Craig's 50th & our 20th Anniversary
Peruvian adventure!
September 11 - 20, 2019
Population of Peru: 32,820,278
Lima: 7,737,002
Cusco: 313,140
Aguas Calientes: (closest town to Machu Picchu) 4,525
WARNING: This is a friggin' long post!
Day 1: September 11th
Flew to Lima
We arrived about 11 pm to a VERY crowded customs area (which took about an hour to get through) then we just walked across the street to our hotel, slept for 5 hours, then flew to Cusco!
We used our Nexus cards for the first time and nearly risked losing them when a cuticle pusher was found in my purse
(I didn't realize it was even there! Oops!).
September 12th
Flew to Cusco via Peruvian Airlines
Cusco is located in Southeastern Peru near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It's elevation is 11,200 feet!! The site was the capital of the Inca Empire from the 13th until the 16th century Spanish conquest. In 1983, Cusco was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
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| Beautiful views flying from Lima - Cusco |
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Our hotel pick up wasn't there to pick us up (we were late), so we grabbed a taxi. We're pros at this kinda stuff now.
Dirty windshield (it's not snowing), but this is actually our street where cars go both ways... well, they have to back up and wait for one another, but they somehow make it work |
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| View down the "street" from our bedroom in the apartment. It seemed like it would be a lovely, quiet spot, but as it turned out our apartment's windows were single-pane and therefore provided absolutely zero sound-proofing to the barking dogs, loud people and vehicles backing up at all hours of the night (beep beep beep). It was SO loud, that a couple of times on the first night I thought people were right in our apartment! It was also quite bright in the bedrooms at night with the street lights and simple blinds. Needless to say we didn't sleep all that well here, but despite all that (and that the only heat came from a space heater in the bedroom) we were happy and had a wonderful stay in Cusco! |
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| View of the city (zoomed) from our apartment |
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| Our very narrow front entrance to the apartment |
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| The walkway to the centre of town from our apartment. It's quite high up, so we definitely got our exercise right from the start... testing out our lungs with the high altitude (less oxygen). Picture us taking frequent breaks to catch our breath! |
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| Just a lovely doorway on the way to the main square (Plaza de Armas). We just roamed around, booked two day-tours for our time in Cusco and then we were entertained by the gong show of trying to pick up our bus tickets from Aguas Calientes up to the site of Machu Picchu. We had to go to a bank and although we didn't know it at the time, you're to get your name on the board via this lady at the computer terminals, then you wait for your name to be called, then you pay the teller, then you take that stub back to yet another lady who will print your actual tickets. SO not an efficient process. That was an hour lost of our vacation... but all part of the cultural experience! lol |
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| Woah! That looks like a fire hazard! |
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| Lovely church/doorway in Plaza de Armas. Cusco is a little hectic, but in a neat way. It has a lot of buildings that are in a state of what would be condemned in Canada; there are a TON of stray dogs (not many cats) and, of course, many touristy restaurants & shops. Above all, it has lots of charm and the Peruvian people are lovely. |
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| A great spot for sushi and ceviche on the way back to our apartment. The entire place is about 12 feet x 8 feet and the two guys make your food/drink right in front of you. |
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| Our ceviche and sushi. Very yummy! And no Eric, we didn't get sick from it! |
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| My 1st photo with the incredibly adorable, sweet, soft and, of course, cute alpaca's. LOVE 💘 |
September 13th
Bus tour to the Sacred Valley of the Incas... just before we left for Peru we saw a tv show starring Gordon Ramsay in this region
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| Crepe (only) breakfast at our hotel with my first coca tea for altitude sickness prevention. |
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1st stop on our 11.5 hour bus tour (🤯) from Cusco to the Sacred Valley region - a random tourist market and my first purchase -
an alpaca scarf |
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| Sad they do this for a living, but I like to think we helped them out a least a little |
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| Craig's new alpaca hat |
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| 2nd stop were these ruins near the city of Pisac. The Sacred Valley is packed with fascinating Inka Ruins - Machu Picchu isn't the only site worth visiting in Peru! They were amazing; the pictures don't even do it justice. Because our bus tour was so long we didn't get very much time to explore this area. 😞Our guide took about 30 minutes telling us the history and then we had very little time to actually walk around. If you have the money, I'd recommend a private or semi-private tour to give you more time to actually explore. Still, it was a wonderful stop! Apparently you can walk down to the town of Pisac seeing much more of this beautiful site and then you can take in the Pisac craft market (which we unfortunately did not get to on our tour). |
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| We didn't know it at the time (nor would we have been able to on the bus tour), but it would have been awesome to hike all the way down to Pisac through the valley you see on the left-hand side of the photo above. |
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| Hey Handsome! |
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| We loved this area ... so beautiful. |
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| This was the coolest (temperature wise) stop of the day, so Craig needed to put on his new toque! |
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| Because I stole his fleece! |
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| I wasn't as "on the edge of a cliff" as it looks! Well, ok, maybe I was. Crazy kid. I wasn't anywhere I was not allowed to go. Love that about some other countries... no so many barriers as there would be in Canada |
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| I was just cold, not scared! Ok, maybe a LITTLE scared too lol |
3rd stop - Ollantaytambo
Ollantaytambo is a town and an Inca archaeological site in southern Peru, 72 km by road, northwest of the city of Cusco. It is located at an altitude of 2,792 m above sea level. During the Inca Empire, Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of Emperor Pachacuti, who conquered the region, and built the town. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Peru, it served as a stronghold for Manco Inca Yupanqui, leader of the Inca resistance. Nowadays, located in what is called the Sacred Valley of the Incas, it is an important tourist attraction on account of its Inca ruins and its location en route to one of the most common starting points for the four-day, three-night hike known as the Inca Trail.
