7/8 - Salty Selfies and Jumping Jack Flash

Still staying in Yucay.  Places visited:  Salt Mines, Matas, Moray and Ollantaytambo (again)

We were in Yucay for a few days so decided to take a couple of excursions to ruins and interesting places in the area.  The morning started with an early 7:30am breakfast with quinoa soup (it tasted like soupy rice!).  The breakfast was pretty and we ate heartily prepping for the day ahead.  We decided to hit the salt mines today and a few surrounding cities.

The driver picked us up at 9:30am.  We hired a car for the day to trek us around.  We thought it would be much easier than trying to hail taxis wherever we went.  The views were beautiful.

He took us to the salt mines first.  He was a local, grew up in Urumba not far from Yucay and knew that the tour buses start their tours in Moray and work their way down so we pretty much had the salt mines to ourselves.  Suweet!  It was gorgeous and thus began our salty selfy day.  I have to admit by the end of the day we were queens at single double and even triple people selfies.  I forgot my selfie stick!!!  Cat didn't let me forget for the rest of the trip.  Go Aldona and her long arms!

Aldona was teaching us how to rock a selfie.  It's all about twisting the body sideways to look as skinny as possible and pushing the boobs out.

Oh and duck faces, gotta make the duck face.

We had so many questions.  Where did all this salt come from?  How do they gather it off the top?  More importantly...how is it decontaminated before they sell it?!!!  We'd hate to end up poisoning our people back home.  That would suck.  We purchased about 10 kilos of salt between the three of us and a few other knickknacks.  Cat went into bargaining mode (yay Cat!) and we got the 10 kilos of premium salt for 50 soles which was about $16.

Walked along the edges of the salt pools.  Just as we started back, we saw that your buses were starting to file in and the narrow walkways were going to get interesting to navigate.  We saw this old couple that were coming down the stairs with two walking sticks each and pondered at their ability to navigate the very narrow and precarious salt pool edges.  Go old people!  We hiked back up to the entrance.  This was the first of many hikes to come.

Next stop Maras.  It was a tiny city next to the salt mines.  We took some quick photos, used the bano and found some cute friendship bracelets.

In Moray, the Incas made circles into the valleys between the mountains which basically served as it's own micro climate for farming.  The same potato, depending on which level it was planted, will vary in color and taste,  In effect, it's a completely different potato.

We happened to come across a tour group where the guide was giving everyone coco leaves to honor the gods so we joined in making a wish and asking for blessings with the Oregon group.  We blew on the leaves in each direction NSEW and then blew all the leaves in one chosen direction.

We tried climbing the steps that led up to each level.  Even a few feet off the ground I struggle.  I can't imagine how much effort it would have taken for them to carry all the crops back after the harvest.  Bikram yoga's got nuthin' on them.

It was also here that we decided we will take jumping photos everywhere we went.  Burst option on the iPhone FTW!

Selfies gone wrong

It's around 2pm and we decided we still had some time to have lunch then attempt Ollantaytambo again.  We asked the driver for restaurant suggestions.  He took us to his home town of Urumba.  We offered to buy our driver lunch for being so accommodating.  The menu was completely in Spanish and as we tried to decipher the dishes, a lady in the next table helped us translate some things into English.  It turned out she was Peruvian and moved to Los Angeles when she was 16 and now lives in Inglewood Cliffs, New Jersey!  What a small world.  She had a dish of fried pork with potatoes that looked amazing, she even insisted on giving us a taste.  Oh my god, I don't even like pork but this was incredible and it wasn't on the menu.

We invited her over to our table and had a fantastic leisurely meal of great food and conversation.  Food always tastes better with friends, new and old.  Her name was Hilda and offered to take us to the market to find some good deals on alpaca blankets and silver when we get back to Cusco.

We headed back to Ollantaytambo and got to actually climb the ruins.  But it was 3:30pm and unfortunately, it was the time that all the tour buses also congregated here.  We decided to be rebels and headed up the exit side to avoid the traffic.  Vertigo was really getting to me and I hugged the wall along each ledge.

I'm glad we came back and climbed the ruin but I can't wait for Machu Picchu.  We head there tomorrow.  We say goodbye to the baby alpaca hanging out here.

We came back from our very full day very tired.  The hotel lobby was having happy hour with half price pisco sours.  These are quite delicious especially after a hot day of hiking.

It's been a real fart a thon the last few days, I think we left a little bit of gas everywhere we went.  Cuy, the gift that keeps on giving.  Peru will never forget us.

7/7 - Oh Little Cuy

Cusco to Sacred Valley, Yucay via Pisac

Before the trip, we had read that Cuy was a delicacy in Peru and one of the strange food items that Cat and I have been looking forward to exposing to our taste buds.  Aldona, not so much.  At the very least, we could add it to the list of "The grossest things you've ever eaten".  We take pride in that list.   Have you ever wondered what cuy (guinea pig) tasted like?  Chicken...honest to goodness chicken just a little fattier, no lie.  Ok, minus the chewy leathery skin and if you can get over the little T-Rex claws and the tiny teeth in an eternal grimace that looks like it died in a horrific fire accident.  Did I mention the big skewer protruding from it's mouth?  If you can overlook all that, it's not too bad.  Tender in fact if done right, and you're really really REALLY hungry.

