Yesterday I hiked to a few of the nearby ruins Q'enko and Saksaywaman. Aside from getting caught out in a torrential downpour it was quite nice, I'll add some pictures later. The ruins are pretty poorly marked and so I apparently wandered into a slightly off limits area, then kept going as I was still encountering interesting things. I ended up trespassing a little bit onto the indigenous peoples farming land apparently, which a little girl was kind enough to tell me along with the fact that it would be dangerous to keep going the way I was because of the people. So I only went a little further to the last big ruin I had been aiming for, which I had to use a bit of my climbing practice to scale but once on top gave a great view of the mountainside. From there it was an easy trip back, and I ended up spending the evening out with some of the other students and staff from the school.
Today I decided to visit el templo de la luna, a ruin in the surrounding mountains. I have been hearing many of the other students speak about it, and it sounded nice. The problem was, each person I asked gave me different directions. I finally found a vague image of an unlabeled map online, and thought I figured out the best route to take. It was a bit of a hike with some very steep parts, and at multiple points I thought I was likely on the brink of being attacked by wild dog packs or by some of the people who live up there, but in the end it was worth it for a great view. It was pretty interesting, there was a cave set in the front which I scrambled into, it had multiple rooms and in the very back room there was a small hole in the ceiling to let light in with a strange stone altar type thing set in the floor against the back wall. I later learned from a local astronomer that this likely was to mark when the sun was at its zenith, which apparently happens twice a year.
I tried some alpaca steak for dinner, which wasn't particularly good or bad. Kind of like chewy pork.
Then I went to the Planetarium, which is privately run but extremely well done. I learned quite a bit about the astronomy of the southern hemisphere. They apparently can't see the North Star as its below the horizon, so instead they look at the southern cross, and can estimate the 'South Pole' to be approximately 4x the length of the southern cross along the line drawn from the top to the bottom. They worked in a lot of information about the Incas as well. There was an impressive projection dome where they overlaid lines onto the stars of the Incan constellations. Afterwards the sky was clear, a remarkably rare occasion here, so we looked at various stars. I saw Orion's nebulus and some examples of new and dying stars, as well as some of the mountains and craters on the moon. Overall I was quite impressed.
I believe I got some great pictures and video from the last couple days, but I haven't been able to put them on my computer yet. Will share some later.
I finally solidified some plans,
Thursday - going to a wildlife, in particular condors, rescue and reservation center, then to Qorikancha. Possibly a walking tour of the city in the evening.
Friday - travel to Aguas Calientes in the afternoon and stay overnight to get an early start Saturday
Saturday - guided tour of Machu Picchu first thing in the morning. I'm trying to get tickets to climb up Huaynu Picchu as well, so hopefully that works out.
Sunday - all day tour of the Sacred Valley, then catch an overnight bus to Puno on Lake Titicaca. This apparently runs from 10:00pm - 4:30am, so will see how that goes. Im a bit worried this could turn into a Cinque Terra situation, as Michael will well remember, but apparently the VIP seats recline to 160 degrees so hopefully it wont be too bad.
Monday - hire a boat guide of the nearby islands, catch the afternoon bus to Arequipa. (ironically the cost of tickets from Cusco to Puno then Puno to Arequipa was cheaper than going directly to Arequipa, and this way I get to stop by Lake Titicaca. The school in Arequipa said I can just tack on an extra hour of lessons each day to make up for missing Monday).
Am now thinking Id still like to go see Colca Canyon next weekend, then make it to Lima. I think I may just stay there for one week then catch a flight to Iquitos in the jungle to take a break from language classes. Apparently from there you can take a full days boat ride up the river to purportedly most impressive of Perus National Wildlife Reserves, which is said to be pretty wild. Afterwards Im not sure what Ill do, possibly go up to Huarez to do some more hiking and rock climbing, then to Trujillo for more lessons (Spanish and Surfing).
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