It is a gorgeous area to explore (with several hundred other tourists) and is also a great form of exercise climbing all the stairs!
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| Really gorgeous area and scenery |
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| Don't push it over! You'll kill all the tourists below! |
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| The climb we just finished |
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| Craig loved all the tiny ladies selling things and this lady was a particular favorite. He didn't want to buy any of her candies, but paid her instead just to take a photo with him. She seemed cool with that. |
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| The market area of Ollantaytambo that tourists walk through to get from the parking lot to the ruins (smart marketing technique) |
4th stop - Chinchero
It was dark at this point, but we had one more stop in Chinchero to visit a local, multiple family-owned textile operation
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| Here she's creating the alpaca wool into "string form" for making various textiles |
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| I believe here she was grating salt into the water to lighten the red colour of the dyed alpaca wool. Or maybe it was grating the leaves that make soap to wash the wool. I forget! |
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The Andean textile process:
1. The Peruvian technique of making textiles is an entirely natural process. They start by literally cutting the wool off the sheep, Ilama or alpaca with a knife
2. They get the wool ready and clean by washing it using leaves from the "motoy" plant then create "spume" from it by rubbing it between their hands (with water) and use that to wash the wool. They also wash their clothes with this natural soap.
3. After washing it she'll then rinse it with clean water and let it dry. I say "she" because in the villages where textiles are made, all women in the family make the textiles
4. Once it's clean and dry they can begin, by hand, to create the actual wool to be used (in a wool/string form). Picture of her doing this in the 1st Chinchero picture.
5. Once it is strung it is put in cooking pots for dying. Various colours are obtained using different plants. For example: Chilka, eucalyptus and kull (all shades of green), collekishuar (orange/yellow), keuna (brown), etc.
6. They use techniques and patterns passed down for generations to make their textiles on a hand-made device made out of wood. It takes about 1 week to make just one handbag!
Below are some photos from:
https://threadsofperu.com/pages/about-peruvian-textiles
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| Beautiful and vibrant |
September 14th
We took a day trip that we thought was 3 hours (actually was 6) to:
A) The village of Chinchera (a 2nd time); at an altitude of 12, 500 feet/ 3800 metres it is one of the highest places we visited. It's mainly a village of traditional textile families
B) Moray - Archeological site with Inca ruins. The deepest terraces are 30 m deep with a temperature difference as much as 15 °C from top to bottom for the various crops
C) Maras - 40 km North of Cusco is well known for its salt evaporation ponds.
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| 1st stop - Chinchera (for a 2nd time) to visit another textile family who just happened to have the cutest Alpaca's on site too! |
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| I mean, come on! This little guy was too cute, but didn't really like to be pet. |
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| Sticking close to his Mama |
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| Inside the area where they do the textile demonstration and sell their wares |
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| They're showing us how they dye the fibers naturally. They use a parasite (dactylopius coccus) that grows on a cactus for red. She plucked the small parasite off the cactus and "sacrificed" it in her hand then proceeded to put the red colouring on her lips! Apparently it takes about 100,000 (rice-sized parasites) to make 1 kg of cochineal red dye. 100 grams will dye about 2 pounds of fiber. To change the hue of the red lighter she added salt. I'd recommend if you're going to buy textiles to buy them after the demonstrations because they are much better priced than in Cusco AND you know you're getting authentic products |
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| They are in traditional outfits, but it's not just for the tourists. They dress like this in the countryside where traditions are still VERY strong and being kept alive |
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| Loving his adorable expression! |
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| Just a bunch of pigs crossing the road ... no biggie |
Moray -
is an archaelogical site containing Inca ruins located 50 km northwest of Cusco on a high
plateau (11,500 ft!)
