After leaving Quito on the night of the 20th via a frightening 8 hour twisty turny bus ride to Guayaquil, Ecuador we made our way to another 30 hour bus ride through the desert of Peru to Lima. Along the way we enjoyed beautiful views of the desert and giant sand dunes rolling into the Pacific. During the long ride we were entertained by lots of movies and a team of young futbol players who ended the last hour of the trip singing team songs. Morgan was not annoyed at all... ;) We stayed in Lima for 3 nights and 4.5 days just checking out the city and trying to figure out our plan for getting to Cuzco. Most of what we heard about Lima labeled it as a crime ridden dust bowl but we actually ended up liking it and we had a great hostel (Flying Dog) right in one of the main squares which allowed for great people watching.
On the 25th, we caught a 20 hour bus ride from Lima here to Cuzco. We had heard that the bus ride was horribly frightening due to curvy mountain roads with shear drop offs most of the way. Most people we talked to and travel blogs we read advised taking a cheap flight. The flight sounded ideal, unfortunately they were anything but cheap so the bus was really our only option. Luckily, the ride wasn´t as frightening as we had heard from other travelers. Maybe that was because we drove through a good amount in the dark so we were unable to see the deadly cliffs awaiting one small mistake by the driver or maybe it was because we have been on so many buses equal (or nearly equal) in anxiety inducing turns that we have come to accept the thrilling rides.
So, now it is the 27th of January and we arrived in Cuzco yesterday. It´s hard
to believe that almost a month has gone by since we were back in the
midwest with family and friends. At the same time it feels like we have
been gone for a long time because we´ve done so much and been so many
places. For now we sit in our hostel, Flying Dog Cuzco(also a great hostel), interneting and warming up with some hot tea and cacao leaves. Tomorrow we plan taking a couple of buses to the small town of Santa Maria and then hiking to Aguas Calientes, which is the last stop before Machu Picchu!
