Last Week in Cusco

          Eggs and bread for breakfast. Everyday. With only one full day left in Cusco, I take the time to reflect back on this final week of the trip. I was able to go to a restaurant named Trujillo which served Creole Peruvian cuisine and ordered an avocado filled with veggies, bistec a lo pobre which came with fries, bananas, steak, rice, and a fried egg (definitely an interesting combination), and lemonade. I had an interesting conversation with a Polish Canadian who had seemingly travelled all over the world and kept nice company during the meal.
         After a bus ride to Ollantaytambo, I enjoyed some delicious banana pancakes after our hike up the mountain. Ollantaytambo had incredible ruins and views from the stairs. We then took a train to Machu Picchu, and I enjoyed a nice cafe con leche at the station. At our new hotel in Aguas Calientes, the water pressure in the showers was the best it had been the entire trip (and maybe of my life.)
         We woke up at 430 the next morning to wait in the long bus line for Machu Picchu, after a nice continental breakfast that included pancakes a couple doors down from our hotel. We took an "arduous" 2 hour hike to La Puente del Sol and enjoyed a spectacular view of Machu Picchu from a higher vantage point. After taking the bus back to Aguas Calientes, we departed on a 4 hour train ride back to Cusco and returned to Casa Elena for a third time.
          Having Machu Picchu as the last stop on the trip is certainly a strategic ploy, as none of the other ruins quite live up to it. Having taken a trip to the pyramid of Chichen Itza over New Years' with my family and now having been to Machu Picchu, I've now been to two of the seven modern Wonders of the World in the past five months. At this rate, I'm on pace to finish all of them in 17.5 months! In all seriousness though, it has been a good trip, and I'm better off having checked South America off of my list.