Coming to you live from Cuzco, Peru… It’s Liam Thrun! So first things first I just wanted to say thanks to Patrick for wishing me luck on this task. I will be blogging to you all about our Student Directed Travel! To kick it off, we traveled around 12 hours from Cuzco to Arequipa (thanks to Yola). During the ride, we watched Point Break for the 3rd time on our trip! Other than cramped legs, we seemed fine. Over the next 2ish days we attempted a “free” walking tour, checked out a Monastery (it was pretty cool), and read loads. While some explored the city, others decided to stay indoors and relax.
On the 17th, we took a 7 hour bus ride which consisted of a man preaching about mystery books and his hatred of people without shoes on (Oh Daniel). We ended up getting into our next location, Puno, with loads of time. In Puno we got prepared for our trip by going to this rad pizza place called Machu Pizza. We slept well that night… Next, we woke up and left around 8 AM on a van to a port in Puno off Lake Titicaca. From there we took an hour long boat ride to the man made islands on the lake. We learned different things about how the locals fled the mainland to build these different islands. From there, we took a 3 hour boat ride to Amantani Island. On Amantani Island, we hiked to the highest point and were able to see Bolivia. We also had a fiesta in the night that consisted of a Peruvian band and fun outfits. The next day, we woke up at 6:30 AM for breakfast, and then we boated over to Taquile island. We hiked through the island and ate a marvelous lunch at Wilson´s restuarant. We took another 3 hour boat ride back to the town of Puno where we picked up our bags from our hostel.
We then traveled 7 hours to Cuzco with no movies this time, mind you. We arrived at around 11:30 and with a long and luxurious 5 hour sleep, we were up at 4:30 AM to travel to the Rainbow Mountains. We traveled about 4 hours up with breakfast in between and hiked up and down for a couple of hours. It was so beautiful (10/10 I would recommend). We then proceeded to bus back another 4 hours. Finally finishing a long, travel filled, interesting experience: so it was STUDENT DIRECTED TRAVEL.
We have now had a day and a half of rest and movie marathoning. Some even went to McDonalds even though the icecream machine was broke (sorry America). Some of us decided to visit the same creperia 3 times in one day (@Ellen). Now, we are gearing up to start our Salcantay Machu Picchu Treck. We wake up bright and early at 5 AM tomorrow, and that is where I will leave you folks. Remember: don´t forget to leave the door open, this is a bias blog in support of our queen (Audrey), and finally… Stay classy, Estados Unidos.