After our long bus ride into Cusco with a crack-of-dawn arrival, we slept for a couple hours and then landed at Don Cafeone for lunch, where I had quinoa and mushroom beef.For dinner the first night, after hiking to see Saksaywaman during the day, we celebrated with more pisco sours at Nuna Raymi. For appetizers, we ordered the crispy homemade chips made from white potato, sweet potato, arracacha and yellow potato, tossed with olive oil, garlic, rocoto (red chili), pisco, parsley, jungle’s hot sauce, spices and tomato.Pretty sure I ordered tenderloin pork with piña colada chutney and garlic mashed potatoes for the main, but it’s been a few months and my memory is getting rusty. It tasted good and I didn’t get sick after, so I was happy!The second day when I was feeling so crappy the night before our trek, we ended up somewhere near the plaza de armas after our tour briefing and I had stuffed peppers and potatoes.After the whole trek was over, we needed to get a quick lunch in Aguas Calientes before taking the train back to Cusco, so I grabbed a deconstructed taco dish. And by grabbed, I mean, we waited quite awhile and almost missed our train because the service was so slow. 😉We did not realize we had purchased special train tickets. Most of our group was heading back later on a train together, but Kay had upgraded us to the “scenic route” that ran along the river on the way back to town. It was a very pretty train ride.Peru Rail also served us a little lunch, which surprised me.I was scared to eat the bread, so I gave it to Kay, but I happily munched on the rest. They served us coffee and tea too, which was welcome after five days without the morning cuppa.The train ride also had a very special service with a terrifying clown who made the creepiest noises, and later on a fashion show was put on by the steward and stewardess. It was definitely different than the Swiss train!Back in Cusco, we met another prospective student from INSEAD at Nuna Raymi for dinner again, since it was good before. The colleague just joined us for drinks, pisco sours, which unfortunately gave all three of us terrible food poisoning the next day.We were flying to Lima for our flight back to Zurich and the food poisoning hit just in time for security check-in. Again unfortunately, the water only worked outside security, so after we got through security, some poor soul had to deal with my repeated trips to the bathroom, and I spent some glorious time half-passed out in front of the bathroom, writhing in pain before we started boarding.

All for nothing too, as the power in the airport failed, so did my stomach, and I ended up losing my breakfast in front of all the passengers for our flight. The only thing classier than puking in a bag while running for the bathroom is having that bag break over the airport floor. Travel at its finest! 😉

Both Kay and I just needed to sleep and recover when we got to Lima. We had a day to explore, but rather spent the whole day and most of the night sleeping the food poisoning off. When we woke the next day with our flight back to Zurich, we had a little hotel breakfast, including broth soup to get our nutrients back up.After shopping and spending way too much, I chanced my stomach on some creamy shrimp risotto, but it was actually so rich that my weakened appetite wasn’t able to handle eating much of it. Tasty though!As were the BBQ chicken wings, which Kay helped me polish off.More from our trip to Peru:

• Puno, Peru
• Lake Titicaca Floating Islands
• Amantaní Island, Puno, Peru
• Taquile Island, Puno, Peru
• Gluten Free Puno & Lake Titicaca
• Cusco, Peru
• Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu Day 1
• Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu Day 2
• Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu Day 3
• Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu Day 4
• Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu Day 5