Mochu Picchu
\nWe got up at o\u2019dark early.\u00a0 We checked out without incident and it turns out that they gave us a decent deal on the extra bed for Lauren.\u00a0 Condor left a snippy message that they would pick us up at 5:00 and only wait 5 minutes!\u00a0 Well we figured that we would be holding people up.\u00a0 NO we were the only THREE (in case it would help Condor travel figure out that we are now three).\u00a0 Yup we had one of those 29 person vans all to ourselves.\u00a0 We were able to enjoy the gut wrenching teeth jarring 1.5 hour ride from Cuzco to Ollanta train station.\u00a0 It was fairly uneventful.\u00a0 Lots of blurry pictures to mark our passage.\u00a0 Melba met us at the train station and managed to get Lauren in the same car with us, plus one for condor.\u00a0 It was a late booking.\u00a0 The train ride was nice, beautiful, and picturesque.\u00a0 Keep in mind that we just spent a week in Aspen where they too have lots of the same type of mountains\u2026\u00a0 ok, maybe we are getting a little spoiled.\u00a0 I am personally ok with that.
\nWe started seeing some Inca ruins and trails and clouds\u2026 The sun was peeking out a bit but not that much.\u00a0\u00a0 After the van and after the train we rode a bus up the very narrow, very steep, very muddy road filled with switchbacks and of course lots of other busses traveling in the opposite direction!\u00a0 It was not tooooo bad.
\nWe finally got to MP.\u00a0 It was almost 10:00.\u00a0 We have been traveling 5 hours already.\u00a0 But we were at MP.\u00a0 Our guide was to be Pedro\u2026\u00a0 ok, his real name was Percy.\u00a0 I kid you not Percy\u2026\u00a0 I liked Pedro better.\u00a0 He started out walking fast head down and mumbling.\u00a0 I had some low expectations.\u00a0 He kept walking too fast and leaving behind half our group.\u00a0 It got better.\u00a0 Our groups consisted of Me (you might have guessed), Marlo (another easy one), Lauren (of course), and 8 or so others.\u00a0 Two women together, not really I don\u2019t think, and older man (70\u2019s) his son.\u00a0 A 50 something bad blond and her husband a bad bald.\u00a0 They must have been on the road a while because his head was poorly shaved.\u00a0\u00a0 (of course we are in the middle of nowhere on the other side of the world), an Irish couple, the women dared me to walk to my death.\u00a0 I in turn offered to push her off the edge.\u00a0 She declined.\u00a0 I think that was it.\u00a0 I will ask Lauren and Marlo\u2026 maybe. (I did, that was it.)\u00a0 Most important, except for the dangerous stuff, is to note that I assisted the son of the elderly gentleman not once, not twice, but three times in the more strenuous stretches of the tour.
\nWe walked we listen, we took in the awesomeness, and the guide told me I had great form while I was standing in a doorway..\u00a0 Marlo AND Lauren claim that he was referring to something obscure like the Incan building techniques, but I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 I also got four questions right that the guide asked.\u00a0 Ok, I am a bit of a ham.\u00a0 There was even indoor plumbing in this city and we checked out the bathroom.\u00a0 I kid you not three women had to go in together.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course I had to point that out.\u00a0 The pictures really tell the best story.\u00a0 There are LOTS of them.\u00a0 Not as many as I had hoped though.\u00a0 Well, maybe I had just planned to take them myself.\u00a0 An explanation is in order.\u00a0 The short story is that my camera battery died and I FAILED to think to bring the spare!\u00a0 It\u2019s huge ya know, maybe 4 ounces arg!\u00a0 My camera reported two of three bars of the battery left.\u00a0 I NATURALLY figured that since I had taken 1000 pictures and a couple of videos with that I should be good for days.\u00a0 Well you might have seen this coming, but NO!\u00a0 Half way up the bus (after the van and the train) the battery indicator should a horrific red.\u00a0 If it had done that 10 minutes earlier I would have still had the spare battery in my clutches.\u00a0 Like I said ARGG! FAILURE, lack of planning and just plain silly\u2026\u00a0 live and learn.\u00a0 It turns out that our photo Sherpa, Lauren, did a fabulous job taking pictures.\u00a0 Almost every time I asked if she had take this shot or that she proudly reply that she had, indeed.\u00a0 The only other camera issue is that Lauren\u2019s camera makes it look like I have a bit of a gut\u2026\u00a0 we are sending it in for repairs when we return to the states.
