Valparaiso

So my horse was stubborn, I guess it was easily tired and every moment it had, it would want to head home. But forcing it, I kept it on course with the other horses. I did finally get my horse to gallop (that is the top running speed a horse can get, it starts with walk, trot, canter and then gallop). But even riding a horse is painful, the whole time you are trying not to fall but also control where the horse is going, or else the horse will run you into low tree branches, which happened to me, luckily no injuries. After the ride, we went back and they had a bar-b-que outside for us. It was so cool, instead of charcoal to bbq, they did it the old fashion way, by burning wood and once it got charred, then they would put it under the grill. There was a type of sausage, chicken, pork and beef. And one thing I've learned in South America, especially Peru, lots of wine (vino). But no wine for me, I prefer soda...the food again was amazing, especially the different types of salads. We left back to the hostel after that to take our nap and to go out later that evening. We were so tired from the horse riding and sore also. The next thing we know its morning, we slept all night haha. But at that time I think sleep is what we really needed. Well that was the end of Valparaiso, Renee and Carolina were wonderful, so glad we stayed there. Now off to Santiago.

Dia del Machu Picchu (Machu Picchu Day)

12/03/08 cont - so we finally arrive at Machu Picchu, well actually it was Aguas Caliente, a small village outside of the actual site. It was a touristy site and we needed to take another bus to the entrance of Machu Picchu. After finding the bus station and taking the bus, a long 30 min ride snaking up the mountain, we arrived at the entrance of the great Machu Picchu. Tickets in hand, we were on our way to main destination. Upon entering Machu Picchu, from now on I'm calling it MP for short, there were more steps and hills to climb. Then there it was, the site we have came all the way from the Bay Area to see, the famous MP. It was a cooler day with overcast skies and the temperature was about 75. It was an impressive view, even though it wasn't as grand as I had thought it would be. There were plenty of more steps and once we got to the top of the site, we were able to appreciate more of how the ruins were built in the first place and now we can see why the spanish never found MP. You can also see from the pictures that MP is hidden in a valley at 12,000 ft. We spent about 4 hours in MP and then we had about 3 hours left before our train back to Cusco. We had spoken with another traveler back when we were on Lake Titicaca, and she recommended a restaurant IndioFeliz to eat at in Aguas Caliente. So we did and it was WONDERFUL. The bread was great with fresh butter, and we had an avacado and papaya salad to start. The avocados were so big and fresh in Peru, and both that and papayas were melon balled and served with a vinaigrette. Very Good. Then came the soup, which I had the Peruvian creme, which was not creamy at all, but full of veggies and good stuff. Then the main course was salmon with a spicy tomato sauce. This was probably the best grilled salmon I've ever had. It was the tail of the salmon with skin still on. And finally dessert was fresh fruit with ice cream. It was a mix of fresh fruit grown locally (kiwi, pineapple, papaya, orange, apples) and it was in a orange juice mix. Also very good. Overall i think both Shiz and i concluded that this was the best meal we have had in Peru, and the second would be at Inka Grill, and thirdly the cuy and goat spine at La Chomba. We then did some souvenir shopping and slept on the train on the way back. It was the longest train ride ever, I thought it would never end, and finally after 3 1/2 hours, we finally arrived and had to hike back to our hotel. I think MP was worth our time and effort and was kind of happy that we didn't hike the trail. It wasn't because I didn't want to, but I think that having a few more days in Chile would be better spent.

This would culminate the end of Peru for Shiz and I. We had started in Puno with a night stay on Lake Titicaca, and then headed to Cusco for a visit to MP. Overall it was a great start to our vacation, minus the the whole altitude sickness part. Now we are off to Chile!!

