Llevese Senorita

One of the great perks of volunteering in Peru's Sacred Valley is taking unbelievable weekend trips. I've visited Lake Titicaca, checked out the man-made floating islands of the Uros and stayed overnight with a family on the Isla Amantani who dressed me up in traditional Peruvian clothing. I've flown over the Nasca lines, toured the Islas Ballestas (aka the poor man's Galapagos) and sandboarded in Huacachina. I've spent a day exploring Cusco, the longest continuously-inhabited city in the New World.

This past weekend, Melissa and I finally made it to Peru's best known attraction: Machu Picchu. Sure, getting there is no small feat. We took a collective taxi - a minibus with twelve seats but carrying twenty-one passengers - from Urubamba to Ollantaytambo where we caught a train to Aguas Calientes. We spent the "night" in Aguas Calientes, waking up at 3 am to line up for the buses up to Machu Picchu. (Only the first 400 people get to climb the adjacent mountain, Wayna Picchu, which has unbelievable views of the ruins and the valley surrounding them.)

Machu Picchu is unbelievable and I really couldn't believe I was there, but I was happy to return to Urubamba on Sunday. For one thing, a bottle of water in Urubamba only costs S/1.00, but in Aguas Calientes you could expect to pay S/3.00, at the ruins themselves you'd pay S/5.00. But it's not just the insane tourist prices that make me appreciate Urubamba. In Urubamba, I'm not viewed as a tourist, but just as an extrangero (foreigner). I like being able to walk through streets and markets without a barrage of "Llevese Senorita, llevese," essentially "take it, take it" whenever I stop to examine something.

Urubamba - like much of Peru - is dependent on tourism, but it doesn't exploit its tourists the way other, better known, cities do. It's a nice place to come home to after a weekend of traveling.