Hola! (Hello in Spanish!) As my time nears to an end in Cusco and Peru ... I thought I would share an update! Tonight is New Years Eve here (we are one day behind) so Happy New Year to those who are already celebrating! I hope your 2015 is fantastic! On 2nd January I am finally off to Machu Picchu ... after doing so many trips to local regions of Peru, I really didnt feel like being a high fee-paying tourist and forking out hundreds of dollars for a trek ... so I decided to do the bus tour 3 days / 2 nights where you go to Ollantaytambo ... Santa Maria ... Santa Teresa ... to the hydroelectric ... then trek along the river for a few hours to Aguas Calientes (the base of Machu Picchu) ... then spend the night there. The next day you spend climbing Machu Picchu and see the area, then come back to Aguas Calientes for the night, and return the next day via the ruins and hot springs. I am getting good at getting deals, my first quote was for $150 USD and then when I was chatting to the nice man who I finally booked with, and the price kept coming down, told him I really only wanted to spend $100 USD and he said fine! I looked at putting it together myself but this is such a touristy area, so all the hotels are pricey, and all you need is one local transport to not be flowing and the price can blow out, and it would take me extra days to do it all, without a tour bus (there was also some uncertainty whether Machu Picchu entry tickets would be available, if you were not on a tour). There are also hot springs on this route, which you don’t get to with the expensive train, and I have done a few long treks now with horses, mules and bikes, and just want to enjoy it as it is getting into the wet season here so it will probably be raining and muddy … it should still be gorgeous! The expensive Inca Trail is closed now until later in January but I am completely happy with this option, as you still see Machu Picchu and even go part way back on the Inca trail when you walk to the Sun Gate. At the end of the trip I am spending two nights in Ollantaytambo as I am told it is gorgeous there (the bus trip normally stops there for 15 minutes, but I will get off and catch a local bus back a couple of days later, for s./10 back to Cusco). Then it is off to the airport on the 7th January! Due to the robbery I spent a lot of extra time in Lima, and now I have too few days to really leisurely get to Chile and Buenos Aires, Argentina (where my trip back to USA leaves from). It is 65 hours by bus to get to Buenos Aires!!!, or an expensive plane flight. I still have mail to collect in Lima, so am working in a stopover there with enough time (about 9 hours) to pick it up (one item has arrived, hoping the second item does too). The second connection is short but you are moved to the next flight if there is an issue. I guess $484 for the flights is reasonable considering there are 3 flights starting from Cusco (a regional airport) and gets me easily back to Lima as well, I couldnt even find it for this price on the websites by myself ... a local travel agent Marcelos Cusco Peru have been helpful! I spent hours trying to work out a better way but the best I could come up with would have been via La Paz and catching more buses back the way I came, so would not have arrived for another two days where time is getting limited, and would have needed hotels along the way too. Its funny what things are tricky here, the travel agent is one of the rare places that takes credit card but charge 10% extra!, as electronic payment is not common here, so I am trying to get enough $USD out of the ATM to pay for it without big fees, and the ATM is not even my bank (as Citibank is useless in Peru so I use Scotiabank instead). So it will take me a couple of days to pay for my flight here this way, ha ha! I havent even thought about Argentina so am about to book a hostel and then also get onto booking hostels for USA and Canada as time will fly and next thing I know I will be there! At least my winter clothing collection is now reasonable (I bought the baby alpaca neck scarf from the last set of photos but not the huge hat ha ha, and the price came down from s/. 370 to s/. 160 as I knew what someone else asked!), and now I have a highly waterproof ski jacket, gloves, beanies etc for when I hit the arctic in Canada for seeing auroras in a few weeks! It helps being in a mountainous region in a cheap country to organise those things, ha ha, it makes up for all those things that are not cheap while travelling, with tourist prices everywhere! My itinerary is as follows (all with LAN airlines): LA2030 Cusco - Lima (Peru) 1430 - 1555 7 January LA601 Lima - Santiago (Chile) 0140 - 0655 8 January LA449 Santiago - Buenos Aires (Argentina) 0820 - 1030 8 January So then I will be in Argentina from 8 January to when I fly out on 13 Jan, a few days to make it worthwhile being there ha ha! Suggestions are welcome if you have been there!!! Talk soon ... (more updates of gorgeous places are coming, but these logistics have taken me quite a bit of time to work out here!) Happy New Year hugs, Dianna Julia Photos L-R: Cusco preparing for New Years Eve (at around 11am) ... in the Plaza de Armas and nearby streets, and at the Kurumi hostel
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 19:14:00 +0000
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