Have questions? We're here.

Adventures in Peru

Machu Picchu...exceeds every expectation.
Machu Picchu...exceeds every expectation.
An amazing journey through Peru with two old friends, two new friends, and a jaguar!
All Photos

Photo Album

Meet ya in Peru!

Apr 27, 2011
Ceviche at Astrid & Gaston's.  To die for!
Two good friends off on another adventure--this time to Peru! It's hard to believe that after weeks of planning, it's finally here. Props to Laura and Kassi at Adventure Life who made this trip ridiculously easy to plan. One of us leaves Little Rock at 4:30 a.m., the other leaves Seattle at 10 a.m. If all goes as planned, we'll meet up in Lima in the morning. I land in Lima at midnight. It's dark, so driving to the hotel in the Miraflores district, I can't see anything, but I can smell the ocean. What a great beginning! It's been a long day and it's time to find a pillow.

Leche' de Tigre

Apr 28, 2011
Pink-toed tarantula, part of the welcoming committee at Rainforest Expeditions.
Pink-toed tarantula, part of the welcoming committee at Rainforest Expeditions. (Andrea Edwards)
Our one day in Lima we strike out through Miraflores. A friend told us about Astrid & Gaston, one of Gaston Acurio's restaurants. Gaston is Peru's hotshot celebrity chef--their version of Emeril I guess. No reservations, but we decide to chance it. What we find is the first of many incredibly friendly Peruvians eager for us to experience the best of what their country has to offer. Although we were both adamant about not eating guinea pig, we get caught up in the moment and find ourselves ordering the national dish for our first meal. Hey, when in Peru! But before the guinea pig can come, Christian, our waiter, tells us we must try the ceviche. Oh. My. Gosh. Maybe the best thing we've ever eaten. The fish is so fresh that I think it was caught about 10 minutes before serving. And the liquid that it's served in--leche de tigre--is to die for. I wonder if anyone will notice if I pick up the bowl and just drink it? The guinea pig is good and we're glad we've tried it (thankfully it's served headless), but nothing can compete with that ceviche. We spend the afternoon walking through parks, past interesting architecture, and make our way to the coast. Pretty much the perfect intro to Peru capped off with the first of many pisco sours, the yummy cocktail made from pisco, a traditional local brandy, and citrus topped off with a frothy mix of egg whites.

A welcome to the jungle from the king of the jungle

Apr 29, 2011
The super hero porters taking our bags to the river to head into Tambopata.
The super hero porters taking our bags to the river to head into Tambopata. (Andrea Edwards)
Early morning flight to Puerto Maldonado where we'll start our journey into the Tambopata National Reserve. The folks from Rainforest Expeditions meet us at the Puerto Maldonado airport and take us back to their office to rendezvous with others heading upriver into Tambopata. The welcoming committee at the office includes Ivan, our guide; Antonio, another guide and possibly the funniest person we've ever met; and the cutest pink-toed tarantula we've ever seen. Actually, it's the only pink-toed tarantula we've ever seen, but that didn't make it any less cute. After a quick, 45-minute drive down a dirt road highlighted by Antonio's stand-up routine, we arrive at the port. The porters must be wearing red capes under their t-shirts because they are carrying superhero loads of luggage and bags down to the motorized canoes. And doing it all with huge smiles on their faces. We board a canoe with Ivan, Antonio, Ramon (our captain), and Richard and Gemma, two newlyweds from England. Ivan gives us the jungle version of fast food, delicious chicken fried rice wrapped in a banana leaf. Add in a juice box and you've got the perfect picnic. It's a gorgeous day, we're on a boat, meeting new people, eating good food--life just doesn't get much better than this. Or so we think. The view from the canoe is awe inspiring--capped herons, chestnut-fronted macaws, yellow-headed vultures, red-and-green macaws, russet-backed oropendolas, a crimson-crested woodpecker, capybaras (the world's largest rodent), crane hawks, and a squirrel cuckoo. As it turns out, that was just the opening act! Everyone told us not to expect to see a jaguar. They're shy, there aren't that many of them, they're mainly out at night, yadda yadda yadda. Even Ivan tries to manage our expectations, but we know. Just know. And there, on the first day, as if to welcome us to his world, is a jaguar. A JAGUAR! Sitting on the bank, he looks at us in a rather bored fashion, obviously not as excited to see us as we are to see him. After a minute or two, he stands up, turns around, and walks slowly back into the jungle. We're at a loss for words and just stare back at the spot where he was, huge goofy grins on our faces. We arrive at Refugio Amazonas fully expecting to rough it in the jungle. Who knew it would be so nice! This place is gorgeous. The main lodge has two floors and everything is open so you can see the jungle everywhere you look. The rooms are simple but beautiful and very comfortable. The people are so friendly and helpful. Dinner is delish. We will discover as the week goes on that the food, while simple, is fresh and always delicious. And who knew you could get such killer cocktails in the jungle? Blue Morpho, Forest Fever, Amazonian Paradise. Our vote: definitely the Blue Morpho. But just to be sure, we recommend you follow our lead and try them all!

