Today is a very important holiday in Cusco - Corpus Christi (think thousands of Peruvians...food, beer, dancing). It's a great time, but also very touristy! A couple of my friends from class and I were talking about maybe skipping out on the normal traditions and venturing out to Moray for the day...Best idea we've had so far.
If you can just quick paint this picture in your head - 4 white, American, 20 year old girls wearing hiking gear and trying to find our way to Moray (about a 4 hour trip there and back...) you can imagine it was quite a sight. Luckily their host mom gave some quick directions of key words like "Urubamba bus station --> Maras bus --> Taxi" :| yes that's what my face looked like, too.
BUT, we were on our way with this little sheet of paper, hoping to eventually get to Moray!
After our 5 soles taxi ride to the Urubamba bus station, muchos Peruanos were telling us to get on this bus...like, uhm sir WHAT BUS?! All we kept saying was "¿Moray?" "¡Sí, sí, sí!" ...so on the bus we went.
*Savannah lookin like a straight up gringa on the bus! Love it - especially the "backpack-death-grip" ... (pickpocketing is really popular on the public buses).
After about an hour or so the bus (6 soles) stopped and no one was getting off - so we're thinking "Oh, we'll just get off where everyone else does..." NOPE. I quickly saw a sign for "Maras" and once again asked "¿Moray?" "¡Sí, sí, sí!" .......... off the bus we went!
"¿Moray?" "¡Sí, sí, sí!"
Into the taxi we went and this really awesome driver stuck with us for about 3 hours (only 40 soles!). He drove us through the town of Maras and took us to the Inca site of Moray, giving us some background of the culture, history, the land, and the town (how lucky that he was a tourism major - he was pretty happy we could understand Spanish, too...losing gringa points, gaining español points!
So, finally, WE MADE IT TO MORAY! This place is seriously incredible. It took us about an hour to walk around the entire site - 4 enormous circles of agricultural terracing (the circles were used because they are a phenomenon of the natural world - better to grow crops with, I guess). The site is about 30 miles northwest of Cusco and at a soaring elevation of 11,500 feet - yes, we were dying on our 1 hour semi-hike (frightened for our 3 hour hike of Machu Picchu this weekend...not really reassuring to struggle at Moray).
It was wonderful day off of classes, enjoying the amazing scenery that Peru has to offer! I just want to break down our entire trip with cost in mind because it's actually quite insane how cheap traveling is here:
Taxi (Marcavalle -> Urubamba Bus Station) = 5 soles
Bus (Urubamba Bus Station -> Maras) = 6 soles
Taxi (Maras -> Moray) = 40 soles
Bus (Moray -> Plaza de Armas, Cusco) = 4 soles
Taxi (Plaza de Armas -> Marcavalle) = 5 soles
- The exchange rate for US Dollars and Peruvian Soles is about 3.14
- 4 of us girls split the cost
- We travelled from 9:30AM-3:PM (5.5 hours)
- We were only not in a vehicle for about 1.5 hours
DRUM ROLL PLZ...
I spent a total of 15 soles...in other words $4.78 in the US.
For riding on public transportation for the entire journey - that is simply unheard of!
*Ahora* Feel free to watch this short video capturing our day-trip to Moray :)
*En el futuro* Blog post coming tomorrow about my favorite meals of the week...then this weekend: MACHU PICCHU! :D
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