\nThe end of the tour we are to have a wonderful buffet lunch at the Sanctuary.\u00a0 It is a fancyish feed.\u00a0 get\u00a0 them in and get them fed buffet.\u00a0 Nice enough.\u00a0 Well turns out that Condor did not include that in the \u201cevery thing that we are doing\u201d portion of Lauren\u2019s inclusion.\u00a0 I do not argue, I keep the receipt and vow revenge!\u00a0 Ok, no revenge, but I do want my $30 back.\u00a0 Yup, $30 for a buffet lunch\u2026 it is a tough haul up there I guess\u2026\u00a0 THEN they want to charge extra for Diet Coke!!!\u00a0 It turns out that Inca Cola is free so I go with that after I order a Diet Coke.\u00a0 We eat trout, beef, chicken, lots of deserts, etc.\u00a0 It was a nice lunch.\u00a0 While we are lunching it begins to pour.\u00a0 It rained really hard certainly to the disappointment of the Incas, they did worship the sun after all.\u00a0 The road got muddy, everything got wet and slippery and worse than that the lines to the busses got long.\u00a0 We checked out the back door of the restaurant and it seemed that a bus would sometimes load there.\u00a0 We figured we could hop right on.\u00a0 Turns out they came from the main line.\u00a0 So we went over to the main line.\u00a0 There was an awning that covered maybe 50 people.\u00a0 There were 28 people per bus.\u00a0 There were two buses full of people not getting wet waiting for the bus.\u00a0 The bad news is that there were probably 129 people in line.\u00a0 We asked where the line started several time and never got an answer.\u00a0 I have found that in Peru the people understand about half the question that we ask and we understand about half of what they tell us.\u00a0 I think that one guy got tired of looking at us and squeezed us into the front of the line.\u00a0 We staid dry and were on a bus in 5 minutes.\u00a0 Well I knew that we cut.\u00a0 I felt a little guilty.\u00a0 Cutting in line is not something that I do.\u00a0 I was\u00a0 not too happy when I suddenly realized that I had helped that old guy three times!\u00a0 That forgave me Marlo and Lauren for our heinous line cutting!!!\u00a0 And all was right again (see rationalized) in my ordered world.\u00a0 I actually started laughing out loud at my rationalization\u2026
\nWe got to the hotel and checked in.\u00a0 As I had mentioned Lauren was our third.\u00a0 We decided that we would simply ask for a room with two full size beds and Lauren would stay with us.\u00a0 We if you refer back a couple of lines about them understanding half and us understanding half it makes perfect sense that the small room had two single beds.\u00a0 We briefly discussed floor sleeping and we decided as encouraged by Marlo to get a better room.\u00a0 So they offered her a big bed and a rollout for $60 or an upgraded supreme room for $20.\u00a0 She chose wisely and we ended up with a really big room with two full-size beds.\u00a0 That worked out well.\u00a0 We also fessed up to having three people.\u00a0 Now this upgrade to three people and the supreme room somehow did not qualify for three dinners.\u00a0 Not sure why, but we paid for another $30 buffet I think\u2026
\nSo we settle into the room.\u00a0 Marlo picks one bed and Lauren the other.\u00a0 They go to sleep.\u00a0 I go check things out.\u00a0 I climb up the 5 flight rusted old spiral stair case, hang out in the lobby, write this blog, read my book, etc.\u00a0 I also decide to take a walk.\u00a0 My walk turns out to be a bit of a wondering quest for wireless.
\nWe made the big plan for tomorrow.\u00a0 There is a really cool climb \/ hike up the mountain that is in the most famous pictures of MP.\u00a0 It is wannu Picchu (sounds like I want to pinch you, well to me it does) anyway\u2026\u00a0 we want to go up there.\u00a0 The problem is that 1) MP has recently be named a wonder of the world and b)they only let the first 200 up at 7:00 and a second two hundred up between 10:00 and 11:00.\u00a0 We are going to wing it and hope for the best.\u00a0 Plan b is to hike some sun trail and maybe hike back down.\u00a0 It is only an hour down back into town.\u00a0 We have a 4:20 train back to Cuzco way and then the grueling 1 \u00bd hour van ride, ugg.
