Here's a link to my pictures on Flickr of my first day in Cusco, Peru:
Believe it or not good people, finally, finally, finally, I am posting my first blog from abroad. It's ironic I am posting it from China (where I'm supposed to be "blocked" from blogging)..... shhhhh, there's always a work around. Lucky my dear friend, Rina Papina (yes that's her nickname I gave her years ago), helped me set up the work around BEFORE I left S. Africa or it never would've worked (as for FB, I needed a new VPN but that also should've been set up before I left SA, therefore, no FB for me while I'm here.
Anyway, without further ado, here it is, officially my first real blog (other than the intro one I did before leaving the states). Hope you enjoy and PLEASE, feel free to leave feedback and comments as that will help me tailor my future blogs.
Hopefully my 22 pics I am attaching will post as well. See end of blog for a detailed list of the pics.
HERE's MY BLOG:
The beginning…. Cusco, Peru – Day 1
Sunday December 8, 2013 = officially my first day out of the USA for my year abroad as a travel writer. First stop, Cusco, Peru.
This has been an interesting and challenging day. My Spanish is very broken as I haven't practiced in years. I'm exhausted having not slept more than a total of 5 hours for the 3 days before I left the US (in turn I passed out on all 3 flights to get here – Chicago – Miami – Lima – Cusco). I also slept a couple more hours when I got checked in my room. I have set up an overnight tour package that starts tomorrow. I will do a tour of Sacred Valley tomorrow by bus with a tour guide, stopping at Pisaq, Urubamba and Ollantaytambo. Then I'll take a train to Aguas Calientes (hot springs) where I'll stay the night before leaving the following morning for Machu Picchu and Waynapicchu (the very highest point of the mountain).
So now back to today. It was quite an interesting experience from the moment I entered Peru via the Lima airport.
TIP FOR THE DAY: If you are traveling from one country to another and you will continue with a connecting flight in the 2nd country to another part of that same country, even if you are told upon check-in that your bags are checked "all the way to your final destination" this is not true. According to TSA rules you must pick up your checked bag
(s) the first time you enter a new country (unless you are continuing on to yet another country). Example: I left from Chicago (USA) to Miami (USA) to Lima (Peru) to Cusco (Peru). I was told my bag was checked straight through all 3 stops to my final destination. This was not possible. I had to pick up the bag in Lima and walk it over the counter and check it in again. However, if I had gone from Chicago (USA) to Miami (USA) to Lima (Peru) to Johannesburg (S. Africa), since my final destination was not a 2nd stop in the same country, I would not have needed to pick up my bag in Lima.
Now you can see where this is going right? I landed in Peru around 10pm. I waited in a very long customs line and then made my way over to the other part of the airport for departures. It was now around 11pm and my next flight wasn't till 5am. I tried to go through to the gates but they told me I couldn't go through until 2am or later. I then saw people sitting and laying all over the floors, obviously also waiting to go to their next flight. And I say, "when in Rome"…. so I took a nap too. I set the alarm on my cell so I wouldn't oversleep. About 45 min into my nap the loud speaker announces 2xs "Lucy Sivov, please proceed to customs." I jumped right up out of my slumber and ran to the departures line in my half awake state and explained that my name was just called and I was told to go to customs and I didn't know where to go. Honestly, I was functioning on complete empty and couldn't remember that customs was downstairs and on the other end of the airport. The guy at the departures line called over and confirmed where I should go. Once I got there, of course there was no one to talk to who had any idea what I needed or how to help me (of course, it didn't help that I didn't even know what I needed, other than to respond to the paged request, but for what reason, I couldn't tell them).
TIP NO. 2: No matter how overwhelming a situation gets, always try to remain calm, don't assume that others are responsible for your problems, remember that the people you speak to are just doing their jobs and that job may not include being able to help you (maybe they don't work for the department you need to get to or the company you need to talk to, etc). Simply try to stay light hearted and don't take the situation too seriously as it can and will be resolved, eventually.
