This week I made my way to Cusco. My last night in Puno, I met an Argentinian girl named Victoria and we hit it off. She was heading to Cusco as well so we decided to team up.

Inca Jungle Tour

We booked the 4-day Inca Jungle Tour to Machu Picchu, replete with adventures in biking! hiking! partying! zip lining! and history!

Day 1: Downhill Biking

Our first day kicked off with a 3 hour downhill biking tour. We weren't allowed to bring our phones because apparently a bunch of people have crashed trying to take pictures. Whoops.

Anyways, here is a picture of us suited up in protective armor.

Check out that beautiful view of the valley

Day 2: Inca Trail and Snake Tequila

Our 8-hour hike took us from Santa Maria along the Urubamba River all the way to the thermal baths of Santa Teresa. Along the way, we walked part of the Inca trail and learned about the history of the Chasquis, the Incan messengers that used to run these ancient routes. Today’s world record for the 40-mile Salkantay Trail is just 6 hours and 13 minutes! The official Salkantay tour takes 5 days.

We also stopped at a small house along the trail to learn about Incan agriculture, hand grind some coffee, and drink snake flavored "Incan Tequila". It... tastes like rotting snake.

Yup. That's a snake

Roasting Coffee

Hand Ground

We finally arrived at the thermal baths and they were perfect. They had cold waterfalls to cool off after the hike, and hot waterfalls to warm back up and feel clean. Surprisingly, even though these baths are heated by volcanic activity, they do not have any of the sulfur smell you get in Yellowstone or Iceland. I would highly recommend this place. It's just 10 soles.

Post baths, we made our way to our Hostel, got settled, and then kicked off our dinner party. The definite highlight of dinner was taking tequila shots out of X-rated Incan fertility statues. Modesty is not part of this culture.

Day 3: Zip Lining

Damn I was hungover. Those Incan tequila shots really got me. I went ziplining for the first time which was super fun! But I didn't bring my camera so you'll just have to use your imagination. On the last zip of 4, they let us go upsidedown which was super cool.

Afterwords, we started our 3 hour walk along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes. This was pretty boring but I got some cool pictures!

Day 4: MACHU PICCHU

We started our hike in the dark at 4:30am. The bridge doesn’t open until 5 so we had to wait in line to cross the river and start the Machu Picchu ascent. Past the bridge begins the hour long ascent up the stairs to the entrance. Was tough for a lot of people, but compared to the Gran Vilaya trek in Chachapoyas it was no big deal.

We started with a guided explanation of the history of Machu Picchu but our guide's English was pretty bad. I did learn that Machu Picchu wasn't meant to be a real city. It was a royal vacation home and an education/religious studies center for the elites of the Incan society.

We then hiked up to Intipunku: The Sun Gate which has a great view of the entire city... except when it's cloudy.

Gorgeous View eh?

When we returned to Machu Picchu the place was SWARMED with tourists. Apparently, in the low season, 4000 people visit per day. In the high season that jumps to 8000! I know I'm a tourist, but tourists are awful. There were tons of bottlenecks we had to wait for because someone needed the perfect selfie.

The only selfie you really need

Unrestored Ruins

Spanish

I had a really hard time understanding Victoria. The Argentinian accent drops "s" sounds, and turns "ll" and "y" into "sh" sounds. Plus they have some different words like “vos” and “sos”. I felt like I could understand at first, but as we started talking about more interesting things I got completely lost. At some point she started making fun of me, which, of course, makes me even more determined. I'm going to spend this week doing serious immersion, particularly in the Argentinian accent using Podcasts from Posta.fm (an Argentinian podcasting company) and Millennials (a Netflix show from Buenos Aires).

Meditation

I had two revelations this week that change the way I think about meditation. You can read more here.

I also managed to get my streak up to 15 days despite moving around every day. Unfortunately, my first day back to Cusco I fucked up and broke my streak. Oh well.

Anyways, that's all I got for you folks this week. Thanks for reading and see you next week!