You have to get up when the birds do!

Apr 30, 2011
Ivan and Antonio lead the way.  These incredible guides make a great trip even better.
Ivan and Antonio lead the way. These incredible guides make a great trip even better. (Andrea Edwards)
It rains most of the night and we're grateful for the openness of the rooms so we can hear all the jungle sounds. And the rain has made everything fresh and green and glistening. After breakfast we pull on our Wellies (knee-length rubber boots that will become your best friend in the jungle) and set out for the canopy tower. Ivan seems to know the name of every single tree, plant, bird, flower, and insect. And he can find things that you'd never see on your own. We're trying to write it all down in our journals but it's so much. We realize at this moment that we can either focus on making a list or on enjoying the experience. It takes about a nanosecond to decide. Who cares if we can tell someone the difference between a kapok tree and an ironwood tree, they're both amazing! Our journals go in our backpacks and we give the jungle our full attention. The canopy tower is about 32 meters high (approximately 100 feet) and from here we get an incredible view of the jungle. Ivan has taken the scope up and we see a pair of blue dacnises, these gorgeous little cerulean-blue birds. As we're ooh'ing and aah'ing over the dacnis, a pair of macaws flies in, then another and another. Then come king vultures, black vultures, a reddish-hermit hummingbird, a golden-collared toucanet, yellow-backed tanagers, olive oropendolas, blue morpho butterflies, and more macaws. Back at the lodge we pack and have lunch. While waiting for the canoe to take us further upriver to TRC (Tambopata Research Center), Ivan gives us each a temporary tattoo. A blue morpho for one, a scarlet macaw for the other. Seems like the perfect way to mark the occasion. We board the canoes after lunch and Fernando, a guide, and two other tourists have joined us for this leg of the journey. It's a long canoe ride to TRC, but between the addictive plantain chips, Ivan's commentary, and Fernando's stories, the time flies. Of course it doesn't hurt that everywhere you look you see something amazing. Others nap, but not us, we're too afraid of missing something. We arrive at TRC at dark and are again pleasantly surprised at how nice it is. We take a much-needed shower and then join the others for dinner. Ivan tells us we should go to bed early since he'll be knocking on our door at 4:30 a.m. As he says, if you want to see the birds, you have to get up when they do.

