Last Days in Cusco

Yesterday, our tour bus was delayed while coming to get us in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. There was a transportation strike, and the main roads were blocked to and from the city. We spent the morning just enjoying the scenery and each other's company. Once the bus got there using a back route, we drove the long way back home to Cusco as well. We stopped on the way at a salt mine. That meant more steps and hiking, which my legs were not willing to do. I saw it from a distance, which was good enough for me, and perused around the gift shops. The salt mines are come from underground naturally at this point. We got back to Cusco around 3pm that day. We spent more time just hanging out and shopping around. Cusco is very cold at night--getting down to 38 degrees. It is still amazing to me how different the weather is from the coast, to the rainforest, to the mountains, all in the same country!

Salt Mines

A couple students and I braved the weather, and also braved the bacteria while eating street food. We spent 6 soles on our meal ($2.30) that included a huge bowl of soup, a hearty helping of deliciously herbed rice, and a nice piece of chicken. It also included a drink and dessert. I was very impressed. It tasted better than what we had been buying at the more upscale restaurants PLUS it was much, much quicker.

Friday was a free day! It was also a national holiday, celebrating one of the saints. We were able to look at one art museum, but the other two we wanted to see were closed. The museum we went to was "modern" art. Most of it consisted of sculptures that were made. They all had something to do with the crucifixion of Jesus, or the last supper, or other Biblical events. The sculptures were not realistic looking; they had exaggerated features that came across as very eerie. That day, we also went to a chocolate museum called Choco. We got free samples of Peruvian chocolate, which was much appreciated. All the chocolate you could buy was wayy over-priced. It had some history on the uses of chocolate around the world, and we also tried some chocolate tea. It tasted like really, really watery hot chocolate. We found some better markets to go to as well. They had better prices on the items we had been seeing and purchasing the entire trip. I am not a huge fan of bartering, but it is fun to get a good deal.

Saturday morning we flew back to Lima. My flight left from Lima to Atlanta at midnight that day, so I had the afternoon and evening to kill time. We all needed to go back to the Miraflores district in Lima to get our luggage that we did not bring to Cusco with us. This took quite a bit of time and money, which we were disappointed about. Some students were not leaving until the following day so I put my luggage in their hotel for the afternoon. We went to more markets, ate at Pizza Hut, and reminisced about the trip. I took a taxi by myself from Miraflores to the airport. Upon arrival, there were other students there so we waited for the Delta line to open up. The check-in process was very lengthy. Once we got on the plane, I tried to sleep since it was midnight until 8:30am. It was definitely hard to sleep. They did feed us well, though. We all boarded the plane on time, but after we left the gate, we needed to find a new gate to go to. Apparently, one of the gas tanks was leaking or not working or something. That took an hour of our time. I was a little nervous because I only had a 2 hour lay over in Atlanta, but it all worked out just fine. Five girls from my trip had the same flight to Atlanta as me, so it was nice to stick together for a bit. The plane from Atlanta to home  left on time. I sat next to a family with 3 little girls. We talked for a bit. The dad was a doctor so we had really awesome nerdy conversations about phenytoin, coumadin dosing, and the medical world.

Peru has been great but I am excited and thankful to be back home.