PISAC and LAST DAY In CUSCO

SO after resting up from an amazing Machu Picchu day, the next morning we took our 5:30 AM train from Aguas Calientes (town outside Machu Picchu) to Ollantabamba and then took a taxi from there to Urubumba and then a local bus from Urubumba to Pisac for only 3 soles (it was nice, though perhaps not the cleanest, to take a local bus with native peruvians!).  Pisac is known for its Arts and Crafts market which we got to see and also for this Incan ruin, another sacred place like Sacsayhuaman and Koricancha.  We started off in the market which was really nice. We met a few native women and discussed birth with them, a bit of research for my cousin! I bought a change purse and then we headed off to the actual ruin of Pisac! We again, had to barter a deal to let me in on a cheaper ticket as a foreigner (thank goodness for Andrea!) Well the ruins were no Machu Picchu but still quite beautiful and nice to see.  BUT, although I always wear my camera strap around my neck, when I passed my camera to Andrea to take a picture of me on the top of this ruin it somehow fell.  The lens separated from the body and the plastic part popped off.  Well anyways I was crying for like a good 30 minutes (I was kind of in shock that it had happened) but Andrea collected all the pieces (only 3) and we put them in my camera bag.  So I composed myself after this incident, especially since after walking out of the ruins we were greeted by people who don’t make as much as my camera costs in 5 years. I realized that we should really be SO grateful for everything we have: at least we don’t worry about going to bed hungry, or the next time we are going to shower, or do laundry, or live under a tin roof with plastic covering windows in the winter.  So yeah, although I am really upset this happened, our lives could be so much worse and I walked out of the situation very grateful!

After Pisac we needed to get back to Cusco (also I was still pretty glum!) As I mentioned, Cusco (the original Inca capital) was our home base for hostels, food, and all that.  Cusco is a little over an hour plane ride (357 miles) which is the plane ride we took on that Wednesday morning.  What happened was the airlines that we were on (Peruvian Airlines) got shut down by the Peruvian government on Thursday (they had some infarctions or something/they weren’t following regulations) leaving about 3,000 passengers without flights!  SO over the course of the day on Friday and Saturday morning we were making phone calls trying to transfer our flight to another airline.  Finally on Saturday we went straight to the airport after coming back from Machu Picchu, talked to the people at the counter, and luckily (!) after an hour got two spots on a plane leaving right then for Lima! We RAN through security and to the gate in like 5 minutes, it was the fastest security check ive been to!  We made it back to Lima around 5pm and are here safe and sound, even after that scare that we didn’t have a flight back!