Is Machu Picchu Worth It?

In this episode of the Travel Agents Podcast, hosts Brian and Will talk about Brian's recent trip to Peru. Brian chose Peru for an adventure trip with his friend Steve and focused on visiting Machu Picchu. They used a travel company called G Adventures, known for eco-friendly and fun tours.

Brian explains their travel route from Cleveland to Lima, then to Cusco, and finally to Machu Picchu. He talks about the importance of getting used to the high altitude in Cusco before heading to Machu Picchu. To help with this, they used coca leaves and altitude sickness pills.

The trip included a trek to Machu Picchu, where Brian describes the amazing views and the historical significance of the site. He also shares practical tips like using WhatsApp for communication and the fact that many places in Peru accept US dollars.

Brian also highlights Rainbow Mountain, a colorful mountain that was revealed when the snow melted in 2016, and the cultural richness of Cusco. He mentions the importance of staying hydrated, using a sun shirt, and how the high altitude can affect you.

Looking to book a trip to Peru? Check out our travel agency for help!

Transcript

00:00
Where the travel agents coming to you with tips, tricks, interviews and voyages by cruise. The travel agents bringing you the latest travel news. Hey, I'm Brian. And I'm Will. We're your host for the travel agents podcast. Today, I'm so excited, Will, to talk to you and our audience about my trip to Peru.

00:25
I'm excited to hear about it, man. I love Peru. I've been interested in order to go for like a really long time. I've never been, but it's very high on my bucket list. So I had to live vicariously through you. So I'm excited to hear all about your trip. I wanna do the episode a little bit different today. I'm just gonna go right into a little bit of the intro, why I chose Peru, as well as kind of how it works. And then we'll get into our defining words. Okay, yeah.

00:49
So I've been wanting to do an adventure trip with my buddy Steve for quite some time. We've had this like idea of this trip to Southeast Asia or South Korea or Japan. It's that whole region. We've had this idea to go there for like the past four years. Yeah. I remember you talking about that. Never happened. So it was going to happen this, this December of 2023, but he couldn't get off work. He could only get off work for eight days.

01:16
So it had to be something quick. Southeast Asia's too tough just to do it eight days. Had to do something quicker. I talked him into Peru and I booked he and I on a small group adventure tour with my favorite small group adventure tour company, G Adventures. Not sponsored, but yes, we love G Adventures. This'll be my third trip with G Adventures. Do you remember I did Argentina and Chile with them? And then also shout out to our India podcast. That was my other trip.

01:45
and this was my third trip. So Steve. We're gonna interject here real quick and just kind of give a good lay of the land as like what G Adventures is in. Again, not sponsored, we're travel agents so we know a lot about these companies. But G Adventures is gonna be really perfect for you 18 to 30 year olds, but that doesn't mean that you have to fit within that age range in order to go to G Adventures. Yes, because they have different travel styles.

02:07
Your travel agent can help you determine the travel style that's good for you. This particular one I booked for Steve and I was indeed, Will, for 18 to 30 something year olds. Yeah, yeah. And also what really separates G Adventures from the other tour operators is that they are, how do they coin it? Eco-friendly or? Ah, and sustainable tourism. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're sustainable tourism. You're going to do something that's gonna be relevant to their culture. Yes.

02:33
going to a local family's house, having a meal with them, something that's a little bit off the beaten path, kinda makes G Adventures a little bit more unique, not sponsored, we absolutely love G Adventures. Gotta explain a little bit as to what it is exactly in case you're interested in something like that. And by the end of the trip, Steve had never heard of, my buddy Steve had never heard of G Adventures and he was sold with them to the point where he was on their website looking at other tours he could do with them.

03:00
during the tour we were on. That's how much he was into it. They got good prices too. Yeah, yeah, it's just a cool company. Shout out to G-Adventure. So Steve is also a good friend. He just gave me his credit card and trusted me. So that's always nice to have a friend like that. So that's why you have that new car. I'm ready. We both want Teslas, right? Okay, here's how.

03:27
It works. And there's a reason I'm explaining this, which I'll tell you at the end. So try to stick with me. I'm gonna fly through this, okay? Okay. All right, let's do it. Here's how you do Peru, and specifically Machu Picchu. So if you came here for Machu Picchu, good. You're in the right place, okay? Okay, we're in Northeast Ohio. So we flew from Cleveland to Miami. That's three hours, and Miami to Lima, that's four to four and a half hours. We get to Lima late at night. We take an Uber to our hotel.

03:56
We sleep in a hotel for one night in Lima. Okay, okay. The next day, we wake up super early, take an Uber back to the airport, and we do a one and a half hour flight to Cusco. Cusco's gonna be my highlight later, so keep that name in your head later. Cusco's gonna be a big word on this podcast, okay? You get to Cusco, you stay there for two nights, really just to get used to the altitude. Another key word, hang on to that word, altitude. We're gonna come back to it a lot.

04:23
After you've been in Cusco for two nights, you take a bus two hours to this town called Olentaytambo. Cute little safe city, no nightlife, very simple, lots of pizza. Okay, okay, can you spell it real quick? Olentaytambo, O-L-A-N, Olentay, T-A-Y, Tambo, T-A-M-B-O. Stay here just one night, that's all you need. The next day, the train leaves from Olentaytambo and goes one hour and 40 minutes to Machu Picchu.

04:52
This is a lovely train ride, right? One of the best trains in the entire world, right? Even if you're riding backwards both ways like I did, it's still a gorgeous train ride. They serve drinks and chocolate. Those are all an extra charge, but it's cheap. Once you arrive into Machu Picchu town, which is actually called Aguas Caliente. Agua, you probably know that word. Hot water. Exactly, it means Aguas Caliente means hot water because there's lots of hot springs there.

05:22
which I got to do, very fun. Is it like a volcanic area? Um. An insane, they would probably say. I don't remember about volcanoes. Okay. Just lots of mountains. So, Aguas Caliente, some people call it that, some people call it Machu Picchu Town, it's the same thing, they're synonymous. Okay. Spend two nights here in this town, go to the hot springs. At the hot springs there's a cold pool, which is 57 degrees. We did a challenge to see if we could stay in it for 30 seconds. I did it for 30 seconds, people did it for like 60.

05:52
I got out after 30. You got to change for it. They have three warm pools, which are like 100 degrees, 99 degrees and 98 degrees. I'm like, do you really need three different degrees? Not that big of a deal, but that's what they wanted to do. Let's see. Oh, there's at this hot springs, by the way, just a couple quick notes. There's changing rooms, but bring your own towel or you can rent a towel for five. Solace 3.75 solace is one dollar when I was there in December 2023. So really, it's pretty.

06:21
Everything's pretty cheap. And that's the Peruvian currency? Exactly, the Peruvian currency is called soles, S-O-L-E-S. Hot springs were 20 soles per person for foreigners, cheaper for locals. Machu Picchu town's only 6,700 feet elevation, that's 6,700 feet elevation, just keep that in mind, more than a mile. Machu Picchu town, it's a cute town surrounded by mountains, little kids in their school uniforms going to school, got lots of good restaurants, a bit of nightlife, the train comes often, it's loud.

