Machu Picchu, Peru.

Machu Picchu.

Due to the horribly timed mining strikes, this was The Trip That Almost Wasn't. By the middle of our time in Peru, Grace and I were getting ready to start finding flights into Cusco, which wouldn't be sticking to the boundaries of our budgets at all, but we weren't about to leave the country without seeing one of the seven modern world wonders. As soon as we got to Cusco, we wasted no time in getting train tickets that same day from Ollantaytambo into Agua Calientes (also known as Pueblo Machu Picchu), where the actual ruins are located.

Peru Rail - we made it! We're really heading to Machu Picchu

By the time we finally picked a hostel after being harassed at the train station, figured out transportation to the ruins (bus), got up at 4am to wait for the bus, and stood in the rain to get tickets to enter, I was almost ready to give up. But Machu Picchu turned out to be so worth it. The views are spectacular, the idea of how these ruins were constructed were mind bending, and quite frankly, these photos don't do it justice at all.

The rainy beginning of our epic Machu Picchu adventure

A huge overview of the 7th modern wonder of the world

In the park, 400 people are allowed to hike up Wayna Picchu, a huge mountain that sits behind the ruins. So together with Grace, I began the craziest hike of my life. The fact that we were climbing at almost a complete vertical combined with the altitude made me feel like I was killing myself for the sake of nature. I have never been so relieved at the top of a moutain. I guess I haven't been on enough mountain tops to really say that though :)

Mountain top bliss

Wayna Picchu was so intense that I came off that mountain feeling like I could do anything. As cheesy as it sounds, it was so...EMPOWERING. I am so thankful the strikes finally ended and I had the opportunity to come out. Even though we had several days left in our Peru trip, it was pretty much complete after Machu Picchu. I saw what I came to see, so after all that I could finally just relax and not worry anymore about whether or not I had flown all the way to Peru for nothing.

Arequipa y Camaná, Peru.

Wow, who knew that blogging would become such hard work when you're so behind? Haha. Moving right along, Grace and I shipped out the very next day after we arrived in Peru to go to Arequipa, a town south of Lima. After having had explored Lima in the day, we went back to our hostel to get ready for our tedious 16 hour bus ride (which wouldn't even be the longest haul one yet). When we went to sleep, we were leaving Lima, but when we woke up the next morning, we'd made it to Arequipa!

The view towards the more modernized area of Arequipa

The monastery right by our hostel

We didn't have a lot of expectations for the town, mostly because we just wanted something to do while we waited out the miners' strike, so the next morning we got up bright and early to go rafting. Our guides were so friendly and excited to talk to me and Grace because one of them was Chilean and from Pucón, where'd we both been before, and another was from Córdoba, Argentina, which is where one of Grace's roommates were from, so we had a lot to chat about. We were with four other people, two Italians who spoke no English, and two Germans who spoke no Spanish, so we were quite the linguistic bunch. After cleaning up back in our hostel, we decided to head to the beach, so we hopped on a bus to Camaná, an even smaller beach town 3 hours north of Arequipa.

A group shot after popping Grace's rafting cherry

Worn out, but so worth it!
The sun was setting right as we were driving to Camaná

Camaná ended up being one of my favorite places in Peru - after Machu Picchu of course :) It's just this small beach town with much less tourism than anywhere else I'd been during my trip to Peru, so it was much more relaxed and less crowded. In the midst of all the stress of traveling, it was such a relief to just take a day and chill on a beach. There was nobody there, it was less expensive, and just a productive 24 hours! While pondering whether to stay another night, though, we found out that the strikes had ended, so we ran to grab the first bus back to Arequipa so we could swing up to Cusco right away.

What's not to love about this?

Locked, loaded, and ready to bus back to Arequipa
Peace.

Lima, Peru.

I decided to give myself another 10 day break at the end of November to go see our northern Peruvian neighbors. I made this trip with my friend Grace, a friend of a friend who's studying abroad here in Santiago as well. Surprisingly enough, Grace and I actually went to high school together, swam for Northwood, and actually had a lot of mutual friends! Small world. We took a flight out to Lima, which acted as the starting and final points of our trip. We were both so mentally unprepared at the beginning that while we were taking a bus to the airport in Santiago, I realized I didn't even have the name of our hostel written down. Luckily we had arranged for an airport pickup from the hostel, so when we landed there was a driver waiting to take us back.

With my partner in crime in front of the presidential palace by the Plaza de Armas

What trip to a Latin American city would be complete without a visit - or at least photo - of a cathedral?

A night view of another cathedral in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima

There was some kind of cow parade slash festival going on, so this is me con mi propia vaca

One guy was giving out free hugs!

As soon as we arrived in Lima, we asked our hostel owners about taking a bus to Cusco, so we could go visit the crown jewel of Peru, Machu Picchu. Unfortunately for us, Peruvian miners had started striking that very day, closing off bus routes from Lima to Cusco as well as Puno, a lake district in the country. Not wanting to spend our whole trip waiting in Lima for the strikes to end, we decided to loop south instead to Arequipa and hope the strikes would end pronto!

Perched and ready to go for our 16-hour bus ride

When we got back to Lima at the end of our trip, we were so exhausted from the traveling we'd been doing (10 day trip, 3 of which were spent on public transportation) that we really just roamed around the city with no real agenda and no desire to do anything. We snacked on some Peruvian food and checked out some artesanal fairs, but otherwise just killed time before heading to the airport back to Santiago.

Grabbing champus from a street vendor - not shampoo, but an apple and cinnamon-y stewlike concoction

Yes, we did stop by a Burger King in Peru; this is a chicken finger sandwich. LITERALLY.

La Serena, Chile.

After getting back to Santiago for just a few short hours - just enough to repack and get in a quick nap - I was back on public transportation to go to the bus terminal to go to La Serena, a beach town six hours north of the capital. After five days of organized tourism, my girlfriends and I were looking to just relax and not worry about having an agenda, which is exactly what we did. A lot of sitting around was done in our hostel, which we had all to ourselves, so we indulged in the fact that we could take over the kitchen. Since most of us lived with host families, we have realized that cooking for ourselves back home is something we take for granted, so any chance to use the kitchen is now well appreciated.

Yes, this is actually all the groceries on our first night - or at least all that I could fit in the frame of this photo

Celebrating our friend Andrea's 22nd birthday

With a Rapa Nui statue at the Archaeological Museum in La Serena

The beach of La Serena itself was actually a little disappointing and not too spectacular, but it could've been because the weather wasn't too hot then - literally. It was gray and overcast by the time we managed to get ourselves out to the beach. We had a huge change of scenery when we took a day trip out to Elqui Valley, though, home of the famous pisco liquor. We visited the Mistral Pisco distillery, taking a short tour of the grounds and later sitting down in the distillery restaurant to enjoy some pisco drinks. Unfortunately, this is when I succumbed to a case of heat stroke, coming close to passing out, and ultimately having to be driven around the corner by the generous restaurant staff to a walk in clinic. I didn't think it was that serious, but apparently my "oxygen levels were below normal" so I had to even be hooked up to an oxygen tank! Not exactly anyone's ideal visit to a pisco distillery. Never would've thought that I would be able to avoid heatstroke in the desert and get it the day after on the coast, haha! By the time we were on our way home, I was ready to be back in my own bed with clean clothes, but there were no regrets about the past ten days. It'd just been incredibly exhausting, that's all.

Not the beach I was imagining before I arrived in La Serena, but the calmness and tranquility fit in with the atmosphere and mindset we arrived in the town with

Before heading into the distillery

Grapes! Uvas! Pu tao! Po do!

Pretty much the last good shot of me before I became an unofficial invalid