Blur

It turns out Machu Piccu is a pretty difficult place to get to. You
would think that one of the biggest tourist attractions on the
continent would have a little easier access, but it takes several
buses, taxi rides, and a train to get there.

After a long bus ride to Cusco, we decided to just go ahead and take a
taxi to the Sacred Valley, which is the jumping off point to MP.
Surrounded by mountains on all sides, this has to be the most gorgeous
small towns that I've ever seen.

That's pretty much the last thing I remember for about 24 hours. I was
just plain sick. I encouraged the guys to go on without me to Machu
Piccu. Maybe I'm just weird but I've never had any real interest to
visit there anyway. I definitely would have liked to go with the guys,
but there wasn't any way it was going to happen.

The next day I woke up still weak, but I was able to eat a pancake. We
hung around the town and watched some (ok, a ton) of tv and the guys
got in a pretty cool good deed. We decided to go out to dinner and I
was going to give pizza a shot because I figured it would be
predictable. I ordered a personal pepperoni pizza. When I got it, it
had peppers, onions, and mushrooms (3 things I DESPISE on pizza)
hidden under the cheese, which made it impossible to pick off. I
scraped the entire top of the pizza off and just ate crust. Having
only eaten 1 pancake and 1 tic tac in 48 hours, our waiter was lucky
he didn't ask how my food was. Of course, that's pretty much been the
story of South American food. You can be as broad as possible
("without vegetables") or as specific (listing every vegetable you
don't want on your food) and they're going to cram it in there anyway.
It's beyond just being picky about vegetables, though. The general
rule south of the border for Americans is "if you didn't wash it
yourself or you can't peel it, don't eat it."

So we took another long taxi ride back to Cusco, and found the only
bus leaving during the day to Chile. It was Ormeño. That's the company
that canceled our bus leaving Columbia and then was late the next day.
We weren't thrilled, but customer service outdid themselves this time.
Since it was our only option, I pulled out my credit card and got
ready to pay the bill. Despite at least 10 Visa and Mastercard signs,
we were informed "we don't take credit cards." Cory and I hit the ATM
and got some Soles. When we got our tickets, they were for a different
bus company. That's when we found out that Ormeño "doesn't go to
Chile." Nice. When we got on the bus, it was about 100 degrees. We
talked to the guy about it and we were told "we don't have air
conditioning" and "the windows don't open." It was a long night. I was
awake for pretty much the entire night. The smell of indigenous foot
cheese was unbearable. I tried tucking my nose in my shirt, putting my
pillow over my face and chewing "Menta Intensa" tic tacs, but nothing
helped. I almost stuck a tic tac up each nostril, but I thought that
might be going too far.

We arrived at a town close to the Chilean border where we got off the
bus and that's where we found out we had to take a taxi to another bus
terminal. We took 2 taxis with the other Americans we had met in Peru.
We were actually kind of embarrassed when our taxi filled with 5 men
pulled up to the second terminal blasting Justin Bieber. We don't pick
the music.

We arrived at terminal 2, but instead of a bus, Ormeño had setup for
us to actually finish the journey in a taxi. First class all the way.
Well, when I say us, I mean the 4 of us and a random Peruvian woman
carrying insane amounts of toilet paper and Inca Cola. 6 of us in a
1990s Crown Vic with all of our stuff. It's a beautiful thing.

The awesome news is that we are in Chile and it looks great. We almost
cried when we saw a billboard for a McDonald's. We haven't actually
seen said McD's, but it gives us hope that Chile's going to be a
magical place.