Jim and Jordan
Since we were delayed in getting to Cusco, we had to rush to the train station before it closed to get our tickets to Machu Picchu. In front of the train station, we sat in a parked bus for over two hours while Josh was inside, watching the salesman reprocess all sixteen of our passports, call and e-mail our secretary in Trujillo, and retrieve signatures and stamps from all of his supervisors, even though all of the tickets were pre-paid and pre-processed. Meanwhile, as we adjusted to the altitude, we were told that the bus that we had gotten so comfortable in was needed by another party. All of our luggage needed to be removed from the roof and transfered to another bus. We had to communicate that some luggage was going to one place and some to another, in Spanish, to the guy who was helping us. Thinking we were going to have a hard time getting everything across to him, we started speaking in Spanish, very loudly and slowly, to the guy on top of the bus, explaining our predicament. After a few minutes of explanation, the guy responded, in English, saying, "Sure, that's not a problem at all." He had gone to school in Seattle. After we were loaded onto the new bus and Josh was back with the tickets in hand, we headed out in the dark on windy mountain roads to Urubamba's Sacred Valley. The beautiful lodge, lit up in the middle of no where was a sight for sore eyes. We had a wonderful candle-lit meal, albeit late, and slept like babies. In the morning, some of us hiked around the valley and found out why it's called 'sacred.' We watched the sun rise and the river rush by, drinking coffee and juice and eating eggs with aji and fresh bread. We were ready for another full day.
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