06:52
nicest hotel here is about three and a half stars. I'm almost done with my journey through just how this trip works. You wake up, you go to Machu Picchu. If you're not going on the Inca Trail hike, I'll talk about that later, you're gonna take a bus up a 25-minute windy road with switchbacks and amazing views and steep cliff drop-offs and you're thinking if the brakes on this bus goes out we're all dead because there's no guardrails, right? Oh man. Yes, so it's better just to close your eyes or just look down at the ground or just yeah

07:21
bus windows, because it's like a drop to your death. Then you get up to Machu Picchu, and that's the highlight, a huge highlight of this trip, Will, is Machu Picchu. It's this ancient town built on a mountain. The mountain is called Machu Picchu, but the little town on it, we don't have a name for it, so they just call it Machu Picchu. I'm going to see Machu Picchu. If you say I'm going to see Machu Picchu, what you're really saying is I'm going to see this mountain. Now, the treat is, at the top of this mountain,

07:51
ancient people built this town up there. Yeah. Yeah. Live in and serve their gods and whatever to sacrifice. Aliens built it. Do it's so impressive, like the how they did it. Yeah, it's one of those things where I'm like, oh, how on earth did you get? It's like the Romans. Like, how did you guys know to do this? Yeah, because like what is like some of the rocks are like 500 tons and they are pulling them up the giant literally the Andes mountains. And they even made it because there's so much rain up there.

08:20
They even, and it would just flood, this little town they built. They made it so it was like rock, gravel, smaller gravel, grass, it's been gray. I don't know, it was like underneath every stone. So kind of like a filtration system almost. Okay. So it can't flood even. Interesting. It's incredible how they built it. That's incredible ingenuity, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then after you've done this whole thing, you do it all the way back. Okay, why did I tell you that whole thing? Because here's kind of what I'm in summary

08:50
Machu Picchu in Peru works. It's logistically challenging. Yeah. It's not a relaxed vacation, it's an adventure. South America as a whole, for the most part, pretty logistically challenging because of the Andes Mountains and the flights and of course the Amazon as well. So you have these two really interesting territories that makes travel both on land and in air a little bit difficult.

09:20
Yes, yes, so when you're not sick of altitude sickness and when your back isn't drenched in sweat because of the humidity and all the hiking you're doing, and when you're not waiting at a train station or bus station for the correct bus or train and just riding, kind of clenching your abs because you're looking off a steep cliff drop off to your death.

09:41
There might be a little little bit of relaxation built in at night or something like that But usually you're ready to go to bed by 9 p.m. Because you're exhausted. Yeah exhausted So what's the weather like let's say in Agua Caliente and then at the top of Manchu Picchu Is there a pretty big gap because I typically see people that are More often than not like just in lighter clothes at the top of Manchu Picchu. I never see like parkas or anything Yeah, extreme or would you say it's pretty? moderate in terms of like a climate change

10:10
Yeah, that's a great point. I would say at the top of, every time I was at Machu Picchu, which was twice, I was in a t-shirt, but I had just tracked it. Yeah, so you're gonna be real hot. I was super hot. Yeah, yeah. And Aguas Caliente town, I had a light jacket on. Okay, yeah. I mean, I would imagine, I would imagine like being up in the Andes is going to be pretty cold in comparison to being in Lima or even Cusco. True, true. Okay.

10:40
Okay, so I really, really, really want to talk to you more about Machu Picchu and altitude sickness. So let's get into our defining words. Let's do it. Here's a few words to help you.

10:55
Here's our defining words. When I came back from Machu Picchu in Peru, everyone always says, how's your trip? And I've learned they don't really wanna know your trip. Like if I gave them even a two minute spiel, that would be too much, their eyes would glaze over. So I've learned, give them one nugget, just one little nugget, and that's usually enough. And they're like, oh, that's cool. If they want more, they'll ask, and then you can open up more.

11:25
It makes sense. The nugget I give when they say, tell us one thing about Machu Picchu in Peru, I say, oh, you know, of course. Oh yeah, it was beautiful. It really was, it was incredible. But the altitude, that's my first defining word, altitude. I had no idea how much altitude influences your trip and overall health on a trip like this, right? The altitude in Cusco, my favorite city, Cusco in Peru, definitely my favorite, but the altitude is serious.

11:53
When you arrive, like, okay, I will, I... You fly into Lima, which is at sea level. So it doesn't feel weird at all. It feels totally normal. There's a beach, right, in Lima? In Lima, I believe there are beaches because it's on the coast, right? But I did not go, I was in the city. You weren't there long. Then the next day I fly to Cusco. Cusco's 11,000 feet in the air. So if you think Denver's high, the mile high city, this is twice that. We're two miles in the air, right?

12:22
I step off the plane, you know, and like literally, I take the step from the plane onto the jet bridge. And I'm walking down the jet bridge and I turn to my buddy Steve and I'm like, my heart's pounding, what's going on? You can breathe, like you're trying to breathe and you feel like you're not getting air. You can't get enough oxygen because oxygen is thinning up there.

12:42
Yeah, yeah, it is the weirdest feeling and then you start to get like really kind of nervous right because you're like wow What am I supposed to do here? And so then you really really focused on your breathing and I'm like is this even is this better or is this worse for me? Right interesting. Okay. I'm taking these long draws of breath and just trying to kind of walk slowly and I'm like what's going on? I know there are people that take like oxygen tanks with them. Wow Yeah, like even when you sleep have the oxygen tank so that you don't

13:10
freak out or maybe die in some probably in some people like they're gonna need yes yes obviously there are people at sea level that need oxygen tanks so now the good news is lots of pharmacies in Cusco every pharmacy they all sell the same thing it's these and it was like three or four dollars okay actually someone else in my tour bought it for me so I don't know how much it was he said it was very cheap a couple bucks so trust him it was like these green pills

13:40
altitude sickness tablets. Okay. Okay. And you take, uh, three times a day, you take two of them. So that's six pills a day. Yeah. That first day I started and I did well. Okay. Because of these pills, I truly believe it was because of these pills. I did have my buddy who's a nurse anesthetist, Steve, look at the ingredients. What's the ingredients? Ah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just call them active ingredient.

14:09
And he was like, I don't recommend this. But it didn't translate well. When you're using Google Translate to take a picture of it and it tells you it. It even said cat. So a little bit of cat. There was cat in it, I guess. No cat, something. I don't know. He said you should just take Tylenol. Interesting. OK. They also took Dramamine. OK. Dramamine helped a lot with the sickness. The nausea. OK.

14:37
Cause you get nausea, you get lightheaded, and a lot of people vomit. Dramamine help, but Dramamine just makes me super drowsy. Yes, I'm not like a light when I have Dramamine. Yeah, so it was great at night, but during the day that was a mistake. What about the more fun way to combat altitude sickness? So I've heard there are people who take Viagra. That was not what I was thinking, but okay. Oh, I'll get to the one you're talking about in a minute. I have heard that.

