3 Days of Machu Picchu (Part 3)

Brit and I woke up at 7am for the day of hiking. We ate a bread roll for breakfast and on we went.

Our guide Oscar in the yellow, is giving us the run down on where we are going.

Here is where we encountered a waterfall that was absolutely freezing cold.

Our group stopping for lunch.Another random cute Dog.

After lunch we walked along these railroad tracks for hours...

Until we finally got to Aguas Calientes, the final stop before Machu Picchu.

I throughly enjoyed the touristy town of Aguas Calientes. The river runs right through the center of the town, in which they built little bridges to go across. They had plenty of resturants, and shopping, as well as a not so clean hot springs.

After a shower, Brit and I did some shopping and worried about the whereabouts of our friends. They were supposedly supposed to be picked up from the tour agency that morning, but no one seemed to have any answers.

Thankfully, they turned up as a lucky chance because the bus dropped them off but failed to let them know what hotel we were staying at. By chance, our tour guide saw them wandering around the town.

After another meal of chicken milanase, papas fritas, and rice, the four of us decided upon waking up at 3am to start the climb to Machu Picchu. Apparently in order to make the really big hike up to the top of Waynu Picchu, you had to be at the front entrance at opening because they only let 400 visitors up a day.

Well good night.

Leia Mais…

3 Days of Machu Picchu (Part 2)

Brit and I rode on this cramped van for a hour and a half, although I was half asleep the whole time. I finally became coherent when we reached Ollantaytambo.

We drove and drove up to a ascent of 4000 meters in the mountains untill finally the driver stoped off on the side of the road in a turn off. The driver and guide named Oscar unloaded and gave us all helmets, gloves, and a bike. The only instructions we recieved was "stay on your right side of the road".

Brit and I before we started.

Our whole group ready to take off...

Here are some pictures of the ride down. It was actually a lot of fun. The air was fresh and the views were amazing.

We were actually riding all the way down to where you can see the river in this picture.

Aren't we sexy in our helmets?

Our ride ended at the bottom of the mountain where we had lunch and stuffed ourselves back into the van. They drove us along a one lane, extremely narrow, dirt road on the edge of a cliff over looking the river untill we reached Saint Theresa. Definately not much to say about Saint Theresa, a shit hole basically.

The street outside our hospaje.

Random cute dog.

A couple people from the tour and Brit (on the right) eating our fabulous sack lunches consisting of two sandwiches, one with cheese, one with a single slice of ham, a bannana, juice, a nasty granola bar, and a piece of chocolate.

Our hospaje was a simple room with a bed. No hot water. Our dinner consisted of milanesa chicken, papas fritas, and rice.

Brit and I fell asleep to the noisey sounds of the other tour groupers drinking the night away.

Leia Mais…

Agra, India; day whatever...

So, as to the conclusion to my trip to India, I went to the town of Agra outside of New Delhi. Delhi, by the way, in my opinion, was a little less third world than Bangalore, the supposed "silicon valley" if India.

I cannot really put into words how it feels to be standing, looking up at the great marble tombstone that stands against the sky and by the Yamura River as if it is floating in air. You either have to take your shoes off, or they give your shoe booties to wear as you are prancing around the structure. It is, symetrical on all four sides, and encompasses much more intricate marble work on the stones than you can see on common pictures.







This is a picture of marble workers. They start mastering their trade when they are very young, and it takes over ten years to become a master. Each stone has to be shaved down individually.



This is called the Agra Fort, or Red Fort.



Me inside the red fort.



These are the damn monkey's that pee'd on my head. No, I'm not joking. What a great thing for memories of India...."I got pee'd on by a monkey in Delhi!"

Leia Mais…

Bangalore, India; Day eleven

It's 9:30pm and I'm actually feeling a little bit sad. Everyone in my group is parting off. My accomplice in crime Celeste just left to board a train to Hampi. How sad. We have lived, ate, worked, and shopped together for the past two weeks. I really got to know all of them, as far as knowing who always comes to breakfast last, who drinks coffee, who does not....that sort of stuff.

Here is me and Celeste when we went to an Indian night club last night.

Shreela and I when we went to an Indian wedding today.

Eww, I guess I don't like coconut water!

This is my team leader, Veronica, and I.

The group photo before we went to the Hindu wedding.

So tomorrow I hop on a plane to New Delhi. Hooray for a new city, two weeks in Bangalore is enough.

