MY trip

[downwithpants]

a guard house sits at the top of the terraces


part of the incan plumbing system, to irrigate water from the mountain through the city.


a room where tombs where buried. a stone with 3 steps carved into it represents the 3 stages of life and afterlife - the earth, the heavens, and the underworld. but instead of going to heaven or hell after you die, you reincarnate into the following stage sequentially and it cycles. (so earth, heaven, underworld, earth, heaven, underworld, etc.)


more perfectly fitted stones


more examples of trapezoids in incan architecture

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part of a stone quarry in machu picchu


the ladies taking a break

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one of my favorite pics. a husband and wife enjoy the view. you can't see from this resolution, but they are also sharing earbuds.

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AND NOW TIME FOR TEH LLAMAS!


BABY LLAMA


HAI GUYS

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THE OLD MAN IS TRY TOUCH MY BUTT


MAMA IM SCURRED









...to be continued

[downwithpants]

after machu picchu, we took a short bus ride down to the near town of Aguas Calientes. as suggested by the name, there are hot springs there, but i didn't visit them because i'd have been rushed if i did. i had a lunch with a few others from the group and nancy the tour guide. after lunch mommy and me toured a bit of the town. and i got ice cweam.


so we were scheduled for 5:15 train ride from aguas calientes to ollantaytambo that evening. upon arriving at the boarding area at 4:45, we saw waves of passengers and train staff running the other way. in the middle of the confusion we were told to get to higher ground... then to go chase our train, which had left the station.

there was a landslide on a nearby mountain. the train station decided to evacuate the station and move the trains out on to the track away from the station, because in previous years, landslides have slid to the tracks and blocked the trains in the train station. so for the next hour we were lugging our luggage (i guess that's why it's called that) for probably a bit over a mile, looking for our train, getting on the wrong one, walking some more and finally finding it. (sorry no pics at the moment, one of the other group members might have a pic).

anyways, we finally got back to ollantaytambo, took a bus to cusco, and slept there for the night. i noticed an interesting sign by our door:

peru gets a good amount of earthquakes, but i suppose i felt all the more secure with that sign.

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APRIL 26
we flew from cusco to lima (the capital) in the morning. we headed out on a city tour in the afternoon. here, we stopped at a plaza (they have lots of those in peru, wish we had more in the states too.) in front of the residence of the Peruvian president (i.e. their white house, not pictured directly below, you'll see it soon).


a cathedral at the plaza. they had lots of pretty cathedrals.

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a walking mall, one of the nicer places in the city.


here's the peruvian "white house"




there were two assault tanks in front of the gates to the white house, one on each side. they were there for "in case of emergency." ironically, the guard in the truck isn't just looking down, he's asleep -.-

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a franciscan cathedral we visited. photography wasn't allowed inside the cathedral, but they had some impressive frescos, a funny version of "the last supper" featuring a guinea pig as the main course, and they also took us into the catacombs, where we saw a shit load of skulls and femurs (they threw away the other bones i guess).






that night we had our first sit-down dinner in 4 days (though we were way underdressed). the restaurant was pretty fancy- it was built on a dock protruding out into the ocean. i had duck that was realllllll good.