Puno and Lake Titicaca

About 12 hours south of Cusco is Puno at 3,800 m (more than 12,000ft) on the high alpine lake Titicaca. Puno was not exactly what I had expected after living in Arequipa and then traveling to Cusco. It just looks like a regular Peruvian city in the mountains. But it's still a pretty big tourist destination because there is an indigenous group of fisherman people that build small islands in the lake out of the reeds that grow there and they live there on these islands.

Uros is the group of floating islands.
The first day I went with Brandon, his mom and brother to Uros because  my friend Mike got sick from something he ate. As we were approaching the islands they looked like toy houses because everything is made out of reeds.

The tour took us to a common island. There were 4 families living on the island. They explained to us that some of the islands are like this one and survive off of tourism and the others don't accept tourists and survive off of fishing. The islands are made of the spongy, buoyant roots of the reeds tied together, then they pile the reeds on top to create the surface. To keep the island floating they have to keep piling the reeds on top of the island every few days.

The next day we said goodbye to Brandon and his family because they wanted to continue on to the west coast and we were just going back to AQP.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. In the morning we visited a British navy boat given to Peru that is now being used as a Museum. I thought Dad and Stanton would like the tools and engine inside the boat.

Then we went back to Uros so Mike could see the islands. But this time was pretty good because the sun was setting and we got to come back in the dark.

Machu Picchu

What we were all waiting for, the icing to the cake, Machu Picchu. And it really was that much more impressive than everything else we had seen, mostly because of how high and hidden it was from the valley and that it was a complete city.

I decided to walk up (1.5 -2 hours from Aguas Calientes) with a German girl that was in our tour but we left a little late and thought that we could just go quickly and make it up in only 1 hour in time for our tour but it turned out that it really did take us the whole 2 hours to get up there. So we missed our tour. We were both pretty bummed at first.

The weather was really rainy and foggy at first in the morning. We had the option to go early in the morning to see the sun rise but when we got up at 5am and it was raining we decided to got back to sleep for an hour and just hike up.
We also went only part way (about 45 mins) up Machu Pichu mountain because it was so foggy that everyone told us we couldn't see anything from the top.

The clear view we were all waiting for.

The valley below Machu Picchu

But then magically at around 12 noon the weather started clearing up and by 1 it was clear enough that the sun actually popped out.
 Inside Machu Picchu there is everything they needed. Ceremonial grounds, houses with a water system, agricultural terraces and storage buildings. Super impressive place, I definitely agree with this site as one of the Seven Wonders of the world.

Tres Ventanas y llamas
(Some llamas in front of the 'Three windows')

The condor

The terraces 

Water system

The Inca Bridge

Tres Puertas (Three doors)

The Sacred Valley of the Incas

There are a few ways to get to Machu Picchu. The most famous is the Inca Trail (which actually there are many Inca Trails but this one to Machu Picchu is the most famous) which is I think a 4 day hike but you have to book it like 3 or 4 months is advance because they only allow so many people to go at a time. The others seemed really cool and I would have liked to do one but because i went with my friends and they had limited time and motivation to hike I just went with them. The other popular choices are Sulkantay, which I think would have been similar to Condoriri or Ausangate through the mountains for 5 days. Then there is the Jungle trek that starts out with downhill biking and then continues to hike for 2 days up to Machu Picchu. We decided to do it the touristy way and take a day to go through the Sacred valley to visit other Inca sites. Then take a train to the base of Machu Picchu where we would sleep and walk up a few hours in the morning to spend the whole day at Machu Picchu. We would then take a train back to Cusco at night.

The Sacred Valley is a beautiful valley in the Andes. Because the Incas were sun worshipers this valley was sacred to them because it runs perfectly east to west and so it gets sun all day long.

Our first stop was in Pisaq to see the ruins of an Inca village at Pisaq.
This is a great place to see their system of terraces. Our guide explained to us that they built the terraces starting from the bottom to the top and that they're not only good for agriculture but that they help stabilize the side of the mountain for the village on the top.
Some of the other villages were visible sitting on top of other hillsides. I was really enjoying taking pictures with the 20x zoom on my new canon. You can also see the roads on the hillside leading to the other village.

Walking though the village felt like a maze because some of the alleys between the houses are really narrow and don't always lead to a main road. Or I don't even know if there is a main road but I got lost trying to find my way back out and was late to the bus. Our guide tried to make me sing but I had a really bad cold and couldn't sing even if I wanted to so I had to teach the bus some Chinese...it was the only thing I could thing of to satisfy them.(I was never late after that.)

The next stop (well after the market in Pisaq and lunch) was the ruins of the sun temple in Ollantaytambo. Even though it was never finished because the Spanish invaded, it was still a very impressive site.
The terraces leading up the the temple platform are what catch your eye first.


From the top you can look out over the city of Ollantaytambo. Also from the other side you can see the quarry where the Incas brought the huge stones up from the valley.

That night we slept in Aguas Calientes at the base of Machu Picchu waiting for the next day.

