USA: Grand Canyon, another bus and on to Peru

I appear to be a bit behind with the blog again. Clever me. Blame the fact that I spent way too long on buses during my last week in the USA and not enough time exploring. Or sleeping for that matter. That said, I'm now in beautiful Peru and going a bit slower again - no more 3 day buses for me!

Famous last words…

Anyhow, here's what I managed to do with my last few days in the US of A and my first impressions of Peru.

Can you see the bottom?

Saturday turned out to be the last day I really did anything in the States. I made the most of it though by going to the Grand Canyon with my Aussie roommate, Maddy.

After spending Friday feeling like death warmed up, it was awesome to get out in the fresh air. First look into the Canyon…

Yup. It's huge. We decided it wasn't enough just to see it from the top though and promptly embarked on a hike down the Bright Angel Trail. For an idea of how potentially stupid this was, here's a photo I took later in the day.

That zig zag path on the left? That's Bright Angel. It runs from Grand Canyon Village on the South Rim, down to the Colorado River which winds through the bottom of the Canyon. It's pretty steep. We toddled on down anyway, water and trail mix in hand. We figured we'd turn back at the first rest house, helpfully named 1 ½ Mile Resthouse. 3 miles, we figured, would be about right.

Yeah. Probably was. We stopped so many times on the way back up. Normally I'd walk 3 miles in an hour, easily. It took us nearly 3, most of which was on the return. There's some bloody good views though.

After we eventually made it back to the rim, we decided to spend the rest of the day meandering along the Rim Trail. Being on the rim, this trail is pretty much flat so much easier going after Bright Angel!

There's some really good viewpoints too. I even let Maddy take this photo of me getting far too close to the edge.

Harold wasn't so keen on getting that close.

From up there, we also finally got a glimpse of the Colorado, all muddy looking in the bottom of the Canyon. Next time, and there will be a next time, I want to take the mule trip down Bright Angel and across the river. Just got to get on the waiting list…

After a wonderful day of sun and walking at the Canyon, it was back to the hostel. Grabbed a hot chocolate at a cafe down the road with Maddy and Christina, our other roommate and then I had hours to kill.

Like a genius, I'd booked a bus that left at 2:25am. Why do I do this to myself? As if that wasn't bad enough (the guys at the bus station were pretty cool) I was going to be on the bus for nearly 3 days.

Fuck this. Are we there yet?

The bus journey wasn't as bad as expected. I spent the first day with a young lady and her seizure alert dog who fell asleep on me. That was cool. I managed to sleep every night. I met a bunch of nice chatty people.

Oh, and I passed through 8 more states before I finally reached Florida. Even if I only count the ones where I got off the bus for more than 5 minutes, that's another 4 states I've “visited”. Not bad for a month long trip.

Palm trees EVERYWHERE!

After 3 nights and 2 and a half days, I finally arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I took a taxi to my hostel because no way was I getting on another bus.

Fort Lauderdale filled many of my stereotypical expectations of Florida. Hot. Humid. Palm trees lining the streets. I mooched in Starbucks with an enormous iced tea until my room was available and also to get out of the surprise rain storm. Massive amounts of rain were not on my list of expectations.

The rest of the day was spent dozing and getting things booked for Peru. Clearly I've become more relaxed about these things because all I had booked at that point was the flights to Cusco. With 24 hours to go. Well done, me. By the end of the evening I had hostels booked for the first week and trains between Cusco, Aguas Calientes and Ollantaytambo.

Hablo Espanol!

The following morning I remembered the immigration thing where some airlines won't let you on the plane if you don't have an onward ticket. So I tried to book a flight from Peru to Chile.

I say tried, because my credit card got declined. I resorted to using my debit card in the end because it needed doing. Then I tried to book a second hostel for Cusco. Declined again. At this point I swore. A lot.

My phone took ages to pick up a network after being in airplane mode for so long. I took a walk to Starbucks via the beach in the hope of finding a signal. Nope

And then on the way back to the hostel for my ride to the airport, the heavens opened. Seriously. That bloody Storm. I was sodden and still dripping when I got in the cab, where my Peruvian cabbie was delighted that I was visiting his country. Lovely chap. I was still soaked when I reached the airport, so had to change.

