Cusco, Peru

Alrighty, I am leaving Chicago today -June 8th and heading to Peru. The flight to Miami (2 1/2 h), then to Lima (5 hrs), then to Cuzco (50 minutes ) went very smoothly. I kinda was worried that I would miss my connection between Lima and Cuzco since I only had 40 minutes to spare but in the end, it was just perfect walking from one airline to the other. Everyone I´ve met so far in Peru are very friendly. The food is great. The altitude, however, I needed to get used to. I knew we were so high up in the mountains when the plane heading to Cuzco was flying right beside some peaks! Very stunning and humbling at the same time. My cousin, Christie, picked me up at the airport and it was so great to see her :) I was joking around that I couldn´t carry my backpack since I can barely breathe. We took the taxi to our Loki Hostel and I met our other fellow travelers. Only 8 bucks a night and the view from the common room windows is stunning. We can see the city of Cuzco. We also have hot water too and the hostel´s tenants are mostly Europeans and Australians. I have yet to meet another set of American travelers. Lots of English accents everywhere!!!

Anyways, I arrived in Cuzco at around 7:30am and then I started drinking Coca tea (recommended by most for it will help with the altitude issues). I had breakfast and though I was so excited to see the town - I went to bed instead. I slept until 4pm and I woke up with my head so heavy and congested. Dang it, I did get affected with this high altitude stuff. Now I got worried. When I moved to Denver for grad school, I was nauseated for two weeks until I was used to being several miles up from sea level. Bad news is that I don´t have two weeks here in Cuzco! We start hiking to MachuPicchu by thursday and some parts of the hike will take me so much higher up in altitude that our guide, Juan said that one of the evenings will feel like you are in the North Pole! Hmmmmmnnnnn ..... what to do? I can´t even imagine what North Pole will be like since I have not been there but the sound of it (cold and my pounding headache) is not a good mix. Juan´s recommendation is for us to pack a bottle of Rum for the cold :)

That said, I continued to take advice from everyone who is so nice to give me some. Though I still did not get my bottle of Rum (I think another group will bring that instead for there are 12 of us total).

Basically, for two days - I´ve only been drinking Coca Tea, water, and eating lots of food .... not to mention, putting my feet up. I periodically would take some tylenol and these pills that Christie gave me for altitude sickness. Before I left my work in Seattle, Dr. Tom Bird recommended that I should take this medication for altitude sickness because he was just here several months ago. Time passed by so quickly that when I called the UW Travel Medicine clinic, their first appointment was already way after I left Seattle. So totally ¨My Bad¨that I am not prepared. Good news is that my head right now (after 30 hours) is feeling so much lighter and well adjusted. I just hope that it continues to be this way for our hike :)

Overall, the city of Cuzco is amazing. They had a street festival the second day I was here and the locals are so nice. We walked around, had great food, and also had some ice cream. I haven´t had ceviche yet and I will do so when I get back from our hike. There are several fried guinea pigs being sold but I just took pictures of them for now. My travel peeps (Christie, Jill, Brent and I) will be more adventures in our food tasting following Machu Picchu. Its 6pm already on June 10th and we will have a bus pick us up at 5:20am to take us to our hikes´s starting point. Truth be told - I am nervous and excited at the same time!