A long time ago, I had a dream that one day I want to “clime” to Machu
Picchu. Not just to go and see the Machu Picchu, but walk my way there, like
Incas did in the past. Last week my dream came true.
Once again I have to say that I’m very lucky person to be able to fulfill
my dreams. As you have seen to fulfill my dreams is not just easy, but for sure
it’s worth it. We all need to make “sacrifices” in life, because we can’t have
all what we want, but most of us, the ones living in the western world, we have
a choice. Most of the people here don’t have a choice, no matter how much they
would like to study or travel, but they may never earn enough money to do so,
even to be able to study, because they earn enough only to cover their basic
needs.
I'm lucky because I was able to choose my education, to become teacher who
could be able to teach almost anywhere in the world in order to live my life
like this. Of course, I’ve been lucky to be borne in Finland to be able to make
this choice, to have free education and even get money from the government
while studying. Also I have been able to work as a teacher in Finland to earn
and save money to do this trip and share my time to be able to help other people.
But to be able to do this I do have a loan, I don’t have a home, I fit my life
into few boxes and I don’t know when I will have another job, but it is my
choice. Yet, life for me is not just easy, because for example living in Lima
is very difficult for me, more difficult than I thought it would be. I don’t
connect with this city and continuous grayness, lack of sun (after a long and
dark winter in Finland) puts me down. Therefore to have a well-earned holiday
to see the beauty of Peru was amazing for me and I feel very privileged and
lucky to be able to have done it.
Here is a map of Peru, so that you can follow my trip.
Lima-Ica-Nazca, Cusco and finally Machu Picchu.
I
travelled together with Julia, a German girl, who did her internship in La casa
de Panchita for two months. She wanted to see more than just Cusco and Machu Picchu and was not keen on travelling by herself so I decided to join her for the whole trip.
Ica &
Huacachina
We started
our journey by bus 6.30 am in the morning and not being able to sleep the night
before I immediately passed out in the bus. When I woke up and looked out from the
window I was not sure whether I was still dreaming, because we’re in the desert
and for a second I thought I was in Egypt.
First we
travelled to Ica, which is well known to many travelers in due to its oasis
that is situated between enormous sand dunes. It is about 4, 5 hours south from Lima. We didn’t actually stay in
Ica, because we went directly to Huacachina, the oasis which attracts many
tourists, also us, as well as Peru's rich families, due to the variety of
adventurous sand activities that are available, such as sand-boarding and sand
tours on special sand buggies. Julia had never been to desert before and I had
never done sand-boarding or buggy tours so it was a win-win situation for both
of us.
Amount of tourism (even if it’s not a high season) hit me, because you
don’t see that many in Lima. But it was
so nice to have Sun and chill out by the pool, take walk around the oasis and
then the buggy tour. Of course a immediately I started feeling bad when I sat
in that vehicle, how much harm they actually cause for the environment, so that
we can just come here and have some fun. Worse was to see how much garbage
there was in the desert, plastic bottles etc. what is wrong with people??? We
don’t through the stuff on the ground in our countries either, so why would you
do it here? Are people waiting for someone to come and clean after themselves
in the desert??? I was screaming in my mind and also said it out loud to Julia.
Ok, calm down and once try to enjoy this I told myself.
Desert is huge, it
continues about 65 kilometers according to our driver, who made sure we enjoyed
our tour (among tens of other vehicles) but it is huge as I said, so we had space. We had our
personal roller coaster in the desert,
Nazca
Next
morning we headed our way to Nazca. They took us to the bus station very early in
the morning and of course the bus was late 1, 5 hours so in the end we sat at
the station for more than 2, 5 hours. Well at least we had time to write a diary.
A way from Ica to Nazca was interesting. First it was desert and straight for a
long time and then suddenly there was like an edge and we started going down
and we’re surrounded by hills, it felt very unreal for me. I was like WHAT???
and had to wake up Julia, who was asleep.
When we
arrived to the bus station after 2, 5 hours we’re taken to a van, which took us
straight to the airport. It was very small and interesting airport and when I
saw the plain I thought, ok, well another first
time in my life experience for me to be on a small airplane at the same time
remembering the warnings of my Spanish teacher how dangerous it is to fly with
those small planes and my classmates who agreed. I couldn’t admit them that I had
already booked the flight. But you all know I’m writing this so I must be a
live and nothing bad happened!
The only thing no one told us is that you feel
so SICK after the 30 minutes flight because in order to see the pictures the
flight turns pretty much 180 degrees and then to another side! In the end I was
just waiting to get back and I was not able to take any photos because I was
feeling rather sick. It took us pretty much 3hours to recover from it and we’re
not the only ones, everyone seemed to feel pretty bad after the flight. But it was
worth it, Nazca lines are amazing piece of history, which still remains today. To
know more you can have a look at this short documentary about it. Nazca lines
Nazca city
itself is very small and we had nothing to do there, just waited our bus was to
leave in the evening. We walk around, saw the market, we ate and had a nap in
the park on the bench until police woke us up, because we’re not allowed to
sleep in the park. Rest of the evening we hang around in the backyard of one
hotel, which was very relaxing.
We had overnight bus to Cusco in a VIP class. I have to say busses here are REALLY GOOD (I mean when you choose a long distance bus) better than airplanes, especially when you have VIP seat, you can sleep pretty well, you get something to eat, blanket, pillow, you have your personal TV, where you can watch films, play games, listen music etc. and you can even use internet (however it has never work when I’ve been in the bus). Yet, the only problem is going to the toilet. We had our seats upstairs and the bus was moving a lot to side to side and especially when you go on a mountain road going to the toilet was not easy. Second thing is that you’re not allowed to take a shit, liquids only it says in the toilet and they do tell us that from the start too. Our bus ride was around 15 hours, so I did manage without taking a shit, but I was wondering what would happen if a person for example has a diarrhea or simply needs to take a shit. What would they do you do??? Maybe I’ll ask next time.
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