Ooooooo Eeeeeee Ooooooo

May 01, 2011
And so it begins!  On the canoe, heading upriver to our first stop, Refugio Amazonas.
And so it begins! On the canoe, heading upriver to our first stop, Refugio Amazonas. (Andrea Edwards)
Ivan knocks on the door at 4:30 a.m. as promised. We stumble around in the dark, trying to find what we need with just our headlamps for light. Note to self: next trip to the jungle, lay out clothes during the daylight hours to avoid tearing apart your entire suitcase in the dark. We take a quick canoe ride to a little island to see one of the world's largest clay licks. Again, Ivan tries to manage expectations by telling us that they haven't seen too many birds in the previous days. But we're not worried. The spirit of the jaguar is bringing us luck. The guides give us little camp stools and we sit to wait. Only 5-10 birds at first, but slowly, more and more come. They bob and weave, ebb and flow. The smaller red-cheeked and blue-headed parrots, the medium red-and-green macaws, and, what we lovingly come to call Big Blue (the spectacular blue-and-gold macaws). We're all overwhelmed at the spectacle in front of us. Regardless of what we thought the clay lick would be, it exceeds every expectation. I find myself offering up a silent prayer of gratitude. And just when I think I may start crying from sheer happiness, I see Antonio watching me, eyebrows raised, eyes rolling back in his head, and I laugh out loud. The birds have their fill of clay and head off to do whatever they do. We're reluctant to leave, but our guides start moving us in that direction. As a consolation prize for having to leave this magical place, the jungle offers up squirrel monkeys, a white caiman, a few more oropendolas, and some red-bellied macaws. Walking back to TRC, we hear the most incredibly haunting sound. It's like a spooky wind, or what you'd hear from the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz (oooooo eeeee oooooo). Ivan tells us that it's red howler monkeys and we immediately head off the path and into the jungle to find them. Ivan, who could literally find a needle in a haystack, finds the monkeys and lines them up in the scope. It's our first, but thankfully not last, glimpse of these little guys. In the days to come, the sound of the red howler monkeys will become one of our favorite memories and the single best alarm clock you could ask for. The rain, light only minutes before, is now coming down hard. We leave the monkeys in peace and head back to breakfast. It's only 8:30 a.m. and we feel like we've already had the most incredible day ever. After breakfast, where we successfully defend our pancakes against the chicos (two scarlet macaws who were born and live at TRC), we realize this rain isn't going anywhere. It is the RAINforest after all! We ask Ivan for another tattoo, this time a paw print on our wrists in honor of our first jaguar. And then he offers up rainy day options. We decide, much to the chagrin of the other guests, that we will help Marco, the chef, cook lunch. We don our Lucy and Ethel hairnets and Marco puts us to work shredding chicken, sauteing peppers, peeling hard-boiled eggs, and chopping vegetables. Once the Aji de Gallina is prepared, he graciously allows us to roll the cart out to the dining room and stands there patiently as we shamelessly take credit for lunch. Another exaggerated eye roll from Antonio, and lunch is served. A full tummy, the soft sound of the rain, and a hammock conspire to create the most wonderful afternoon nap I think I've ever had. The rain stops late afternoon and we slip out for another night walk. Because of the rain, the trails are beyond muddy. More like flowing rivers of mud. We sink up to our shins (thank goodness for those Wellies) and Ivan is enjoying a little too much how often we get stuck. But like everything else on this trip, we laugh at what would have made us angry or frustrated at home. Besides, if it weren't for the rain, there wouldn't be all these trees and monkeys and birds to see. And seeing that chicken tarantula with her babies makes the muddy trek worthwhile.

You know, like Lord Voldemort

May 02, 2011
This is roughing it?  I dont think so!  The lodge at Refugio Amazonas is increddible.
This is roughing it? I dont think so! The lodge at Refugio Amazonas is increddible. (Andrea Edwards)
We awaken to the sound of the howler monkeys. One of the chicos, Inocencio I think, visits our room looking for handouts. It's pretty great that TRC has these two scarlet macaws for such an up close and personal experience. We gear up for another hike through the jungle. Along our nearly four-mile trek this morning we see dusky titi monkeys, a termite highway, a tree full of paradise tanagers (gorgeous!), blue-and-yellow macaws, exotic flowers, leafcutter ants, and a great black hawk. We also see more red howlers, this time a family of two adults and a baby climbing all over her mama. Just before lunch we're treated to a great acrobatic show by a group of tamarind monkeys behind the dining room. You have to give it to TRC--their floor show is off the charts! After lunch we take the canoe back to the island where the clay lick is located. We're looking for a hoatzin, a rather odd, prehistoric-looking bird. We get to an oxbow lake and immediately see two hoatzin in a tree (seriously, that jaguar is bringing us amazing luck). As a bonus we get a capped heron, a rufescent tiger-heron, and a baby smooth-fronted caiman. Ivan then spots a couple of squirrel monkeys. We look up and see several, quite close, running quickly across limbs and jumping from tree to tree. They are wiry and fast and infectiously fun to watch. As we stand there, we see more and more, many of them in conga lines of eight to ten at a time. We lose count at 80! Dinner conversation tonight is interesting. We have a smaller group which is nice. The guides are not only talented, but funny. The conversation winds down a maze of topics finally ending on the benefits of ayahuasca, the spirit wine. Jhin, another guide, and Juan Luis, a writer and photographer, are big proponents and take the spiritual aspect of it very seriously. Ivan thinks it's an excuse to get high. Jihn tells us it's important to get a good shaman to guide you through the journey because there are bad shamans who will convince you to do bad things or kill people. Juan Luis helpfully explains, You know, like Lord Voldemort. I guess Harry Potter really is the most famous boy wizard on the planet!

