EatingLifeUp

LOL crazy turn of events today. I went to the New Kids On The Block (NKOTB) concert tonight. My friend Matt phoned me up and invited me last minute. My head screamed NOOOooooo! But in the end I found myself saying yes.

I had a good time but WOW long concert it didn’t let out until about 11:45pm. I was thrilled to see the opening acts, maybe more so than I was NKOTB.

First there was Lady GaGa… I just love her, and she was a great performer. Definitely would be great to see her as a full concert. I think my favorite song by her right now is “Poker Face“.

 
Then there was Natasha Bedingfield. She was OK, lots of slow songs and then she made me VERY happy by singing “Unwritten“. That was my theme song on a trip to Europe last year. Such a great song with great lyrics.

 
Then it was time for NKOTB. Have to say, for a guy born in the right time frame I didn’t know most of their songs. The four that stood out and allowed me to enjoy the concert were three of their older songs “Hanging Tough”, “Covergirl”, and “The Right Stuff”. Then there was one of their newer songs “Summertime”. I have to say they really did put on an amazing show with lots of energy! Some great cheezy dance moves from the early 90s and they were fun to watch.

 
For all the New Kids fans out there here is a Poll! Tell me which New Kid you had/have the biggest crush on. If you know nothing about them just do like we always do on EatingLifeUp and just pick the one you think looks the hottest!

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You may recall that my trip down to Peru was extremely lucky in regards to flights with flights even taking off early. Well all return trips weren’t so fortunate. Starting with weather delays in Cusco. I was fine to sit and wait for my flight because I knew I was heading back to Lima. However I would have been more upset has I known that Lori, Jens, and Daniel were hanging out in the hostel as long as they could to say goodbye one last time before they moved onto the next legs of their journeys.

When I got back to the Backpacker’s Family Hostel in Lima I almost kissed the floor of the hostel. I was very glad to be “home”. But exhausted I went to bed for a nap and around 9pm I heard a very familiar voice. It was Lori, she had come back to the hostel one last time to see if I had arrived. I jumped out of bed and hung out with her until it was time for her to catch her bus to Huancayo. But even then I wasn’t ready to say goodbye so I decided to go with her in the Taxi to the bus depot for the adventure and the company. It was lots of fun and I was glad I went not only to see her off but it also gave me insight into how the buses in Peru work. They looked amazing and Lori let me know later that the bus was incredible (comfort, and service wise).

 

Then I was lucky enough to get a taxi back to the hostel because if there are no buses arriving, there are NO taxi’s at the bus depot LOL.

My last few days in Lima were filled with great moments. I did a little bit of shopping, I hit the mall one more time and caught another film. This time was a new low. Not only was it High School Musical, but it was High School Musical 3, and in Spanish audio only! LOL It wasn’t bad and I still followed along but this would definitely be your “OK to miss movie of the year”.

Christian one of the owners of Backpacker’s Family House was awesome on my last night. He took Maureen (another Canadian) and myself out for a tour. We stopped by the new hostel just to check in on it first, then we went for a drive along the ocean, checked out some sites including some great fountains in the neighbourhood of Chorillos. Then we drove to one of the nighttime restaurant and club sections of town named Barranca.

I said my goodbyes again and headed to the Lima airport at 3:30 in the morning. So far so good, COPA airlines was on time, had great food again, and filled me up with 3 stiff rum and guava juice drinks. However, the in flight movie… Momma Mia. At airplane altitudes and with 3 rum drinks in you, that movie is surprisingly even better the 2nd time around. COPA airlines is definitely my new favorite airline.

Then MIAMI, ugh, my new least favorite airport. Things just seem to be really not thought out at this airport, many travelers I ran into agree that they always manage to have a hard time with this airport. Airport aside my flight to Denver was delayed for mechanical difficulties causing me to miss my connecting flight back to Edmonton. This is why I have been absent for a few days now from the blog. I was put up in a hotel in Denver for 5 hours and shipped home on a new flight at 8 in the morning. This hiccup was the straw that broke the camels back and caused me to be completely exhausted when I got home. Ooooh and I almost forgot! Guess what the in flight movie from Miami was??? Momma Mia! LOL So this time I watched it in Spanish audio just to change things up a bit. Bad idea, if you watch a movie for the 3rd time in a week and watch it dead tired, the songs will be permanently tattooed to your brain for many days to come.

