My Peruvian Mayhem : Adventure #1.......2008

Peru is a very scenic country with high mountains, roaring rivers, good food, affordable shopping and friendly locals.  I have really enjoyed my visit. However, since the Inca and most tribes worshipped the Sun God and wanting to be near the Sun/their God, they built huge stone temples on mountain top to be closer to their God, hence, every archaeological ruins are guaranteed a grueling hike in high altitude. It is a country best suited for physically fit people who can breathe in high altitude and walk up 1,000 stone steps with no physical repercussions.  And if you can tough it out, the rewards is amazing.

My Peruvian adventure was highlighted with 4 major events. Here is the 1st one...

Adventure #1 : We rode the glass dome train from the Urubamba Sacred Valley to the Municipality of Machu Picchu, located by the foot hill of the ancient Inca ruins. A 45 minutes bus ride up the snake path took us to the entrance of the Machu Picchu National Park. We were blessed with sunny weather and learned all about its history through a very knowledgeable local guide, who was part Inca himself.  The down side was we returned to our hotel with no electricity. No power, no plumbing, no water pressure, no lights, no TV, all the modern amenities we city folks were so accustomed to, none were available. A utility tower was toppled over in the nearby valley causing the entire region to lose power. 

Our hotel was 1 of 2 who has its own power generator. I learned later that their power generator was only turned on from 4:30p to 11:00p so that hotel guests returned from the day-long hiking to Machu Picchu could have the basics in their hotel rooms. Some rooms had a drainage problem. Marilyn said Bob was standing in 4 inches of bathtub water to take his shower after she took her shower. It was gross!  In addition to the inconvenience, there were ants and bugs on my bed. I didn’t want to be a whiner and since we were only spending one night in that hotel, I took some toilet paper and just meshed the ants and bugs on my bed. My bed sheets had dark spots all over due to the frequent “bug meshing” event. But the bugs population put up a good fight.

Eventually I called the front desk and asked for 3 large bath towels. I wrapped myself up like a mummy and slept on the bed. Except I did not know the hotel turned off their power generator at 11:00p and suddenly, everything went dark. I groped around the furniture to get to the window, only to realize the whole town went dark…..

It was pouring rain the next morning. Many on the tour returned to Machu Picchu for a 2nd viewing on their own despite of the elements. I just spent the day walking around town, visited every labeled site on the local tourists map way before our 5:00pm evening departure.  Machu Picchu was amazing. I encourage everybody to go visit.