Adios from South America!

And thus another May study abroad trip draws to a close. It's 4am, and the bus is about to leave our hotel in Lima for the airport. We'll be home in about 36 hours!

Thanks for following along with us on our trip of a lifetime. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Go Pens!

Deliverance

Our last full day in Cusco took us into the "mighty" Urubamba River for a few hours of rafting. Thankfully we had our Marlboro Red-sucking guide to teach everyone the basics of staying in the raft. While a few people were thrown from the rafts, an equal number chose to jump into the frigid river (for some unknown reason) to ride the current. The adventure has to be considered a success, however, because everyone seemed to have a great time and we returned to Cusco in the afternoon with the same number of people we started the day with. Take that, Ned Beatty!

Tomorrow we are on to Lima for our farewell dinner, and then we're off on our 32-hour odyssey back home on Saturday.

All Around Cusco

Yesterday we finally pulled out the Duquesne Magazine for some of our group shots to try and get one of them into an upcoming issue. We think the first one with the alpacas and a few of the locals has the best shot of getting in.

We spent the day touring around Cusco. We visited four Inca sites in the morning, including Saqsaywaman which is pronounced something like "Sexy Woman." As you might imagine, we had a great deal of fun with that name. After lunch we toured some other sites in the city and then broke early to do some shopping and to relax a little from the last few days.

It was a little difficult to get around the city, however, because yesterday was the Corpus Christi festival in Cusco and there were tons of people assembling in the city square. The festival went from the early afternoon long into the night, as we kept hearing fireworks go off as we were trying to fall asleep.

Machu Picchu: The World's Most Remote Distribution Center

After getting a brief glimpse of it on Monday, we spent the entire morning yesterday touring Machu Picchu with our excellent guide, Franklin. Among the many interesting details that he told us was the recent theory that Machu Picchu was actually an Incan distribution center where various cities could trade commodities with other cities in the empire. This was necessitated by the fact that the cities were each at different altitudes and therefore could only grow or raise certain crops effectively. (I'm just glad that now I have the chance to show these pictures in class when I talk about warehousing!)

It's so nice to have a knowledgable guide when touring this type of site because he or she is able to point out the significance of many things that you would often overlook. The picture below is an example of that; it shows that the rock was carved to match the contour of the mountain peak in the distance. This emphasizes the significance of the mountains in the spirituality of the Incas.

We were all looking forward to this day for the entire trip, and it certainly didn't disappoint us. The weather was perfect, and the site is certainly one of the most spectacular things that any of us have ever seen.

Stairway to Heaven

What a world we live in...they even have internet access in Machu Picchu! Yesterday was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip as many of us ventured across the Inca Trail for six grueling hours to finish with a breathtaking view of Machu Picchu. The others had a shorter but also arduous trek starting at Machu Picchu. While most of us were as tired and sore as we've ever been afterwards, we all agree that it was a day that we'll never forget.

Now we are headed into the Machu Picchu site itself for a guided tour this morning, and then we have a four-hour train ride back to Cusco. So stay tuned for more spectacular pictures tonight! (Note that I promise that I did take that picture at the top. It's so difficult to take a bad picture here!)

Greetings from Cusco, Peru!

The last leg of our journey began today as we flew to Cusco via Lima. We arrived in the late afternoon and immediately were awestruck by our location tucked into the mountains. We also had to adjust to the altitude, which is over 11,000 feet above sea level here. Luckily the hotel had some tea made from Coco leaves for us, which is supposed to help lessen the blow.

After a briefing about the plans for tomorrow, we all explored the city in small groups for dinner. We are staying in the historic part of the city, so all of the streets are narrow and lined with cobblestones, some of which are the original Incan roads. It's a really cool little city. We have another early 5:45am departure time tomorrow, this time for the Inca Trail and then Machu Picchu on Tuesday, so stay tuned for some great shots.

Valparaiso and Vina del Mar

Today we finally made it out to the Pacific Ocean today in our visit to Chile's largest port, Valparaiso. Note that I couldn't resist posting a picture of the port operations up here! After a walking tour of the city complete with some of the most annoying barking dogs that followed us during the whole trip, we went down to the beach at the neighbor city of Vina del Mar to see the ocean.

Before coming home, we stopped at the Vina Mar Winery for a tour, sampling, and dinner. We're leaving Chile bright and early tomorrow, and I think all of us are sad to see it go. I'm especially sad that my run of Chilly-Chile puns will have to end. I'm not sure what internet access will be like in Peru, but we'll do our best to get updates up as soon as possible. Adios from Santiago!