Viva el Peru!

Happy New Year y'all.

Probably you are thinking this wish comes 5 days too late and it doesn't matter anymore. Sorry ;) I was caught up with school and all the things around it.

OK, I'm not here to write bout school just yet. More like I want to tell you about my trip to Peru. If I can summarize the trip in one word, I would. But, obviously I can't. If you see to your left, it says Peru is one of the countries I want to visit and I sure glad I made this decision (a costly one too). I was interested to visit Peru when I watched a travel documentary about it on a flight from KL - NY. Then when I was at SIFT, Harun "stole" a very colourful glove from Meghan, she said "No Harun, you can't have it because Debbie bought me that Alpaca gloves from Peru" (Harun, do you remember this???). Then another friend, also Megan (LOL just different spelling) went to Peru last summer and spent 1 month there; just by looking at her photos, I got jealous!. At that instance I know I have to go to Peru. Luckily, Mbn had the same idea as well and the next thing you know, I just closed my eyes and press "BUY" to that $1400 ticket to Peru. I could get somewhat get the same price for a ticket to Malaysia, fyi. At that point, I was so determined not to feel "I'm broke". (Mainly cause I just spent somewhat the same amount for my Macbook Pro and I didn't get the money back just yet). Huh. So, we managed to get another person to join, Abu Zar. I don't know him at all. LOL. I take it from Mbn, he is nice, kind bla bla bla (which he is, btw)

tres amigos!

That's us on the first day.

Although I paid a lot for my plane ticket, it wasn't the best route ever! Toronto-Chicago-LA-Lima. And the connection time between those transits are about 51 - 90 minutes; thus, my bag was delayed along the way! GRRR! I had to borrow Zar's shirt yang besar giler. Mbn cakap: haaa, macam ni laa baru travel, trying to compliment my baju besar. In my heart I can only say WTF! LOL. Seriously, it wasn't that big pon, (I exaggerated, sorry!) since Zar suke pakai baju ketat2 hahaha.

My bag arrived just in time before the Inca Trail. They had it sent straight to our hostel in Cusco.

Oh, a lil info for you, Cusco is located in the mountains above 3000m elevation. So, some of you might suffer from altitude sickness. Lucky enough I didn't get any. If you do, Coca Tea is for you :) You can also chew the leaves, but I didn't try it. The leaves are miracle, if I can put it that way. You chew them and pooh! you are no longer hungry, thirsty or anything of that sort. We drank the tea in the morning and ate only once a day, and guess what? I don't feel hungry at all. Humfff!

Coca leaves + hot water = Coca Tea

Coca leaves are the main ingredient to make cocaine. LOL.

I was a vegetarian during this trip so I can't comment much on the food. If you are a carnivore (hehe), then you should try the alpaca meat and guinea pig. Those two are the pride of the Andeans, especially guinea pig (cuy in spanish). As much as I am curious about the taste, I didn't dare to eat them. LOL. The veggies: mostly potatoes, corn and beans, at least that's what I had most of the time. The corn has bigger kernels than your average corn seen in North America (or even in Malaysia) supermarket. And they taste OK. I love corn, but this is not so much my type of corn. Potatoes? Tons of different kinds! I'd say some are like the ones you have in Malaysia - cassava (ubi kayu), sweet potato (keledek) and the regular potato. They all taste the same. Oh, cheese. They taste different for sure. I like it in my lasagna :)

Cusco:

- We spend 3 days here. 2 days before the trail and 1 day after. Most of the places we went were around the main plaza, mainly 'cause all the "tourist's must see" are here. I regret we didn't go to downtown. I bet I'll see more things there.

- The town is very heavily based on tourism, you'll see everything to cater for tourist i.e travel agencies, restaurants, McD, hotel/hostel, The North Face boutique (oh my!) etc. They even have "Tourist Lunch Package" something like that. Nevertheless, things are cheap in Cusco. I bought a sling bag (a cute, red bag) for only s/10 (about $3). Scarf and gloves, both handmade from alpaca fur, for s/23. Well, sometimes you can bargain for a cheaper price. I wasn't good at bargaining at all, and now I'm somewhat comfortable to ask for a lower price ;) And if you ever go to Peru and want to buy souvenirs, get all your stuff in Cusco or Puno! Cause Lima doesn't have as much variety as Cusco :(

Some photos around Cusco:

The Cathedral. We went in. Ticket is s/12.50 (estudente price).

We can't take photos, but rest assured it is really really pretty in there.

The university, I think.

The view from the Main Square

Papa a la Huancaina. The typical Peruvian dish.

Potato with spicy sauce (taste like kuah kacang) topped with a hard boiled egg.

Shopping time. Since I love bright colours, most of the things in Peru really caught my eyes!

Kids playing around :)

An old Peruvian lady dressed in her traditional clothes.

Mbn plak blocked, well this is the only photo I have of her.

OK, this is Part One of my story.

I don't know how many "parts" I will have, but maybe the next part will be shorter and will sound less like a travel agent!

Oh, I bet you know by now about my old letter. I will comment on that later when the time comes. But what's even better is I wrote another letter for me to read in 10 years. This time it's a lil different cause Zar and Mubeen are involved as well (including their conversation!) So, they specifically asked me to call them in 10 yrs time. And so time will tell where we will be in 10 years.

(I feel like terlalu semangat plak dgn mende alah nihhhh. sebenarnye, mmg agak semangat heh)

Gotta go back to work booooo!!!

Ciao

....tak proofread pon nihh