To Peru and back

After Lake Titicaca I headed over to Peru with the amazing Cuykendall sister and my time there was full of ups and downs. It started on a relatively bad note. We tried to buy a bus ticket from Copacabana Bolivia directly to Cuzco Peru, but when we showed up in the morning there was no bus. The woman at the agency claimed that it was full from La Paz and therefore did not come, simply not true. In the end we made our way to Cuzco because of kind hearted Peruvians which was amazing. But it was the first real scam that I have run into so it hit me kind of hard. Situations like that make me think why people want to treat eachother badly. I understand the annoyance that can come with tourism but we are just trying to better understand their culture and see their natural beauties. But in the end I got over and loved the town of Cuzco. The spanish influence can be seen everywhere. It is full of old churches and a lot of colonial architecture. We also stayed at an amazing hostal called Marlins Travels, stay there if you find yourself in Cuzco in the near future. We decided to sign up for a 5 day trek that ended at Machu Picchu. We headed out on the first day and it was totally amazing. It was physically difficult but in a really good way. Then about half and hour before lunch I got this really strange pain in my back, it hurt whenever I inhaled or exhaled. It was really weird because I had been doing harder higher climbing the last couple of weeks. In the end I decided to head back to Cuzco instead of continuing with the trek. It was one of the hardest decisions I have made in a long time but if I had stayed I think I would have been miserable. Then my cab driver back to Cuzo spent the four hour car ride trying to convince me to go out with him and friends, ahhh sleezy men really bother me sometimes. Back in Cuzco I met a bunch of wonderful Spaniards and spent a lot of time with them. I also went on a day long trip through the sacred valley. It was really beautiful and I learned a lot about the Inca culture. They were really smart and creative people that built amazing structures high in the mountains. Also throughout that day I was adopted by a family from Lima and it was really fun, I might go and visit them at the end of the month. Finally I went up to Aguas Calientes to meet up with my hiking group and to see Machu Picchu. Of course there were complications meeting up with them because I was told the wrong hostal ect. ect. The bottom line is that nothing is easy in South America but it always seems to work out. The day that I spent at Machu Picchu made up for any inconvience or back pain that I may have experienced. It was recently named of the seven wonders of the world and I can see why. It is hard to express its beauty but it is this huge complex of amazing ruins on the top of a mountain in the middle of the jungle. That is really all I can say. We spent the day wandering around and thanks to Lauren taking in every inch of its beauty. I am going to try and get pictures up as soon as I am in a place with a little bit faster internet. So that was my experience in Peru in a nutshell. Now I am back in Bolivia for a couple of weeks starting my work for the Democracy Center and then we will see where the wind takes me. Miss you all more than you know and hope that everyone´s summer is wrapping up nicely.