 |
 May 26 - First day in Peru
After 2 super-efficient LAN flights, here I am in Cusco, Peru. This is the base for people heading to Machu Picchu, and I will be staying here 3 days to acclimatize to the high altitude before the trek. I've only been here about 3 hours and I think I'm feeling it a little... mild headache. They say one of the best remedies is to drink a lot of coca tea, which is made from the leaves of the same plant that cocaine comes from. I've had my first cup, and yeah it was fairly soothing.
Vichheka arrrives tomorrow morning, so in the meantime I'm just wandering around, waiting for the trekking company to re-open (closed for 2 hours during lunch) so I can pay my balance, maybe get some food. This place reminds me a lot of Antigua, Guatemala. Sort of a base with a lot of foreigners, shops, mountains around, and a nice central plaza that's good for people-watching. I'm not sure what we're going to do for 2 more days here, but I'm going to try to convince Vichheka to go bungee jumping with me. And then try not to chicken out.
...........................
Had my first beer at lunch, on a balcony overlooking the lovely plaza. Bad idea. Headaches worsen.
May 28 - More acclimatisation, some horseback riding
Vichheka and I have just been wandering around the city, eating, people-watching. I had high altitude sickness the first day and night - frontal lobe headaches, hard time climbing stairs where my heart felt like it was beating really hard, couldn't sleep. but yesterday it got a little better, and today I'm mostly okay. This morning we went horseback riding for a few hours, it was really beautiful. We were actually supposed to hit 4 different archaeological sites but after the first one, we decided we were already ruin-ed out and just wanted to ride. In the afternoon I wanted to go bungee jumping (the highest one in S. America) but we missed it. Upset.
We're leaving for our trek tomorrow Tues morning at 4:30am. We'll be finishing on Friday.
I've been drinking a lot of coca tea. It works wonders.
June 2 - Back from the Inca Trail
A "borrowed" graphic of the Inca Trail. Actual hiking times were different for our group
|
I've made it back from the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu as of last night. It was great showering and wearing clean clothes again after 4 straight days of sweat, sunscreen, deet, and dirt. (Let me just say, thank god for wet wipes... including Charmin's Adult-sized Flushable Wipes -- disturbing concept, but very handy.) It was also great having a toilet to sit on after having squatted over deplorable holes used by hundreds of hikers. Those gym squats came in handy.
The Inca Trail -- hard to describe. I can't explain how difficult (parts of day 1 and 2) were, how amazing this trail is, to have existed from the time of the Incas. It's a sturdy, well-maintained rocky trail that winds up and down mountains, there are watchpoints at the tops of a few around every valley, and every time we got to one, we'd think, how the hell were we way over there before?! And how did they build this crazy trail on the sides of mountains, where they had to clear out trees and bring all these stones from somewhere? The first day was like, torture. Well, at least the last few hours. About seven hours of walking and the last few were up up up. I would turn the corner and see more steep steps and just swear and nearly hyperventilate my way up. I saw guys carrying their full packs leaning against trees, catching their breath. We'd grunt a lifeless hello to each other and keep moving. We camped higher than most groups the first night, which was smart since it made day 2 a lot less miserable. Vichheka and I are pretty competitive (sometimes a little too much) so we were usually ahead of the group along with some others, trying to get to camp as quickly as possible. (Postscript: Fellow hiker Susy and I realized about 2.5 months later how much the altitude had affected us, when we went hiking to Yosemite's Half Dome, which was the equivalent (distance and elevation gain) to the first 2 days of the Inca Trail, and we felt fine.)
The group was by chance made up of 7 women -- I was a little apprehensive when I first heard that a few days before, but they turned out to be awesome (A blunt and sweet English mom and daughter (Christine and Emma), an Irish girl (Julie), 2 other American girls (Susy and Nicole), and us. Funny enough, the English girls in turn had worried that us Americans would be the fat and slow kind). Our guide told us every day that we broke records for getting into camp early, which got to our heads a little and we probably annoyed other groups near us. Casiano was a proud Peruvian, who had been guiding these trails for 5 years (he's 29), planning to eventually own his own business and figure out a way to help his country.
On another note, I later met one of a few people who actually did the Inca Trail in one day. Which is absolutely mind-boggling. They were streamlined with just water and essentials, but still. Crazy, Grafton. We'd see these people who looked like they were running a marathon, just whiz past. Only porters would go that quickly.
The last day, yesterday, we woke up around 3 AM to be the first hikers to get to the checkpoint to get into Machu Picchu (our guide told us around 60 or so other groups eventually go through there) and we waited in the dark until 5:30 when the checkpoint opened, the only light coming from the stars and the silhouettes of the jagged mountains in the distance, and occasional groups approaching the line with their flashlights.
Once past the gate, Vich and I basically ran with just my headlamp and flashlight for about half an hour until the sun started to rise, and we stepped through the Sun Gate and came upon a huge basin full of clouds. In about 10 minutes the clouds cleared and we could see Machu Picchu down below. It was pretty awesome. Though once we got to the actual site, tourists started pouring in (they can take a bus or train to get there too), and it kind of ruined the mood for us. It was a little anti-climactic, to be honest. But really, the greatest thing for us about Machu Picchu was the getting there. That trail should be a wonder of the world if it isn't already (postscript: Machu Picchu was voted as one of the Wonders of the World a month later). Our guide took us around Machu Picchu, explaining the different animal shapes in the rocks, the amazing stonework - massive, several-ton stones that were carved to fit together like 3-D jigsaw puzzles, the astrological significances, etc. Afterwards, Vich and I climbed to the top of Huayna Picchu, which is that peak that towers over Machu Picchu in the background.
|
|