This isn't the last you've seen of us!

May 03, 2011
Ivan and Lee at the top of the canopy tower at Refugio.
Ivan and Lee at the top of the canopy tower at Refugio. (Andrea Edwards)
One last morning walk at TRC. The jaguars had come to say goodbye, but they were stealthy about it and we see only their tracks. A huge anaconda had also come to say goodbye and thankfully left only his track as well. That's one jungle resident we're okay not seeing in person. We pack and hike down to the canoe. Graciously, Ivan pretends not to notice that we are crying as we walk away from TRC. We both hate to leave this special place. Ivan had arranged for us to stop at another clay lick on the way back to Refugio Amazonas. There's no way to describe what it's like to stand there watching the trees fill with these brilliantly colored birds. At one point we count 24 scarlet macaws in two trees together. Back at Refugio, we enjoy one last dinner with Ivan, an amazingly talented guide, but more importantly, a great new friend. He freshens up our tattoos (something to remember me by, he says) and as we sit on the second floor of the lodge, watching a beautiful blue hummingbird on a bush full of bright orange flowers, we comment on how blessed we are to have seen and experienced all of this. And this promise we make--this is not the last time we will be here.

Did my lung collapse? No, it's just the altitude.

May 04, 2011
One of the blue dacnis we saw from the canopy tower.  Gorgeous little bird!
One of the blue dacnis we saw from the canopy tower. Gorgeous little bird! (Andrea Edwards)
After our last night in the jungle, we take the canoe to Puerto Maldonado, the bus back to Rainforest Expeditions, and then we're off to the airport for an easy, quick flight to Cusco. We step off the plane in Cusco and I'm pretty sure I collapse a lung. No, it's just the altitude (around 11,000 feet). We find our guide, Santiago, who takes one look at our pale skin and says, please tell me you have sunscreen! Not exactly the most traditional greeting we've ever heard. After our mandated rest at the hotel, we grab some water (another hot button for Santiago), slather up in sunscreen, and set off to explore Cusco. The Plaza de Armas is the perfect welcome to the city. Lots of people, gorgeous colonial architecture, and dozens of these beautifully decorated crosses. Today is the Day of the Cross and local families have been given the honor of decorating crosses all over the city. Each one is unique. The Incas called Cusco the spiritual center of the Andes and we certainly feel it tonight. We start up a hill just off the Plaza and our lungs feel every step. Now we understand why we were encouraged to spend a couple of days here to acclimate. Back down to the Plaza de Armas, we watch as the sun sets, turning the sky orange and purple. Staggeringly beautiful. As we take in the beauty of where we are, the sadness of leaving the jungle begins to dissipate. We have dinner at this funky place called the Fallen Angel. It's during dinner that we start to see Santiago's sense of humor. We're going to like this guy! He's smart and knows his country's history and culture, but he is also wicked funny and only slightly less obsessed with Paul McCartney and the Beatles than I am with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Sexy Woman and Guinea Pig at the Last Supper

