1 week until Peru!!!

Alright, more like 1 week and 1 day, but a week from today I will be taking a flight from Houston to Atlanta, hopefully find some delicious lunch in Atlanta, and then fly to Miami with Ryan, where we will catch an overnight flight to Peru.

Why the extra stopover in Atlanta? Money. We were able to get an amazing deal on roundtrip tickets from Atlanta to Lima for only $324 each! $324! I have spent more money than that on a ticket to CA for a long weekend to visit my wonderful family. It was a no brainer to buy those tickets and then get a seperate one for me to Atlanta, plus it means Ryan and I get to fly together the whole way. Of course, little did we know that we would end up having to take another trip to Peru later.

Another trip? But we haven't even gone on this one yet... yes, but as of right now there is no way to get to Machu Picchu. If you remember, in January mudslides resulted in the closing of the train from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu and the train is still under repair. We were hopeful that we would be able to go through the "back door" to Machu Picchu. This involves a bus ride from Cusco to the small town of Santa Maria, from there we would take a combi through Santa Teresa to the very scenic Hydro electric plant. Yes, an electric plant. From there it is a 2 hour walk, or 15 minute train ride into Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu (more details on this route: http://chanatrek.com/?p=152). This route takes 9 to 12 hours, compared to the original 4 hour train ride that we were planning on taking, but we were ok with that if it meant getting to see one of the new 7 wonders of the world (what are the others? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Seven_Wonders_of_the_World, I've already been to 2 of them, and this would make 3, aka almost half). Plus, this route is a lot cheaper, so we were excited to know that we would still get to see Machu Picchu AND save around $90 each.

So the good news? The train tracks between the hydroelectric plant and Aguas Calientes are repaired so we wouldn't have to walk next to them for 2 hours. The bad news? The road to the hyro electric plant isn't. It turns out there were mudslides on that road as well, and they need to put in 2 tunnels before it will be passable. So ultimately, part of the train tracks have been fixed but there is no way to get there.

And this is why we will be taking another trip to Peru in the future. Although I'm actually very excited about this. When we started planning our trip to Peru, we realized that there is a LOT to see, and a week isn't nearly enough time. So what will be hitting on our next trip in addition to Machu Picchu?