15:05
When Viagra was originally created, it was made for something like altitude sickness. And there was a side effect, which people enjoyed more, and so now it's used for that. And you have no idea that when Viagra was originally created, it was created for altitude sickness, because it relieves the pressure on your heart, I believe, or the opposite. I don't quite know what Viagra does internally, but I'll just say, I'll just say,

15:32
I think that's kind of a funny side story that people would take that. I don't know how it works as far as if it's effective. Okay, but what I was gonna say was coca leaves. Yeah, that was a big part of my trip. I never heard of this. Coca leaves are these little, oh gosh, leaves, just gray leaves look like they're from little, I don't know, like a bush or a tree. And you add them to your tea. So every hotel I was at,

16:02
I had this for free in the lobby. That's incredible. Hot water, tea bags, so I'd fill up, get my hot water, I'd put the tea bag in, I would grab two, three, four coca leaves and add them in. Can you? And I would drink it. Can you describe the taste? The coca leaves don't taste that great, they're kinda neutral. Really, you're just tasting the tea. Okay. And you're getting the coca leaves with it. But I thought it was good. Interesting. Maybe it was just good tea I was having. I never added sugar or cream. Okay. But I did learn that

16:30
in these coca leaves contain a lot of caffeine and a little bit of cocaine. That's where cocaine comes from. Yeah. Grind those leaves into a paste and then right. Whatever the rest of the. So I had never tried cocaine until this trip. And then I probably tried it dozens of times this trip. Now, because of that, the leaves are illegal in most countries in the world. Do not bring them back to the US. That's true. Yes, did not even attempt that. Yeah.

16:58
So that's a big, don't do that. Don't do a drug test within 24 hours of drinking Coca tea. Do you have to, I would imagine you would, okay, for those who are going to Peru, maybe let your employers know you're going to Peru and yeah, explain the Coca leaves situation. I did not get high even in the slightest bit. I did feel like I had a lot of caffeine. Sure, yeah. The caffeine was noticeable, like I was awake. No, yeah, did not get high. Yeah. Okay, cool.

17:28
Good to know. I thought it was great, and I think it really helped a lot. With that said, with the altitude, we had three people in our group go to the emergency room. Oh wow. At a local hospital. Just because of the sickness. Yes, and the 14 in our group, I think eight of us, not me, sorry, eight of the people in our group got pretty violently sick. Wow, and you guys were all. Even projectile vomiting. Really? Because of the altitude.

17:56
Gosh, and you guys are all in your probably what 30s 20s everyone in the group Steve and I were the oldest at 35 Everyone else was younger. Okay, that's incredible because usually younger gonna be pretty resilient with that kind of stuff The ones that went to the emergency room Yeah, because of lack of oxygen that they were really feeling or was it more so than nausea, do you know? Although one had like a bronchial thing. Okay, I don't know Yeah, so the altitude sickness is obviously a big component to going to Peru

18:26
Not so much with Lima. You don't have to worry about that with Lima, but anything going into the Andes. So when you're going to Cusco or you're going, or interested in going to Machu Picchu or the Rainbow Mountains, which we're gonna talk more about those little locations as well, altitude sickness is going to be a big factor in planning your trip to Peru. Are there other ways to prepare yourself for altitude sickness outside of medication? I wonder if it's, oh no, I don't know. I've heard that like some people, they'll do- Hold your breath. Yeah, I know.

18:56
I've heard some people, they'll land in Lima, then they'll do more days in Cusco. So they'll do maybe six to eight days or something like that. That would have been huge. Because Cusco is such a cool city, and I see why they give you a couple days there just to get used to it. Yeah. Yeah, because you really need to adjust. And did you notice Cusco's at 11,000 feet, but Machu Picchu, where you're hiking a mountain, is only at like 6,500 feet. That's really interesting. Or Machu Picchu town is, I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess Machu Picchu might be like at eight.

19:26
thousandish, don't quote me on that. But it was funny, because we get to Machu Picchu, and actually it's easier on our hearts, the altitude portion, than Cusco. Okay, okay. Cusco's still a great city, and it's funny talking to locals in Cusco, we're like, hey, you were born here at 11,000 feet, what does this feel like to you? Like it's totally normal. But if we go down to limo, or we go to the USA, or go somewhere else at sea level,

19:53
We do feel kind of like super humans. Like we can run extra far. We can hold our breath longer. And they say when we come back to Cusco, even though we were born in Cusco or we're locals or we've lived here for 20 years, when we come back to Cusco, it's like we're starting all over again. And we feel the difficulty of breathing. That's incredible. Isn't that nuts? That's incredible. Not to go on like a side trail, but the tallest, I guess, tallest town in the world or the...

20:20
town that's at the highest elevation in the world is in Peru. I can't remember the name of it, but if you just type in tallest city in the world or whatever, it's a tiny little village. They don't have a hospital. They have like a little clinic and it's, uh, built for these mining operations and you have a population of like, I want to say like 15,000 people. Yeah. And they bring in so many miners constantly. Am I N O R? Oh, wait, hold on. Miners or miners.

20:47
people who mining for minerals. Got it. And so there's just a constant new set of people coming in. And this town is even higher than Cusco. Wow. So like for new people, like a lot of times if you were to visit it as a tourist, which is not recommended because it's a pretty dangerous town for like crime, as well as the high altitude. Sure. People are bringing in oxygen tanks, like young fit, like 20 year olds bringing oxygen tanks.

21:14
and have to wear the oxygen tanks while they sleep because the town is so high up. Like altitude sickness is crazy. That's serious. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get to another fun defining word of Machu Picchu. So Machu Picchu is the town on top of the mountain. Yes. I don't know the history of it. I kind of...

21:41
You know, you don't do well. I don't do well. Yeah. If you give me a little nugget, I find that interesting. Yeah. Like how they made the filtration system. I found that interesting, but I can't explain it. How on earth they drug these giant stones up this mountain. I don't get it. That's why you have conspiracy theories that aliens did it. That's like how crazy it is. Yeah. Yeah. But it's unique. You need to see it. And I think I'm more interested in the trek to get up there because it's a mountain. Yeah. So.

22:07
there's a four day trek or a one day trek, I'll say that again, a four day trek, and on that four day trek you're actually sleeping in tents along the trail to get up to Machu Picchu. Or the one day trek, which is what I did. And the one day trek is just the last 25% of the four day trek. We started at about nine a.m., it was about a seven hour trek, we got to Machu Picchu at like four, right? And you take stops along the way, it's like.

22:34
couple thousand feet of elevation change on that hike up. It's just the last 11 kilometers. So the, ah, good question. The train from Olite Tambo to Machu Picchu, an hour and 40 minutes, it dropped us off. Everyone who wanted to do the trek, it dropped us off at that last 25% of the trail. So we, it looks like the train is making a stop at a very random point in the woods.

