Peru!

A week ago today I was groggily rubbing my eyes as my alarm rousted me at 3 am, after a very short two hour nap, and I packed up my bags and headed to the bus terminal to meet the bus at 4 am. We were on our way to Peru! We bused the two hours to the Rosario airport, and flew from there to Lima, Peru. Once in Lima we were loaded up into two buses with our own tour guides and got to see a little bit of the city on our way to our hotel. After we checked in we went to a nearby shopping area, built right on the edges of the cliffs overlooking the beach and the ocean. Very gorgeous! First stop: food. We hit up Chilis for some delicious American food :)
The next day we had a tour of the city of Lima, got to see some cool buildings, checked out a cathedral and I got my first view of some catacombs. Kinda cool actually.We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the cathedral though, sadly.
The next morning we packed up and headed to the airport in Lima and had about an hour long flight to Cuzco. It's elevation is about 11,000 feet so they had us drink a lot of tea made from Coca leaves which is supposed to help lessen symptoms of elevation sickness. Thankfully no one got very sick, and I felt pretty much fine except for being really really tired, and we had to walk slow and take it easy for a bit until we adjusted. We had new tour guides in Cuzco and we were taken to another cathedral, and given a little tour of the city while we were bused around.
The next day we left early on the buses which took us to the train station, which would take us to Machu Picchu. I was very excited because this was my very first time on a train! It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but still fun and we got to see a lot of the Andes on our 4 hour journey. When we finally arrived it was overcast, but the sun came out later and we had only intermittent showers. We were bused from the base of the mountain up a very small, extremely windy road that the bus drivers careened around at full speed, barely missing hitting other buses coming back down the mountain. It sounds like I'm exaggerating but I'm not! We were dropped off at a restaurant and viewing area just below the top of the mountain where we ate lunch, and then our guides handed out our passes and we hiked the rest of the way to the top, to the ruins. I don't really know what to say other than that pictures really don't do it any justice. It's quite an impressive, awesome place to be. Totally worth all the work to get there! We got a full several hour long tour, and when we finally got down the mountain, on the train, then back to Cusco it was 11 that night.
The next day we had some time to wander around the markets before our flight left for Lima. We got back to Lima about 5, and we spent the next couple of hours at a mall before it was time to head to the airport to catch our 1:30 am flight back to Argentina. While at the mall, we made one last (our third) stop at Chilis, and of course! Starbucks :)
I don't remember much of our flight or the two hours bus ride back to school because I was sleeping!
Now it's Sunday, and I'm repacked and ready to head out tomorrow morning for Christmas vacation to Ushuaia, Calafate, Bariloche, and finally back to Buenos Aires. I'm going to be soo tired of traveling after these three weeks, but bring it on! I'll be trying to update this more frequently over break to keep you up to date with all the happenings.