So the morning of 12/04/08 we had to get to the airport, we had changed our flight to 11am so we weren't as rushed as we had originally planned. Shiz had read that we should always try to get on early flights because LAN airlines has a bad habit of delaying or cancelling flights. And low and behold our 11am flight was delayed until 1pm, at first it was because of plane not available, ie "plane not there" and then it was delayed again for security issues, I guess they were fixing the plane or something. The were in no rush to get to Lima because our flight from Lima to Santiago, Chile was at 5pm and once we got to Santiago, we were staying there overnight, so no rush, just enjoying the last parts of Peru and waiting in anticipation for Chile. After arriving from Cusco to Lima, we were waiting for our flight to Santiago. Flying domestically in Peru incurred an Airport tax ranging from $3-4. But since we were flying international, we were slapped with a $30.25 charge, what a robbery. That was our last contribution to Peru. We still had some soles left, so we just bought packets of snacks. On the flight to Santiago, Shiz read a bit and I watched Hell Boy II. It was an ok movie, made the time fly. 4 hour flight into Santiago. Our plan is to wait at the airport from 12am to 6am for a bus ride from Santiago to Valparaiso (a ocean side city that Shiz heard of). We arrived into Chile and had to go through Custom's again, but Chile charged us $132 dollars for a reciprocity fee, since the US charges Chile that fee when its citizens visit the US. Then we had to declare stuff too, because Chile was very strict on what we can bring in, I had to declare my half bag of trail mix which had nuts, and dried fruit in it, and Shiz had to declare some tea that was gifted to her from our hosts on Amantani Island. Our first image of chile sucked, charging us money before we did anything and throwing away our stuff...oh well at least we found some comfortable seats to sleep on for a few hours. That's what we did, locked up our stuff and took a nap, I awoke randomly at 3pm and took a picture of Shiz sleeping, and apparently she did the same to me. Photo documentation.

The next morning arrived and we found our buses pretty easily. We found this Bed and Breakfast place on the hostelworld.com site and it had the best reviews I have ever seen. They were at 97% with over 20 reviews, unheard of. All the reviews raved about the great price, central location, the wonderful service and suggestions they got from the hosts, Renee and Carolina. We booked 2 nights to stay at their house and wasn't due to arrive until 10am, but we got there early at 8:30am. Rang their doorbell and boom, we were let in. At first I was surprised that there was no one at the door to greet us. Then I saw Renee standing at the top of the stairs and he had jimmied a long string so that he could open the bottom front door without having to climb the stairs each time, ingenious. Renee was the owned the B&B business with his girlfriend Carolina. Renee spoke english and spanish, but Carolina only spoke spanish. It was 8:30 in the morning and they were both making breakfast for their other guests. We apologized for arriving early, but they were both so welcoming that it didn't really seem to bother them. Right away Renee showed us around and went through rules of the house, and proceeded to give us suggestions of what there is to do in Valparaiso. He had maps, and writings and he drew locations of things to see, food to eat, places to drink. I could tell right away why people loved this place, it was not because of the beds, or the shared bathroom, but because of the care and love Renee and Carolina put into each one of their guests and their city. The room we were staying in wasn't vacated yet because we got their too early, but Renee put our stuff in the living room and offered us coffee/tea and a hot shower. After our showers we went to take in the city.

