More Festivals, More Machu Picchu

The past two weekends have been filled with adventure. Two weeks ago I had the chance to go to a fun festival filled with dances in the city of Puacaratambo followed by viewing an amazing sun rise. Last weekend I went to the most popular tourist site in South America, Machu Picchu.

Every July the usually lifeless town of Puacaratambo comes alive with the 3 day festival of the Virgin del Carmen (Virgin Mary). All day long there are dances of every type and even parties in the cemeteries, which I don't quite understand.

Dancing on roof tops

And in the cemeteries

Overall, I really enjoyed my time there, minus my hotel room which consisted of 4 walls, a dirty wooden floor, a piece of foam aka a mattress that spewed dust when hit, and some trash piled up in the corner of the room...not exactly the Hilton. While I can say it was by far the worst hotel I've ever stayed in, maybe a half a star hotel, after about 3 o'clock in the morning I was happy to have that small piece of foam to rest my head!

In addition to being known for this festival, Puacaratamo is also known for amazing and unique sunrises. Only here and one other place in Japan is there some sort of illusion to make it look as though the sun jumps up and down when rising. It was really cool to see! Arriving at 15,000 feet and about 15 degree weather at 4 am I was amazed to see how clear the sky was and at the unbelievable number of stars visible, more by far than I had ever seen before, including about a dozen shooting stars. After about 2 hours of waiting, we watched the sun rise. I think pictures will do a better job of describing what we saw than what I can do with words.

Last weekend was my first trip to Machu Picchu. It started with a crazy bus ride high in the mountains where we had snow on the 25th of July. It was a nice surprise for Christmas in July!

It didn't last long however. After about a half an hour of decent, I was in the jungle surrounded by banana trees, coffee and chocolate plants, and all sorts of other unfamiliar vegetation.

Driving a bit further, nervous the entire way with sharp drops off the side of the road and a driver going way to fast I was startled, but not surprised when we got into a head on car crash. Going around a curve too fast our driver slammed on his brakes when he saw a van coming in the other direction on the one lane road, but with the slick dirt road we slid until we hit the other van. Thankfully no one was hurt! After the crash the drivers got out of the cars and without the help of All State, the settled the damages on the spot with our driver paying the other driver about $120 USD to cover repairs.

The next day we went on a jungle hike to the base of Machu Picchu. The following we spent inside Machu Picchu. It was really impressive, and much more so than I even expected. The well preserved ruins sat atop a mountain in a beautiful setting surrounded by other mountains and rolling clouds. Again, I think Pictures will do more than I can with words.

Until next time, keep livin' the dream!