb down, but we made it eventually. Inside there were many little stacks of rocks as pictured in the first image. There were a ton of cool sights along the way.
Alpacas and llamas were everywhere. This one pictured is wearing Cusco's colors.
On our way back we stumbled across this throne-like structure. We later found out that it did used to in fact be a throne in Incan times.
I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be here and to be learning so much along the way. My Spanish is slowly improving and I hope to just keep improving. Now that I've finally settled in and gotten over a bit of the culture shock, I absolutely love it here!
Live while you can!
-M'Kala
Comments