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Published: August 23rd 2008
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Our camp
It was set up amid the terraces of Huchuy Qusco. We awoke on Day 2 after what felt like much too short of a night's sleep. Climbing out of the tent, we were treated to a beautiful vista and a clear view of all the surrounding ruins that we could only imagine in the darkness of the night before. We ate breakfast, and Jamie examined her blisters. They looked incredibly painful. (Somehow I managed to avoid getting them during the hike. Consider yourselves lucky for this, readers: otherwise, you would be reading a blog even bitchier than this one!) It was uncertain whether she'd be able to walk all day with them. Marco assured us that we would only be exploring the Huchuy Qusco ruins for an hour, then we would have a "short climb uphill" and that if she needed to, she could ride one of the horses after that. Being the positive person that she is, Jamie assessed that she would be OK for the time being, and that she would let him know.
"A short climb uphill" ended up taking FOUR HOURS, culminating at 4210m. I was behind Jamie most of the way, forcing myself to take twenty, then forty steps before allowing myself to rest for
a few seconds and catch my breath. Much of the time, Marco was so far ahead of us that he was just a blue line among the greens and golds of the hillside. When we finally reached the top, I collapsed on my back on the ground, breathing heavily. I was spent. No more than two minutes had passed when Marco chimed, "OK, we hurry and go down now!" and set off. He went ahead, supposedly to find an area with better cell phone reception: we were already so far behind that the van would have to meet us at an earlier spot in order to transfer us to Ollantaytambo on time to catch our train to Machu Picchu.
Downhill was better, but not by much. We couldn't see which path Marco had taken and so would sometimes find ourselves in precariously steep areas, only to see a much safer route after the fact. Jamie was having some issues on the downhill , since the steps put more and more pressure on her existing blisters. She had a makeshift walking stick, but that soon created a massive blister on her hand. On a particularly gravelly and steep hillside path,
she slipped and fell directly onto her knee, ripping her pant leg and cutting her skin. It was not going well.
I grumbled down the path, sullen and ready for the walking to be over. Stupid hills. Stupid blisters. Stupid llamas. Marco was nowhere in sight now. As we made our way down, we realized that we had company: two young boys, no more than 10 years old, were following us. I tried to speak to them in Spanish and was met with blank stares and open mouths. (Duh, I thought: they speak Quechua, not Spanish). When we would stop walking, the boys would stop also. We'd turn around; they'd stop and stare with open mouths. When we returned to walking, they would start running. I have realized on this trip that Jamie and I both get incredibly paranoid when we are tired and uncomfortable. All of a sudden, I started to have racing thoughts. What if we were going the wrong way? What if the kids start throwing rocks at us? (This, of course, was preposterous: in our bright bandanas and sunglasses, we probably looked like aliens hobbling at a snail's pace through their village, and they were
understandably curious. But we had been hiking for 5+ straight hours in the hot sun with very limited water: pigs could have flown). I relaxed a little bit. Still, where the HELL was our guide?
No sooner had we started to audibly complain did we hear a man's voice scolding the boys. We looked, and there was Marco, reclining behind some bushes on the path in the shade, waiting for us. We three walked about another 45 min. through a village to a spot near a lake (Chinchero), where a tent with food was waiting for us. It is an odd sensation to be so tired and thirsty that the sight and thought of food makes you nauseous. We had hiked for seven hours with no real rest since breakfast, yet I could barely keep down the delicious meal.
We said goodbye to Sebastian and Ebarristo, then boarded the van with Marco and Ramon. We were so far behind that we would have to take the express route the rest of the way. We sped down the road in the van, trying to beat the sunset. We made an abrupt turn onto an incredibly rough dirt road -if
you could call it a road- as a "shortcut." 😊 We bounced around in the bus, watching the orange of the setting sun on the surrounding hills and plains. Peru is gorgeous: I have learned that I think I appreciate this more while seated in a moving vehicle rather than on foot!
We visited Moray, an archaeological site consisting of concentric descending circular terraces used for agricultural testing. The final site, Maras Salt, was amazing: thousands of rectangular pools, each maintained by a different family, where salt could be mined, all attached together at the base between two high cliffs. The van dropped us off at Ollantaytambo, where we ate dinner and boarded a train to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu.
I was so tired, I felt as if I had been drugged. Jamie and I both fell asleep on the train with our iPods on. Entering Aguas Calientes at 10:30pm was a bit of a rude awakening after two days of hiking through peaceful hillsides. We grabbed our packs and followed Marco through the cacophonous streets. Lights! Loud music! Alcohol! I was so disoriented, I could have been in Bangkok and wouldn't have known
Our trekking group
The two of us with Marco, Ebarristo, and Sebastian after the hike (the horses are grazing nearby and declined to be part of the photo) the difference. Marco led us to a girl who was holding a sign with our names so grotesquely misspelled that I had to laugh out loud. It felt good. She took us to our hostel, where we would sleep for the night. After showering (mine was freezing cold- so much for
aguas calientes, huh?) we fell asleep. I dont think I moved the entire night.
Next: Machu Picchu, and why our trek was worth it
~Becky
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