I grew up knowing America as “the land of opportunity”, a place where anything is possible if we just dream, try and believe. While I am at a natural advantage for achieving success with a supportive family, ambitious nature and love for learning, I did not understand how much truly is available to us until I visited Peru.

While the increased tourism and exporting of goods has helped boost Peru’s economy, even the country’s nicer areas do not have the services that the poorest areas in America have. As tourists, we had to be cautious of simple routines like rinsing our toothbrushes under faucets to avoid potential illness from unfamiliar water. In some areas, though, locals live their whole lives without any running water at all.

Our final days in Peru came quickly, but we spent them gratefully in the country’s two largest cities. After returning from Colca Canyon, we spent time exploring Arequipa, which gets its nickname “La Ciudad Blanca”, or “The White City”, from the buildings made of white volcanic rock called sillar. The city is more financially independent than many others in Peru due to industries like mining, cement and agriculture.

Arequipa’s Plaza de Armas was one of my favorite city centers we visited. Pigeons and palm trees filled the square, which is enclosed by three sides of long, colonial-style buildings that held cafes and restaurants, and a beautiful twin-towered cathedral on the fourth side that serves as the plaza’s main focus.

Within two hours of returning to Puno from our two-day trip around Lake Titicaca, we took a six-hour bus ride to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. To welcome me back to the bathrooms of the mainland was the Puno bus station, a “Toilet” I will happily never visit again.

The bus station itself is dirty and the food was bad enough for Eric and I to settle for cheese and avocado sandwiches with pringles and chocolate candybars for the bus ride. Worst of all though were the bathrooms, which cost 0.50 Soles to use. I would expect this for a public bathroom
in Peru, but it instantly annoyed me that I was a paying customer of the bus station and had to pay to use the toilet. After I paid, the woman handed me one single piece of ¨toilet paper¨, which looked more like a small, thin American napkin.

On Sunday, we hopped a tour bus service called Inka Express that drove us nine hours along the countryside between Cusco and Puno. Along the way, we saw some ruins from other small Incan cities, chatted with three fellow travelers from Hong Kong and Australia over a buffet lunch , and toured around a small museum, Jesuit church.

We spent the evening relaxing over a nice dinner in Puno, then began our two-day journey around Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world and, by volume, the largest lake in South America.

We are halfway through our trip to Peru. There is so much I have learned and observed about the Peruvian culture that those reflections alone deserve to be highlighted in their own post.

Bathrooms
The plumbing in all of Peru is weak, so Peruvians do not flush toilet paper, no matter what that toilet paper is used for. Every bathroom has a small trash can next to each toilet to deposit the toilet paper in. This took a little getting used to and, while I have grown more accustomed to it, there have been several “oops” occasions when I have accidentally dropped the toilet paper into the toilet, or my nested paper escapes into the bowl too quickly for me to catch it.

On Wednesday morning, we took a 35-minute flight from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, a small town on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Our journey kicked off to a fate-based start while waiting in our shuttle for the rest of the tour group to arrive. Eric and I waited with two other couples around our age and, as it turned out, we were all from the United States.

After a 25 minute bus ride, a near-four hour train ride and another 25 minute bus ride, we made it from Cusco to Machu Picchu. We spent the past two days exploring the ruins of the old Inca city, which many now consider to be one of the seven wonders of the world.

It took the Incas about 80 to 100 years to build Machu Picchu. They started building the city around 1450, then abandoned it in the 1500s, for fear that the Spanish would take it over like they did so many other Peruvian cities at the time. The Incas left Machu Picchu unfinished – as evidence shows in many of the unsmoothed rocks that make up the city structures – and trekked to the other side of a nearby mountain with their artifacts, mummies and other valuables. Unfortunately, the Spanish found them in their new living place and conquered them there. The Spanish never found Machu Picchu and, until it was refounded in the early 1900s, the entire city was completely overtaken by jungle.

Yesterday, we spent the day exploring Cusco, the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America. The city´s elevation is about 11,000 feet above sea level and, for those of you who are familiar, Breckenridge, Colorado´s base elevation sits at about 9,600. Cusco´s city layout was designed in the shape of a Puma, so nearly every road includes a walk up or downhill. We definitely felt the thin air while walking, and had to stop several times to catch our breaths.

Two days, four cities and two countries later, we made it to Cusco. We arrived in Lima last night around 11:00, spent the night at a hotel, then headed back to the airport for a quick one-hour flight to Cusco this morning.

With the exception of getting ripped off by a cab driver from the Cusco airport to our hostel – something we were cautioned about several times and still managed to get sucked into – our trip has been smooth so far.

My boyfriend, Eric, and I are heading to Peru, South America for the next two weeks to travel around the southern part of the country. Below is our travel route, which begins and ends in Lima, Peru’s capital city. Stay tuned for posts along the way!

Cities/Attractions Within Our Route:

• Lima
• Cuzco/Machu Picchu
• Puerto Maldonado/Amazon rainforest
• Puno/Lake Titicaca
• Arequipa/Colca Canyon/Chivay

On Friday, I visited the travel doctor to get my yellow fever vaccine for Peru. While I thought the appointment would be a quick jab of the shot and I would be on my way, the doctor sat me down and ran through everything I need to be aware of being leaving for the two-week excursion. Below is what I learned:

1. Apply sunscreen 30 minutes before being exposed to the sun, because it takes that long to start taking effect (this is why people still get burned when they put the sunscreen on while already in the sun. Who knew?)
2. Buy bug spray with at least 30 DEET and apply every four hours.