Cusco

My friend, Mike, came down here for two weeks to travel and it worked out perfectly because now I'm finished working at Extreme so I can finally travel to all the places I've been wanting to go. Also, it's great because Brandon a fellow teacher in China and now Peru also has his family - mom and brother- down here, so the 5 of us are traveling together.

We hung around in Arequipa for a couple of days just walking around the city center and the markets. There's this one expensive ceviche restaurant only 2 blocks from where I live that I've been wanting to go to the entire time I've been in Arequipa but haven't because it's so expensive. So now I actually had a reason to go. I got tacu-tacu with fish and it came with a mishmash of seafood that I didn't see on the menu, and I'm glad I didn't because I wouldn't have ordered it but it turned out to be really good.


Then when Brandon's family got in we all went to Cusco on an overnight bus. I had taken the exact same bus  over the Semana Santa break and what cost me S/60 then only cost S/40 when it's not a holiday. Oh well. We got in early in the morning and walked around the city center...kinda just what we had been doing in AQP but in a different city.

Cusco is sorta in a valley  and so you can climb up the hills and over look the city. It kinda reminds me of Prague with all the red tiled roofs, but then it just reminds me that that in the 1600's Cusco was taken over by the Spaniards and so the city should look European.

The markets are kinda interesting to walk through. There are a lot of strange things to buy like dried alpaca fetus.



There are a lot more Inca sites around Cusco other than Machu Picchu. Sacsayhuamán was the  Inca ceremonial site of Cusco. You can see the remains up on the hill from the center of the city so we all walked up the hill and spent the morning wandering around up there.
The Inca are known for their advanced knowledge of architecture and their use of such large stones. We really felt miniature next to those giant stones.

Homemade is the best

Yumm yummm yummmm! I love having Giovana around because she's always excited about cooking or baking anything. She'll help me with whatever I decide to try to make.

So this time I was really craving cinnamon rolls. So I found just a simple recipe online at foodnetwork.com and decided to try it.

Ingredients
Dough:

1/4-ounce package yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup scalded milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter or shortening
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour
Filling:
1/2 cup melted butter, plus more for pan
3/4 cup sugar, plus more for pan
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
3/4 cup raisins, walnuts, or pecans, optional
Glaze:
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 to 6 tablespoons hot water

Directions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside. In a large bowl mix milk, sugar, melted butter, salt and egg. Add 2 cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add yeast mixture. Mix in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle. Knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5 to 10 minutes. Place in well-greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled in size, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

When doubled in size, punch down dough. Roll out on a floured surface into a rectangle. Spread melted butter all over dough. Mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over buttered dough. Sprinkle with walnuts, pecans, or raisins if desired. Roll up dough and pinch edge together to seal. Cut into 12 to 15 slices.

Coat the bottom of baking pan with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Place cinnamon roll slices close together in the pan and let rise until dough is doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake for about 30 minutes or until nicely browned.

Meanwhile, mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add hot water 1 tablespoon at a time until the glaze reaches desired consistency. Spread over slightly cooled rolls.

The final product was absolutely amazing. They were honest to G-d the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had. The dough came out so soft and the glaze and filling wasn't too sweet. Although I don't think we followed the recipe exactly for the filling because we just sprinkled sugar and chopped pecans onto the dough. So we probably used only 1/4 cup of sugar rather than 3/4 cup. 
These disappeared so quickly, but it's ok because that just means I get to make them again soon. Yummm!

3 time is a charm - Yura waterfall

I've been to Yura twice already trying to go to the waterfalls. The first time my friend realized that he had to work after an hour bus there and 20 mins walking in the desert, and the second time I have no idea where we went wrong but Micah and I couldn't find the waterfalls. This time I went with a Peruvian friend who has been there many times and I have no idea how I got lost because the trail was big and very clear. Oh well, I made it!!
All the teachers had a week off in between the monthly cycles this month. Since I'm traveling with my friend Toad in the middle of the month, I decided not to travel during the break but to work and save up some money. It worked out really good because Wednesday, May Day was the Peruvian labor day and so I had the day off.

My good friend Freddy said he would take me to Yura.

It was an hour by bus out of town to the cement mining town of Yura. We walked through the desert first for about a half hour.

Next we entered a canyon of sorts and the scenery completely changed. It was green and had a river flowing though it, which meant that we had to take our shoes off and walk though the river.

The river wasn't too deep but the bed was full of small stones and sometimes it was slippery so it probably took us three times as long as it should have to cross the water.

But it was very pretty inside the canyon, so it was nice to take the time going through the river.

The waterfall just kind of jumps out at you when you reach it because the walls of the canyon are really steep and close together so when you turn the corner the waterfall is just there 20 feet in front of you. I don't know exactly how high the waterfall is, maybe about 20m (65 feet).

On the way back out I was trying to hop a stone with my shoes still on and I accidentally stepped in the water. So since my shoes were already wet, I decided to keep my shoes on and walk through the river. Haha, it was funny because we had worked so hard to keep our shoes dry the first time around.

Super fun day!