The Great Adventures of Jason&Lauren: Peru Style

Machu Picchu, one of the 7 wonders of the world is a place for which I simply don't have enough words. Our train arrived in Aguas Calientes in mid afternoon an the passengers emptied out into a market decorated floor to ceiling in the same touristy crap as the next square space of rented store. We walked around looking for our hostel which we were told was walking distance but ended up with a police escort to the front door! We informally checked in by telling the woman in reception we were there. Erica walked us to our second floor room which had 2 beds, a private bathroom with a shower, and a breathtaking view of level 4 rapids beneath our window. The crashing of the water outside our room was a conern of mine that I wouldn't be able to hear my alarm clock in the morning! Luckily it wasn't a problem when my alarm went off at 4:30am so that Jason and I could catch a bus up the mountain to watch the sunrise. We walked to wear the buses picked up an dropped everyone off at 5am and patiently waited in line behind about 50 people in line and gradually watched the line of people get longer and longer and sleepy backpackers and tourists waited to board the bus. The only problem with this situation is that Carlos, our tour guide was supposed to drop off our bus tickets at 9pm after he gave us our briefing at 8pm at the hostal. Welp Carlos never showed up and we woke up poor Erica, the receptionist at 4:45 in the morning to fetch our non existent tickets. I called Carlos' cell phone rather annoyed to inquire about our bus tickets to which I discovered that his phone was off. I attempted to talk my way into convincing  the bus drivers to let us on anyways to which I received laughs. The line was getting longer and I didn't want us to lose our excellent location in line. I finally got in touch with Carlos after my 4th attempt who I could tell had been sleeping. I angrily explained who I was and that we were going to miss the sunrise he sold us so well on just the day before. He said he would run the tickets over and could be at the buses in 10 minutes. The buses began boarding and Jason and I had to lose our place in line and patiently (yet annoyingly) waited for Carlos' to correct his mistake. We already began thinking of ways to negotiate his mess-up. I saw a small Peruvian man running towards me who I assumed was Carlos. I snatched our tickets, gave him a look, and asked the bus driver who had previously been helping me if he could pretty please assist us in getting a good place back in line. He rushed us over to the woman accepting tickets to get on the bus who had previously rejected my sob story and basically threw us on the bus! Thank goodness! We rode up the windy road seeing waterfalls in the same spot after each twist that had obviously been disrupted by the man made roads constructed so that we, the tourists could see this magical wonder of the world. The Inkas constructed Machu Picchu on the top of a mountain that was difficult for potential conquerers to find which is why the Inkas were one of the few populations in history to not have been conquered by the Spaniards. We made it to the entrance of what seemed like a theme park with turnstiles and officially entered Machu Picchu by 6:15am. We meandered around the 500 year old stone structures, probably built better than some present day architecture, in the clouds and with few human disruptions. We snapped pictures and asked the rare passerbys to capture some awesome shots of us with amazing backdrops. The tranquility of being amongst such breathtaking structures with such fascinating histories had a calming effect on my soul as I could feel the importance of this once sacred land. Jason and I met our tour guide and group outside of the entrance at 7:45am and proceeded to re-enter the site on a guided tour in English. The meaning behind various structures scattered throughout the mountain were explained to us and with the gradual disappearance of the clouds and the appearance of the powerful sun, the scenery became more and more beautiful. We were told to prepare for rain because Machu Picchu is known for having a tropical climate but we lucked out with just a light mist in mid morning. We finished our tour around 11:30am and were free to explore the mountain on our own. Gabe, Charmagne, and Kenyon, our new American Machu Picchu exploration buddies accompanied Jason and me to find the Inka bridge which we were told is Indiana Jones style. Come to find out, not only is it not Indiana Jones style and more of a small passage way over a narrow path, it was blocked off. Anyway, Charmagne and Kenyon are sisters from Arizona and Gabe is living in Chile but from New York. Gabe was an extremely attractive 26 year old traveling with his adoptive mother- precious. Jason and I were repeatedly complimented on how well we got along to which I gave credit to the way our parents taught us to be flexible, patient, and accommodating! We spent the early afternoon trading off cameras and taking each other's pictures so as to capture every moment and breathtaking view. At 1pm Jason and I hopped on one of the many buses going to and from Machu Picchu bringing and dropping off tired tourists every 20 minutes. We browsed some more shops and packed our belongings to be ready to pick everything up to board our train by 6:30. Jason and I went to Aguas Calientes in the meantime; warm mineral baths accessible after paying 10 Soles at the front