After 10 months traveling through South America, we finally made it to one of the highlights of the continent, Machu Picchu, on April 1. Hopefully, there will be a full blog post about this later, but I will tell you now, it was spectacular.
From Aguas Calientes (our home base for visiting Machu Picchu), we planned to head directly to Cusco. But if we had done that, we would have passed right by some traveling friends who were staying in Urubamba, a city along the way. We first met these friends in Oaxaca, Mexico, two years prior, when we were all stranded in the same campground with broken-down vehicles. How fortunate we were to be crossing paths! So we spent a night with our friends before continuing on to a much-needed two-week rest in Cusco. Our two weeks in Cusco got extended for 5 more days when the road to our next destination in the jungle, Manu National Park, was washed away.
After our extended stay in Cusco we took a tour bus to Puno on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world. And from Puno we took another tour bus to Yanque, one of the cities along Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world.
(All pictures are click to enlarge)
Expenses
* A few notes about these expenses. Because Spanish classes are not a “normal” travel expense, I am presenting this expense separately from the total of everything else. I am also no longer reporting alcohol expenses. In the past, I reported exactly what came out of my bank account each month. But since we may book one or two months of accommodations, transportation, or Spanish classes ahead of time, I’m now reporting not when I spent the money but what month the money was spent on.
Learning Spanish: $0
Everything Else: $3,167.07
The Grand Total: $3,167.07
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Learning Spanish
$0
Once again, we were learning Spanish by immersion. Most of the tours we took were in both English and Spanish. We liked that because after hearing descriptions in Spanish, we’d get to hear the same spiel in English. This confirmed whether we were understanding the Spanish correctly. I enjoyed being able to laugh at the jokes twice.
Communication
– Phone, $45.02
We spent $26.26 on Greg’s Google Fi plan in April and $18.76 on my Peruvian plan with Claro.
Consumables
– Groceries, $340.24
Except for the full month that we spent in Lima, groceries have been averaging between $340 and $350. We had many shopping choices in Cusco. We bought most of our fruits and vegetables at the big Wanchaq Mercado, a short walking distance from our apartment. Right down the street from the mercado was a Plaza Vea Supermercado. By chance, we stumbled upon a Super Ahorro (Super Savings), which was a good place to buy discount groceries.
– Cleaning/Paper Products, $2.39
Aluminum foil.
– Medicine Cabinet, $37.98
This was for bug spray, eye drops, melatonin, and tooth paste.
Entertainment
– Drinks and Eating Out, $384.01
Most of our eating and drinking out was on the cheaper side – except for one place. We went to this artisanal beer restaurant in Cusco, Cervecería Del Valle Sagrado. The food was ok and not priced much more than we expected. The beer was ok. But then we moved from our table to the bar and saw this nice-looking porter displayed there (not on the menu). We decided to give it a try. It was really good! So good that we had 4. What we didn’t realize was that they were $17 a piece! Our bill for that evening came out to $106.45!
We also had a $40 and a $30 meal but all the rest of our eating out was $20ish and under.
I had recently become inspired to try new pisco drinks wherever we went, so quite a bit of our Drinks and Eating Out total was for drinking out.
Like in Puno, where there was this little neon bar, Huajsapata Resto-Bar, just a few doors away from our apartment. We discovered the place when we first arrived at our Airbnb and found that we had no way to get in. While we waited for our host to respond to our messages, we had a few drinks to wind down from a very long day. They had a menu of colorful hot and cold pisco cocktails, and over the next few days, I tried several of them.
– Museums/Attractions/Music, $327.90
Our big entertainment expenses for April were tickets to Machu Picchu, $86.89, Sacred Valley tickets, which gave us access to 16 museums and archaeological sites, $71.32, our second set of Sacred Valley tickets (which we ended up buying because our original tickets were only valid for 10 days and we ended up staying longer) that gave us access to 4 ruins sites, $37.36, Colca Canyon tickets (good for 3 days), $37.62. We also paid for visits to some other sites in Cusco, museums, and ruins on our bus to Puno, and tours in Puno and Colca Canyon. It was a big month of sightseeing!
Personal
– Clothes, $54.93
I needed some new clothes. My hoodie was shredding, so I replaced it, $19. I also bought a bathing suit, $18.80, and a t-shirt, $9.40. The rest of this expense, $7.66, was to have Greg’s pants altered.
With all the walking we had been doing, Greg lost a lot of weight. We found a seamstress in the mercado and left one pair of Greg’s pants with her. She did a great job, so we brought her Greg’s second pair. We were charged $4.95 for the first pair and $2.71 for the second. Gringo price? Regular price?
