This morning, our guide informed us that the weather was not great, and it would better to take a car to
Aguas Calientes. Of course, JN wasn't satisfied with that, so we decided to wait for an hour to see if conditions improve. Finally, we all decided to
hike hoping that it would not rain too much. I wanted to hike because it was through the cloud forest, and thought that it would a unique experience. It was quite nice to hike through coffee and avocado fields and we even got to taste a raw coffee bean. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to have a view of Macchupiccu because of the fog. It was an 8 hour day because we walked all the way to Aguas Calientes without taking the optional train. It started to rain while we were walking on the railroad treks for a few hours. I didn't care too much because it was warm, the hike was flat and i was passing all the other groups. It became almost a video game for me. Finally, we finished the hike and I was very happy to sleep in an actual bed after camping for 8 days. We went out for our celebration dinner to a nice restaurant. It was Erick's (our guide) classmate's place and it was very classy. We drank pisco sours and had a delicious dinner. All of a sudden the lights were turned off, and they brought out a cake with candles. I was totally surprised and very happy to get a birthday cake! It was JN's idea...
We went to celebrate my birthday in Cuzco before the hike also. It was at an upscale restaurant called MAP cafe, which is inside a museum. There we had a three course meal, and JN tried a local specialty, cuy (guinea pig) for the first time. I tried it after the hike at a small restaurant in Cuzco, and it was delicious. On this trip so far we tried alpaca, llama and cuy which is quite exciting. Getting ready for all the crazy food we're gonna try in Asia.