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| The road was often on the edge of a cliff for these bus tours - making even the drive exciting with gorgeous views as well |
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| Random sheep crossing. Just never knew what we'd come across. Love it! 💜 |
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| The Inka's didn't always create their farming terraces in circles... they just used the natural landscape and created the terraces accordingly |
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| Selfie! |
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| Leave it to Craig to find that in the sign! |
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Gorgeous landscapes of Peru...A farmer tilling the land... with cattle (ox maybe) and his hand-held tool. This picture was for my Dad as I know he'd appreciate the traditional methods.
Such hard workers! |
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| Another piggy crossing. She was NOT happy with our driver for coming so close to her |
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| The salt ponds of Maras; A steady stream of mineral rich water trickles down into these ponds to produce wonderful salt products. Today it is farmed by a cooperative community of local families. The ponds have been in use since the Inca times or even before and are still in use today. No modern technology is used during this entire process. Each pond measures 4 - 10 square metres with the depth of 10 - 30 cm. The landscape and altitude determine the size of each pond. They use heavy wooden batons to flatten the ground of each pond creating ideal conditions for the crystallization process. We were told the top layer is regular, white table salt, the middle layer is the pink salt and the bottom layer, where most of the minerals are is medicinal salt with a darker colour. |
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| Driving in and out of this area was a little scary because our bus was right on the edge of the cliff in several spots. No safety barriers here! |
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| I`ve never seen anything like this, so amazing! |
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| A worker in action carrying the 50 kg bags of salt which are painstaking carried through the maize of salt paths to a storage area for processing. |
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| It`s quite massive! |
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| You can't really tell by this picture, but that is FAR down and this is how close our bus got to the friggin' edge! |
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| Back in Cusco after another wonderful day of touring we decided to try another awesome Tripadvisor advised restaurant right in the same strip as the ceviche place - Chakruna Native Burgers - a great place to try alpaca if you're so inclined (or regular beef written as a hamburguer with meat and native herbs). FYI: 15 Sols is equivalent of about $5.50 Canadian ($4.15 US) |
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| Craig isn`t drunk (that comes later), just tired, but truly enjoying his DOUBLE alpaca burger! |
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| I have to think it was an old alpaca who died of natural causes! |
September 15th
Back in Cusco we decided to hike up to Saqsaywaman (a.k.a. sexy woman) - an Incan citadel built high above (at 3701 m /12142 ft) the city. It was another gorgeous day and we read it was only 700 metres from our hotel. 700 metres straight up mind you, but we were up for it. In 1983 it, along with Cusco city, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was constructed with huge stone walls expertly cut to fit together without mortar.
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Here we go... up, up, up
(that seems to be the theme for Peru since it is a very mountainous region) |
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| Turn around for some nice views of the city |
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| Here's a good view of the expertly cut stones that fit so perfectly together they don't even need mortar! They say you can't even fit a credit card between them... not sure about that, but definitely this takes great skill |
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| Craig the pointer |
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| Zoomed in view of the main square - Plaza de Armas in town. I think the children's parade started here judging by the big crowds by the church |
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| Picture taken by a lovely Canadian lady nearby |
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| How'd they move those stones? |
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| It looks a little Flinstone-ish |
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| We ended up taking a very local staircase back down and it just so happened that it brought us directly to our hotel! What great luck! |
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| It was a lot of steep stairs and a little bit of a scary moment when one dog took a disliking to us, but we managed to survive unscathed |
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| Back in Cusco we happened upon this little parade of children dressed in beautiful costume. I wished I had been quick enough to get this one little girl who was shakin' it like a Brazilian Samba dancer at Carnival! She was having a blast! We heard later that this is done every Sunday. |
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| Craig waited a long time to get just me in this shot! |
September 16th
We left Cusco for Aguas Calientes via train
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| Peruvian textile on the table |
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| So Craig humored me and upgraded our train experience from the "Expedition" to the "Panorama"... although we were fed breakfast and had lovely textiles on the tables, I wouldn't say it was worth $40 US more pp for it. The Expedition train (that we took on the ride back) also had windows in the ceiling, so it would have been perfectly fine. |
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| Although ... I wouldn't have tried passion fruit if we didn't go on the Panorama train! Definitely a strange texture! I was told to just swallow it and not chew, but I had to chew the seed... couldn't make myself just swallow it as is |
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| https://naturavive.com/web/skylodge-adventure-suites/ Want to sleep on a cliff-side capsule? You can do that in Peru! I do believe it is about $1000 US per night though or I would have done it! It's not very close to Machu Picchu though as I originally thought. | |
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| AMAZING views from train (Cusco - Aguas Calientes). And MUCH easier than hiking there! lol |
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| Beautiful scenery all around us |
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| The train went past the hikers starting out on the 4-night Inca trail hike to Machu Picchu |
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| Off they go! |
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| We're heeeeere! |
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| Our B&B for the night |