\nWell the second day of MP was even better then the first.\u00a0 The Inca gods smiled on us and there was sun.\u00a0 Marlo told me that I should bring the cool altimeter that my dad got for me, but low, I did not.\u00a0 I should have.\u00a0 It turns out I ended up hiking a thousand or so feet above MP.\u00a0 Our plan was to do wannu piccho.\u00a0 It was not meant to be.\u00a0 When we were buying Lauren\u2019s passage into the great city (must have college id and know how old you are) the lady radioed over to wannu and determined that the 400 slots were taken.\u00a0 Bummer, oh well.\u00a0 We talk about hiking to the sun temple.\u00a0 It\u2019s only an hour round trip hike\u2026\u00a0 so they say.\u00a0 We decide we want to go for a little more gusto and climb MP Mountain.\u00a0 They claim that it is a 3 hour round trip.\u00a0 Well if you are willing to die for it, you can probably make it in 3 hours.\u00a0 In fact I told one couple exactly that.\u00a0 If you take your time you can make it no problem.\u00a0 It you try to kill yourself, you will succeed.\u00a0 So we all begin this hike.\u00a0 MP is something like 7 thousand feet.\u00a0 I am thinking that mount MP is maybe 8.\u00a0 People have problems with mile high stadium in Colorado.\u00a0 We climb, and climb, and climb.\u00a0 Actually it is really a hike I think at this point.\u00a0 We keep looking at the peak and it does not seem to be getting any closer.\u00a0 I believe that it is mocking me, daring me\u2026\u00a0 thin air remember.\u00a0 Anyway we get about half way up (I really have no idea how far we were) and I am chomping at the bit.\u00a0 Marlo and Lauren give me a crop to the but and send me on my way\u2026 metaphorically, duh!\u00a0 And I am off.\u00a0 Well the “I am off” thing lasted about 15 minutes.\u00a0 Then I got to the steep stuff (at altitude remember) where I was panting away.\u00a0 I took a video at one point where I was completely out of breath\u00a0 seriously considering base jumping as a viable option for the trip down.\u00a0 The lack of parachute convinced me that idea was not my best.\u00a0 Onward and upward I trudged.\u00a0 The pictures are pretty good. Even if I do say so myself.\u00a0 Ever steep set of stairs led to a switchback that of course led to the next steep set of stairs.\u00a0 Ok, I am stubborn.\u00a0 It is sometimes a positive thing.\u00a0 I was not going to be denied my mountain.\u00a0 It was still there.\u00a0 I pressed on.\u00a0 I had come along and passed a couple of people on my quest.\u00a0 They were taking their time.\u00a0 Leaving marlo and Lauren behind we wanted to be heading back at 12:00.\u00a0 In retrospect I am not really sure why we were in such a hurry, but that was my goal (picture at the top was at 12:04 in case you were wondering).\u00a0 The one person that stayed with me for the last of the trek was an older woman.\u00a0 When we got to the top I asked her how old she was.\u00a0 She was 60!\u00a0 I thought briefly that I was in pretty good shape\u2026 hmmm maybe I am and I just have to maintain this for the rest of my life.\u00a0 Or some 60 year old women nearly kicked my but hiking up a mountain\u2026\u00a0 my world, we are both in good shape.\u00a0 I was keeping track of how often I stopped to take pictures.\u00a0 See I was\u00a0 not resting, I was documenting the climb.\u00a0 It\u00a0 turns out that I had to make some entries about every couple of minutes during the steeper stretches.\u00a0 That was most of it.\u00a0 The hike continued, on, and on, and on with the ever elusive summit mocking me.\u00a0 I cursed my bag a couple of times.\u00a0 It had eeepc (my little formally light laptop), and lots of other heavy stuff in it, like tissue.\u00a0 Marlo offered to carry my bag for my quest for the top, but\u2026 did I mention stubborn yet\u2026\u00a0 anyway, eeepc was with meeep (ok, more thin air).\u00a0 We trudged on.\u00a0 Oh, yea, the 60 yo woman had a much bigger pack. Ego takes another hit\u2026\u00a0 finally the summit seems to be within my reach and a cruise around the last few switchbacks.\u00a0 I reach the top to the spectacular vista.\u00a0 MP is a tiny city way below and that wannu picchu\u2019s height pales in comparison to my perch.\u00a0 I took several pictures of the view and of course one with my life sustaining pop tarts!\u00a0 Now did I think to take a quick little 360 video of the peak?\u00a0 Well actually I did.\u00a0 About 10 minutes into my decent.\u00a0 I was not turning around.\u00a0 I did take a picture of the old women.