Valparaiso is known for its beautiful scenes, nice beaches, and wonderful graffiti work. The first sights we saw were graffiti ave. It was really like several streets that had graffiti everywhere, from the street to the walls to the trash cans. It was not just tagging of gang names or symbols, but full on art work (you need to see my pictures to appreciate that). After that we went to the financial district where all the banks were at and withdrew money. I have never seen so many banks with so many people. It took Shiz and I a few tries before we figured out how to get the ATMs to present in english instead of spanish. With money in our pockets we headed out "the best place to eat chorillanoes" according to Renee. It was a small restaurant at the end of an alley. At first glance it looks very dirty and dark, there are people's pen marks and messages all over the table cloth and the walls and whiteout messages on the windows and glass cabinets, but since it was the best, we still ate there. It was simple to order, we ordered one chorillano, big enough for 2 people and some sodas. Chorillano is french fries with steamed onions and grilled pork chunks on top. It is served with bread and some chili sauce. It was absolutely delicious. Afterwards we were so stuffed we knew we had to walk around or else we would fall asleep. We continued to see the city and took their "lifts". These are like cable cars of San Francisco that ran up and down hills only. We saw the port and Shiz wanted to see sand so we tried to take the local train along the coast until we saw sand. All we saw was port, no luck there. We stopped at a supermarket (first we've seen in South America) and bought some fruits and juices and Shiz bought a bottle of wine. It was some of the cheapest wine in the world. The wine averaged about 2000 pesos a bottle, which comes to about $3.50 ($1 = 650 pesos). It was ridiculous. But the line to checkout was even worse, it took us 15 min to cruise the aisles but it took 30 min to check out. After that we cabbed it back to Renee's and went straight for a nap. We didn't awake until 9pm when Renee knocked on the door asking if we wanted to go horse back riding tomorrow. Of course we want to. Renee also offers these activities like horse back riding, kayaking, and mountain biking. He has friends who owns these businesses and I guess we get discounts for going to his friends. So we planned on going there tomorrow morning. After we got up Shiz and I went to eat at a Tapas place around the corner from Renee's. It was a very cute and small place, but the food was absolutely delicious. We ordered 4 items to share and it would barely fit our small table, I guess most people go there and drink wine and snack on a dish, instead of like us, pigging out on 4 dishes. It was good anyways. Then we stumbled home in a food coma state and slept some more.

Horse back riding day, Renee and Carolina prepared breakfast and afterwards we were off to horseback riding. It was about an hour away up along the coast and we passed Vina del Mar, another cute coastal city. There were about 7 people riding, Shiz and I, Maria and Christian (a couple from Santiago on vacation), Renne and Carolina, and a German woman who has vacationed here before. There were beautiful horses and mine was called "Tribiall", a yellow horse. It was a 3 hour ride that took us from the ranch over the sand dunes and onto the ocean beach. We rode horses on the beach, but my horse got stubborn after awhile. ok more to follow, proximo tiempo

El Ultimo Dia (The Last Day)

12/01/08 - After the nap that we took, we recouped some energy to hit the city again. We just wanted to see what the nightlife was like in Cusco, so we walked around the city center, Plaza de Armas. We also tried to find some where to have dinner, as it was around 8pm, but both Shiz and I hate the restaurants that push you to eat there. 90% of the restaurants have waiters standing outside with a menu and if they see foreigners walking by they will ask, "want to eat typical food?" (imagine with a Hispanic accent) So finally not left with a lot of choices, we just so happened to run across a McDonald's. It was the most inconspicuous McD's ever. Most McD's are red and yellow and can be seen from afar, but this one was blended in with the rest of the buildings. All in all we wanted to see what was different from Peruvian McD's than that from the states. I ordered a "McNirific" combo (McTasty in the states), and Shiz had a "McPollo" combo (McChicken in the states). The first thing that is different when you get the food is the presentation. The food actually looks like the commercials. The buns are not crushed, the lettuce and tomatoes are nicely placed, and the fries are crispy, not soggy. As for the taste, it tastes just like the ones in the US, but the meat has some extra flavor on it. I took a look and saw that they put salt and pepper on the beef before they grill it. Wonderful, overall the McD's was pretty good out here, also nothing strange on the menu like chicken feet or pig tail.

