Overall our Peru trip with Adventures by Disney was epic and truly memorable for all four of us. Peru is a beautiful country with scenic landscapes and whose Incan history lives strong and is deeply embedded into the culture to this day. The local Adventure by Disney guides (Harvey and Rudy) created a safe, flexible and fun environment throughout our eight day adventure while navigating a group of 25 fairly privileged Americans through planes, trains, buses, oxygen deprivation, riots, stomach bugs and even Alpacas/Llamas. Every detail was well thought out across a variety of adventures including white water rafting, lots (and lots) of savory Peruvian cuisines, temples, Manchu Piccu, Salt Mines, local markets, amongst others. What stood out most was the guides ability to adapt in real time and create a positive experience for a group spanning ages 6 to 55. Also their ability to convey and often share contrary perspectives (as compared to West) of their history through data and story telling was quite impressive (thanks Adventures by Disney for empowering them to share).
Really proud of Ishan and Maya for capturing and sharing their view of our Peru trip in the paragraphs that follow. I found their story comical and eye opening to read the things that stood out to them. Although each of our experiences were unique, I'd like to think the common thread across all four of us was a set of rich experiences (with each other) that I hope gets inked within each of individual life memoirs....
Day 1 of the Peru Trip,
The flight to Peru was kind of crazy and chaotic. The first thing that had happened was that Delta ended up completely cancelling our flight from Atlanta to Lima. It was a very tough situation to be in and we were on hold for two hours before the great news happened. If we were to go, we would have to spend more than 10,000 dollars just to get to Lima which is the capital city of Peru. The great news was that they rebooked our flight and we got to sleep comfortably for a six-hour flight at midnight until 5 in the morning. Once we finally got to the Lima airport, we met up with the people we were traveling with who were my dad’s best friend’s family. We went into two separate tour buses to a nice hotel called the Westin. They have them in the U.S if you’re familiar with the name. After that, we immediately tried to get as much sleep as possible. But luck wasn’t on our side. Apparently, the key to the room that we were staying in didn’t work in the slightest. It took about another hour to get the key to work as they came up and down many times. At least that is what I heard, you see, me and Maya were in the room with my dad’s friends. We spent that time relaxing on our devices until the room key finally worked and we had a peaceful three-hour nap. After that peaceful and relaxing nap, we went out to walk around in the city. There we saw some pretty interesting things like an off-brand Dunkin’ Donuts, many off-brand vehicles such as a space wagon which is probably the weirdest car I have ever seen in my entire life. Once we finished that, we got back to the hotel and were greeted with one of our tour guides named Harvey. He told us what we needed and how we can avoid sicknesses and to keep air circulation due to the high altitudes. He also gave us some water bottles which we decorated with stickers and markers. After that, we headed back to the hotel where we went to bed at around 8.
Day 2,
Day 2 was also insane. The first thing we did was pack up our bags and head straight to a city called Cusco, known for having high altitudes and many different Incan relics and structures. It is also the capital city of the Incas except the people in Cusco build right on top of it. In fact, some of the rocks used to make the city are still intact after such a long time. After we got to Cusco through an airline called Latam airlines. Once we got there, we took a bus out of Cusco and into a place called the Sacred Valley. The Sacred Valley extended for many miles and holds most of the Incan structures such as Maccu Piccu, and many terraces used for agricultural reasons. The Hotel that we stayed in was a place called Sol y Luna near the base of the valley. It wasn’t a hotel but rather a rental neighborhood lined with different houses called casitas, which were small and had ceramic rooftops. Truth is, we ended up staying there for another four days. But before all of this happened, we took a trip up to the highest point in all of Cusco. There, we did many things one of which included one of the best lunches I have ever had in my entire life. We were also taught how these people make their clothes. In fact, they handmake them through Llama and Alpaca wool. It takes months to create only one piece of clothing. But the extreme care and precision put into it was what made it special. After that, I ended up almost passing out due to lack of air. That is why it was really important to drink water up there as it keeps blood flowing throughout your body. My mom was completely freaking out and took unnecessary precautions. Other than that, day 2 was solid and an exhilarating start to the vacation.