But all of that was only 5 flights home, totally not connected to my magical, memorable, vacation in Peru! Definitely one of my more challenging vacations but a great first time to the Southern Hemisphere and I would say that Machu Picchu and Lima both are a must see.

 

At first I didn’t have much to say that was nice about Machu Picchu the town. Everything I did was urking me a bit. It was amazingly beautiful, but it felt like everytime I moved it was costing me money. I also wasn’t able to book a hostel there so I had to book a budget hotel and I don’t know why but everytime I book a budget hotel it costs more and is worse than a hostel. That held true for here as well. My room overlooked main street which happens to have a fully functioning train track on it. My bathroom smelt of major sewar gas and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I suppose it didn’t help that the doorways and support beams for the hotel were so low that I hit my head 3 times, once so hard that I cut my head open. It got to the point that everytime I walked everyone around me would cringe and duck for me.

I promise that after this paragraph my story will improve 600%. The restuarants here are extra expensive and basically everything runs at a premium like any remote tourist trap does. So when I heard that the town has hot springs and it only costs 10 soles to get in I was so on that. However pictureing the hot springs of Jasper, Banff, or Colorado I was saddened to find 5 or 6 small pools of luke warm murky water. Borderline gross but it was nice to soak in some warm water for a bit. If you ever come here and are sad that you missed the hot springs, don´t be.

So NOW on to the F’ing AWESOME part! Actual Machu Picchu rocks so much that you will forget anything that happened before that point. I woke up super early at 5:00 am, so I could catch the first bus at 5:30. It was definitely a good thing I bought my bus ticket and my park entry ticket the day before so I didn´t have to wait in lines. Then the bus took us up to the Machu Picchu site where we waited only a short while for the park to open.

When it did I was running across the city of Machu Picchu in order to line up and get my ticket to climb Wayna Picchu. I was told ahead of time that if you want to climb the mountian Wayna Picchu you have to rush across because they only let the first 400 people up each day. They also only let 200 go in the morning at 7 and then the last 200 people go between 10-11. I wanted to be on the morning hike before it got too hot.

Well I did awesome because I was the 82nd person to be permitted on the 7 am hike. Then when they released us on to the hill I was the 42nd person on the mountian. Be warned that they do not allow food on the mountain and will search your bags and make you check the food.

Now I will start with the photo blog of this journey:

The Lineup waiting to climb to the top of the mountian you see on the left
 

The start of the hike to the top, one of like 3 flat sections on the hike
 

The start of the accent. If you look in the bottom right corner you can see the small staircase and there is a guy in a white shirt you can see on the stairs.
 

Looking down into the river valley
 

Looking back at the ancient city of Machu Picchu from the hike up the mountain
 

Yours truely sitting on top of the world
 

I like this picture however I get sick thinking about how close to the edge I was and I also don’t know about the perspective making me look as big as a mountian.
 

Now this picture is hilarious. Because I am 6′4″ or about 193 cm for anyone on metric I don´t enjoy caves. I have gotten stuck in more than my share. So when we go to the cave I asked the girl in front of me if it was the only way up. She told me that it was the only way up so into the cave I went. When I appeared out the other side she informed me “Oh it looks like my boyfriend’s path did work and you don´t have to take the cave, but while you are down there let me take your picture”.
 

I fell 3 times on my decent and was scaring the people below me. They weren’t serious falls by any means but scary non the less. You can see that these stairs weren’t excatly built for my size 13 feet. Sometimes they would bridge from one step to the next and I would ski down a couple at a time.
 

Some of the ruins around the back side of the mountain at the Gran Caverna (Large Cave). This cave I didn´t have any problems visiting LOL
 

This I guess is my “I conquered the mountian, walked up it, down it, around it, and can’t beleive where I am standing” picture
 

One of the many amazing views
 

Now that I was done with the mountain, I this shot and the next few are shots of the ancient city.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that was my amazing adventure to Machu Picchu!

And there are LOTS of them!