12/02/08 - Since Shiz and I changed our flight plans we wanted to use this day to see the sights around Cusco so we don't miss out on anything. Then Shiz got a call from LAN airlines saying her flight changes didn't go through for some reason and she had to call back in, well calling with a cellphone was out of the question, and calling in general was bad because it was hard to communicate with the reps because their english was limited, so Shiz found out where LAN had their local office and we figured we would go there first thing in the morning to clear it up. Unfortunately we only knew that the office was on Avenue del Sol somewhere, not sure the office number, but we figured we'll run into it if we keep walking. It was nice because we got to see a lot of the city and the people on a regular Tuesday morning. One thing I noticed were the people holding lime green string/ribbon. At first we thought they were selling string...kind of a weird business, but hey, who are we to judge. Later on I figured out that they were mobile pay phones. They would hold 2-3 cellphones and if you needed to make a call, then you would pay then a flat rate (1 sole) for a call, the green string was just an indicator. I thought that was pretty ingenious. The next thing we noticed, and this was something on going was the high amount of police officers on the streets. Unlike in the US, police are visible usually by car or motorcycle, but here they are walking on the streets, in the plazas, and the parks. There are tons of cops early in the morning, and late at night. Sometimes Shiz and I walk back from dinner at 9pm and there are still a lot of cops roaming the streets. Besides the fact that they are there to protect, they are mostly very good at english and can communicate with me. One example is from a picture I posted, there were tons of people in a line for a place called "RENIEC". At first we thought it was a bank, and people really needed money, but it was 9am on a tuesday. Finally I asked an officer and he said that it was an official government office for documentation, like passports, official IDs, etc. They only let a few people in at once so that's why there was a long line. So I found out all this information while walking back and forth with Shiz trying to find the LAN office. Finally we just went into an internet bar and paid 1 sole for 30 min to look up the exact address, we later found out that we were about 100 feet short of the LAN office, haha. That was pretty funny, so we got all our flights straightened up and it was about 11am.

12/02/08 - After our LAN adventure we wanted to climb the local ruins "Saqsaywaman" ruins. It was about a 30 min hike to it from our hotel and it was one of the top touristy spots to hit up. We finally make it all the way up there, we could have taken a taxi or bus, but we were feeling much better and wanted to climb to see the local culture. As you can see from the pictures there were llamas just hanging around eating as we passed by. Once we got our entrance tickets we took a break and ate some mandarins on some old inka rocks, that's when a group of cusco students were whispering and giggling saying "chino." Finally one of them approached us and wanted to take a picture with Shiz and I. I'm not sure if its because they have never seen asian people or what, but Shiz has a picture on her camera of our fan group. Anyways, that's when Michel came into our lives. It was written that there are many students who are aspiring to be tour guides at touristy areas like this and they must complete 580 hours of practice of giving tours. These tours are free but they do accept tips, it is mainly to help them with their english and tour giving abilities. Michel was one of the nicer/more believable ones, there were some that offered the same service but were hecka old. Michel showed us around and explained to us the significance of these ruins. It was much more interesting with Michel's explanations than if we just walked it ourselves. One thing I did notice, is that in Peru the "national parks" allow you to eat in them and climb on the rocks, etc. Never would that happen in the states. So after our grand tour of the ruins, we asked Michel for a place to eat that he would recommend, somewhere locals go, not touristy. Michel told us of "La Chomba".

12/02/08 - La Chomba = the best authentic food ever. So we find out where this place is and we start heading out there. The thing was as we kept walking it became less and less for foreigners. We finally find the place and the entrance looks like someones front yard, and off to the left is the restaurant. The moment we step into it we draw all the attention. It was one of those places where they are surprised to see foreigners. We grabbed a table and they proceeded to give us a small slip of paper. We were supposed to write down what we wanted down on the paper from a fixed menu in chalk hanging on the wall. We knew we wanted to try guinea pig for sure before we left, but I didn't know what guinea pig was called so it was a blast talking with the owner, trying to figure it out. I asked the owner if they had a meat, that was like a rat, but not and like a pig. Haha, I think I got the point across and he pointed to 1/2 a Cuy. So we ordered that and then I asked the waiter for a recommendation, I just kept agreeing with him, hoping what ever he ordered us was good. The food finally came and the half cuy was chewy and gamey. And the other dish that was recommended, but we didn't know what it was, even after eating it. It tasted like pork, and it looked like ribs. We couldn't put our finger on it but we still enjoyed all the food. when we finally returned to our room, we looked up what it was, from the receipt and it was...drum roll...goat spine!!! Haha, but it was still good. We then took and siesta and prepared for the Inka Grill.