May 05, 2011
The clay lick near TRC.  Incredible to see so many parrots and macaws in one place!
The clay lick near TRC. Incredible to see so many parrots and macaws in one place! (Andrea Edwards)
Santiago picks us up bright and early. We head to the market where basically we're allowed to look but not touch and under no circumstances are we allowed to eat anything. Especially me since the parasite that hitched a ride from the jungle is thriving in this altitude. (Note to self: when they say don't drink the water, that includes jungle cocktails with ice. Listen when they say, this ice is not for you!) The market is sensory overload! Rows and rows of everything you can imagine: cheeses, spices, meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, breads, herbs, flowers, toys, clothing, and I think a sample of every one of the 1,200 varieties of potatoes they grow in Peru. After we leave the market, Santiago hires a driver to take us outside Cusco to see three temples. The first is Tambomychata, the healing place and a temple to water. The fact that these stone walls were made by hand and are still standing centuries later is a testament to the ingenuity and hard work of the Incas. Santiago tells us about the caves near here and explains that the Incas believed in reincarnation but you needed a mummy and a cave to pull it off. The caves are still here, but the mummies are, thankfully, long gone. Leaving Tambomychata, we pay three soles to a lovely woman in a traditional dress of bright colors to get our picture made with her and her llama. Do we look like a couple of complete tourists? You betcha! Was it worth it? You betcha! On to the temple for Pachamama, Mother Earth. Inside we see stone altars and many niches for mummies. Santiago tells us that much of what we know about the Incas and why they did things is theory and guesswork because the Incas didn't write anything down. I sort of like that. Next up is Sacsayhuaman, the main fortress protecting Cusco. Sexy Woman was built with walls in a zigzag pattern to represent thunder and lightning to intimidate enemies. We're amazed at the size of the stones in these walls as well as the complete precision of how they fit together. You couldn't fit a piece of paper between them. The Incas did this by hand and it's pretty darn impressive. Within the fortress is Qoricancha, the Temple of the Sun. From here you have sweeping views of Cusco and the Andes. It's the most gorgeous clear blue day and you feel like you can see forever. Back in Cusco we go to the Cathedral. Only the guides who work here are allowed to take you through so Santiago waits outside for us. Our guide in the Cathedral is so nice, but her sincere desire to share the details of this amazing place is, unfortunately, overshadowed by her limited English. Her English, however, is about a thousand times better than our Spanish. Why oh why didn't I take Spanish? So much to see inside the Cathedral, but our favorite part is how the local artisans very cleverly fooled the Spanish. While trying to eradicate the Incas' religious beliefs and convert them to Catholicism, the Spanish hired local painters and sculptors to create this Cathedral using only Christian images. The Incas did that, but they also added their own touch as well. In the painting of the Last Supper you see guinea pig, part of the Inca tradition, as the main course. And in the choir, along with the angels you can also see smaller carvings of Incan deities. My hat is off to the Incas for refusing to give in to the Spanish too easily.

The Long and Winding Road

May 06, 2011
Antonio (with another eye roll!), Andrea, and Lee at the clay lick.  Was getting up at 4:30 a.m. to see this worth it?  Absolutely!
Antonio (with another eye roll!), Andrea, and Lee at the clay lick. Was getting up at 4:30 a.m. to see this worth it? Absolutely! (Andrea Edwards)
Our journey today takes us through the Sacred Valley. As we head out of Cusco, Santiago plays the Beatles' The Long and Winding Road, and it's just perfect. First stop: a llama farm. We feed the llamas and alpacas who obviously like us better than the guy behind us because they immediately spit on him. We move along just in case they think he's with us. The farm is run by local artisans and we see how the fur is sheared and then dyed with natural ingredients like prickly pear cactus to create a range of vibrant colors. And what these weavers do with the yarn is some of the most beautiful artwork we've ever seen. Next stop is the historic site at Pisac. Lots of terraces here. You see terraces everywhere in the Sacred Valley because it was the only way the Incas could grow anything in this mountainous region. There just isn't any flat land. The ingenuity of the Incas continues to fascinate. At Pisac we see more caves in the mountainside for the mummies; some 10,000 people were believed to be buried here. We stop at a lovely restaurant in the town of Pisac for lunch, a restored colonial house with tables set up outside in the formal garden. Santiago issues our dietary restrictions for this meal--salad, no; alpaca, yes. We can report that alpaca is okay. It's no guinea pig, but it's okay. From here we head to the circle terraces at Moray. Once again, we have to give it to those clever Incas. They basically created a laboratory where they could experiment with what types of crops grew best at different altitudes. Slightly more sophisticated than my soybean in the Dixie Cup in first grade. At Moray, you can walk all the way down to the center--that's the good news. The bad news is that what goes down, must come up. And the walk up, at 12,200 feet, is no piece of cake. The Incas built something called flying steps on the terrace walls. Very clever in that they didn't waste space or a lot of stones building stairs, but a bit disconcerting the first time you step off onto one. We sort of feel like Indiana Jones taking that first step in the cave looking for the Holy Grail. Okay not really, but it is a little scary. The salt mines at Maras weren't on the original schedule, but we had seen them in the issue of National Geographic that came out just before we left. Santiago adjusts things last minute when we say we'd like to see them. Maybe not something everyone would want to see, but it sure makes for some cool photos. Now we push on to the town of Ollyantaytambo. Oh. My. Gosh. What an incredible place! The ruins here are literally built into the side of a mountain. Our first thought is WOW! Our second thought is, oh geez, more steps. We're pushing daylight so Santiago, very apologetically, doesn't have time to allow us to move at quite our normal snail's pace up the steps. He knows we'll regret not making it to the top while the sun is still shining. As usual, he's right. We get to the top and watch the sun set over the mountains and ruins and are again reminded of how lucky we are to be here. Ollyantaytambo is also interesting because it's been continuously inhabited since the Incas and many of the homes here are original Incan dwellings. Everywhere we've gone, Santiago has known half the town, and this is no different. He takes us to visit the home of someone he knows. As we walk carefully across the stone floor, trying to avoid the guinea pigs running everywhere as well as their droppings, we are once again reminded how thankful we are for our little homes back in the U.S. Still, it's a great opportunity to get an up close view of how people in the rural areas of Peru live, both then and now. However, the minute we see the three skulls of their dead ancestors in a niche in the wall, we decide that our up close view is over. Time for dinner. After dinner we head back to our lovely El Sauce hotel which is small, quaint, and extremely clean. It also has the most comfortable beds we've slept in so far. Definitely going to make more time for Ollyantaytambo on the next trip!

