AGUAS CALIENTES
Most of the hikers and tourists who visited Machu Picchu that day were already gone - they took a train home that day. When we booked our trip, we wanted to stay longer at Machu Picchu (ideally two days) so our train wouldn't depart until the following day. We had no idea 1) Jared would be sick, 2) our friends wouldn't be there and 3) it would rain the following day.
When we arrived in Aguas, Miguel took us to a farewell lunch. We barely touched our lunch – our appetites still hadn’t returned. Miguel saw us to our hotel, where a porter met us with our bags and said goodbye…
Our hotel, La Canada, was lame. The only people we met in the entire country of Peru that were rude. I do not recommend staying there. We did get a big room though.
We showered and made an appointment for massages that evening, which we were both looking forward to. I wasn’t as sore as I was when I hiked Half Dome, but I was definitely sore. It took me two days to walk normal again (stairs sucked). Funny, my legs really weren't sore until after we stopped hiking.
Everywhere in Aguas advertises pizzas, so we decided to go out and get one for dinner. Bad mistake. Peruvians for some reason can’t make pizza! I don’t know why – they have all the ingredients and tools necessary for a decent pie. And it’s not a part of their local cuisine so you know they are only making it for gringos like us. We determined it's the cheese - they can't seem to make mozarella.
Anyway, we basically took a bite each of our “pizza” and that was dinner. We hobbled our way back to bed and waited for our masseuse . It was awesome… We each got an hour and it was only $25 USD per person, which is way more expensive than it would be in Cusco, but we didn’t care.
Our hotel, La Canada, was lame. The only people we met in the entire country of Peru that were rude. I do not recommend staying there. We did get a big room though.
We showered and made an appointment for massages that evening, which we were both looking forward to. I wasn’t as sore as I was when I hiked Half Dome, but I was definitely sore. It took me two days to walk normal again (stairs sucked). Funny, my legs really weren't sore until after we stopped hiking.
Everywhere in Aguas advertises pizzas, so we decided to go out and get one for dinner. Bad mistake. Peruvians for some reason can’t make pizza! I don’t know why – they have all the ingredients and tools necessary for a decent pie. And it’s not a part of their local cuisine so you know they are only making it for gringos like us. We determined it's the cheese - they can't seem to make mozarella.
Anyway, we basically took a bite each of our “pizza” and that was dinner. We hobbled our way back to bed and waited for our masseuse . It was awesome… We each got an hour and it was only $25 USD per person, which is way more expensive than it would be in Cusco, but we didn’t care.
Jared was super sick by now… we made a couple trips to the pharmacy and I explained to them in my poor Spanish what was wrong…
“Mi esposa es muy infermo” and then I would make a coughing noise.
We bought and tried cough syrups, pills… nothing worked. We just hoped that Jared would wake up the next day feeling better.
One other thing... this was the first time during our trip that the ugly American tourists were present. A lot of people arrived in the evening to stay the night and see Machu Picchu the following day. I was horrified at their behavior and system for bartering for prices. One American girl, maybe 13 or 14, was with her parents and wanted a Machu Picchu t-shirt that was of really great quality and priced well - $12. She kept bartering with the salesperson to lower the price - I was horrified. He finally relented to $11. She was thrilled. I was disgusted that she was so happy about taking away $1 when it means nothing to her and something so much to someone else. DUMB.
No comments:
Post a Comment