Leia Mais…

Bangalore, India; Day ten

So the project is pretty much done. Every working day that we had was definitely a new experience. For example, today on the bus ride home that is supposed to take 1 hour...it took 2 because we encountered the worst traffic jam that I had ever seen in my life. For the past three days it has been raining. I'm from Seattle, yet I've never seen rain like this before. It's as if someone is pouring a bucket of water over the earth. No I know what they mean by monsoon rains.

The children were great today. I guess I forgot to mention that we switched to a different school this past Monday. The new school we are at is larger with 180 students. They actually have desks and school uniforms.

It feels like I have been in India forever. I'm looking forward to a hot shower, my car, meat, my bed, a cocktail or glass of wine.....

Here I am teaching a boy some math.

Here I am showing the children a book of Las Vegas.

This is the outside of the small school.

Leia Mais…

Bangalore, India; Day eight

Yesterday I was feeling a little sick, so my team leader made me stay. I feltshort of breath. My guess is that the pollution here is really starting to take a toll on my lungs.

I ventered off on my own a little later in the afternoon because I got really bored. I went to the City Market. Oh my God, that was the worst idea ever! There were so many people there. They push and shove to get around. I held on to my bag thinking that someone was bound to come by and steal my wallet without me knowing. Then, it seriously got ten times worse when it starting pouring down rain. The city which is filthy already, gets even filthier when its muddy. I made it back with the city's dark dirt splashed on the back of my legs and all over my feet.

This is a picture of one of the millions of flower vendors at City Market.

One of the many power vendors. The powder seen here in cone shapes are used for the dot on the head. As you can see they come in many brilliant colors.

Leia Mais…

Cheri Beach, India; Day 7

At Cherai beach Indian women are wading into the water in their saree's.

So the last day in Kerala, we went to the beach. I relaxed in the sand. The Arabian Sea didn't look too appealing to do any swimming though. I passed on that.

The train ride home was very unexpected last night. I will share the details...

First of all, w got to the main train station in Eruklam station and found out that the train was leaving an hour before what we were told in Bangalore. Secondly, the only seats they had left were the 3rd class passenger seating. Imagine sitting on wooden benches next to many people without air conditioning and open air windows for 12 hours. No thank you.

We jumped on a air conditioned sleeper car and wished that maybe, just maybe we can be stowaways in this car. We had no idea that the fine for doing that is about $400 dollars. No, we didn't get caught, but we happen to be sitting in the seats that belonged to 6 Indian men, who were about our age. They were on some kind of balchelor holiday and were relaxed, and happen to speak really good English because they were all in the IT industry. The had an extra bed, which they gave to us to share. Then they arranged with the ticket master to buy another bed. They also bought us dinner on the train and gave us beer. I had a good time talking and laughing with them.

So anyway, we arrived in Bangalore at the awful time of 4:30am. Now i'm waiting to go to work. Next weekend, everyone in the group is splitting off and I think that I'm going to be heading North to Delhi and then to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.

Leia Mais…

Fort Cochin, India; Day six

Today Celeste and I went on this boat/canoe ride through the swamps and canals here in Kerala. The whole excursion took the entire day. I actually had more fun on yesterday's outing where the tuktuk driver drove us to random places all around the city. But I guess that you can say that today was a peaceful day.

The boats were powered by a man with a big bamboo stick. He pushes the boat using the stick to push off from the bottom of the water. Because there is no motor, the ride through the canals was really peaceful and quiet. I literally fell asleep at one point because the chairs were really comfortable. We saw some of the little villages that live in this area and our guide explained that the two big industries here are rope making and calcium making. Really interesting. The women work all day to make ropes made of coconut and the men work to get clams out of the water which is burned to make pure calcium oxide. The process to make the calcium I actually understood from chemistry. Kinda neat that I can actually apply all my school this summer to something.

This is a picture of the women making the rope.

This is a picture of the massive amounts of pure calcium after the whole process is completed. To think that this is made from clam shells is amazing.

A scenic route through the canals and swap land. Peaceful and tranquil.

We went down to the Chinese fish nets to buy some fresh sea food. I went a little over board with the buying of the seafood, but I couldn't help myself. These people work so hard, and they all want you to buy from them so they can support the family. Overboard isn't really all that over board though...I purchased a whole lobster, a whole white snapper, tiger prawns, and two small fishes that I don't know the name of for 300 rupees. That's about 7 dollars. Yummy, we are going to go enjoy our fresh seafood dinner tonight.

This is me at the Chinese fish nets just after sunset.

Leia Mais…