Only 18 days until our next big adventure. First we’re stopping in Florida for a few days to visit my wife’s father and stepmother, and then it’s off to Peru. Although you often hear Machu Picchu called a “lifelong dream” by many people (and it certainly is one of mine), we hope to see much more than Machu Picchu. I’m looking forward to visiting the Sacred Valley and staying a couple of nights in Ollantaytambo. Just the name alone is exotic and mysterious. Ollantaytambo (double L is pronounced like a y). We’ll also be in Cusco (or Cuzco) for a couple of nights, and of course Aguas Calientes, where we’ll stay while we visit Machu Picchu. We’re excited.
I’ve done all my homework. We have plane tickets (frequent flyer miles again), passports, hotel reservations and train reservations. There are still a couple of things to do. We haven’t gotten our Peruvian Sol yet (money) but still have plenty of time. We have our medicine for altitude sickness - we start taking it a couple of days before and taper off it a couple of days after arriving. Packing will be difficult. Warm days, cool (even cold) nights, maybe rain. Lots of uneven paths, streets, walkways to challenge our footwear. Since we’ve been doing a lot of foreign travel this year, we’re all caught up on all of our shots.
Our main concern is altitude sickness, but we’re trying to plan for it. From what I read, there’s no way to predict how you’ll react. Some people get it worse than others and it doesn’t seem to matter if you’re fit or healthy or young or whatever. Our plan is, of course the medicine, but also to immediately go to a lower elevation. Cusco is at about 11,000 feet (3400 meters). That’s high. Denver, the mile high city, is less than half that. Altitude sickness usually starts around 8,000 feet. So we’re going to the Sacred Valley as soon as we get there. Ollantaytambo is just over 9,000 feet (2,800 meters). So the immediate drop of 2,000 feet should help. Plus that puts us much closer to the 8,000 feet where altitude sickness usually begins.
Once we’re in Ollantaytambo, we’ll take it easy and drink lots of maté tea, which is what the locals say is the best thing for altitude sickness. We’ll lay off heavy meals and alcohol and try to take it easy. That may be hard to do when everything is up and down steep hills, but we’ll hire a driver to take us to all the sites in the Sacred Valley and we’ll just take our time. Chill. We should be okay. As I said, altitude sickness is really our only concern. Not so much fear of dying or anything (although in extreme cases it can kill), but more in ruining portions of the trip for whoever has it. Symptoms are headache, lethargy, nausea, etc. We usually get a little travelers stomach wherever we go (even in our own country) just from being off our regular diet and schedule. So… we’re trying to plan ahead.
Something we’re not looking forward to, although it’s not a concern, is the long trip. It will take us about 3 hours to get to the Miami airport. We leave Miami at 11:30 pm for a 6 hour flight, which isn’t too bad (not counting the couple of hours early that we have to be in Miami airport). And after a two hour layover, we leave Lima for Cusco at 6 am, for an hour and a half flight. Also no problem. Then a cab into Cusco, where we have to pay for our reserved train tickets to Machu Picchu (they have to be paid at least a day in advance), followed by a bus to Ollantaytambo. That’s about 16 or 17 hours door to door, ending at a very high elevation. Think we’ll be tired? I do, too. And that’s just if everything goes well.
On the way home, the worst part will be the five and a half hour layover in Lima. Too short to do anything, too long to be comfortable. The trip home, providing everything goes as scheduled, should be about 21 hours door to door. The worst part about traveling is the traveling. Beam me up Scotty.
Tags: Cusco · Learn Spanish · Learning Spanish · Lima · Machu Picchu · Ollantaytambo · Peru · Sacred Valley · speak Spanish · Travel SpanishNo Comments
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