I went to Peru and took 1500 pictures!
Last week was my final Spring Break in law school. As all of you know by now, I tried my best to make it something special. I’ve gone through and chosen some of my favorite pictures and posted them on my Flickr account. Note: I don’t have the ones Zach took — which includes most of the pictures of myself. Unless you’re my parents, I don’t think that will matter much.
Here’s a rough breakdown of the trip:
Day 1: lots of flying, ultimately arriving in Peru around 10:30pm. Took a taxi straight to the hostel, and then back to the airport again less than twelve hours later.
Day 2: flight to Cusco! Took it easy to avoid altitude sickness; walked around Sacsayhuaman (sounds like “sexy woman”) — an Inca fortress made of awesome giant stones.
Day 3: bus and train to Machu Picchu! We arrived at noon and spent the next five hours exploring the actual ruins, mostly shrouded in mist. Took 600 pictures.
Day 4: Woke up at 4 am. They only let 400 people climb Huayna Picchu each day, and we wanted to make sure we did it. Got in line at 4:30. We were in the 300s. After we arrived, we had four hours before we could climb Huayna, so we saw the Inca Drawbridge. Climbing Huayna was surprisingly grueling (especially on the way down!), but totally worth it for the view from the top.
Day 5: train back to Cusco, via Ollantaytambo — and some cool ruins that didn’t impress us as much after two days at Machu Picchu. Epic night out with friends from Machu Picchu.
Day 6: took a taxi to Moray and the Salt Mines, in the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco. Both were incredible. Exhaustion finally caught up with us, and we were hurting by 5pm. Night bus to Arequipa.
Day 7: Arrived in Arequipa, and immediately left on a tour of the Colca Canyon. Reached 4900 meters at one point. It was snowing. Altitude sickness kicked in. Not the best couple of hours, but still beautiful.
Day 8: Woke up early to see condors (AWESOME!). More amazing views of the Colca Canyon (second deepest canyon in the world, next to the canyon on the other side of the mountains).
Day 9: arrived in Trujillo, and hung out on the beach with Veronica. Ate delicious ceviche (a massive plate for $3.50).
Day 10: visited the ruins of Chan Chan — what was once the largest mud city in the world. Surf lessons with one of Veronica’s friends (note: I need to buy a board when I move back to LA). Went to a reggae bar that evening, which was hilarious.
Day 11: met all of Veronica’s Peruvian students and went to the market in Trujillo. My pictures do a terrible job of capturing the size of this market — it was enormous. Took lots of cool pictures, visited another temple, and went fishing in Huanchaco. Another epic night out, which ended at some random Peruvian twentysomethings apartment. They thought it was awesome that two gringos wanted to party with them, and Veronica and I were given lots of free beer.
Day 12: 28 hours of traveling, only to come back to a snowstorm in Boston. Missed Peru immediately.
The trip is broken up into four sets on Flickr. The best way to view them is to click on the first picture and then use your arrow keys to scroll to the right. You can also just view my “Best of” set if you (understandably) don’t have time to look through 500 pictures.