– Gifts/Charity, $20.67
We bought our friends a gift for hosting us in Urubamba.
– Subscriptions, $44.06
Our subscriptions for April were Adobe Photoshop, Netflix, and Michael Fox’s (A freelance filmmaker, journalist, podcaster, and musician reporting from the road in Latin America) Patreon account.
Traveling Life
– Storage
We pay $88 for a storage locker back in the US every month.
– Accommodations, $1,388.93
Accommodations were pricey in April. Although we were able to find modest places to stay, we paid more to be in touristy cities, be close to the center of town, and for our comfort level.
We also paid for two extra days of lodging that we didn’t use. We had already paid for reservations in Cusco, but paid for an overlapping night to stop and see some friends on our way there. The other night of lodging we didn’t use was a layover night (a room in a private home) between buses on our return from Manu National Park. As I mentioned earlier, this trip got cancelled because the road was washed out. Because of this, we had to book new accommodations elsewhere. We decided to find an apartment in Cusco, which meant we no longer needed the layover room. It was non-refundable and cheap enough for us to just eat the cost.
Aguas Calientes, Perú
April 1-2, $28.47 per night (1 night) in a hostel with a private bathroom. (Booked through Airbnb)
To see more about this place, check our March Expense Report.
Urubamba Perú
April 2-3, $15.64 per night (1 night) for a room where my friends were staying. (Paid directly to the owner)
This was our surprise stop to visit our friends. The place was huge. The sleeping quarters were separate from the living quarters. There was a big kitchen, a large living room, lots of outdoor seating, and a big courtyard. I’m not sure how many bedrooms there were, but there was an extra one that the owners let us rent for one night. This place would be great for a large family. Our friends are a family of 4. I don’t remember what their nightly price was, but it was less than what we paid.
It was on the outskirts of town, but was within walking distance of anywhere we wanted to go.
Cusco, Perú
April 2-16, $45.65 per night (14 nights) in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. (Booked through Airbnb)
This was a nice apartment on the edge of the arty San Blas neighborhood in Cusco. Although the apartment had two bedrooms and two baths the rooms were small. Still it was comfy. And when our hot water ran out, the host resolved the problem promptly. We were just a short walk away from the Plaza de Armas, a good mercado, and a good supermarket. We were in a good location to catch public transportation. And had a nice view of the city.
Cusco, Perú
April 16-21, $40.49 per night (5 nights) in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. (Booked through Airbnb)
This is where we ended up when our trip to Manu National Park got cancelled. I thought this would be a good opportunity to splurge a bit and find a place closer to the center of Cusco. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything near center that had a kitchen. I gave up on that idea and found this place. It was a little farther from the main tourist area, but just a walk from where we were already staying. It was close to the combi lines that would take us to cities we wanted to visit in the Sacred Valley. It was also just a short walk from the tour bus that we would be taking to our next city, Puno.
We liked the apartment. Although it was off the tourist track, it seemed very safe. It was back a ways from the street, and there was a gate, a long corridor, and another gate to reach it. There were 4 apartments in the building, with the owner living in the one on the first floor. Each apartment had a theme – ours was Madonna. The other two rentals were Marilyn and Angelina.
Cusco, Perú
April 20-21, $15.19 per night (1 night) in a room with a dedicated bathroom in a private home. (Booked through Airbnb)
This is the room that we didn’t stay in. At least it was inexpensive.
Puno, Perú
April 21-25, $48.25 per night (4 nights) in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment. (Booked through Airbnb)
I was ok with this apartment. It was in a good location – close to the center of town and close to shopping. It was big. But it was dark and the furnishings were dated. I thought surely there would be a couch, even though I didn’t see one in any of the pictures on Airbnb. There was no couch.
And like so many places we stayed in Perú, there was a parade right outside our window. Every single day. At first, it was a morning parade of school children. But on our last two nights, it was a loud parade of dancing, drumming, flute playing, college students who wound their way through the streets of the city until at least midnight. Good thing we travel with earplugs.
Yanque, Perú
April 25-May 1, $46.77 per night (6 nights) for a room with a private bathroom in a boutique hotel.
I found this place, Tradición Colca, on Airbnb months before we booked it. It looked relaxing and fun. It was off the beaten path. There was an observatory and a heated pool. And although it was a hotel, there was a kitchen where we could cook our own meals.
