thechroniclesofanoverpacker-blog

[thechroniclesofanoverpacker-blog]

Week 1: Pisaq

It has been a crazy few weeks, leaving very little time and energy to force myself to sit and write about my experience here, but I have finally successfully forced myself to wake up early before work to at least get something written down onto virtual paper. SO, here it goes...the continuation of this epic story...

It took three flights to get to Cusco. I have to say, I was super super happy with the experience. Usually I am the absolute worst flying parter. I get scared and anxious, I jump at the smallest piece of turbulence, and i’m just packed with an unnecessary amount of nerves. BUT, these flights were all smooth (!!!), giving me hope that so would this trip. 

Quick Summation of my flights: Got to airport, met Katie (pictured) who is super sweet and awesome and will soon be a good friend on this trip, get &pizza (huge mistake should have gone for five guys because I would soon learn that the burgers here are seriously lacking), sat on a plane, watched some movies, got my bag checked for free (heck yea), met the others in Miami, flew to Lima, got to check out Lima (JOKES we stayed there for approx 25 min with like the sister or cousin of our program director and her husband??? Idk they helped us get through the maze that is Lima airport (guardian angels actually because there is no way we would have made the flight)...btw the air is pretty smoggy there, not like China, but would have needed a lung salt treatment again, flew to Cusco on a small ass plane (should have been scared but the Gods blessed me with sleep exhaustion so fear was not a  thing, arrive in Cusco and I am immediately offered these dry leaves that I would soon learn would save me in more ways than one.

OK so we are in Cusco.... THEN WE LEAVE CUSCO hahaha tricked you. We board a bus, get our first cup of Coca Tea (remember those green leaves? Yeah tea made from those) then we are driven right out of the city to a small town called Pisaq. Apparently, if we had stayed in Cusco that night, even with the altitude medicine (that continuously woke me up in the middle of the night with numb fingers and toes) we would have been screwed up with altitude sickness and unable to do anything until we got used to being thousands of feet above sea level. FUN FACT: DC is 410 feet above sea level and Cusco is 11151.575!!! ELEVEN THOUSAND HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE (looked this up while typing this...still overwhelmed and been here many a day)!!!

Anyway Pisaq is a lit little city in what is called the Sacred Valley. It is Sacred because the biggest mountains you have ever seen create a valley in which the Incans believed gave life to a piece of land that had sacred soil, soil given to them by the sun god. This strip of land in the valley makes up the little towns of Pisaq and Ollantaytambo and is extremely hot with the direct sunlight that the mountains offer. The Incans believed the land was given to them by this Sun God in order to have sacred crops to feed their people. (Pictured)

When we arrived in Pisaq we stayed in a beautiful hotel called the Royal Inka Hotel and when we arrived we were embraced in the grandeur of an Incan statue holding a rainbow flag!! I was like WHAT!! This is the most liberal South American city I have ever been too! Soon I would realize that the Cusco’s flag is apparently the opposite of the gay pride flag, my sister made sure to make the distinction so I would not be confused in the future. 

Once settled and at the hotel we all crashed, the altitude sickness is real I tell you, and we all felt it hard. We slept for hours until our orientation class started. Our orientation classes were taught by our directors: Milli, Alex (pictured), Anita and Julia. It went over everything we needed to know from host families, to bus safety, to general safety tips and guidelines. 

HOWEVER, one of the orientation lessons was straight out of a What Duke Wouldn’t Let You Do Handbook...and it happened to be one of the funnest experiences while in Pisaq. Pretty much, our directors told us to wake up early one day and meet in the lobby of the hotel. They gave us phones, precharged, a list of instructions and a city to visit to complete these instructions and some money...then they were just like GO find your way there my young children, and we were off!! Every four people had a different town to visit outside of Pisaq and somehow we had to get there using public transportation (which is wild btw) and complete our task and meet back at the hotel. This was MISSION IMPOSSIBLE type of shit for us...believe me. We crammed into a small mini-bus, which we HOPED was a real bus, to be honest we had no idea, but now I know transportation here is all mini buses. We all got on, and what we didnt know was that we had to yell BAJA when we got to our stop, but we ignorantly thought just telling the driver beforehand was enough....it wasnt...we missed our stop and had to take another bus in the opposite direction...A LEARNING EXPERIENCE!!! Fortunately we all got to our towns safely, however our task was to buy fruit and absolutely none of them were in season so we went home empty handed....not salty or anything. 

Well that pretty much sums up the week and a half we were getting used to the altitude in Pisaq!! I mean there is a lot more but I can’t think of it right now. I’ll add some edited notes at the bottom if I can think of anything more interesting to say about this beautiful little town and my experience there!

P.S We ate every meal a t this tourist restaurant called Ulrike’s and the menu was in English so I feel like that is when you really know...especially because like 80% of the people inside it were gringos. Everything there food-wise is kind of EH but MY GOD the CARROT CAKE and Quinoa soup are the best things on the menu so just get that....you might be disappointed with the veggie lasagna. Who wants meatless lasagna anyways (besides Anna who is a vegetarian here...idk how she does it). Btw tried alpaca for the first time here....surprisingly good for the fact that it is 1) alpaca and 2) it is red meat with 0 cholesterol

ciao ciao 

[thechroniclesofanoverpacker-blog]

Chapter 1: Pinterest level Packing... sort of

So here is my white shag carpet, probably from IKEA, in my room piled high with clothing that I will be heavily utilizing within the next two months. Notice that clearly I opted for comfort with the purchase of both tennis shoe style hiking boots and the most horrific shoe known to man: Chacos. The name is horrifying (like maybe I just don’t get it but 100% if you whisper it into someone’s ear when they aren’t paying attention it will totally scare them) , so I decided to mourn the loss of my fashion sense the only way I knew how: purchasing them in black. This way i’ll look like an angsty piece of granola trying to break free from the folds of cliff bars, compost, and veganism. But I digress...I attempted to incentivize packing by going about it in an extremely organized manner in hopes of getting an awesome picture to jump start my photo blog. I ended up with a photo that was umm....less than exciting...probably the least exciting photo one could take. I could have added one or two filters, but that would have broken the integrity of my very real and professional photo blog, and I just can’t risk that. Here you go, Chapter one: a picture of my clothes that are folded haphazardly and in no particular order, and a rant about how much fiery hate I have towards athletic sandals. Tune in next time folks and maybe i’ll actually talk about what I am doing so far away from home. 

[thechroniclesofanoverpacker-blog]

Prologue

The journey began many moons ago, in a newly unpacked dorm room, in which I decided I would gladly take Melinda Gates’ money and travel to a place in which alpacas roam free, Spanish is rampant, the mountains are high and the possibilities are even higher...Cuzco, Peru. I still have no idea whether it is Cuzco or Cusco, but I have settled on Cuzco only because this spelling reminds me of the Emperor’s New Groove and Kronk just understands me to a whole new level so yup. Also, for those who are diehard fans, this fantastic film was based on Cuzco but all the C’s are replaced with K’s to give it a little spunk...the more you ~know~!! Any who, this is where our first chapter begins, enjoy the ride, the alpaca ride that is. Or is it llama? Ill research and get back to you.