The Best Trip Of My Life
Cuzco, Peru
Like the title says, this was the best trip of my life, because in July 2004 I visited Cuzco, Puno, Arequipa and Ica, which are the principal touristic places in my country. This text is maybe a bit long but I should tell you how all how it started. Last year, I received an e-mail message from a French woman called Carole. She wrote me in order to get more information about my country because she and her friends planned a travel to my country, and I was the only one Peruvian at the internet who wrote in French.
After a while, we became good friends a d she told me that she traveled to other countries like the United States, Morocco and Finland. She had been traveling for around 20 years and had planned on going to Peru for many years.
I suggested to Carole that would be good if we travel together, she agreed but needed a translator because she spoke nothing of Spanish, and she won’t take a tour from France because of the price. She asked me if I wished to become her translator, I said yes but my problem was money. I need money for Cuzco and for hotels and food. She also planned to visit Cuzco, Puno, Arequipa and Ica.
Nevertheless problems were behind us. It was also the first time I worked like a translator and sometimes like a guide, I was very nervous, but I screwed myself up to do it, after all I will practice my french, isn’t it?. So I got by on that trip, when Carole arrived she looked different than in her photos. I don’t know why white people change a lot in their photos, I really believed that Carole had Latin American parents, but when I saw her at the airport, she was very, very white.
In Lima, we visited some monuments and I got used to her accent, I think the French language is the most beautiful language in the world.
Our trip started by bus from Lima to Cuzco. Here people use more buses than other mean of transportation. After 23 hours of trip we arrived to Cuzco.
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| Map of Peru |
Before my trip I also believed that most of Cuzco’s citizens knew English or other languages, but that was another of my prejudices.
We took many guided tours in order to visit all the ruins and historic places, unfortunately Carole didn’t love the churches. She is not Catholic but she almost hates my religion, so I couldn’t visit them with her. We had to get up early in the morning and we came back to the hotel very late at night I had just one free day (one Sunday) where I could visit some of them.
The altitude was another problem we had; however, I realized that Carole had more trouble than me. We solved the problem with Coca tea. Let me tell you that here in Lima (at the sea level) you can’t feel the Coca tea effects but in the altitude you feel it. It is a good relief overall when the altitude sickness gives you headaches. By the way, Carole told me that the Coca tea is unknown in Europe and in the United States. I explained that is just a tea made with coca’s leafs, it have been used since the Inca’s time. Nowadays we drink it in almost all of the country. I don’t know if in the jungle people use to drink tea or coffee because in those regions the weather is always hot.
We visited many ruins. The best place in my opinion is the Sacred Valley (where we can find Saccsayhuaman and others ruins) and Ollantaytambo, because they are very magic and quiet. Even in the Sacred Valley, we visited some ruins that, in the past, were temples devoted to the meditation, such places are always magnetic. On the contrary, Machu Picchu is not like that. I know that it looks very magic and is very popular, but I think that there is a problem. It’s popular that everybody visit those ruins, the place is crowded since very early in the morning, as tourists wish to see the dawn. Maybe the place is almost magnetic, but you can’t realize it when you hear people talking in so many languages.
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| Machu Picchu |
We also had a big problem with our rooms at the hotel. Like the visit to Machu Picchu, it took 3 days and we had to leave the city for 3 days. Carole didn’t wish to pay the rooms at the hotel during those days, she told me that we could make a reservation. I told here that just some hotels worked in that way, the great majority didn’t accept a reservation and just the most expensive worked with that system. She said �no way, I won’t pay for those rooms,� so I had to talk with the owner, even when he said there where no problems and we could make a reservation ( of course we did it). I was fearful because something told me that it wouldn’t wor. After our return from Machu Pichu, we went to the hotel and guess what? The hotel was crowded. The owner told me that unfortunately he had to rent our rooms to others tourists, so Carole and I went out searching for a new hotel. The worse part of all is the date. It was July 29th our national holiday! Cuzco was crowded. We walked 2 hours and asked for a room in more than 15 hotels with no success.
In the evening, we found a room. Of course the service were not good, but at least we had a place to sleep. The reservations just worked with the most expensive hotels.
Another problem we had was the train. Carole said that in Europe it’s very fun travelling by train. so she told me that we should leave Cuzco in train. In Cuzco we bought out tickets. They checked their computers and said �the train will leave the city this Friday and 7:00 a.m. On Friday, we were there at the station and the controller told us the schedule was changed, and the train will now leave on
Saturday.
Nevertheless all places weren’t moved to Saturday, in other words, all people that like us bought their tickets for the Friday had to demand their money because with the new schedule they made a new sale with no consideration. That was at 6:50, we were there with all our valuables. We had a really big problem, Carole wished to leave the city that day. At 9 o’clock, almost all buses from Cusco to Puno will leave the city, and we had to get a refund for the tickets price. I went to the bus station and got two places in a bus, which departed at 8:40, so we didn’t have enough time to get our refund.
So we left Cuzco.
Puno was very different, it looks like a sad place. The best part is the lake Titi-Caca, where Carole and I rented a boat for 2 days. We went to 2 islands called Amantani and Taquile.
This time Carole paid the rooms at the hotel to avoid the same problems we had in Cuzco J! The trip began early in the morning. The view of the city and port from the lake is different. After 1 hour, we arrived to the Uro’s islands. They are nice people and the island are artificial and are made with TOTORA, a kind of straw that can grow up in the lake. They have all they need in those island even the mail service. They can cook, and they have school islands in order to teach to their children and to make them feel proud about their origins. Between their traditions, I remember they told me that they are the first men in the world. The god sun created them even before than the Incas, in that time the Titi Caca was not a lake, but a kind of forest like the paradise. They were forbidden to leave that place, then the god sun created the Incas. They became bad people so the god jaguar decided their destruction and sent the jaguars which killedbad people, with their blood the Titi Caca. The lake was born. The god sun said that it’s enough and kept some Incas from their destruction. Of course the Uros helped them in order to find a new place to live. The Uros were forbidden to leave their place they had to build their islands in order to stay always there.
The Uros have their own language, unfortunately, I don’t remember the name. They also speak Aymara and Quechua because those languages are spoken in the region.
Amantani is a very nice island. It is about 1:30 of travel from the Uros island. We were lodged in the house of one habitant. He and his family were very nice and always tried to tech us their culture. Let me tell you that the afternoon Amantani is very beautiful. Carole took many photos because she also loves photography. We visited some ruins, since the highest point was between Peru and Bolivia ( a very big range). In the afternoon its resident sell some kind of handy crafts, some sweaters made in Alpaca’s wool. They are good, and prices were good, unfortunately neither Carole nor me had enough money.
The next day we headed for Taquille, unfortunately, this island is not so nice like Amantani, because of the tourism. This island is developed and very touristic. The restaurants aren’t good but they are very
