Elecciones

I know I haven't finished about my trip yet but today was election days and there was a few interesting things that I thought I should mention. First of all you HAVE to vote, there's no option here. If you don't vote you have to pay a fine of like $30-$60 depending on the importance of the election. Also, voting is very fast here and only takes like 5 minutes in and out. My mom here said that she hates voting and normally writes in "waste of time" on the ballot and votes for that because there's soooo many candidates and she does't know anything about any of them. It's not like in the states where there's coverage on tv of who the candidates are and what they want to do, if you want to know about them, you have to really do your research and a lot of people can't be bothered to do so. Finally, they do not sell liquor, and it is prohibited by law to have parties or gatherings on the day of and the days before election day. I guess they don't want any disturbances nor people going to vote drunk. The liquor law might be the same in the states but I'm not entirely sure. So yeah, just thought that was interesting :)

Machu Picchu

So the say we went to Machu Picchu began suuupppeeeerrr early and with an oddly terrible stomach ache. We ate breakfast, got all of our things together, and headed down the road to catch a bus up the mountain to the ruins.

The bus ride was about a half an hour zig zagging up the side of this mountain at scarily high speeds, and as we got higher and higher, I could feel the magic of Machu Picchu!! As we got higher we became enveloped in clouds, turning our view of the valley into a blank white slate. I noticed that the trees began to change too, from normal tree-y trees into twisty exotic plants that looked like they had come out straight from Incan times.  (not great pictures)

They made me get excited for the ruins that we were about to see even if my stomach was fighting every step I took. We all began to walk through the ticket booth and up the path, following this brick wall until we got to an opening and we saw the real life wonder of the world, Machu Picchu!!!

 first photo!

It was so crazy to think that I was finally seeing this thing that I had seen so many pictures of and imagined how it would be. It was totally different than I expected. First off this may sound a little odd but it seemed so much smaller than i imagined! But the feeling of it was so much more powerful than i expected. It was really crazy to think ancient people lived here and built this, that this was their world up here in the mountains and the clouds. So our climb started at mid level of the ruins so we began to climb up some stairs, and i puked, and then went to a natural platform to take pictures, and i puked, and then began touring the edges of the ruins until we stopped to see some  rocks, and i puked.

 me dying 20 seconds pre and post puking

  The tour ended after 3 hours and then we were free to explore Machu Picchu on our own. We were allowed to leave at any point and just take the bus back down and although the president of rotary told me to go down there was no way i was leaving, who knows when ill get to come back!!! So after walking a bit with an awesome Danish girl named Sascha we met up with some other students and they decided to do one of the 3 hour walks around the whole thing. I obviously couldn't do it so i decided to hang out in the shade where i could at least look at and take some pictures of the beautiful view and the ruins. After a little nap on Machu Picchu and my bug spray leaking all over my leg i decided to catch a bus back down the mountain to the hotel. On the way out though I met up with 3 other girls from rotary and we all took the bus down together. The rest of the afternoon consisted of soup, pills, and naps in the hotel lobby with everyone watching me. Oh and i can't forget planet of the apes on tv! Hahaha so even though it wasn't exactly as planned, I still had an amazing time  and got the pictures that i promised hahaha.

Viaje a Cusco y Puno

So I will start by saying that this was a really amazing trip and I'm so glad that I got to go on it and see all these really cool parts of Peru. This trip included going to Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, along with a bunch of ancient ruins and other places. Our first day we flew in to Cusco and did some tours of the city, starting with an old church that was built around old Incan structures.

 One of the most notable characteristics of Incan structures are that they are built with square shaped stones that are cut to fit together so perfectly that they say the thinest piece of paper couldn't get between the stones. Another characteristic of these structures are trapezoid shaped windows and there is a very scientific reason for them. Peru is a country that has a lot of earthquakes and the shape of these windows worked to absorb all of the energy from the tremors instead of all of the energy staying in the walls and tearing down the structures. This is why places like Machu Picchu are still around, because the structure is so solid it has been able to endure countless earthquakes and years of damage.

Another thing that I found really interesting is that the Incans built well type structures that they filled with water and used as mirrors to track the stars. The used the well things because they were stationary and made recording constellation movement very easy.

 They also used the position of the sun to mark their new year which falls on June 21st by building structures like sun temples, and on this day the sun would shine on that specific spot and the new year would begin. We also got to see replica of an art piece that showed the order of important things to the Incan people, religion wise. They believed in a god similar to the modern christian god and that was the most important to the people and under this god was the sun and moon, who took the roles of father and mother to the earth and the people. The order continues with other things like the starts and clouds and water until finally it ends with the Incan people and minerals.

Our next stop was some more ruins which didn't have anything really interesting until we got to natural slides, like park slides made of rock. It was a little scary because you slide down reaalllly fast but it was a ton of fun. Also at this stop was a cave pathway which got completely dark and we had to use the flash on our cameras to see where we were going so we didn't run into walls.

We visited a third ruin site which really only had a fountain thing that they used to collect water, which was kind of cool but probably not worth walking up the mountain to see it haha. 

The second day we started out by going to a zoo! We saw a puma, condors, llamas, ducks, parrots, and a few other small animals.

Then we went to the sacred valley which is literally a valley which was very important to the Incan people and there's a river there that goes all the way to Machu Picchu. In the sacred valley we stopped in a silver shop and they showed us how to identify real silver (another night we did the same thing in an alpaca shop).

After that we went to two more ruins and one of them had a sun temple, which I mentioned earlier.

 To end the day we caught a train to the city of Machu Picchu which is where pretty much just where people stay on their way to see the ruins.

We went to hot water springs that night and then got ready for the next day which was Machu Picchu!!!!!   I'll add pictures to this later because its not working  and continue tomorrow :)