I had all these high hopes of blogging some Kylie videos, and some pictures and stories from Machu Picchu last night but my stomach disagreed. It was a horrible night last night that I felt I would never get through.

I can´t quite pin it down on any one thing but if I had to I would be blaming it on the supper I had last night. Almost immediately upon returning from supper I wasn´t well and went to bed. From that moment on it was a battle to not get sick and wake up the two Dutch girls in my room. Both battles lost I made my way to reception around 3 in the morning and woke up the night watch dude. I had to explain to him in Spanish that I was about to be very sick and would be needing the water turned on.

Nothing worse than being all alone, sick, in a country that doesn´t speak you first language knowing that you are 5 plane rides away from home.

However as you can see it is 10:25 in the morning here and I have prevailed. I have been snacking on some break and sipping some coca tea mixed with anis that the lady that runs the hostel says will help my tummy.

I have a flight back to Lima this afternoon and I am looking forward to getting back to the hostel I know and love. Perhaps when I arrive I will have the opportunity to post the photos, videos, and stories of my great experiences up until last night.

*HUGS*

So this morning was the beginning of my first early rise day on this trip. I was supposed to get a wake up knock, yes, I said wake up knock hehehe at 5:30 this morning. That was going to be enough time to pack, eat a small breakfast, then catch a cab to the train station in order to exchange my reservation for an actual ticket.

Turns out that for some reason I woke up many times throughout the night and one of those was at 5:15 so I packed and headed downstairs. The guy that was going to “Knock me up, before I go go” was just waking up himself but managed to grab me a piece of bread and call me a taxi. While getting my taxi a girl named Debra came into the lobby and asked him to turn on her hot water. Not sure why but in this 10 second space we shook hands and introduced ourselves. (Random thought but she will be important later)

This is the bed at the Sami Wasy hostel. It was a very nice hostel in my books and the bed was super comfy with lots of blankets because it got quite cold at night. Things to look for in the picture are:

• The rock wall that my hostel is built into
• The hardwood floor that I could hear the room below snoring through
• The Sismo sticker on the wall, they are everywhere and identify safe places to stand during an earthquake

 

City of Cusco from my room
 

Samay Wasi Hostel balcony in Cusco
 

City of Cusco at night
 

So back to our story, with my bread sticking out of my mouth I hauled my luggage down the stairs from the hostel to the nearest road where a truck was wedged in between two of the tight cobble stone roads in Cusco. Since the truck was blocking all access to the hostel I had to look for the taxi at the bottom of the hill and wave him down, then we met half way, I walked, he reversed.

The taxi cost 3 soles, and I am told that really unless you are riding at night or really far you shouldn´t pay more than 2.5 soles in Cusco. I was tired and wasn´t going to fight over 50 cents. The driver was very cute because his car has no heat when he hopped out of the car to put my bag in the trunk he was wearing a woven blanket around his waist like a skirt. We soon arrived at the train station and before I could even get out of the car people were selling me things through the taxi cab window. Once I stood up at achieved my full 6′4″ height I was given a bit more room but was still targetted at a potential sale.

I had no problem getting my train ticket and moved from the reservation line-up to the queue for the train. The train was sold out but I had a very nice window seat in the first car of the train. Moments before I the train takes off, in this very busy train, the seat next to me is occupied by Debra. (from our story earlier) I think hmmmm that is pretty random that we both end up in the same section of the train. The more we talked though the more interesting things got. Our birthdays are only 1 day appart, we both have a similar travel style, we both do photography, the list went on. It was really nice to chat with her and the train ride just flew by. We began to think that maybe I was meant to change my travel plans and hike Machu Picchu with her and here local Peruvian friend that also happens to be an official guide. This would differ from my plans to get up early in the morning and do it the next day. So we played it by ear and waited to see how it played out.

View from the train to Machu Picchu
 

Main street in Machu Picchu as seen from my room
 

The train track outside of my window in the middle of main street
 

My Budget Hotel Room
 

Ahhhh I am running out of internet time for this post so I will have to wrap this up quick. In the end I ended up not going with Debra and her friend but I have a feeling that we might cross paths again. Her friend though did point me in the direction of the ATM in town and the place to purchase my bus ticket for the next day.

More on Machu Picchu tomorrow.