After a seriously long 48 hours of travel, we finally reached Cuzco, Peru and all is well! We started off our trip with a minor incident in the airport, where security thought there was a small bomb in my right shoe. Turns out it was just the Nike/iPod chip (which I had totally forgotten about and is classically my luck) so after some clarification we were on our way.
Next on our list of things to do was find me one of those squishy neck pillows for the plane. We searched high and low and the only one that was available was an aggressively nerdy "I heart NY" pillow, with the classic I heart NY logo imprinted all over it. Well nerdiness has never stopped me, so I bought the pillow and off we went.
12 hours and 2 flights later, we had landed in Lima, Peru and checked in to our hotel for the evening...only to wake up four hours later to catch our plane to Cuzco. We met an American who saw my neck pillow and inquired about our travel to New York. Oh, I'm from Connecticut...I just really love my neighboring state. A lot.
We waited at the Star Peru
gate (yes that is actually the name of an airline here), which was so small that we would have to walk the tarmac to get to our plane. Our plane was obviously delayed and while we waited we heard the airline announce that another flight was boarding. We watched as around 30 men lined up with life jackets in their hands. We turned to each other and said "was this flight byofd (bring your own floatation device)...?" Turns out we didn't have to bring our own life jackets and that that plane was for a specific mission.
Finally we took off and after some seriously rough air and flying rather close to some seriously high mountains, we made it to Cuzco.
The altitude here is 11,000 feet above sea level and as a result, walking up even a short flight of stairs leaves us huffing and puffing as if we just ran a marathon. Yes, it's rather pathetic looking. We tried some of the local coca leaves, a plant known here for curing altitude sickness, but is illegal in the US due to the fact that it can be chemically altered into a strain of cocaine, if done properly. No need to fear we just chewed on a few of them, which was both gross and ineffective.
We met our tour guide who lead us through 6 ancient landmarks and ruins, and after an exhausting day we are finally back in what can only be described as a two-story bamboo hut, gearing up for our big Machu Pichu adventure tomorrow. Stay tuned!
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