City in the Clouds

May 07, 2011
Tree frog...we saw lots of these on our night walks at TRC.
Tree frog...we saw lots of these on our night walks at TRC. (Andrea Edwards)
Today is the day! We're on our way to Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu for gosh sakes! After breakfast we take the train from Ollyantaytambo to Aquas Calientes. The train ride itself is beautiful. No matter where you look, something takes your breath away. Santiago wisely suggests that we refuel with lunch before heading up the mountain to Machu Picchu. This will also let some of the crowds thin out so that our first view of what we've come all this way to see will be more of Machu Picchu than the crowds of tourists. We find an outdoor cafe and sit down to what turns out to be one of the best meals of the entire trip. The cafe is blasting 80s music and the three of us sing along. How in the heck does this Peruvian guy know every single song that came out in the 80s, who sang it, and what country they're from? This is when we realize that Santiago's a bit more obsessed with Paul McCartney and the Beatles than we originally thought. His entire body seems to light up when he tells us that in a few days he's flying to Lima to see Paul McCartney in concert. We board the bus and start the switchbacks up the mountain to Machu Picchu. It's actually an incredibly gorgeous drive up but if you have height issues, don't sit at the window. We queue up to enter and then as any good tourist would do, stand in another line to get a Machu Picchu stamp in our passport. We could write 20 pages of commentary describing what it is like to see this magical place, but it would never even begin to do it justice. You'd have to be a poet to string together the right words. Between the two of us, we've seen some amazing ruins. Collectively we've walked the Great Wall of China, been to the Pyramids, explored the Parthenon, strolled around Stonehenge, and even spent a day at Palmyra in Syria. So while the ruins of Machu Picchu are impressively well preserved and very interesting in terms of the theories of why it was built and then abandoned, what makes it so special is the setting. Machu Picchu is perched at the top of a mountain in a cloud forest. There is nowhere you look that you don't drop your jaw in amazement. It's why we've come home and driven everyone we know (and even a few we don't) crazy with our insistence they immediately book a trip here. If Machu Picchu isn't on your bucket list, add it immediately. And if you need one of us to go back with you, let us know. Santiago does a great job of telling us what the different buildings are, how they were used, and even has us stand close to the hitching post rock to see if we can feel the energy coming off (we don't). But for us, this day turns out to be not so much about documenting the historical details of the ruins, but about the experience of being here. After climbing up to the Guard Tower and looking back down at Machu Picchu spread before you, with Huana Picchu in the background, you realize you're standing smack in the middle of one of the most iconic National Geographic images of the last 100 years, and it's a bit overwhelming. I'm not quite sure what Santiago makes of the fact that I suddenly burst into tears. We can't seem to bring ourselves to leave this amazing place so the gods help us out with a brief rain shower to hurry us on our way back down the mountain. On the bus down, Santiago attempts to teach us some Quechua, the language of the Incas. We're ashamed to say that all we can remember of Quechua is that Machu Picchu means Old Mountain. Waiting at the bottom of the mountain is the MaPei hotel, definitely the nicest place we've stayed so far. Dinner is amazing! The food is great, and there's a small band playing music. This wonderfully boisterous group at another table gets up and begins to dance. We decide it would be rude not to join them!

