I got up today, refreshed and great! I slept in again til very late. Today, I had to go book my bus ticket to Arequipa, my next destination. I ended up going with a company that a woman told me in Aguas Caliente. It was much cheaper than the Cruz del Sur company (the flashy company around Peru). There was one place left (thank God!), and it was for 8:30pm. I got back home at around 3pm to back my bags. I had told everyone to join me at the house so I can say goo...

This morning, I decided to sleep in and catch up on all of the sleep I lost. I ended up sleeping 10 hours and it was worth it! There were a lot of new people in the house, namely Athinais (from Greece!), and Michael (from Cyprus!). Hassan came at around 1pm, because we had planned to go get a massage after Machu Picchu.There was another strike today for taxis and buses so Hassan and I walked all the way to the Plaza. In Cuzco, in the Plaza des Armas, there are m...

Journey to Machu Picchu (Day 5) "Knock, knock...are you guys awake, let's go!" It was Wes waking us up at 3:30am. We heard a bunch of people getting ready outside our room. This morning was a raceto get tickets to Hyanapicchu, a mountain right next to the ruins where we can view Machu Picchu in its entity from the top. Hassan and I took 10 minutes to get ready and we were off. We needed flashlights because it was still night. There was a river of peop...

Journey to Machu Picchu (Day 4) We had all decided the night before that we were going to sleep in, and take a bus to our lunch destination. We were all very tired (especially for the ones that stayed up really late last night). It was a two hour bus ride (so worth it!) until we got to the begining of the train tracks (we were close!). When we stopped for lunch, it was in a restaurant. I wanted to drink something, but the owner was charging me 5 Soles (kind of e...

Journey to Machu Picchu (Day 3) "Coca!" was the first thing I heard this morning again. I barely slept last night because I was starting a bad cold. Congestion, coughing, fever were all keeping me up last night. The warm taste of coca tea felt really good about now. Today, we were going to start walking into the valley where the temperature was more temperate and the vegetation is jungle-like. I liked this walk a lot more. We got to go through nice br...