23:02
and they're letting off about 25% of the train. Those are the crazy people who wanna do the trek. The rest of the people just continue on to Machu Picchu town and go to their hotel. So me and those doing the trek, we had our backpacks, our packed lunch, which was included, our boxed lunch, which was actually delicious. It was almost like a Asian salmon rice sushi type lunch. It was great. Yeah, I loved it. Anyways.

23:31
We also were packed with our water. Steve had three medium-sized water bottles. I had two water bottles plus a Gatorade that was perfect. We also had plenty of snacks that we had bought the night before. And G Adventures hooked us up with additional snacks. Lots of stops along the way. We had a guide in front and in back. I stayed in the back. Steve stayed in the front with that guide. I was in the back with the guide who didn't speak English.

23:56
that well, so I got to practice my Spanish. Hey, you love this practice, your Spanish. I loved it, yes, yes. And by that time I was feeling good, like, okay, I've already been here in Peru for like four days, I'm doing okay with the altitude sickness, I'm taking my pills, and I'm at Machu Picchu, which is like the beginning, which is like 6,500 feet, as opposed to Cusco, so I'm actually feeling a little bit better. Okay. I even wore jeans on the hike. Everyone's like, why the heck did you bring jeans? Yeah, what are you, a psycho? I think so, and I did fine.

24:23
My back was dripping and all the pictures are like, hey, do a picture where you face the mountain. We'll take a picture of you from behind. My back is dripping of sweat. I'm like, I don't like these pictures. Photoshop. But the humidity, yes please. We can save it. That would be nice. But the whole hike is incredible, Will. There's gorgeous mountains. I will say we were a little bit nervous because of the fog, right? There's just a lot of fog. Oh yeah, that's right. You never know. Yes, and then as we were hiking, the fog starts to lift.

24:51
That's incredible. All these pictures on Instagram of people at Machu Picchu. They're at the top and there's fog covering every bit of it. You can't see Machu Picchu. You can't see the city at all. What, what some of them will tell you then is, well, after two hours the fog lifted and we could see it perfectly, but that's not as exciting. They would rather two hours. That's a great point. So, right, right. I just, there's a lot of people and clients who say like, Hey, I'm going all the way to Machu Picchu. Am I going to get to see it?

25:20
Cause of course you want to see it. Let me ask the big man upstairs. There's a lot of pictures of people with fog in their pictures. I would just say, don't be too nervous. Go anyway. And most tours, there's a couple opportunities to see it, going in the morning and afternoon. And I would say, there's probably going to be a point where you're going to get to see it. Because the fog moves.

25:50
Incredible. I have two questions. Yeah one just to make sure you felt a lot better During the hike like the altitude sickness wasn't too much of a factor on the hike Yeah, so that didn't really play too much into the difficulty of the ice Yes, would you say that the hike was difficult moderate or easy? We all had most of us had bright red faces halfway up it for the rest of it dripping of sweat You definitely needed to be in some physical shape

26:19
Okay. Yeah. So no, like, you know, if you have disabilities or anything like that, it's not going to be pretty handicap accessible. You have a mountain on your left side in a cliff drop off to your right, which would lead to your death. But I never felt frightened. The trail was wide enough that I was okay. Okay. It was funny watching, seeing groups that we would pass who they were on the four day trek. Yeah, they were moving a little slower. Oh, yeah, I

26:47
sometimes 10 or 20, what'd it be called, Sherpas? Helpers with them? Those people, the locals. Killing it. They were loaded up with tents and little ovens and food. And I mean, their bags were, yeah, lots of stuff on their bags. It was impressive. So can you go to the actual ancient, like I'll call it ancient city of Manchipichu? So how do you get from, so Manchipichu is the mountainside.

27:17
And that's where you get the viewpoint of the ancient city. Am I correct in that? The ancient city is on Machu Picchu. Okay, the mountain. Yeah, so there are you're right There's different viewpoints to see that. Yeah, but you actually get to go on it and walk through it too Incredible. Okay, get lots and lots and lots of pictures way too many pictures So yeah, you can be intimate with this old ancient town there I'm gonna I'm gonna do it like a little snapshot

27:47
on the history of Machu Picchu. Not an expert by any means, but from what I can recollect is that it's one, it was built by the Incan civilization. Yes, Incas. Which is one of the big major civilizations in South America. You got the Mayans, the Aztecs, and the Incans. Incans are gonna be really prevalent in Peru in the Andes region, so you have that. And two, this, Machu Picchu didn't just.

28:12
get discovered until like what, like the 20s, 30s, or 40s? Did they say something anything like about that? I don't remember. They had no idea the scope of some of these civilizations, specifically the scope of like the Incans. And in fact, like they're finding some civilizations on the Amazon, which is like completely sort of rewriting their viewpoint of like history in South America, because it's challenging like the viewpoint that there are only be.

28:40
been these three major civilizations, there might be now a fourth. So they're still finding things in South America that's like totally changing their perspective or history in South America. And Machu Picchu was found in 1911. By a Yale University history lecturer. Yeah, so some of this stuff, it's incredible. Ancient, ancient, ancient, and very recently just been found. Yeah.

29:07
Yeah, so when I went in December, it was weather was perfect. Very fortunate. That's another some days we hear it's super hot and humid. Other days, it's rainy, which makes the trail super strenuous. Other days, the whole sky is cloudy and you can't really see anything or any mountains. Yeah, hopefully it would lift, but not necessarily. But this trail, the trail was strenuous. I do want to be very clear. I would put it at that level. It wasn't like you can't do it, but it was trying. As we stopped a lot and took breaks and drink a lot.

29:37
It's always staying hydrated. Our tour guides were very good with that. So you said December. Clear thing to make is that this is in South America. That's their summertime. Yes, when it comes to the... Underneath the equator, right? Southern hemisphere sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, it is in the southern hemisphere. So their rainy season. I always told by my guide, the weather's good all year round. Sure.

30:06
because you're so close to the equator. But the rainy season is from November through March. April starts the dry season, which is why so many of our clients do Machu Picchu in April. Sure. This is a good time. So I'm going in December, which is Rainy, rainy. Right in the heart of the rainy season. We just got pretty fortunate with rain. Yes, there was rain. And one of the biggest things I was grateful for was I brought a rain jacket. Nice. People were jealous because they were like, ah, should have brought a rain jacket. Gotta stay prepared.

30:36
Absolutely. So weather was great. Let's see. Oh yeah. I think so you can choose to hike it or you can just take the bus up. Oh, okay. There's a bus, 25 minutes. It gets you up to the town. The where the ancient that you can see the cool thing. I just think when you hike it, whether you do the one day or four day, I only did the one day hike.

30:59
when you hike it, you really earn that view. Yeah, it's come over this, I think they call it like sunrise point or something, and you get to look down on Machu Picchu. Incredible. And we all kind of screamed when we saw it. Yeah. The nine people in our group who chose to hike it. It was that cool, like, ah! So jealous. And we couldn't stop smiling because it was just such a special moment. Yeah. So just last parts about.

