When I got back to Lima I met up with a couple of cool English doctor friends. I had met them earlier and enjoyed their company so was glad to meet up with again. They had made plans to fly to Cusco the next morning at 5 pm so they invited me to join them. So the reception at the hostel offered to book me a flight. Well to save money I didn't take a bed and stayed up all night. Unfortunately after sharing an expensive cab ride to the airport at 3 am well I found out that the flight I was booked on was the next day! What could I do but say goodbye to my 2 companions and I'd meet them in Cusco in a day.
Unfortunately I never got any sleep that night and stayed up again that night to go catch my flight at 5 am. So when I met up with my friends in Cusco they told me they had booked a tour trip to Lake Titacaca for the next day and a Jungle bike/hiking trip to Machu Pichu.
The reason for the urgency was 1 of the girls had to return to England in 5 days. Well I don't normally like or go on tours but didn't have any better plans to check out the places so decided to join them. But this meant getting the similar tickets, meeting my friends who were on another tour, meeting them as were leaving that evening at 10 pm. This caused a bit of a problem cuz I didn't get the msg correctly and didn't know where to meet to catch our bus. So I was wandering around for a hour trying to figure out where my friends were. It was about 10 mins to 10 and still couldn't find my friends or the bus. In a final attempt I had the tour operator's number so I got a hold of him. Luckily he was able to get me to the bus station just as the bus was pulling out. It was an all night bus ride to Puno by Lake Titacaca in Peru. It had to be one of the coldest nights I spent on the bus. There were a bunch of Polish tourists on the bus who kept going to the bathroom and left he window and door open. So it was real cold, smelly and windy in the bus cuz I was sitting at the back cuz got on late! I think they finally got the hint when I told them in a loud voice to close the fu*king window & door cuz it was F**kin cold so to hell with the smell!The highway was very windy and the altitude was high. So when we got there one of the 2 doctors I was travelling with got altitude sickness! So when we got to Puno we waited for a doctor to check her out and get some oxygen. Then we headed for a boat ride to check out the lake. It was a real chilled ride on the boat to a couple islands. The lake and the islands made of straw were so cool to see!
We stayed overnight on one of the islands with locals. Also hiked up this hill to see the sunset which was great. So overall I'd have to say it was a real chilled place to visit especially on the boat as had time to sleep on the roof of the boat!
Then we returned to Cusco which is the city near Machu Pichu! So what happens just before we'r were suppose to go on a 3 day Jungle Trail bike & hike to Machu Pichu but a bus strike! Dam hate strikes and unions (tho this one wasn't brought on by a friggin union trying to make itself appear important) but that's another story! So what the hell did this mean to us? Well we missed out on the 1st day's bike ride as we needed to take a bus to start of our trip but couldn't get there on time. So 2 of us had to take a late night ride to the start and missed out on the bike ride. It kind of turned me off so I didn't participate in the hike either.
But took a taxi for $5 and got to the next town & met a couple of cool American chicks who got there on their own. So we hung out and had a couple J's to enjoy the afternoon. Hell as far as I was concerned it wasn't the trek to Machu Pichu that makes it a world class sight. Like it wasn't the journey there that was awesome but the destination of Machu Pichu which makes the whole thing impressive! But I wasn't as stoked about seeing Machu Pichu cuz of all the hype and tourists in the area. Hell they had trains, buses, taxis, cars, etc taking ppl there. But could we miss out on seeing this site cuz would regret it if we're in the area!I made it up to the gates to the site which had to be 7 am. Then everyone (who wanted to hike Wynu Pichu) had to hurry to the gates to hike up Wynu Pichu it's neighboring mtn which ppl climb to look back at Machu Pichu to take pics! But hell there was a long line to get up Wynu Pichu.
I had met up again with these 2 American chicks and hung out with them as couldn't find my friends who I came with! While we waited to get into Wynu Pichu it reminded me of getting in to Disneyland as everyone would run to get to the rides! All memories that I disliked then and did at this site. But had to do and glad I did cuz the sights were awesome and one I'm glad I didn't miss. But must say that Machu Pichu is a bit over rated to me! Cuz enjoyed Ankor Wat in Cambodia & Petra the city carved in stone in Jordan more probably cuz less tourists! They had cleaned up Machu Pichu which is understandable but they made it seem too unreal with all the white paint on the buildings which u may notice in pictures. Like nothing that old could be that white & new looking!!!
Other than those 2 sights well probably got carried away partying and hanging with friends so never made it to many other sights. But when a person travels for a while well we get kind of lose the WoW factor when we check out touristy sights! Hell it was starting to get really hard to be impressed! But found it didn't take me that long to be impressed with the ppl and partying!
But hey there's always another country, area or place to check out! If not in Peru it may be another country or continent as there are awesome sights to check out on this planet!
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