Our Final Weeks in Peru

It's been a while since our last post, but we wanted to recap our final week and a half in Peru. Our last blog post left off after our hike at Laguna 69, and we had only five days left in Trujillo before we set off for our final week of traveling!

Enjoying one last sunset from our rooftop in Trujillo

Our last few days in Trujillo consisted of some really fun activities. A few of the Venture with Impact crew were able to take part in a "cooking" class held by a local Peruvian, Patricia. We say "cooking" because it was more of a "eat the delicious food and watch Patricia cook" class. Patricia was so nice and explained everything she was doing while she made the three traditional Peruvian dishes: papa a la Huancaina, sudado de pescado, and ceviche. Out of all the foods we tried during our two months in Peru, the sudado de pescado was Daniel's favorite dish! The dish is basically steamed fish stew that has been seasoned with a bunch of herbs and spices, and the flavor was absolutely amazing!

Sudado de pescado. Delicious!

On our last day in Trujillo, a ceremony took place in one of the communities that Moche and VWI partners with called Cuidad de Dios. The ceremony was held for the progress of the Moche Women's Collaborative over the last few months, which was highlighted by the opening of an Etsy shop (you can buy their products HERE!) and the mayor of Laredo presenting a brand new paper cutter for the women to use for future production of their bookmarks and cards. After the ceremony, a celebration was put on by the community which included the preparation and cooking of cuy (guinea pig) for the volunteers involved in helping the community.

Some of the products made by the Moche Women's Collaborative
Photo credit: Emily Mayer

After the ceremony and celebration, we packed our bags and said our final goodbyes to the apartment where we had spent the last two months. Alyssa, Emily and Kelly were kind enough to host a Taco Tuesday, which was the perfect ending for our time in Trujillo! It was definitely bittersweet, but we are so thankful for all of the friendships that we formed through Venture with Impact.

Taco Tuesday shenanigans

After saying our goodbyes, we took a taxi to the bus station and waited to board the overnight bus to Lima. Just as we sat down, a little boy around 12 years old sat in the chair right across from us and said "hi"! We spent the next few minutes speaking with him (in English) and were so impressed that he was brave enough to speak to random strangers to improve his English! We once again got pretty lucky with our overnight bus, and we were able to get some sleep before we arrived in Lima early in the morning. We took a taxi from the Lima bus station to the airport and had about 3 hours to spare before we took our flight to Cusco. All in all, our travels to Cusco went really well, and we were the first ones to arrive at our hostel so we put our bags in our room and headed out to explore!

Plaza de Armas in Cusco

We walked from our hostel to the main square and immediately fell in love with Cusco! The weather was a lot cooler since the city is at an elevation of 11,000 feet, and the air felt a lot cleaner. The city has a very European vibe to it, with narrow streets and alleyways and a lot of stone architecture. The main square, or Plaza de Armas, in Cusco is a big open green space surrounded by ornate cathedrals and lots of shops and restaurants, and in the background of the square are beautiful hills covered with colorful buildings. We had so much fun exploring the different alleys that were filled with shops, restaurants and churches. After our friends arrived in Cusco, we all met up and had dinner at a restaurant on the main square and then called it an early night so we could rest up for our day of traveling to Machu Picchu.

Cusco is just as beautiful at night!

The next morning we woke up early and took a two-hour shuttle ride through the Andes to the small town of Ollantaytambo (say that three times fast!). The next leg of our journey was PeruRail – a really nice train complete with leather seats and lots of windows! The two-hour train ride took us through the scenic mountains and paralleled a raging river. Unfortunately, Kayla wasn't feeling very well, so the train ride was not as enjoyable as we thought it would be. We arrived in Aguas Calientes in the evening, checked into our hostel, and got a quick bite to eat before calling it an early night since our next day would be spent at Machu Picchu. We sent out some texts to close friends and family, asking them to pray for our health since we both weren't feeling well at this point and really wanted to be able to enjoy the day that we had been looking forward to the most!

Boarding PeruRail in Ollantaytambo

The cute little town of Aguas Calientes

We woke up the next morning feeling better and super thankful (God is good!) and our group woke up early to take the 20-minute shuttle ride to Machu Picchu. It was really cloudy and rainy so we bought ponchos and got our first glimpse of the ruins. It was breathtaking and felt so surreal! We decided to take cover and wait for the rain to die down so we wouldn’t get completely soaked on our hike. After a while we decided to head back out and start climbing up Montaña. We were already expecting the trek to be tough, but we were still caught off-guard by how difficult it was! The ascent consisted of a steep, slippery stone staircase around every turn, and after about an hour in we both sat down and debated if we wanted to continue as it was still very cloudy and drizzling, and we weren't sure if the view from the top would even be worth it. 

The hike up Montaña: So. Many. Stairs.

We ultimately decided to push through the last half of the hike, and took a lot of breaks along the way. It took us about two hours, but we made it to the top and ran into our two friends along the way! We took some time to catch our breath and take in the views, which was mostly clouds and fog, but nonetheless it was still amazing. And we were so glad that we did it! Our trek wasn't over though – going down the mountain was just as hard, and with wobbly legs (and our friends by our side) we began the two-hour trek back down to Machu Picchu.

At the top of  Montaña!