31:25
Machu Picchu is that the creators of whoever made Machu Picchu, they were genius. They even knew how to stop the rain from drowning it and pictures don't do it justice. So go to Machu Picchu. Whether you take the bus up or hike it, just go. It is one of the seven wonders of the world. Yes, it is, that was a fact. Okay, any more thoughts on Machu Picchu or questions or? I think we covered it. There's still a lot.

31:51
Talk about with Peru, we've really only covered altitude sickness and Machu Picchu. So if we don't have any other thoughts on Machu Picchu, I think we should move on. Move on for sure. My last high was Rainbow Mountain. This was something I didn't even know existed. I'd never heard of it. Maybe you haven't either, because it's kind of new. So in the year 2016, just eight years ago, the snow melted on this mountain causing the revelation of this gorgeous multicolored mountain, which looks like a rainbow.

32:21
Okay. Yes. Uh, it's a seven hour round trip drive from Cusco. So three and a half hours there, three and a half hours back. We stopped for breakfast on the way there. We stopped for lunch on the way back. Uh, it's 1500 feet elevation hike. It's very, very steep at the last part, making it difficult for many people to do this. I actually, it's so much shorter than Machu Picchu, but because it was so steep,

32:51
I was looking at Steve like, is this almost harder than the Machu Picchu? Like we were, we were wondering, like might've even been harder. Okay. Almost as hard as the Machu Picchu. Did you have to go on all fours or were you upright the entire time? Never went on all fours. Uh, but yeah, some things we learned hiking poles are a must. They, they had hiking poles for us. Sure. Two per person. And we're first even like, we don't need these. This is stupid. Like, all right, I guess we'll take them.

33:20
And then we were told, like, you're leading on them, like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna make it? So hiking poles are a must. Nice. Yeah, now for people who struggle with mobility, you can pay 60 to 100 soles divided by 3.75, I don't know, 15 or 20 bucks. You can pay that to take a horse or a motorcycle to the top. Wow. Yeah, they have a trail for motorcycles.

33:48
and the horses go on the people trail. And then once you're at the top, it's, you kind of have to just Google it. It's called Rainbow Mountain. It looks like, and the way the chemicals formed in these nice lines, you're looking at like this rainbow of a mountain.

34:05
And when we first got up there, Will, I was so bummed because there was fog covering it. And you could kind of make it out, but you couldn't make it out. It was like, you could only make it out because you had seen a picture of it. And I was so bummed, like, oh, what a waste of a day. And then after being up there for like five minutes, this wind came, blew the fog away, and it was so, it was right in front of us, so vibrant, so beautiful. So like the colors like popped at you of this mountain. You're just like, oh my gosh, this is...

34:35
I had no idea that this was even here. I've heard mixed things about Rainbow Mountain, so it's cool to hear a positive opinion on it. It was very cool. I did a lot of jumping pictures, the whole trip. You love a jumping picture. And thank God for live pictures, because no one can get it perfectly what you want it, but the live picture lets you. Yeah, capture that a little bit better. Yeah, yeah. At the top, there were a lot of locals who had like,

35:03
Maybe they were dressed in traditional garb. You could give them a tip and get your picture with them. They had a guy with two camels. Gave him five bucks and our whole group got like a thousand pictures with them. He was thrilled. They had people selling stuff and like people selling coffee and tea and snacks up there. We had brought a lot of that though. Wow. Water and stuff. So we were good. So there's a whole market up there. I would say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Small one, but. Right, right. And then getting down was easy.

35:32
because okay sometimes getting down on those steep yeah yeah actually with the tour guide we were late and we jogged it nice okay how are your toenails sometimes uh you know this kind of hikes they so shout out to our America's Southwest Grand Canyon episode yeah I knew well to clip clip my toenails before an adventurous trip okay good yeah downhill portions really

36:00
put a lot of strain on your toes, and if you have long toenails, it kills. Let's get into our highs. Let's do it, man. Sometimes things are good, sometimes they're bad too. It's highs, lows, highs, lows coming to you.

36:25
So obviously I mentioned Rainbow Mountain was awesome. Do it. I mentioned Machu Picchu. It's gonna be a huge highlight of the trip. I really wanna focus lastly on Cusco. Cusco in my opinion was the real gem of Peru. Lots of restaurants, markets, very safe. Uber was reliable and very cheap. And just to remind you, Cusco is two miles in the sky. It's high. So be prepared. I have a question. Yeah.

36:54
I feel like I heard this, maybe you heard this while you were there, but I heard that it was sort of the Incan capital of their civilization, so that's why there's so much infrastructure. You have a lot of Incan ruins. Did you hear anything about that? Because I don't know if it's true or not. No, but yes, there were, yeah, actually that's a good point. There were these Incan ruins that I flew my drone over. Nice. I don't know if I was allowed to. But it was, I forget what it was called.

37:23
Cusco, it's like all these homes built under this cliff. So anywhere you look, it's a really cool view. Like, wow, a mountain, but there's homes lined up. Like, how do people even live here? How do they get around these tiny little streets built into the mountain, these tiny, everyone drives kind of small cars. I mean, you'd have to really be a strong knit community to make it work. And it is, they're very communal people from what I heard.

37:48
But Cusco, it's just, it's like, it feels like you're in an ancient town, but there's a lot of vibrancy to it. It's not, like there's a Starbucks. But they don't let them use the big giant Starbucks sign. It just gotta be like written on the wall, Starbucks and like a cool brown font. And there's no like McDonald's or anything like that. I didn't see a McDonald's. So any name brand type of franchise has to fall within like the city code of like.

38:15
preserving that culture. True, but I just didn't see many like big brand, like American brands. So I think that's why I liked it. It kind of gave me that like Lucerne Switzerland feel. Like I'm really in like an authentic city. There's not just like, okay, there's a Burger King, there's a Pizza Hut. No, they might've been there, but I didn't see them. Okay, very cool. So spend time in Cusco. I wish I would've had more time there. And how many days were you there? I was there two days before Machu Picchu and then one day after Machu Picchu. Nice. I'm gonna go into my lows.

38:45
This one didn't really affect me, but everyone in the group said breakfast was not spectacular. They said breakfast was too simple. Now, I'm not a breakfast eater. I want a cup of coffee and that's it. You can get me to eat some eggs if I feel like I'm going to have a big trip. Maybe a little bit of yogurt and fruit. Every hotel had just that. A little bit of eggs, a little bit of yogurt, a little bit of fruit and coffee and tea. So I was great.

39:13
other people in the group there were complaints at breakfast like, oh, this is just such a disappointing breakfast. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So that's okay. Go ahead. Okay. Cause I've heard that Peru, the food culture in Peru is like incredible. Yeah. Cause a lot of, a lot of things that we eat almost every day kind of came from Peru, like corn, for example, uh, maze, MA, I Z E

39:40
came from Peru, got imported into the Americas, got ingrained into the American agricultural system. So a lot of really incredible foods have a history coming from Peru. And so they have a really rich food culture. You bring up a good point. I think a bigger point that we could bring up is the fact that when you do a trip, you did not see every bit of that. It's like, if you're traveling and you meet someone from

40:10
Norway and he's a jerk to you. You could go home and say, oh my gosh, trust me, Norwegians are jerks. It's like, no, you met one guy on a trip who happened to be a jerk that day. It's not true that all Norwegians suck. Just you had one perspective. I stayed at six different hotels and they were more budget friendly because it was a G Adventures trip, not known for their luxurious hotels. If I had stayed at all five star hotels, they might have had the most amazing breakfasts.

