Speed Travelling

So since leaving Cusco things have been a bit of a whirl wind! Elisabeth and I have come to call it speed travelling considering half the time we've forgotten the day or one day feels like 3.

Day 3 on the trail admiring the view. 

 

First, I'll start with the Inca trail. I am super happy I did the Inca trail even though I feel as though I had a bit of a love hate relationship with it. I didn't go with the other vols and it ended up that there were only 4 people in my group including me. One girl was from Ireland and then there was a German brother and sister with limited English. So it was interesting. The day we started the car was late picking me up at the house and I wondered if I was even going to get to do the trail at all!
We started out in the rain on the first day, but it cleared. It quickly became apparent to me that I was going to be the last person in this group and the trek was going to be very solitary. On the second day, whoch is the hardest, I think I was a bit dehydrated in the beginning as my one eye was kind of blurry like it was swimming and then my tongue and hand went numb. After our second check-point it rained for a solid 4 hours. All the way up Dead Woman's pass and all the way down. I literally got to the top, had a vague idea that it was the pass, and the rest of the group had gone down, so I took a picture and headed right down. Down sucked. I almost fell so many times. It definitely was the most trying day. Plus, we all finished early so none of our porters were there with tents! We stayed next to this really nice waterfall and when the clouds cleared (for a moment) the mountains we were in were gorgeous as well. The third day was definitely my favourite! It was beautiful, yes!

 Parts of the Jungle

There were lots of ruins and jungle, and I finally figured out the right way to carry my pack! I spent a good hour of the hike without anyone passing me.. which led me to question if I really was on the Inka trail/if something were to happen who would help me? On the fourth day, we got up at 3:30 am so we could leave by 4 and be in line for the check point which opened at 5:30. We were the fourth group in line which was good because we got through fast. On the walk to the sun gate, I fell on my knee right before you reach all the steps! That part really hurt and my knee bugged me for a few days after. At the sun gate (where you see all the postcard pics of Machu Picchu) all we could see was mist and when we got to the ruins it was the same.

 Above: The ruins coming out of the mist.
Below: One last look before leaving. 

But as we watched it was so cool to watch the city in the clouds form out of the mist! The rest of the day we toured around the ruins and then Dee and I went to the hot springs in Aguas Caliente. It was really nice even though I needed a lot of convincing to go in!

The next day, Elisabeth and I said bye to Jenny and got on our first bus adventure... a night bus to Arequipa. From there we caught another bus to Tacna and in Tacna, we caught a taxi over the Chilean border into Arica. The taxi was definitely an experience. They make sure it is full and they take your passport to get your info (which they end up copying down wrong) and then you drive. I was really happy Elisabeth was there to do thaf with me for the first time! Otherwise, I probably would've been on a bus and waiting a lot longer.

Once we got into Arica and found our hostel we decided to explore. Arica is actually nothing special.. it's rather run down in its central area, but has a charm that gets you. Our hostel was cool.. really nm open concept and beachy feel. Plus, it helped that we went to the beach and surfed both days and went out with a big group the one night.

 Part of Arica near the square.

A saying I liked in Spanish: I am you. You are me. 

 

From there we headed on a plane to Santiago where we were supposed to catch a morning flight to Buenos Aires. BIG SNAG. I didn't know you could only pay your reciprocity fee online and I thought that they would ask me at customs. Nope..no one did so then I just assumed they would ask once we got there. So when we went to board, the man told me no you can't go no reciprocity fee. He said there was no time for me to go pay it and that was it I wasn't going. It was rather intense and I felt my stomach drop. Thank gosh Elisabeth was there and could ask questions because they barelt spoke English. This wonderful flight attendant ended up rebooking our flight, cancelling our stamp out of Chile (which made us look like criminals, and then showing me the dinky computer I could pay my reciprocity fee on. LITERALLY no info was around it and I would have never found it on my own. I felt really bad because Elisabeth only had 10 extra days to spend and then herenit was that one of them was not in BA like we planned. But she was really good about it and we went and explored Santiago for a few hours. We ate there and did a hop on hop off tour which was hard not to fall asleep on after all our nightime airport napping. After that we headed on our flight to BA.

When we got to BA, it was a good thing we were exhausted because our hostel was nothing special. In the morning, we woke up to find bugs, like roaches, under our bags!! Good thing we went to explore for a few hours and got a bus to Iguazu at 3. Iguazu was amazing. You can't not be happy there! We got there and immediately went to the park. We went on with this jungle adventure group, where they take you througg a bit of the jungle ans then on a zodiac to some of the falls. We got so wet from the spray! It was so amazing! After we walked up and saw the falls from a different view and then we went to the Devil's Throat which was amazing as it is the top of the main falls. You cannot go near it without getting wet! The next day, we went on the Marcuca trail and swam in a pool with waterfalls. It was so nice and so worth it! I can definitely see why it is one of the new seven wonders of the world