After 38 hours and 2 flights I landed in Lima late in the evening. It was the first time I was travelling alone and my Spanish wasn't that good I was too keyed up, exhausted, lots of stuff running threw my head. I was suppose to find the hostel, eat, sleep and wait for the next day. An hour later I was settling into a room with four bunk beds. The hostel was near the airport, it is located near an Industrial area , could not find any vegratarian food so I went to bed eating only packets of lays and few chocolates. East to west is the worst for jet lag, and its good to fall into the right sleeping pattern on the first night but I din't so I ended up early in the dinning room for breakfast, around 6, I guess. It was all empty except for and Italian guy sitting on couch next to the table. He too was jet lagged I guess . He was lean, covered with tattoos all over, looked like an Hippie who had travelled Asia for few year. We ended up taking a bus together around 7 to main district. He was quite helpful and polite, he spoke fluent spanish and also paid for my bus fair. He had been travelling for few year with doing odd jobs along the way and when he was completely out of money he would go back to Italy, work for a couple of months and then start travelling again. He was quite educated and had also spent a year in India a couple of years ago. He was going to Iquitos the same day. A month from that day he had an ayahuasca ceremony with his shaman. Ayahuasca is a plant that the Incas used to eat to have an out of body experience, hallucinate. It is said that elders after an Ayahuasca ceremony had an intuition that the Spanish were suppose to attack so they abandon their villages. A month till then he was going to live in the forest with the shaman, meditate to get his body and mind in balance. He was interesting with all kind amazing stories to share. Before coming to Peru he stayed with a sceret community in the mountains of Italy which sounds really cool. We went by the beach, it was calm and peaceful. We spend a couple of hours in Mira flores, a commercial tourist district of lima near the sea.
My flight to Cusco was late in the evening. Star Peru have cheaper airfare compared to Lan. Travelling Peru isn't that expensive compared to rest of South America. I stayed in Loki hostel in Cusco, it know for its parties but its a bit of a hike to get there. Its a 1500 year old building converted into a hostel and have amazing few of the city from few rooms. The parties happening at night were really wild and nobody ends up in bed sober. Its a great place to unwind after the Inca trail.
Cusco has a couple of museums near the Plaza De Armas. They also have one contemporary art museum which I found very interesting and has a amazing spanish architecture. I had an amazing vegetarian dish made with quinoa at Plaza de Armas
The next two days were spent exploring the Scared Valley in the Urubamba region. Took a scared valley tour from the hostel. We started with Pisac and along the Urubamba river we want to Calca, Urubamba and then to Ollantaytambo. They are the different regions were the Incas had their village. There method of agriculture is still followed by the indigenous people and they still do converse in Quechua. The whole scared valley is calm and peaceful. We had our lunch by the river and it couldn't be better. We stop at the local market of Chinchero which was amazing. They were selling lot of silver jewellery. We weren't sure how good the silver was but a friend of mine and I bought a couple of piece after bargaining.
In Ollantaytambo I met Ele and Rebecca, Ele is from Spain and Rebecca from Sweden, we three had the same train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes. I stayed there a night so I could start climbing to Machu Picchu early for sunrise. Aguas Calientes means hot water. The city has hot springs which are open to public but they are generally crowed and a bit dirty. Ele, Rebecca and I had a long dinner, they too had been travelling for a while and we were getting along really well. Three of us decide to hike up to Machu Picchu early in the morning instead of taking the bus to the top.
We started early around five in the morning. I was a two hour hike to the top. It was really exhausting and but he view of the mountain around Machu Picchu was amazing. I felt a bit dizzy due to the height but I met a couple of peruvians on the way and they made me drink some local tea after which I was alright.
Machu Picchu was mesmerizing! It was a dream since two years when I got denied for a Peruvian visa while travelling Argentina , the embassy told me I had to go to New Delhi to get my visa and then comeback, so I did. I love it more than the other five of the seven wonders I visited. I had an amazing journey getting there, met a lot of new people, saw some amazing places and had some wonderful experiences, also met a really cute girl from Buenos Aries all this made it even more memorable.
I also climbed Huayna Picchu with Ele and Rebecca. The view from the top is beautiful.