40:39
And that could have been one of my highs. Yeah, for sure. So I suppose a better low would be saying, hey, on this G Adventures tour I took, which had more basic but fine and safe and lovely accommodations, the breakfasts were simple. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, that's very fair. Plus you had to come up with a low at some point. Yeah, you do. All right, the next low for me was I think guinea pigs are gross. And I never, I didn't try a guinea pig, right? Oh, they...

41:08
They eat guinea pigs and it's a luxury. We did see one in the wild running around and they're like, you guys think it's cute, we think it's dinner. That's incredible. When I was practicing my Spanish with the guy on the Machu Picchu Trail, he did speak English too, but he was happy to help me. I said to him, I said, how? I said, is guinea pig like, is it one of those things you eat like maybe once a year?

41:38
or once in a lifetime, he said, oh, not for me, in my culture. I was like, what do you mean? How many guinea pigs do you, how many times do you eat guinea pig per year? He'd say at least 100. Wow. So I can't say every Peruvian eats guinea pig 100 times a year. I can say that I met a Peruvian who said he eats a guinea pig at least 100 times a year. But at a restaurant, they brought it out to us so we could all try it. And it was like,

42:07
fried and it was in its shape like laying prostrate on the thing. You can make out the head and the arms and the tail. It's like a little pig almost. Yes. I just, it actually, I was glad they brought it out at the end of the meal because I lost my appetite when I saw it. Sure, yeah. Yeah, it can be jarring. You can think about it. Yeah. What did it taste like? I didn't taste it. Okay. Steve tasted it. He said it tasted like, just like

42:35
Like a chicken or like just like a simple meat, not too much flavor. It's always chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then as I alluded to earlier, my last low was just there's a lot of sweat in my photos, which I think is gross. Should have brought like a rag to at least, or a fresh t-shirt to change into at the top of Machu Picchu. Gotta get the Instagram pic. Yeah, but so if those are my only lows, you can tell it was a great trip in Peru. Hats off to you, great country, but I'm ready to go into my tips.

43:04
Okay, great. Eps from the travel agents. Some of these I did mention earlier, but number one, coca leaves. I guess they say they're a little bit dangerous because they do make your heart pound and race because it's so much caffeine and cocaine. So don't bring them back to the USA. Don't do a drug test right after you drink coca leaves. Okay, but it helped me with altitude sickness because I didn't get wildly sick. I never threw up.

43:34
It's worth it. Almost everyone else I tripped through up. And that's why people do cocaine, it's for the altitude sickness. In Cusco, stay near the main square in the San Pedro Market. Well, the San Pedro Market, it was like being back in China at the pearl markets in Beijing. It's like vendors for as long as your eye can see. It's like a maze. So fun. Yeah, and just a lot, I mean, good price on T-shirts, pants, hats, souvenirs, gloves, dresses. You can get a local, like,

44:04
clothes that like the very authentic clothes, sweaters. The big thing is alpaca made sweaters, right? Then that's the big thing. You say, is this real alpaca or is this mixed with something else, right? So I don't know. And they'd say, oh, it's real. That's like, you know, is this genuine? Is it not?

44:21
I did get an alpaca sweater. I only paid 20 bucks for it. So I'm willing to think it's probably not pure alpaca. Sure. I don't know. But it's really soft. It's very soft. It's warm. It was I actually got it right before going up to Rainbow Mountain and it because it was cold up there that day. So I think it really did kind of save me. So there you go. Let's see. Cusco surrounded by beautiful mountains. So just have a good camera ready.

44:51
I had my GoPro, drone, and iPhone 11. Steve had an iPhone 14 or 15, so that was nice. We got good pictures, is what I'm getting at. You would love it. Lot of picture opportunities. Everything is very picturesque. All those homes on the mountainside, very picturesque. Like I mentioned, rainy season is November through March. April starts the dry season. The money is called the soles, though most places took US dollars, I noticed. When I was there in December of 2023,

45:21
3.75 Solace was $1. So we would just kind of say four and that was easy. Credit cards were widely accepted pretty much everywhere, including American Express. Hey, that's rare. And no one took Discover card I noticed. That train ride, which remember, radio one of the most beautiful train rides in the world, there was a restroom, a toilet on board the train and it was fine, it was nice. It wasn't luxurious, but it was nice. Yeah, it wasn't like.

45:51
and use it during the trip because what happens is once you get off into Machu Picchu, there's just no place to use the restroom. Right. That's not true. At the visitor center, you can pay two solos and use the restroom, but then once you go up, you're done. So what I'm getting at is, here's a tip, use the restroom on the train. And don't wait till you're right about to get off because then there's a lineup of 20 people trying to use it at the last second, and then it's ridiculous. So use it not, you know, halfway through, three quarters of the way through. Use that restroom on the train.

46:19
Next it would be nice to know Spanish because not that many people spoke great English sometimes they spoke zero English and If you suck at Spanish you just would need to have a guide you really would I just don't know what you do without it So you struggled in Cusco you struggled in? Yeah, like I'm in Machu Picchu interacting with like the vendors that like Rainbow Mountain things like that very very little English But I'm

46:48
Steve and I were big into practicing our Spanish. We had been, you know, well I've been practicing for quite a while. Steve was getting refreshed on Duolingo, multiple lessons a day. So we were both excited to practice. Other people in our group would ask us, Steve and I, to ask someone a question. So that felt kind of, I was kind of honored. It felt good. But obviously having a guide who was fluent in both was, our guide was awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

47:19
have someone who's good with cameras take your pictures at Machu Picchu. When you get to the top of Machu Picchu, so Machu Picchu is a language called Quechua, which is the local native, I don't know, tongue, and which really only some people speak it, very few people speak it now. But in Quechua, Machu Picchu translates to old mountain. That's all it means.

47:45
So when you say, I'm gonna go see Machu Picchu, what you're saying is I'm going to see Old Mountain. Now at the top of Old Mountain, there's this gorgeous little city civilization they built. They don't have a name for it. So it's called Machu Picchu. But really, Machu Picchu means Old Mountain. And then right behind Machu Picchu is a little bit of a taller one called Wynu Picchu. That means New Mountain. So one of your pictures of, this is one famous platform that you get to take your pictures from, and it's if you hike Machu Picchu.

48:14
Only if you hike it, those people who did a hike get a special benefit. They get to go to the best viewing platform. Everyone else has to be behind them with their pictures. So you get to do the best viewing platform and get your pictures if you hike it. So because Steve and I hiked it, we got to go to the special viewing platform and get the best pictures of Machu Picchu. With that said, how you wanna do it is you wanna get the person in the picture, you wanna get the ancient town.