Day 3,
Day 3 was one of the most fun days throughout the trip for one particular reason. We went white water rafting. Unfortunately for me, it was the dry season so the waves were not as harsh so nobody fell out of the raft. It was slow and boring mostly until near the end where there were some stage 2's and 3's. We also had a revolution against one boat who repeatedly splashed people. After that incredibly cold morning, we went to a place called ollantaytambo where we walked up a very important Incan terrace. During that incredibly long and tedious staircase which by the way, I had to go to the restroom the entire time going up, we learned many cool things about the Incans. One thing is the fact that all the terraces in the sacred valley were made for agriculture and trust me, every mountain you see, there are many, many terraces. We also learned how intricate and hard the stones were to make and place. They had to walk many miles carrying 50 pounds of pure rock just to have to chisel them correctly and if you fail the math, you have to destroy all that work. The Inca's didn't have a set deadline. They didn't care how long it took. It was for the community is what we were taught. After that, we headed back to the hotel to be greeted with a front row seat to a sweet dinner, with freshly baked stones and they stone cooked chicken, and much more. I then almost passed out again for the same reason. After the unexpected turn of events, they put on a show resembling the son and moon gods. Of course, I didn't really understand what was going on because it was in Spanish. The next thing that we did was watch a movie called the Emperor's New Groove. It was more for little kids, so I didn't really enjoy it that much. Then, we played some games like Mafia. After that, we had a peaceful rest for what was in store for us the next day.
Day 4,
Day 4 was really cool. We went to the Moray ruins to learn about the way that they stopped rainfall. They ended up using a circular formation to have all the rainwater go to the center, stopping floods and providing more water for agriculture. It was really interesting. After that, we went to some salt flats where we learned a lot about salt. Not the most useful thing to know, but it was really cool. After that, we basically had the rest of the day to ourselves. For dinner, we ended up making pizza dough that was probably thrown in the trash because when we were served our dough, it wasn't even the same dough. We had some pizza and then played some soccer afterwards. Then, one of the best days was to come the next day.
Day 5,
Day 5 was the day we went to Maccu Piccu. It was definitely one of the most fun and long days of the trip. We first took a 30 minute drive to the train station to a place called Maccu Piccu Pueblo. It was a small town next to Maccu Piccu. We took a tour around the town and learned that the three sacred animals of the Incas were the Puma, the Andean Condor, the second largest flying bird in the world, and the snake. After about 2 hours of touring the town, we got onto the bus to get to the top of the mountain. Once we got up there, we saw much more greenery than the rest of the Andes. We were right next to the Amazon River. We learned that Maccu Piccu means old mountain. Once we took about a gigabyte of pictures, we went down to the actual city itself. The build was to take over another 100 years to complete which is really crazy of how big the city was to be. We saw so many storage rooms and residences. Next to the city there were more terraces for agricultural reasons. After that, we headed back to Sol y Luna at about 8 and had a large dinner there. The next day will be just as eventful as the next one.
Day 6,
Day 6 we went somewhere called the Pisac Market and searched the markets for something cool to buy for a white elephant gift. I ended up getting a flute with an Andean Condor on it. Maya got a blue Llama stuffed animal. My mom got a handwoven purse to hold things such as passports. My dad got some maracas, which to be honest were the most useless gift there was. After that, we had lunch at a local Peruvian kitchen. We then, took a trip to the city of Cusco where we were introduced with a new hotel that was much nicer than Sol y Luna. We then got to explore the city of Cusco and looked around for places to eat, and whatnot. For dinner, my family and some other family went out to a place called Incanto. It had some good food there, with some starting bread and much more. After that, we headed back to the hotel for a nice sleep before our flight back to Atlanta.
Day 7 we went to a place called Sacsayhuaman. Sometimes mistaken to sexy woman... Guys cut that out of the blog. It's not kid friendly Anyways, we went there and learned how much of the Incas were technologically advanced. They had a whole new concept of math, which allowed towers of rocks that were still there not to fall. We also learned this is the third largest structure in the world. We also learned that Cusco was shaped like a Puma and Sacsayhuaman was the head of the Puma. After that, we headed back to the hotel and relaxed until the farewell dinner. During the farewell dinner, we each exchanged the white elephant gifts with each other which took about thirty minutes. After th
at, they got a bunch of people in masks to start partying before we ate. After the 30 minute party, we finally were able to start eating our food. However, ten minutes later we had to go and I didn't know where my jacket was. I remembered I left it in the restroom, but when I went to check, someone forgot to lock the door to the bathroom, and I walked in on someone pooping, which was kind of wierd, but my dad asked him if there was a jacket in there, and there was so after that, we headed to the Cusco Airport to head to Lima. And then from Lima we would head to Atlanta, and that is the end of the Peru trip.