Fortunately, by this time my phone had realised it was in the USA, so I made what I suspect was a very expensive call to the bank to get my card unblocked. Ugh. At least it was a fairly easy process.

And then my flight to Lima, during which I watched Me Before You on repeat because I couldn't sleep and the only other option was a bunch of kids cartoons.

Passed through immigration at Lima Airport just fine, gaining my second passport stamp of this trip in the process. Woo, passport stamps. Then onwards, bypassing all the folks offering me taxis and into Departures for my connection to Cusco.

First attempt at Spanish foiled by the cashier in Starbucks giving me a pitying look and switching to English. I blame tiredness. Stumbled onto the plane at 4:30am, random bits of Spanish floating around my head and wondering how the hell I'm going to survive 3 weeks of this.

Tiredness or altitude sickness?

Fortunately I'd had the sense to arrange a pick up from Cusco's airport with my hostel, so was met and taken straight there. I must have regained some of my brain cells in the hour I slept on the flight, because I even managed a conversation with the driver. Admittedly it was half Spanish, half English, but given that while I've been learning Spanish I've not actually used it with native speakers, I don't think that's too bad.

I spent much of my first day in Peru in bed dozing and wondering whether the slight nausea was due to tiredness, hunger or altitude. I settled on a combination of the three…

By the time I toddled out of the hostel to buy a ticket for Machu Picchu I was feeling much better, although I could feel that my lungs were having to work a little bit harder than normal. On my trip to the ticket office I successfully negotiated touts, souvenir sellers and a random old lady with an alpaca. Hurrah. My Spanish failed me at the ticket office, but the chap at the counter spoke English. Fortunately. A few more hostels and transport things got booked and then I had a glorious early night in preparation for my horribly early train the next morning.

You speak English?

Bright and early and feeling much better, my friendly taxi driver (must be on commission to the hostel) took me to Poroy station to catch my train to Aguas Calientes, gateway town to Machu Picchu. I did my best “hola, buenos dias” to the train crew, although when they came round to take drinks orders (yay, free tea) the lady's response was “you speak English?”. Ah. Oh well. In my defence, I understood the drink options - I'd already heard her give them to the couple across from me.

I was grateful for the cuppa though. Just what I needed.

The ride was beautiful. The train follows the Urubamba River for most of the 4 hour trip, winding through the mountains. It's kind of difficult taking photos through train windows - lots of glare, plus of course everything's moving. These are some of the better shots I got.

Woo, valleys. Also some old terraces. Well, I say old. The commentary said we passed some old agricultural terraces, but I'm not sure about these ones.

And of course, the Urubamba itself. I'll bet the river is mad in the wet season. I arrived in Aguas Calientes having belatedly realised that I had no idea where my hostel was. Sure, I had an address, but without a map that was no help. The lack of map also meant I couldn't easily find the tourist office.

On the plus side, Aguas Calientes isn't a huge place, although it is a bit of a maze. I found a nice place to have an early lunch and filched the Wi-Fi while I was at it. I even managed to order and request the bill in Spanish! Go me! Also, the lemonade there was amazing.

Directions firmly planted in my brain, I located the hostel with ease, where I promptly checked in without a word of English. I'm getting good at this. After a few hours relaxing and trying to stop gasping at this wonderful piece of towel origami, I set out again.

First stop, bus ticket to Machu Picchu for the morning. English for that one. I also had to giggle at this.

That is a train parked in the street. I don't know why I found this funny, but I did. I followed this with a mooch along Avenida Pachacutec, home of my hostel and dozens of restaurants and tat shops. Ostensibly, I was looking for a convenience store to grab some lunch for tomorrow, but I ended up going for tea as well. I couldn't help it. Everything smells so good and it's relatively cheap. My meal and a drink cosy me 12 soles. That's £3-4. It was cheaper than the croissant and Coke I had at the departure gate in Lima.

But anyhow, I think that brings us up to date on my misadventures. Tomorrow I head to Machu Picchu for the day. Next week also includes Ollantaytambo and a return to Cusco. Expect far too many photos next time!

Any altitude sickness suggestions? Just in case?