I am Cuy!  Hear me RAWR!!!

It's morning and I'm freaking tired, like the honest to goodness my head aches and don't talk to me or I'll rip your face off tired.  Aldona is a morning person, a real chipper one to boot.  I could barely focus much less think.  She started running through the plan for the day, I stopped her.  Please don't make me think right now.  I literally said that.  She took one look at my face and was like ooookay.

The hotel in Lima was decent.  The best thing about it was that it was across literally across the street from the airport.  In fact it had a walking bridge right into the terminal.  Suweet.  Great idea Cat!  We had a power breakfast and it was off to the airport to check in for our 9:30am flight from Lima to Cusco.  The flight was short and uneventful.  We land in Cusco and the travel guide was at the airport to pick us up in a private car.  Another bonus.  This is how we roll folks!  Aldona asked them to take us to Cusco via the scenic route which let us visit the Pisac market.  After some discussion, the guide and driver agreed.  We went to the market and stopped off at a silver shop (saw a beautiful peruvian torquois ring and almost bought it, didn't and spent the rest of the trip looking for an equivalent and not finding it) and some alpaca artifacts.  But we were still tired and none of us were ready to buy anything having just arrived and not knowing how much things cost.  We met up with the guide 15 minutes later and mentioned we wanted to try cuy.  He looked at us.  "Are you sure?"  A resounding "YES!!!" from me and Cat.  I think he smirked but I'm not sure.  The driver took us to a little town that was known for cuy.  It's literally all they served.  Aldona asked if they had chicken.  Ummmm....no.  The entrance was even welcomed by a statue of a guinea pig.  It tasted like chicken!  Aldona was very suspect but gave it a try, you go girl.  The cuy was stuffed with what we discovered was a local herb called huacatay.  It tasted like mint, dill and a few other herbs rolled into one.  It was a bit over powering and we couldn't eat anything that contained huacatay after trying the cuy for the rest of the trip.  Everywhere we went, we told the waiters and waitresses...NO HUACATAY!!!

Guinea pig on a stick, we were starving!  Pictures are worth a thousand words.  I think Aldona looks a little green here but she's putting up a brave face.

Poor cuy, it didn't stand a chance.  Where's the sriracha?!!!

We stopped to buy about six liters of water on the way since the water there was not something you want to try.  We finally get to our beautiful hotel.  It was like a resort and just beautiful.  We even had our own alpacas!

Our rooms weren't ready so we went to lunch at Anaina, a little place that Aldona had found on tripadvisor.  It was amazing.  We had beef tenderloin, trout ceviche (this area was known for its fresh trout), a veggie dish and chocolate souffle.

 And of course a nice bottle of wine.

We get back to the hotel, our room was ready and we settled in.  The hotel is a beautiful old converted monastery.  It felt peaceful and serene.

We still had a half a day left but we just all laid on our beds, too tired to move.  No...we must push on!  Too much to see.  There was a bowl of coca leaves on the table to help with altitude sickness.  Aldona and I were both definitely feeling it.  We all chewed on a leaf and it was time to get moving.

We decided to get the Ollantaytambo ruins this afternoon before it closed since it wasn't too far.  The receptionist said it closed at 6 so we called a taxi and headed up.  It turned out they stopped letting people up around 5:30 but the guards let us in to walk around and take some photos.

Photo...check.  Ok let's go.  We had climbed up a little and decided we didn't need to come back tomorrow.  We walked around the souvenir stalls right outside the entrance but didn't find anything noteworthy.  Just very touristy kitschy stuff.  The plan is to visit the agriculture circles and the salt mines the next day.  The driver that dropped us off offered to give us a ride back so we had asked him to come back at 7 before we found out the ruins were closed.  Grrrr...  We looked at some souvenirs and hung out at the Coffee Tree.  This place had amazing hot chocolate, ginger honey lemon tea and passion fruit juice.

Requisite duck faces

We were all exhausted from the late night flight in from DFW to Lima the previous day, the early flight this morning from Lima to Cusco and the trek from Cusco to our hotel in Sacred Valley, Yucay.  We decided to call it a night.  Aldona had purchased some snacks and decided to surround herself in her goodies.

7/6 - Oxygen and illegal peanuts

Dallas to Atlanta to Lima, Peru

Living in lower altitudes is overrated.  Oxygen is too plentiful and it was time to make a change.

Machu Picchu.  How long have I thought about making this trip?  I would say probably a good ten years it's been on my mind.  In 2014, I'm not sure it came up but it was probably either around the dinner table or just hanging out, Cat and I got on the topic and it went something like this...