By the time we made it back to the ruins, we realized that our prayers had been answered and the clouds slowly started to clear! We were finally able to see Machu Picchu in all of its glory! The sun shone down and the view started to look exactly like all of the pictures that we'd seen. It was magical. We enjoyed walking around from view point to view point until we saw what Kayla really came for... LLAMAS! We made our way down and got to interact with a few of them, and sometimes were even approached by them (dreams came true)! Even though the morning weather had us a little worried and we were not able to see the ruins from Montaña, Machu Picchu was just as incredible as we hoped it would be. It was a day to remember! 

Our view of Machu Picchu

A llama friend :)

After a long day at Machu Picchu, we were all exhausted and ready to get some rest at our hostel. Unfortunately, Daniel wasn’t feeling well and decided to stay in for the night while Kayla went out to dinner with Neil and Alexis, which included a few intense rounds of Jenga. The next morning, we boarded the train to Ollantaytambo, then hopped on the shuttle back to our hostel in Cusco. We were all still pretty exhausted from all of the traveling we had crammed into the past few days, so we grabbed some burgers and beers while discussing what we had planned for our final days in Peru.

Enjoying some local beer at a brewery in Cusco

Instead of going to Rainbow Mountain like we had originally planned, we decided to spend our last day in Cusco just walking around exploring since we both fell in love with it! Little did we know that exact day was the city’s Carnival celebration, where the youths ran around with water balloons, water guns, buckets of water, cans of spray foam, and colored powder. Exploring the city was a whole new ball game now! We were both constantly looking over our shoulders as we heard kids yelling and screaming and spraying people with foam – even tourists! It was a lot of fun watching the chaos and ducking into shops as we walked down the alleyways and trying to stay clean and dry. But alas, we got sprayed with foam out of a bus window and Kayla also got sprayed in the neck by a boy walking past us. We couldn’t trust anybody!

Trying to avoid the madness of Carnival

We were able to explore so much of Cusco on our last day. We spent a lot of time at Mercado Central, a huge market where you can purchase everything from fruit to souvenirs to cans of foam (if you wanted to partake/be a target in the Carnival celebration). After walking around the market for a while, we walked a few more blocks down the street and stumbled upon a smaller market where we quickly noticed that we were the only tourists. Instead of souvenirs and foam spray cans there were locals hacking raw meat and baskets of goat heads. Yikes! We quickly turned around to and made our way back towards the main square.

Walking around the Mercado Central

We dined al fresco for lunch (they had a yummy pumpkin soup, or crema de zapallo) and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. Our next stop was ChocoMuseo – a free chocolate museum where we got to try chocolate tea, chocolate liquor, and of course a variety of chocolate samples. The unique flavors of chocolates were the perfect souvenirs to take home to our families. After shopping around the markets and haggling for more souvenirs and gifts (one of our favorite things to do!) we strategically began to make our way through the chaos of Carnival to meet up with friends. We were able to snag some seats on a pub balcony and were entertained by the mayhem below with drinks in hand. We thought we were safe two stories up, but some kids saw it as a challenge and we had a couple of water balloons that came too close for comfort! For our last evening all together, we couldn't pass up taking advantage of the amenities at a hotel that one of our group members splurged on. Our sore muscles were very thankful for the hot tub and sauna, and it was a nice, relaxing evening enjoying each other's company.

Enjoying our view of Carnival festivities down below!

The next morning we said goodbye to Cusco and got on a flight to Lima for our final day and a half in Peru. After arriving in Lima, we checked into our Airbnb in Miraflores that we split with Neil and took a much-needed nap before heading out to see what Lima had to offer! That evening, the three of us walked on a path along some cliffs near the ocean and were lucky enough to see one of the most beautiful sunsets ever! We made our way to a nice Italian restaurant for dinner and treated ourselves to delicious pasta and wine.

Gorgeous sunset in Lima

Later in the evening when we were dropped off at our Airbnb we weren't able to unlock the front gate with our key. After each of us made several attempts, Daniel volunteered to climb over the gate (right as a cop drove by) and thankfully he was able to let us in! The next morning, it was weird waking up and realizing that this was the last day of our two-month adventure. We wanted to take it easy and headed out for a nice, relaxing breakfast and had another amazing meal – churro French toast! It was even more delicious than it sounds. That afternoon, we leisurely walked down to the beach and sipped on drinks while watching paragliders swoop around in the air!

Watching the paragliders along the beach in Lima

After we packed up at the Airbnb and handed back the keys, we were able to meet up with most of our group at a restaurant near the Lima airport before everyone’s flights home. It was a short and sweet visit, but we all enjoyed sharing stories about adventures in the Amazon rainforest and hiking up Rainbow Mountain. And then, we had to say our goodbyes (for real this time) and made our way to the airport. Of course Daniel couldn’t pass through the duty free shop without buying some ingredients to make Pisco sours at home! We were able to hang out with Neil for a bit in our terminal and then boarded our flight back to the United States.

One final meetup before going our separate ways

Since we've been back home in Kansas City, adjusting back to our "normal" lives has been interesting to say the least. We have had our fair share of all of the foods that we missed while we were abroad, and are amazed at how "easy" things are when we speak the same language as most everyone else (like ordering at a restaurant). We've even noticed that we picked up some habits while living in Peru (aka this blog post) that have been funny to point out. We really miss all of our VWI friends and people that we met along the way, but love that technology makes it very easy to stay in touch! We are so incredibly thankful that we had this opportunity to go on the adventure of a lifetime. Peru is a beautiful country with beautiful people and now holds a very special place in our hearts.