Rosenda: Hello. This is the train to Cusco. Today, all day, what did we do? Nothing much. We went to a small plaza and (saw a statue of) the Inca king who built Machu Picchu. (Jen's note: His name is Pachacuti. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachacuti. Wikipedia has the exact same picture of the statue where the group picture was taken: see below). Then we separated and shopped and did whatever we wanted/needed. We met at the hotel again, went to the train station and did some homework and passed the time. Now we're on the train. Tomorrow we fly out to Iquitos (the Amazon area). That's all. Bye.
Group picture of us with the statue of Pachacuti. Teachers! Take note! Michael IS doing his homework! :) The train made a quick stop along the way and the woman came by to sell her flowers. Beautiful flowers!
Caldonia: All of us woke up early in the morning and ate breakfast. Freddy, our guide met us and we went together to the bus. We were really excited and went on a winding road. It was hard to see because it was very cloudy and rainy. When we arrived, we felt curious. What would Machu Picchu look like? We showed our passport and tickets then entered. Freddy started signing.. no, I mean writing and speaking, explaining to us about the geography and what everything looks like. He showed us the moon flower, and how they (the Incans) used this to sacrifice women. There are three symbols that are always shown: 1) River for snakes, 2) Puma for life/Earth, 3) Condor for the afterlife/the dead. You can always see the three symbols across the area.
Then, we went to see the four temples. 1) Temple of Sun, 2) Temple of Wind, 3) Temple of Water and 4) Temple of Earth. The explanation of all the buildings in the area was interesting. They were all built differently. One group of buildings is very architecturally sound. All the blocks fit each other very well and in a very neat way. Those are the temples. The others are more rugged and those are the homes, houses where people live. They used grass on their roofs to camouflage the buildings. Those kinds of roof also helped smoke to escape the buildings when they were cooking so that the smoke did not get stuck in the buildings.
We saw so many things. It rained and rained and we went back to the entrance. At the entrance, we started our hike up the mountain. Wow, we were so tired and extremely out of breath! Some of us started to ask ourselves why we decided to go on the hike, why did we decide to walk up? We stuck it out and thought positively. Some of the steps were very narrow, and some of them had very steep drop offs on the side. The steps were uneven, rocky and it was hard. We went all the way and finally arrived at our destination. We felt so good- we had accomplished something! We took pictures and it finally became sunny. We could see everything much better than when it was rainy and cloudy. We went back down and it was really slippery. I ended up slipping down and slamming my finger (Jen's note: See Caldonia's finger!!) When we arrived at the bottom, we took more pictures because it was sunnier and we could see everything more clearly than when we first got there.
After that, we had some free time. Many of us went to bed early! That's it J
The entrance to Machu Picchu. It was raining and very cool. You can almost see nothing in the background (all white!)
The students are walking on the stairs and exploring Machu Picchu.
The Sundial. It was used by the Incas in the 1400s and 1500s. Unfortunately, a commercial was made there and the crane broke. This left a huge chip and the Sundial is no longer working.
Another group picture before we went hiking up the Machu Picchu mountain. It was just starting to clear up.
Joi walking up the stairs. The hike took us 2.5 hours roundtrip.
The best group picture of us! You can see Machu Picchu in the background. We climbed 2000 feet.
Amberley: We got up at 4:30 this morning and had breakfast then got in a taxi that picked us up and took us to a bus station where we boarded in a bus that drove through the city of Cusco in to the outlying suburban areas into the country. It was a nice two hours drive and some of us slept. We got to a small town, Ollantaytambo where we got on the Peru Rail. We sat in the back of our rail car following our seat numbers on the tickets. The railroad has windows everywhere including the ceiling. The train ride to Agua Calientes was stunning. We were always adjacent to the Urubamba River. It took about two hours to get to Agua Calientes. The town is in the middle of a deep valley with majestic peaks towering above the city. There are no cars, just the train! We checked in our hotel and walked around the city. It is a very small city that we can walk from one end to the other end in 10 to 15 minutes with some stores and places to get food. We got to shop around for more souvenirs. We had dinner together and it was a nice dinner. I want to tell you about a prank that Joi and Gary pulled on me today. They decided to hide NMSD’s camera as it was my turn to take pictures. I brought it with me to my room and I had a nap. After my nap I looked around for the camera and couldn't find it. I asked around and searched around but did not have any luck. I completely forgot about April Fool’s Day. I started to cry a little and get mad and that was when Joi and Gary said “Happy April Fool’s!” I wanted to strangle them. I am laughing about it now. I am so excited to see Machu Picchu tomorrow!
Group Picture in front of Peru Rail.
Urubamba River
Picture of the peaks through the ceiling windows inside the train.
Cadonia and Rosenda writing post cards to family members.Agua Calientes adjacent to the river. Aqua Calientes' main road, the railroad track. There are no cars in this town.
Group picture of us with the statue of Pachacuti.
Teachers! Take note! Michael IS doing his homework! :)
The train made a quick stop along the way and the woman came by to sell her flowers. Beautiful flowers!
