The next day I packed an overnight bag that the hotel lent me, and got onto a bus through the Sacred Valley to visit two sites.  The first site was in Pisac, and the top of the site was about 11,500 feet about sea level.  It was an hour long hike round trip. 

I'm scared of heights, and it's been getting worse over the last several years.  But I was happy that I made it to the top of the site.  Coming down was a little harder than going up so I spent a lot of time looking at my feet.

​After lunch we drove to Ollantaytambo, which is another well-known site.  At this one, my legs started shaking when I got to the first tour stop up 250 or so steps up. We were standing on an open ledge and I knew I wouldn't be able to finish the last part of the walk so I broke off from the group and very slowly came back down without taking my eyes off of my feet.  I was leaving the group for my train to Machu Picchu anyway so I didn't feel too bad.  Unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out too well (and I forgot to snap photos from up above).

​A few people from the tour stayed behind in Ollantaytambo and took Inca Rail to Aguas Calientes which is the town at the base of Machu Picchu.  The train ride was about an hour and 40 minutes and I got to my hostel at around 9:30pm.

The second stop was at Q'enqo.  We only spent about 20 minutes there.

​The next stop was at Tambomachay, which is about 12,000 feet above sea level.

​The last stop on the tour was a placed called Puka Pukara.

I had a travel agency book three days of tours for me when I got to Cusco.  The second day I was there I took a tour of some ruins on the outside of the city.

​The first stop was at Saqsayhuaman.

I flew from Lima to Cusco on Friday.  Cusco is about 11,000 feet above sea level and everyone talks about altitude sickness.  I wasn't originally planning to buy anything for it, but when I saw everyone chomping on what I think was coca gum, I went to the pharmacy at the airport and bought some type of medicine that didn't have coca in it and is supposed to make oxygen absorb into your blood more easily.
​
Other than having to walk much slower than normal, and sleeping over nine hours the past two nights, the pills must have worked because I feel pretty good.

​The first day, I booked a city tour for day 2, a tour of the Sacred Valley for day 3, and Machu Picchu for day 4.  After I checked in, I just walked around the town, which is very nice.  At lunch I tried Alpaca carpaccio, which was really good.

​For dinner, I had a Peruvian Specialty, Cuy, which is guinea pig.  The taste itself was good, but I think I lost part of my appetite when it was presented to me.  I think it would have been better shredded on nachos or inside a ravioli. 
​

​Here it is, look at that presentation.  After I took a picture, they took it back to cut it up, and I was thinking, great, I'll get some shredded meat on a plate.  They just chopped it up into four pieces...glad I tried it though.

I got to Lima yesterday and walked around the Miraflores district where I am staying.  There are several sites that TripAdvisor suggests, but wasn't in the mood to sit in a taxi in traffic to get to them.  I slept most of the four hour flight to Lima after being up all night and really just wanted to relax.  Ended up in a tourist area and had steak and fettuccini for lunch.  I took a nap and then had dinner at a Beatles-themed restaurant.

​Today I did some research on a possible job back in the US and took another walk around the neighborhood.  I had some ceviche for lunch and take-out for dinner.  Tomorrow morning I fly to Cusco, which is the departure point for Machu Picchu and the main reason I'm in Peru.  I think it's 10 or 11 thousand feet above sea level, so hoping that I don't feel the effects as I didn't buy any altitude-sickness medicine.

After a day and a half back in Buenos Aires to pick up my bag and get more empandas, I took a ferry over to Colonia and spent the night.  I'm at a café now and have a 5:30pm ferry back to Buenos Aires, and then a 5:30 am flight to Lima, Peru tomorrow morning.

​Colonia is a nice town and depending on how many museums you want to visit (zero for me this time....) you only need a day or so here.  The ferry only takes about an hour so you could reasonably take an early ferry over and a late one back and not spend the night.  My hotel was really nice though and was at the edge of the historical area.

My friend Megan and I had a fantastic lunch with friends of her friend, Cristian and Natalia, who work with Estampa Winery in the Colchagua Valley. They are both well traveled and had great tips for my upcoming Colombia trip, and their wines are very good (especially the Carmenere).  They were so friendly and welcoming and we spent three hours with them.
​
​I had palometa fish for the first time, which is similar in taste to tuna.

​Tonight will be tapas at a rooftop restaurant and then off to the airport tomorrow morning.

I met a friend on the cruise who was also flying back through Santiago, so we have been meeting up the past few days. 

She has some friends here and we had dinner two nights ago with a nice guy and his business partner.  Today, we're meeting a friend of a friend for lunch.
​
​Yesterday we went to a well-known winery, Santa Rita, which is only about an hour south of Santiago.

​Tomorrow, I fly back to Buenos Aires and am staying at the hotel that (hopefully) has my other backpack.

Our trip included one night at the Dreams Hotel and Casino in Punta Arenas.  There isn't a whole lot going on in Punta Arenas, and the casino seems to be where the whole town goes on the weekend.  It's also the only high-rise building in the city.

​I changed my flight because I was originally scheduled to leave on January 23rd at 3:30am, so I ended up staying three days and hung out with friends that I met on the cruise.  They turned on the Steelers game in the casino Sunday night...that was disappointing.

​Yesterday, I took a flight to Santiago and am just trying to catch up on my posts and shake the cold that I've had since day two or three of the cruise.  I need to call Luftansa and change my Buenos Aires flight also.  I may come back to the US later than Feb 13th now, but I'll see how much time I need in Peru first.

We left the ship around 10am and went to King George Island, which has a Chilean Military Base (and also Russian, I think) and has a gravel airstrip where we picked up our flight.

​They brought two planes down to drop off another set of passengers that did fly-south, cruise north, the reverse of what we did.

​I was later told that the planes almost didn't land due to the fog.  But we only ended up waiting about 40 minutes and were cleared to take off.  The flight was really smooth and was about 2 hours to Punta Arenas, Chile.