\u00a0 Her and two other younger women (they looked much better than the old lady) were from Pennsylvania, either that or Transylvania, she had an accent.\u00a0 The hike down was a breeze!\u00a0 I am a rock hopper and I hopped on down.\u00a0 It was steep, but fun.\u00a0 I shortly met back up with Lauren and marlo.\u00a0 They were not that far behind me.\u00a0 I met back up with them and we mossied (sp) on down.\u00a0 We got to the junction of the mountain trail and the sun temple trail\u2026 it was still pretty early.\u00a0 After some teeth pulling I determined that Lauren wanted to hike to the sun temple, I certainly did.\u00a0 Marlo did not. And here we have an error in logistics.\u00a0 THEY say that it takes an hour to hike there and back, so we decide to meet marlo at the bus station at MP.\u00a0 Well turns out that there is nothing to do there, I stubbornly hold on to my gear again, and it take us more like two hours\u00a0 to get to the temple.\u00a0 What we SHOULD have done is meet her at the bus station in Aguas Caleintes.\u00a0 That was she could have wondered the shops and eaten some nice food.\u00a0 I was relieved of her passport and tickets\u2026\u00a0 ooops\u2026\u00a0 Lauren and I hike up to the sun temple.\u00a0 Actually I trudged.\u00a0 My body was still thinking about the mountainous hike and this not so steep hike was not refreshing, but it was here and we would never be back again.\u00a0 Some people told us we were half way there.\u00a0 Not! We kept going\u2026 we finally got to the \u201ctemple.\u201d\u00a0 Lauren and I figured that it was actually a place where the teenage Incas went to chew on their cocoa leaves and what-not\u2026\u00a0 it was not the same architecture exactly\u2026\u00a0 we made it and the hike down was ok.\u00a0 I was BEAT.\u00a0 I was out of drink before the top of the mountain and I was hot, sweaty and thirsty\u2026.
\nWe rode the train back to Ollantia station.\u00a0 It was the better vista dome train.\u00a0 We were cruising along just fine when were heard this hideous noise.\u00a0 It sounded like metal scraping against the rail.\u00a0 It turns out that it was part of a show.\u00a0 Something about a guy in a mask and a limp llama.\u00a0 It was not very entertaining.\u00a0 Especially because it was SO loud.\u00a0 Lauren was\u00a0 in a different car and I guess that it was not as loud\u2026\u00a0 After that we were treated to a fashion show.\u00a0 That was a little more amusing, but not that much.\u00a0 We got to the train station and Melba was there to greet us.\u00a0 She showed us to our van for the 2 hour return torture trip.\u00a0 It was not so bad we had the 30 person bus to ourselves again and we stretched out and relaxed.\u00a0 It made me wonder how busy Condor travel is if we get our own ride..
\nWe get back to Cuzco and settle back into the same room that we had 2 days ago.\u00a0 It was a good thing.\u00a0 Lauren and I decide to go get a bite to eat.\u00a0 We cruise over to the main plaza look to see what jumps out at us.\u00a0 Well the only things that jumps out at us are people trying to sell us things.\u00a0 These things actually included to separate offers of elicit substances.\u00a0 One powder and one that is smoked.\u00a0 We decline.\u00a0 There is of course the constant barrage of urchins trying to sell every useless thing\u2026\u00a0 I told Marlo that I was going to see if I could determine the most efficient method of getting rid of these pests.\u00a0 The first one I politely say non gracias, twice.\u00a0 I said it again and then told him to go away.\u00a0 He gives me a very succinct FU you go away!!!\u00a0 This little imp was maybe 8!\u00a0 I decide another tack, a little less forceful.\u00a0 A firm, Non \u2026 Gracias.\u00a0 Well that is better the 3 little girl children simply mock me with a si\u2019 gracias\u2026\u00a0 I just ignore the rest.
\nI thought about going to Bembos (burger joint) or McDonalds.\u00a0 Lauren forbids it.\u00a0 It turns out to be a good thing.\u00a0 We settle on a nice pizza restaurant.\u00a0 I want a meat pizza and Lauren does not.\u00a0 We settle on a Hawaiian.\u00a0 It was very good.
\nWe all sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mochu Picchu We got up at o\u2019dark early.\u00a0 We checked out without incident and it turns out that they gave us a decent deal on the extra bed for Lauren.\u00a0 Condor left a snippy message that they would pick us up at 5:00 and only wait 5 minutes!\u00a0 Well we figured that we would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7vq9N-G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatup.brantct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}