Tween Travels

Well, the food was great, the people were pretty friendly, but everyone got sick.

We got to Peru by walking across the border from Bolivia, then we got a big van type vehicle to a city called Puno. John told us that there were lots of buses all day going from Puno to Cusco. WRONG! We had missed the last bus by an hour so we got trapped in Puno for a night. Then William got sick that night so we ended up stuck in Puno for two nights.

When we finally got our 7 hour bus ride to Cusco, we met a lovely family who were taking a 6 month trip around South America. Their children were the same age as us! They were the first tourist family we had seen for a while.

In Cusco my mom had booked us into a hostel. When we arrived, a woman with her child greeted us, told us the wifi information and then took us to our room. When I stepped in, I took a look around and wondered, “Where is the bathroom?” I could tell my mom was thinking the same thing. Then the woman took us down the hall and showed us a tiny bathroom which she said was our private bathroom to use.

We went out that night and explored the town. There were beautiful buildings but so many tourists including lots of ridiculous American women wearing expensive fake indigenous outfits.

When we went back to the hostel our room reeked so bad – it literally smelt like a sewer. The woman told us that it must have been the bed which was new and that she didn’t have any other rooms available. We decided to book into a different place which was much nicer. We only stayed one night because we decided to rent a car and drive through the Sacred Valley for the next 3 nights.

We were supposed to pick up the rental car at 10 am but they told us it wouldn’t be ready until 2 pm. Sadly this meant we had to go to four museums to kill time/to kill me. It was the worst day.

Driving in Peru was a nightmare. The first night we drove to a town where we were staying the night. Google maps sent us down a tiny gravel road then we got onto a cobbled road where mom said to park. But dad kept on going and we ended up on a road with market stalls and a big ditch down the middle. Once people started flapping their arms telling us to stop, my dad started reversing up the hill, almost taking out a lady with a baby llama. After going down more cobbled roads and having to reverse again, we ended up parking in the same spot my mom said to park at in the first place.

We saw amazing ruins which were really impressive but to be honest they all started to look the same. We decided not to go to Machu Pichu because of the crowds and expense. It was a good thing because the day we could have gone, my mom and dad got really sick from food poisoning.

When we finished our trip around the Sacred Valley, we drove back to Cusco and returned the car. We went straight to the airport to go to our final destination: Lima, the capital city! Civilization has come! We haven’t actually been to a proper city since Argentina. This might sound crazy but there hasn’t been a real supermarket or mall since then.

Lima had great ceviche, a beautiful coast, and lovely parks. We stayed in a nice Airbnb and we had a lovely stay.  But I wasn’t feeling that well while we were there and when we went to a really nice restaurant I literally ate nothing. As some of you know, I absolutely love my food. So I was so sad to miss out on what everyone else said was “the best food of this trip!”

I liked Peru, but we had to move on to meet our surprise guest who will be joining us for our 3 weeks in Ecuador.

Miss you all, love yall, we’ll be home so soon, can’t wait!

🩷Madeleine