48:41
Right. With all the stones in the picture. And then you want to get gorgeous. Why new Pichu, the tall mountain also in it behind you. Right. So you want to get all three things perfectly in the picture. I know exactly you need someone who kind of knows what they're doing to line it up. It's not that difficult. But as we would see, and I did have some harsh words with Stephen. I didn't like the way he took like, you know.

49:04
you're getting 200 pictures of each other. Right, yeah. In every pose possible, because you've just made it to Machu Picchu. How are you not gonna get a lot of pictures? Yeah, of course. But he was a good sport. He took my criticism in stride, and then the next day we went back, and he took a lot more pictures than I liked more. So we were good. We were good. Okay. Will, I have, from my Galapagos trip, I have a new sun shirt. It's a long sleeve, lightweight shirt.

49:33
that keeps the sun off my skin because I love the sun. I can only do it for like 10 to 20 minutes. I do a lot of sunscreen. I need to keep the sun off of me. I'm a huge fan of the sun shirt, especially being that close to the equator, that high up close to the sun. You're going to I mean, I would have been fried. So a big fan of getting a sun shirt. I paid probably a lot for it in Galapagos, like $50. But I know like on Amazon or Target or Walmart, you can probably get them for like five or 10 bucks. These nice lightweight long sleeve shirts

50:03
resist. I don't know that they had that nice feeling that is nice. Okay, also we did a horseback riding excursion in Cusco that was pretty good. So if you get the opportunity to the horseback riding. I'm not a huge fan of like horseback riding. But it was pretty good. In my opinion, like okay, this is kind of different. Get some views, views on horses and stuff like that. I know some people are really into horses. So definitely do it. And then I brought a lot of single dollar bills for tips.

50:30
Like one dollar US bills for tips and those are greatly appreciated by many people. So when it came to like Lima, Lima's the capital of Peru, which you fly into, and I only spent one night there. So I really can't speak to Lima. I did talk to a lot of people who spent a lot of time in Lima and it's a huge city. I flew my drone up for a minute and I could not believe the amount of like skyscrapers and high rises. It was huge.

51:00
You will hear from many people that there's many dangerous neighborhoods in Lima. There's many dangerous neighborhoods. But there's like five really safe neighborhoods. Go figure, in those five safe neighborhoods, you find the Marriott, the Hilton, the Sheraton, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, all the, you know, like, they know where the nice neighborhoods are. That's where they're gonna build their hotels. So Steve and I, for that first night, we stayed at like a Hyatt Hotel. It was in one of the safe neighborhoods. In the morning, we walked out of the hotel, and there is...

51:28
a very friendly police officer at this corner, a police officer at this corner, a police officer at this. It was like, oh my gosh, wow, you've really kept this neighborhood safe. Yeah, yeah. So you can kind of get an idea of where the safe neighborhoods. Mira Flores is one of those safe neighborhoods, for example, but there's like five of them. But from what I've heard, there's great museums, there's great food, there's a club scene. We met two girls who did one of the Lima food tours. They said it was one of the highlights of their trip. So, I said food, big thing.

51:58
So I would like to see more of Lima, but I just can't really speak to it. So if you came here for Lima, I don't have much to say. OK, also worth noting, like we can't cover everything that Peru has to offer. But one of the other big sites of it, and don't laugh, Lake Titicaca. Yes, that's what it's called. Lake Titicaca is on the border of Peru and Bolivia. A lot of really cool stuff you can do around that area as well. And if you'd like what you could do.

52:25
You could combine Peru and Bolivia in one trip, see Lake Titicaca, go over to the border of Bolivia, visit La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, and see some of the salt flats there in Bolivia. That's some things that people like to do is combine Bolivia and Peru into one trip so they can do Machu Picchu, do Cusco, do La Paz, as well as do one of the famous salt flats in Bolivia. So that's something to keep in mind as well. But.

52:54
Lake Titicaca in the back of your mind if you're looking to do it for Peru as well. I should have done it. Let's go to our standby items. Let's do it.

53:12
Will hate to put you on the spot, but soccer in Peru, do you know anything about it? Is there a team, is there a league, any thoughts? Yeah, they definitely have a league. It's not one of the more famous leagues. It's usually just Argentina and Brazil and South America. But they have a decent international team. More so like if you go and play the Peruvian international team in Peru, you're gonna get rocked.

53:37
because of the high altitude advantage that they have. But yeah, they usually do pretty well in tournaments. It's like going to play the Denver Broncos in Denver. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, I would say the majority of people we saw playing sports, it was soccer. You ask someone, do you play any sports? The answer is soccer. It was 10 out of 10, everyone said soccer. So my standby items, bring sunscreen.

54:04
I used quite a bit of it. Everyone in our group, even the tan people I saw putting on sunscreen because you're just getting a lot of sun. Close to the equator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. I just, just a friendly reminder. You get into Lima, you do that one and a half hour flight. You feel perfectly fine in Lima. You do a one and a half hour flight to Cusco and you're gonna step off that plane and just be prepared. Your heart's gonna be racing a little bit. Wow, wow. Yeah. You're gonna take some, you're gonna be sucking for air.

54:34
So be ready. Altitude sickness is going to be important. Now, there's a new airport being built in 2025. We actually got to see it. Not like we saw the runway is what I mean, which is closer to Machu Picchu instead of Lima. So the idea is they're they don't the government's like, we can't have just everyone flying in the limo. It's too many people. Sure. How people want to come and just see Machu Picchu. How do we divert them? Yeah. So they said they're going to be.

55:01
Yeah, there's gonna be an airport that's gonna get you closer to Machu Picchu. Problem is you're gonna arrive and immediately hit that high altitude. Which might be good or bad, I don't really know. Sure, sure, sure. Oxygen bars are gonna be a big hit there. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Oh, speaking of that, I have heard, but did not experience, that some luxury hotels in Cusco and Machu Picchu pump oxygen into the rooms. I bet. If you get like a five-star hotel, it's actually, yeah.

55:29
shoving fresh oxygen in. So that way, because the big thing was, yeah. Cause like, so Steve, who's in the medical field, he's like, Brian, you'll probably, we'll probably do fine with the altitude, but have you ever slept in altitude? Cause he goes to like Vail and I don't know, Colorado and stuff a lot. He's like, you'll get night sweats, you'll be restless, you won't be able to sleep. I think the Dremamine really helped me. I slept really well. And he did too. I think we were also just exhausted after so much hiking.

55:58
Yeah, that'd be an exhausting trip. I get, I can see that how people would struggle sleeping due to that, yeah, the oxygen. But man, it's crazy how much oxygen would affect. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you're gonna be extra exhausted without all the physical things going on just because of the lack of oxygen. If you're not getting as much oxygen. Well, towards the end of the trip, I would be in Cusco, like, I feel perfectly normal. I feel 100% normal, nothing weird at all.