Up Close and Personal with Pachamama on Mother's Day

May 08, 2011
Night walk at TRC.  You cant believe how many things your guides can find in the dark!
Night walk at TRC. You cant believe how many things your guides can find in the dark! (Andrea Edwards)
We're up at 5 a.m. to pack and catch the first bus back to Machu Picchu. This morning we're hiking up to Intipunku, the Sun Gate. It's Mother's Day and I can't help but think of my own mother as we climb. She visited here 30 years ago and inspired me to want to see it too. I can't wait to get home and share this experience with her. In the meantime, I offer up thanks for my mother on this special day. The trail to the Sun Gate is relatively easy, as long as you stop every so often to catch your breath. The guides here are very intuitive about when you need to rest and they always find something to point out that requires you to stop and look. It's an extremely gracious gesture and our lungs are grateful. While it's not a particularly long hike, we still feel we've accomplished something when we reach the Sun Gate. Machu Picchu looks small below and the mountains tower around us. We've run out of words yet again and wander aimlessly trying to take it all in. After taking photos form every conceivable angle, we begin the hike down. Back down on the grounds of the ruins, we look around and find ourselves fascinated with the people who have come here. You see people of all nationalities, ages, and physical abilities. We meet one woman making her way up a set of steep steps with the aid of two canes and three grandchildren. 'Pass me,' she says, 'I'm going slow.' 'No ma'am' we say, 'we're using you as an excuse to go slow ourselves in this thin air.' 'I've always wanted to see Machu Picchu,' she says, 'And now I am. I refuse to let these bad knees keep me from realizing my dream.' I make a note to share her story with my father who has Parkinson's Disease but would love to come here. I think this sweet, spunky 85-year-old stranger has just removed dad's last excuse. Reluctantly we board the bus and head back down to Aguas Calientes, grab lunch, and take the train back to Ollyantaytambo. At the train station, I see a man wearing a St. Louis Cardinals cap like my own. We both hope the other has scores or news, but no such luck. Santiago asks if perhaps I've seen someone about this Cardinals obsession, but smiles when I explain that it's sort of like his thing with Sir Paul and the Beatles. A rather hair-raising drive back from Ollyantaytambo to Cusco is made fun by Santiago playing DJ with the songs on his laptop. On the way, we get caught up in a huge Mother's Day Festival in Urubamba. Music, food, and people everywhere! We wish we could join in the festivities. Back in Cusco we must say goodbye to Santiago. After having to say goodbye to Ivan, Antonio, the macaws, monkeys, and Machu Picchu, it seems so unfair that another goodbye is in the cards. The three of us are standing in the hotel lobby, saying goodbye, and someone starts crying and then we're all off to the races. Spontaneously, I take off my Cardinals cap and give it to Santiago. 'No, no,' he says, 'Not your Cardinals!' But I want him to have it, I want a promise that we'll stay connected. And I like leaving a piece of me behind in this beautiful country.

It's Been a Hard Day's Night

May 09, 2011
Lee with one of the chicos at TRC.  Really great TRC lets you get so up close and personal with these macaws.
Lee with one of the chicos at TRC. Really great TRC lets you get so up close and personal with these macaws. (Andrea Edwards)
Today is the longest and saddest day of the trip. Cusco to Lima to Miami to Dallas to Seattle for one of us, Cusco to Lima to Miami to Chicago to Little Rock for the other. To add insult to injury, we have eight hours to kill in the Lima airport but pass the time looking back at our journals and reliving this adventure. We also indulge in a pedicure at the airport and sitting there, we look up at a TV and see on the news that Paul McCartney has taken the stage in Lima. We smile, imagining how happy Santiago must be at that concert.

Here Comes the Sun

May 10, 2011
Scarlet macaw
Scarlet macaw (Andrea Edwards)
Almost home. As I look at all the fresh people on my flight, the ones who showered this morning and look and smell better than me, I comfort myself with the secret knowledge that 48 hours ago they weren't hiking the Inca Trail to the Sun Gate. Then I put in my ear buds and listen to Here Comes the Sun all the way home. Two hours after I land at home, an email comes from Santiago. It's a picture of him in my Cardinals cap at the Paul McCartney concert. A promise kept to stay connected that somehow seems the perfect ending to a perfect adventure.

Peru Travel Guide

Favorite Peru Peru All Trips

Top Peru Travel Destinations

Peru Trips by Departure Date

Top Experiences in Peru

Peru Trips by Duration

Peru Trips by Activity

More Reasons

Why Travel With Adventure Life

All News

Recognized By

Talk with an expert
Build your ideal Peru trip. Call 1.406.541.2677