All of this was mostly true. Unfortunately, the day we decided to try the pool out was the day a car had crashed into the electric pole that provided power to the place. Although the power was restored fairly quickly, the heated pool was not very hot that day. Being the end of April, we were at the end of the fall season, and it was cold. Our room came with a heater, but it would only run for so long at a time. We learned to just run it in the morning and right before we went to bed. There was a kitchen available to us, but it was the same kitchen that the restaurant used, so we had to work around their schedule. The observatory was nice and we enjoyed a presentation about the stars and planets from the owner in Spanish.
We were a short walk from town. But Yanque was a small town, and options were limited. There were several small grocery stores where we could only get basic supplies. We found one restaurant with friendly, sociable owners that we visited a few times. We could walk to some tourist sites. And combis to the bigger city of Chivay were easy to catch at the main square.
– Transportation, $432.93
In April, we traveled in 5 taxis, 14 combis/minivans, 1 train, 5 buses, 3 tour buses, and took 2 rides in our friend’s car. We traversed over 801 miles.
Based on an average gas price of $4.59 per gallon in April in Perú, if we had been driving our van (which got approximately 15 miles to the gallon), we would have spent about $245 in gas. Our higher cost for transportation in April was due to a few “special” trips.
The bus to and from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu cost us $48.19. The return trip from Aguas Calientes to Cusco on the train cost us $125. As I said in my March expense report, although there are other ways to get to and from Aguas Clientes, the train was the most convenient and entertaining way to make the trip.
We also took two tour/transportation buses. Instead of a regular bus or combi to get from Cusco to Puno and from Puno to Chivay, we rode on tour buses that had tour guides and made stops along the way. The bus from Cusco to Puno was $100, and the one to Chivay was just under $50. Both these trips were worth it to be able to see some things we would have passed up in an ordinary bus. And bonus, the bus to Puno was the most comfortable bus we took in all of South America. They provided morning snacks, and a buffet lunch was included!!
FREE transportation!
Besides all the wheeled transportation, one of our main forms of transportation was our feet. We walked 304,555 steps and 112.24 miles!
Right Now
We have purchased a new van! Her name is Periplo, a Spanish word that means tour, voyage, long journey, wanderings. We will be outfitting her for world travel. In order to do this, we have lined up a series of house sits until March of next year where we can work on her.
Currently, we are on a house sit in West Asheville, North Carolina, with a lovely dog named Daisy Mae.
To see all of our expense reports, click here.
If you are interested in reading other expense reports from nomads who really know how to live cheaply while still having a good time, check out the blog from our friends Mark, Liesbet, and Maya who are traveling in their truck camper in South America at Roaming About.
If you are interested in becoming a Trusted Housesitter or having a Trusted Housesitter take care of your pet, use our link for 25% off!
Hi Duwan and Greg,
I love traveling with you in Peru! You both look great. The new van is fabulous!! Hope you have a healthy, fun stateside stay. Can’t wait for the Machu Pichu slide show.
All calm in Essex, 10 people coming the next 3 weeks.
Safe travels,
Meredith
Hey Meredith!
Thank you! It might be a couple of month before I get to reporting about Machu Picchu. I fell so far behind! There was so much to see and do in South America.
I hope you have a good time with your friends and family and that Essex is staying cool!
It’s still so super exciting to see your new van and to contemplate what’s next for you both!
I guess your accommodation and transportation costs were quite high in April, but they all look nice and comfy to me. When I’ve looked at Airbnbs in South America for the three of us in the past, I found it difficult to find any small apartments with just one bedroom. I feel more bedrooms make the cost more, but maybe that’s not true. Anyway, we still haven’t bitten the bullet yet to stay somewhere for a few weeks at a time.
I know that for us and our visitors in Cusco, we stayed in crappier places than yours – location and condition of the apartments – for about the same price you paid, but for four people. I really liked the San Blas neighborhood and we did visit the Cervecería Del Valle Sagrado as well a couple of time. I liked their cocktails.
Sorry you lost that night of accommodation, but it was the cheapest one so that was good. I love all the food and drinks photos. Yum!
Thanks!
I think part of getting good accommodations is booking early. You can’t be as spontaneous that way, but you have a wider choice. Although we did get lucky on our last-minute stay in Cusco, it was just out of the tourist area. I hate that we paid for a room we didn’t use, but it was cheap, and we would rather not have to move another time. The convenience was worth it.
I was amazed at how cheap some of the places we stayed at that had two or more bedrooms. I think it just depends on where you are at. And, of course, you have Maya which probably raises the price occasionally.
We are excited for what comes next too! We are getting a slow start on the van, but there is no rush since we have the house sitting.
Bienvenido de nuevo Estados Unidos!
¡Muchas gracias, Capitán Roberto!