I made my way over to as far as I could go to get to customs and spoke with someone who didn't know who paged me, nor why, and he didn't know where to direct me either. Between his broken English and my extremely broken Spanish he then directed me that I needed to go to the "American Airlines" counter to help me. Mind you, only my first flight was with AA, but since I checked in with them, all my boarding passes had their name at the top of the ticket. My last 2 flights were through LAN Airlines. Now I'm confused with his directions as I know that's not what the page asked me to do but I followed along and made my way, yet again, across to the other end of the airport. (Thank goodness I still had nearly 5 hours till my next flight). I spoke to Oscar who then took me from one counter to another till he found someone at AA who figured out why I was probably being paged. They asked if I had picked up my checked bag and rechecked it and I said no and told them that AA told me it was checked directly to Cusco and I had the ticket to show it. They then explained what I shared in the "tip for the day" above. I smiled and said, "well, that makes sense, and had they told me, I would've picked up my bag". I can just imagine how much more stressful this situation would've been if I had a shorter layover and either found out right before I was supposed to board or worse yet, already boarded and arrived at my next destination with no bag to be found. I don't have any idea how that would be handled by the airlines at that point. Lucky for me, the lady behind the AA counter told Oscar to escort me back to customs to get me back in past the security guy I had spoken to earlier and to help me get my bag and then go check it in (ironically AA could've simply said, sorry, but you flew here with LAN Airlines, so you will need to go to their counter to get further assistance, but instead they helped me follow through despite that). After Oscar and I found my suitcase which was traveling along the belt in circles (I'm truly surprised someone noticed and paged me), he then walked back to AA with me and told me to continue down the hall to LAN Airlines to check the bag back in. I was so elated that he escorted me back and forth that I asked him if he would mind if I could give him a hug as a thank you and he smiled and gladly accepted it.
For some odd reason when we boarded the flight to Cusco the plane was freezing. No one even took off their coats. They did give us blankets that were sealed in bags yet mine had some sort of crusted spill all over it. I asked if I could get a new one and they said there was only one per seat, but I stayed calm and showed them the blanket and asked again if they could try to find one and they did.
The flight was without issue, very smooth and again I passed out. I should mention that I rarely can sleep on planes, but evidently being severely sleep deprived will knock me out every time. For the third flight in a row, I slept almost through the entire flight. As I made my way through the Cusco airport I was solicited by a lady for tours to Machu Picchu. Of course, I had to set that up but I didn't have a chance to research ahead of time what the costs would be.
TIP NO. 3: When you are traveling abroad and there is a specific destination you would like to go to once you arrive, it's worth it to do a little prep work and research your options before you go, even if you don't book anything till you get there. At least you will know what the going rates are for tours, entrance fees, etc and you will be in a much better place to negotiate. If you happen to know any locals or will be staying with some, they can be a great resource as well.
I ended up telling the lady I would call her if I wanted to book something later. I then walked further down the hall and found one more tour booth offering similar tours. After getting a second set of quotes I went back to the first lady to negotiate.
The final verdict: For $340, I negotiated all of the following:
- A taxi to my hotel from the airport ($10 US value)
- Pick up from my hotel in the morning (walked a couple blocks, then we got in a taxi and I was escorted to the bus for my tour) (4 soles - $1.25 US value)
- Bus tour through Sacred Valley (stopping at Pisaq, Urumbamba (lunch incl.) and Ollantaytambo) (value approx. - $50-75 US?)
- Train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes ($46 US value)
- One night's stay at hostel (private room and private bath at Denny's Hostel – breakfast incl.) (approx. $15 US value)
- Instructions given to me at front desk for the next day's hike in Machu Picchu
- Bus to Machu Picchu
- Permit to enter Machu Picchu
- 2 – 2.5 hour tour with English speaking tourguide in Machu Picchu
- Permit to enter Waynapicchu (only 200 ppl allowed to enter & trek to the top twice a day – 1st group enters btwn 8-9am & 2nd group enters btwn 10-11am) – Must buy permit ahead of time (not same day)
- Hike with group to top of Waynapicchu (allow 2-4 hours r/t – I'm very slow and it took me 2 hours to the top and nearly 2 hrs. back down – the average time seems to be 1.5 hrs. ea. way)
- Bus back down from Machu Picchu to Aguas Calientes
- Train from Aguas Calientes back to Poray ($50 US value)
- Personal pick up (with sign) to drive me back to Cusco in taxi (approx. 20-30 soles – approx. $8-12 US value)
NOTE: I'm not sure what the values are for items 7-10 and 12-13 but I'm certain at least another $100 US.
I think I did pretty good considering all I got and the fees for the buses, train rides, permits, hostel, tour guide, etc. After talking to Jimmy, who I stayed with for 3 days in Cusco (he grew up in Cusco), he said that I got a pretty good deal for all that I got.