12/02/08 - Inka Grill - this was one of the places that was highly recommended by one of Shiz's travel books. The Inka Grill is a very fancy and elegant place. We ordered a sampler appetiser and I had chicken tenderloin with Quinea Rissoto and Shiz had Peruvian Raviolis. Everything was so good, it was beyond good, it was great. The food and flavors was wonderful. The chicken was so tender, I don't think I've ever had chicken breast this tender before, and the rice with Quinea was so creamy and flavorful, so good. Shiz's raviolis were stuffed with a mix of veggies and a sweet squash, and it was topped with Parmesan cheese. I think we were completely satisfied with the meal, and the Inka Grill did live up to its reviews. Muy Bueno!

12/03/08 - Machu Picchu Day!!! so today is our Machu Picchu day. We had to get up at 5am to catch our Vistadome train to Aguas Caliente. The Vistadome train is very cool, they serve you breakfast, bread, cheese juice, muffins and meats. Also the top of the train was glass so when we drove through the valleys we could see the environment. Too bad I fell asleep, too early in the morning. More to follow, about to get on plane. :D

The Winds of Change

So later on that night of 11/30/08, it was our last night in Puno so we had to see the city. There was a small touristy street that had small eateries and souvonears. I bought myself a wool hat with ear flaps, very comfy. We also had dinner at one of the restaurants there. We wanted to try something different so I ordered sauteed alpaca, Shiz wanted to try guinea pig but they were out so she had trout. The food was good, but it took forever and we didn't even get bread, whereas others around us did. We didn't know if we needed to order it or what. All in all it was a good day and we had to leave tomorrow morning at 5:50am to catch our plane at 8am with an hour taxi ride.

As I left off on the previous post Shiz and I have made changes to our itenerary so it will be as follows now:

12/01/08 - We flew from Juliaca (Puno) to Cusco, we also bought train tickets, bus tickets and entrance tickets to Machu Pichu (total ~$180 per person). As you can probably tell we aren't doing the 4 day hike anymore. It is mainly due to the fact that we can't even walk without suffocating, but we still wanted to make sure we saw Machu Pichu.
12/02/08 - We are planning this day to take in the city of Cusco.
12/03/08 - The entire day will be in Machu Pichu, 3 hour train ride each way...eek
12/04/08 - We moved our flight into Santiago, Chile to this day. Arrive into Santiago
12/05/08 - Santiago
12/06/08 - Valparaiso
12/07/08 - Santiago, leave for Buenos Aires, and back on track with our itenerary

So today 12/01/08 we arrive in Cusco, it was a short 40 min flight from Juliaca. We got to our hotel at 9am. The hotel is so nice, you can see from the pictures, but the story behind it is even better. It was started by Jolanda can den Berg in July 1996 when she came to Cusco, Peru on her own on a one-way ticket. She wanted to do something for all the children she saw on the streets, so she adopted 2 of the children and rented a small apartment. Before long she had 12 boys that she had adopted and needed a more consistent revenue stream, so she opened the first Ninos hotel in July 1998. It became a huge success so that now she has another Ninos Hotel open (the one we are staying at). Now total she has adopted over 30 children and all the revenue that is earned from the hotels are put directly to feeding, clothing, and educating the children. That is why we are staying here, besides it is an awesome room.

Then Shiz and I went walking around the city to get all our tickets in line. The city of Cusco is very small, so we were very productive and got everything done within 3 hours. We also took a tour of the local cathedrial, unfortunately no pictures were allowed. Finally we stopped for lunch at a small hole in the wall, but we knew it was going to be good because it was packed and we had to share a table with 2 other people for a while. The best part was we got a big bowl of soup (our choice), main course (I got chicken with rice and potatoes, Shiz got beef with rice and potatoes) and a drink (I got lemonade, Shiz got tea) and it was all for 10 soles per person (~$3.50 per person). ahhhh so cheap and it was good. Btw the lemonade totally tastes like kalamansi juice. After our lunch we were tired, the food coma was setting in, but on the way back to the hotel, there was a local market. It totally reminds me of markets back in China, merchants would rent out a space and sell fresh fruits, veggies, meats, supplies, etc. We walked around for a bit and bought some mandarins and super small strawberries. Now back to the hotel for a siesta. Adios