56:26
Yeah. Then like in the accommodations we were at, I walked up one flight of steps. It's like 14 steps, just like my parents' house I grew up in. No big deal. I get to the top and I'm like, keeled over like, okay, hold on. Okay. Let me just breathe. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm good. You know, that's crazy. You'd like three to five seconds just to like recover just from walking up a flight of steps. Did you go for a run once you came back to the States?

56:51
No, but I also have recently learned learned Wim Hof breathing technique. Oh heck Yeah, so the other night after the Peru trip I was in my bed and I was doing the Wim Hof breathing for like two minutes straight Yeah, and I did the deep hold sure and I hit my phone my iPhone like stopwatch Yeah, I hit start once at the deep hold and I just closed my eyes Then I started to slowly get more and more uncomfortable because you're holding your breath, right? Yeah, and then to the point where you feel like you're

57:20
your body's going to burst open if you don't breathe. So I went, and I breathe. I looked at my stopwatch and it was at 201. You're getting out there, man. We'll see. That's sweet. See. Yeah. I have a buddy whose friend just did it for three and a half minutes doing Wim Hof, so I have some catching up to do, but I wonder if coming back from Peru. Yeah. If it would, if that helped me be able to do it surely. Yeah, probably in Cusco, the water would often shut off at night in the hotel.

57:48
Okay. That was tough when you wake up to go to the bathroom, then you go to like wash your hands or flush and you can't. Ah. So that, they say that's typical. There was signage saying like, listen, at this hotel, we will always have a place where you can get water, but it's very common in the middle of the night that we turn off the water. I wonder if it's because of the elevation and like not being able to get water up there or something. Yeah, I would imagine it'd be pretty difficult to get water up there, but yeah. I don't know why, if it just, yeah, the water was tough.

58:18
I mentioned the native language is Kichwa. So not many people speak it, but if you learned how to say like, thank you, I already forget. Steve wrote down on his iPhone, which was smart. So when we met someone who spoke Kichwa, Steve would say it and then he'd get like a huge smile, a huge discount. No, I'm kidding. When you're American, you gotta put discounts aside. You're just not gonna think it up. And I'm okay with that.

58:45
Llamas and alpacas. If you're going to Peru to see llamas and alpacas, you will not be disappointed. You will get your fix. There is a whole, with G Adventures, we went to a farm with alpacas. To be honest, I would forget. They gave us whole spiel, like, this is llama. And if you're listening to the audio podcast, I'm holding my fingers in like a rock star thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks like a llama.

59:11
There was one where it was like, this is Alpaca. It was one of the opposite. I forget which one was which, but everyone wanted the Alpaca sweaters. I remember that. I don't remember hearing about llama sweaters, llama material. It might be. Probably is. But everybody wanted the Alpaca sweater. Sure. Okay. Yeah. If you can figure out the difference. Oh, one had a scrunched face. The other one had more of a pretty face. I remember that too. Interesting. Okay. Yeah.

59:40
Don't be super worried about fog in your pictures of Machu Picchu because the fog often will lift. So just, yes, you might get screwed over and you don't get to see Machu Picchu, the town that would be awful. The ancient civilization, the seventh one, the seven wonders of the world. But I think if you wait long enough, it'll change. And then next, I just think, I remember that whole spiel I gave at the beginning with how logistically challenging it was. I just think,

01:00:09
It's too difficult to do solo unless you're really adventurous and you speak good Spanish. Because you're gonna have to be asking a lot of questions. How do I get here? How do I get there? What's this part? What's that? And how do I get this ticket and this very specific entrance time and all these kinds of things. So if you don't speak Spanish, maybe you're not like a skilled traveler. I'm sorry, but you gotta go with the group. Just believe it'll be. You'll spend the whole time scratching your head trying to figure out the next day and where you're supposed to get. So, yes.

01:00:40
Get in a group. In our small group of 14 people with G Adventures, G Adventures caps their trips, most of them at 16 people, which I love. For the majority of their travel styles, I think that's a great group size. You're gonna meet friends. Quick side note, download WhatsApp. WhatsApp is, the moment you leave the, like if you're in the United States, not many people use WhatsApp, but the moment you leave the United States, the rest of the world uses WhatsApp. So have your WhatsApp account ready and set beforehand because

01:01:09
When you're in wifi or if you're using data, you can message people and it just works. Yeah, it's so nice. WhatsApp is really nice. It works because the moment we get there, our tour guide's like, okay, I've just added all 14 of you to our WhatsApp group. I'm gonna be constantly sending you updates. Hey guys, tomorrow morning, meet at 7 a.m. Have your bags out, breakfast is here. We have a change of plans. All those things so easily communicated through WhatsApp. Yeah, it's really nice. So if four people in the group are at a pizza restaurant,

01:01:38
Two people were taking a nap, three other people were off doing a trail, and that tour guide sent us a message, we all got it, and it was just so nice, so WhatsApp, and yeah, small group of 14 people. Like I said, a lot of people became sick, and even three people went to the emergency room. Mostly, I think, I believe it was due to the altitude sickness. Yeah, that makes sense. So just be prepared. Talk to your doctor about what you should do.

01:02:03
Get your Viagra in advance for altitude sickness. Big fan of G Adventures, shout out to them. Could not be more grateful that they are doing what they're doing. Just, I think I'll forever, I think forever I'll be a fan of G Adventures. I'll continue recommending them to clients. And Will, I think I'm onto my last little tidbit, which is just a fun way to end. I'm very grateful to my friend Steve. He's a good friend. He also happens to have a good job.

01:02:32
And so on the flight home, flights coming home leave Lima at like 10 p.m., 11 p.m., or midnight. 10, 11, or midnight. One a.m. or two a.m. I've even seen a four a.m. that goes to Columbia. But what I'm getting at is, it's after you've just done that much hiking, you're that physically exhausted, and your body's more tired than you think because you've been running on a lot of adrenaline and excitement, right? So your body's exhausted.

01:03:02
and now you're about to get on a flight. We flew from Lima to New York, eight hours. So he said, Brian, I'm gonna upgrade us to first class. We got the lie flat beds on United Airlines. So it's one of those things where after eight hours, you don't even wanna get off. You're like, I wanna keep sleeping. Yeah. So Steven, thank you for a great experience, for being a great travel partner and also for upgrading us to first class on the flight home. That was.

01:03:31
much appreciated. Well, Will, how do you feel like did we do Peru justice today? I mean, I've been wanting to go to Peru for so bad, for so long, for so bad. That did not help. Okay. So you did a good job. Cool, cool. Well, it's a place you can see and do so much in just a week, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just seven or eight days. So it's a great option if you're looking for an adventure and to not go super, super far.

01:03:58
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, cool, man. Thanks so much for sharing. Thank you. I hope you guys enjoyed. And if you have any questions about Peru, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We'd be happy to answer any questions you guys might have. Travel Agents signing off. Travel Agents, that's the end of our show. Make sure to comment and subscribe before you go. We're the Travel Agents. Thanks for listening.

01:04:25
Now book your trip, pack your bags, and do some traveling.