gate. I had completely forgotten to bring a bathing suit so I was prepared to go into the baths with a tshirt and shorts. Well much to my dismay, you can't go in the water unless you have a bathing suit. I was almost completely denied entrance to just sit by the pool of water with Jason! After 1.5 hours of dangling my feet in the warm water, I was approached by a woman telling me I couldn't put my feet in the water. Seriously? I paid 10 freaking Soles and can't dip my tired Machu Picchu feet in the mineral-y water? Ugh! Our train ride back to Cusco was 2.5 hours and noisy from the 3 year old screaming child in the seats in front of us. From the bus station we took what was supposed ot be a 1.5 hour bus ride but we think it may have been our driver's first time in a vehicle. Ever. So it took us just under 3 hours. Bliss. We finally made it back to The Point in Cusco and ran into Ben, the owner of the Cusco chain (he actually bought the rights to use the name/logo of the chain) who I became friendly with from his visits to Lima. We briefly chatted, quickly checked in and crashed pretty hard in our comfortable beds. We woke up at 8am to leave by 8:30am for our 11am flight. In confirming our flight details, I noticed that our flight was at 1:25pm and not 11am- woops! Jason and I sat in the garden chatting about the use of medical marijuana and had a fascinating discussion regarding the pros and cons of this recent fad. Our flight was mostly uneventful until the brief turbulence that lifted me up from my seat and made me almost wet my pants- holy moly. We landed safely and still alive, grabbed a taxi and headed back home (to my home at least). We rested while Jason packed and I booked a trip for us to Ica to go sandboarding. While booking our trip, I met Alex in reception who was booking his trip to Cusco. Alex is from Bermuda! And a cute redhead haha! We went to La Canta Rana for dinner and had quite possibly the most delicious food I have had thus far in Peru. At one point a local came in to the restaurant with his dog, Tato who responds to 'sientense' which means sit- haha! We tossed him a few pieces of bread with the owners permission and he caught them in the air- precious! We went to bed early to be well-rested for our next adventure and took the 5.5 hour bus ride in the morning to Ica in the desert of Peru. It should have taken 4 hours and I was getting concerned that we'd miss our reservation for sandboarding! Our taxi driver dropped us off at Hostel Huacachinero in Huacachina where Astrid and I stayed a few months back for the same exact adventure. The only thing that had changed was that Pepe the in-house parrot no longer lived there because of restrictions on wild animals. I saw Frank who is a bartender at the Hostel where we stayed who Astrid and I spent time with back in October. He is a cantador which is the equivalent of a sommelier, but for pisco. He taught me some really interesting things and will be in Lima at the end of this month for a class so I invited him into my bar so I can make him a pisco sour! Jason and I had time for a snack and a pitcher of frozen lemonade before going to reception at 4:30pm for our sandboarding tour. This time our sandbuggie was full (9 passengers and a driver) but 3 of the participants didn't plan on actual sandboarding. One woman was 3 months pregnant, her husband had hurt his back, and there was one older gentleman. The coolest part was seeing the man who drove our sandbuggie last time when I was with Astrid. I even still had a picture of him and Astrid on my camera so I walked up to him, asked if he remembered me to which he replied it would be difficult to forget such a beauty and I showed him his picture on my camera! He practically fell over! We became friendly with Daniel who we switched cameras with occasionally to capture all of our precious moments. I invited him to come to dinner with Jason and me and we met in the bar for pisco sours ahead of time. I had a passionfruit sour, Jason had a blackberry pisco sour, and Daniel had an Orange pisco sour: yum-o! We went to bed semi-early and woke up at 8am to hang out by the pool before our bus ride back at noon. We got another pitcher of frozen lemonade and relaxed outside before the sun got too strong. Again, our bus ride was 1.5 hours longer than it should have been and quite torturous with the screaming and kicking child behind me- oy. I turned around every time the kid kicked my chair and gave his mom dirty looks. After packing his final things in his suitcase, we went to Javier for dinner to watch the sunset on the roof and to see Gustavo, my waiter friend there. We had passionfruit pisco sours and decided to try a few new dishes. Jason hopped in a cab at 8:35pm to head to the airport and I failed miserably at holding back a few tears. We had so much fun and I will miss Jason a lot, but I am absolutely thrilled hat he was able to come visit me in Peru. We had a very unique experience together that we'll remember forever. Things here have been far from low key as our 2 current German bartenders are moving on and starting their backpacking adventure and I am training 2 new German bartenders! I even took them and a group of 15 people to a really nice beach earlier in the week called Punta Hermosa. It's a lot cleaner than the beaches where I live but it's a 45 minute cab ride. It was hot and the sun was strong but I did a great job at reapplying sun screen. Oh, and I got stung by a jellyfish! Don't worry- life is still great =)