After the taxi dropped me off at my hotel (Inkas Tarabamba Hotel), I checked in and was shown to my room. I was also given a wifi password and told I could use it in my room. Unfortunately the wifi is not working at all in their building today, not even in the lobby (which I painstakingly found out hours after trying to log on through my smart phone and my tablet, both with no luck).
I took a nap and then made my way to La Paraiso (an enclosed outdoor market). It was lots of rows of little booths set up next to each other selling everything from cell phones, sim cards, electronics, shoes, clothes, music, etc. I went to get a sim card for my international phone. First issue, the battery had fried, which she didn't realize at first but when she took it out and I saw it was swollen and no longer flat I knew something was wrong. Also, no sim cards would work in it. Clearly, the whole cheap phone was fried. 60 soles later (about US $30), I had a new little Nokia phone with 50 minutes of call time and unlimited texts (Side note: though most people only load about 10 soles of credit on their phone at a time, it doesn't last at all, especially if you are texting or calling someone that isn't using the same carrier as you are. I used Claro, but both carriers are about the same, I was told and the same issue exists even if you're with the other carrier. No one was able to tell me the proper code to check my remaining credit on the phone and more importantly, no one could tell me exactly how much each call cost per minute and how much each text was, so it was basically a crap shoot until you realized one day, oops, doesn't seem like my calls are going thru OR no one is answering my texts…. Why?.... cuz you have no credit left. LOL!)
I spent the day walking up and down the main boulevard near my hotel (Tres Cruces De Oro), which btw, while near the center of the city, happens not to be a tourist area, so I was able to see how the locals live their daily lives there. I went in many shops and saw all sorts of interesting things being sold on the street. My favorites:
- Hard boiled quail eggs (the lady boils them in a pot - right there on the street - then peels them and puts them in a little plastic bag with a toothpick, to easily pick them up with, and adds a little sale to taste) - only "un sole" (1 sole),
- Watermelon slice for "un sole",
- A scale to weigh yourself on (just in case you're wondering how much you weigh today and forgot to weigh yourself at home),
- Batteries,
- Herbs,
- Chicarones (fried pork skin),
- Grains,
- Flowers, etc. etc.
All of these little things for sale are right there on the sidewalk right in front of actual businesses you can walk into that sell other things. I don't know how they all compete in such close proximity, but apparently, they are making a living, even if it is a little one.
I also went to the "San Pedro Market" which is a large enclosed farmer's market that is open every day. BEWARE: If you haven't seen every part of an animal, you will here. As I walking, one of the first things that struck me was a large pig's head sitting on the counter of someone's booth. I circled the market and it was pretty empty. I did go back a few days later and it was packed, so I guess it depends what day you are there. The second time I went, we came in from a different side and passed the actual butcher section (back corner of the market) and the smell was so strong, I had to rush through holding my hand over my mouth. Unlike the US where we have laws that all meat must be refrigerated, they just stick the meat out on the counter (no packaging, no plastic wrap, no ice, no fridge, no freezer) and sell it. It obviously could be sitting there for hours rotting away, but they are used to this. And every single part of the animal from head to feet to organs was out for sale.
DESCRIPTION OF ATTACHED PICTURES:
- Lima Airport decorations
- Lima Airport baby advertisement
- Lima Airport – people sleeping on floor waiting for gates to open for domestic flights (I joined them)
- Quail eggs – preparation
- Quail eggs – up close (you got 5 in a bag with a toothpick)
- Inkas Tarabamba Hotel – entrance
- Inkas Tarabamba Hotel – reception
- Tres Cruces de Oro (TCDO) – street and mountain view
- TCDO – chicken on the street
- TCDO – chicarones (lunch – yum!)
- TCDO – selling herbs
- TCDO – selling flowers
- TCDO – selling spices and liquor
- TCDO – selling fruits and veggies
- TCDO – newspaper stand (shortly after Nelson Mandela passed away)
- El Paraiso Market entrance (outdoor market with tons of vendor booths inside – I didn't take a pic inside)
- San Pedro Market (SPM) entrance (indoor market with multiple vendors)
- SPM – clothes for sale
- SPM – Carniceria booth
- SPM – close up of pig's head
- SPM – veggies for sale
- SPM – weird statues and masks for sale
Here's the link to my pictures again. They are in the order of the descriptions listed above. ENJOY!!!
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