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| What a cute key! |
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| Small, but cute room ... it's all we needed for 1 night and it was quiet, comfortable and warm! |
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| View from our room |
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| After a cliffside bus ride up the mountain (or you can walk, but it'll take you about 1.5 hours) we finally arrived on this gorgeous day to an amazing place! The moment we had been waiting for was here and it was worth the wait! |
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| It was hard to choose which photos... they're all so beautiful! |
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| I tried, but he wanted nothing to do with my grass even though it was the exact same grass he was just eating! |
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| Ooops, should have cropped this a wee bit before posting |
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| It is as amazing as it looks. HIGHLY recommend you visit Peru. It's well worth all the effort to get here! |
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| This one didn't want to eat from Craig's hand either |
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| Reenacting his proposal for our anniversary |
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| Our Austrian tour companions - sisters from Austria Andrea & Katarina |
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| Smooch for our anniversary |
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| Truly incredible! |
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| Keep trying Hercules! |
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| My Superman! He's my hero! |
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| I'm too sexy for this mountain! |
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| The pointer strikes again! That's where we're hiking tomorrow! |
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| This one's for you Alain... Captain Morgan pose |
September 17th 🎂💑
Machu Picchu and hike up Huayna Picchu mountain (where the green arrow is)
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| Internet photo... wish I had done this shot! |
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| What'chew lookin' at? |
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| That's where we're heading to... |
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| Celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary and Craig's 50th in an awesome way! |
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| Just beautiful weather AGAIN ... two days in a row. We were so thankful for that because people often come up here and it's covered in clouds. That would be so disappointment. Craig planned it so we'd have 2 days - 2 chances. We lucked out and had such a truly wonderful anniversary/birthday! |
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| Trying to look zen... is it working? It wasn't very comfortable sitting on that plastic covering they have on the ground |
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| You're looking pretty happy baby - despite that at the same time looking SO uncomfortable and you're so flexible - NOT. |
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| Me, on the other hand, am still fairly flexible! |
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| The sun beams creating gorgeous views |
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| What a place! |
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| Craig says to me "get on the other side". I'm thinking "why"? "It's heart-shaped for our anniversary" he says. Ahhh.... |
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| And here we go... climbing Waynapicchu (it took us 50 minutes taking our time) |
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| What an amazing day! |
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| Lovely staircase! |
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| Incredible views of the ruins. They call it Machu Picchu, but the mountain behind it is actually Machu Picchu. You can also hike it, but we didn't have enough time (or energy)! |
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| Incredible! I think, despite being out of breath, I was smiling the whole time |
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| Yes, it's as steep as it looks |
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| Same area, different angle |
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| Great views on such a clear day. You can see the switchbacks that the buses take up the mountain. You can also hike up it if you want - we skipped that option |
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| We made it to the top! |
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| Top of the mountain! |
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| Step back a little bit further... further... lol |
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| Ya, these particular stairs are pretty damn steep! Rhys, you lied to us! lol |
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| In order to stand up straight on these stairs I needed to lean on the wall... little bit of vertigo, not gonna lie |
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| We reached the very top! |
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| Thank you to the random stranger who was perched up on a rock above us and taking everyone's picture here |
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| The GQ hiker dude |
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| Having a wee rest at the top |
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| Very narrow passageway... wasn't sure he was going to fit! Suck it in baby! |
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| Same narrow spot from the other side |
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| Ahhh, the anniversary lovebirds 🐦 |
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| Look at us thrill seekers hanging off a cliff! |
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| Don't worry... it's an optical illusion. There's a wide ledge on the other side and even a big rock for us to stand on. We saw a group of young guys doing this and my heart actually skipped a beat at first until I realized they were standing on something! 🤣 |
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| Time to head back down 😢 |
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| Proof we were there - about a 3 hour round trip |
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| The Incas were good at using the natural landscape when constructing their fortresses and I believe that's the case here |
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| Lovely terraces and we headed to the exit. Sad to leave this incredibly beautiful place. |
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| Back in Aguas Calientes... had to say good-bye to Machu Picchu, but hello to this adorable kitty cat (for you Aunt Judy) |
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| Chilling with a few drinks after an amazing day in the mountains before we had to head back to Cusco (via train) |
September 18th
September 20th
Return home@ 2:40 am
