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start of inca trail
the first bridge we had to passHey everyone!
I´ve got about 2 weeks of recapping to do, so this might not be as detailed as I want it to be. So the night before we left for the lake, we met up with the rest of our tour group for the first time and had dinner and introductions and such. All together, including Klver (the guide) we were a group of 12, and it turned out to be a superb bunch of people. First there was Hilary and Steve- Hilary was sort of like my second mom to me while we were on the trail and supplied me with various drugs while i was sick, and Steve liked to harrass me (jokes haha) There was also Debra (sorry cant spell) and second steve- debra was a sweetheart and steve was hilarious. Then there was Niki and Scott, who were awesome and seemed to be the least lazy out of all of us (yay!) and the last couple (but not least!) was Louise and
Jason. Louise had a serious phobia of spiders which turned out to be quite entertaining for the rest of us while we were in the Amazon. Jason was a ´good husband´and got rid of
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us at the start them for her. lol. Amd then there´s Nigel, whose been with us from the beginning of the trip and who´s been very good to me the whole time. I will miss them all!!!
Anyways, righto, the dinner before the lake. Not much to say except that Hilary ordered Guinea pig (which I had seen for the first time on a dinner plate), and it looked not too bad, pretty edible, except that the head still had teeth...and everything else. We passed it around and took pictures, and needless to say, it didnt get eaten.
The next morning, we got up early and went to some local shop to buy gifts for our host families (mostly food). We took a boat and went around the islands to look around and we got to meet some of the locals. They sang some songs for us, and we in turn sang some (one) back, (spiderpig haha). In the middle of their little culture talk, while we were sitting in awe of how untouched and primitive? this place was, one of the lady´s cell phone rang. That was hilarious and definetely killed my initial impression of the place. After that, we got dropped off
at Amantani island (probably wrong spelling), where we met our host families and all parted ways for lunch. Lunch was awesome, much better than I expected, and so was dinner and breakfast. Amazing what these people can cook up with so little to work with. After lunch, we all walked up a hill? to the soccer field, where we played a match against the locals. Not sure if we won or not. After the game, most of us walked up the mountain type thing,which was pretty tough cause the air there is so thin and there´s very little oxygen, so every breath you took felt like you werent really breathing at all. Kind of painful actually, similar to holding your breath and running. (lake Titicaca is the highest elevation lake in the world..I think I mentioned that already). Anyways, on the way down, we stopped for tea and donuts (really random little set up on the side of the mountain) and headed back for dinner. After dinner we all went to the meeting hall for some insane dancing while wearing their traditional clothing, which was quite uncomfortable, really. You can all laugh at the pictures. After the dancing, we went
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where we had lunch the first day to bed. The next morning, we said goodbye to our host families and took the boat around the lake again to a bunch of islands (cant remember the name of them anymore lol sorry), learned a bunch about their way of life and why they dress the way they do (mostly to distinguish between married and single people), had a pretty good lunch (fish) and then took the 3 hour boat ride back.
Dont remember what happened that night very well, we went out for dinner and then I think we found ourselves yet another Irish bar, where Nigel convinced us all to try some Guiness. It was pretty good, tasted kinda like coffee mixed with beer.
The day after that, we drove 6 hours by bus from Puno to Cuzco, and stayed the night there. Slacked off all day. tiring bus ride. ha.
The next day we had another free day in Cuzco, and went on this tour thing to this place called Saqsaywaman. Which pretty much says sexy woman. hahaha. We saw a bunch of ruins and some sort of magical spring, and took a bunch of pictures. After that we went back to the hotel where we
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people walking on the trail slacked off some more. Ordered pizza that night, cause the next day we were gonna start the 4 day Ince trail.
Ahh the inca trail. wow. long. high. I cant really explain what the inca trail was like, it is definetely something that has to be experienced. ALrighty,. first day, we left at i think 7 or 8, got in a bus, drove for a bit, halfway there Nigel realized that he forgot his sleeping bag. Panic mode. Went to breakfast, and then back on the bus, where he realized that he hadnt forgotten it and that is was on the top rack. yay. We drove up to kilometer 82 on some pretty sketchy road, and got dropped off there and met our porters, who thankfully carried our sleeping bags, or I dont think i would have made it lol. We walked for about 3 hours, and then had lunch, which was our first taste of the incredibly impressive food that they managed to conjure up for us on the trail. After lunch, we walked for another 2 hours ish and got to camp right before sunset. Slept pretty decent the first night. I was the only person in a
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great view single tent cause Nigel got paired up with another bloke from a different group named Robert. Everyone (Steve) kept making single camper jokes and telling me I was gonna get eaten by pumas. Thanks guys.
The second day was the hardest day of the trail. Ascent was 1.3 km. up. Strait up. Holy ship. I think it was like 2500 steps (stairs) up. And these were huge stairs. We walked from about 7 am to 2:30 pm. All after breakfast and before lunch. 7.5 hours. up. OMG. almost died. I was leaning on my walking stick for dear life. lol. Good thing Nigel brought his music, which definetely lightened up the mood, and made the walk a hell of a lot funner. We also came up with the 10 step rule. Everytime we walked up 10 steps, we´d stop to rest. Sounds pathetic, I know. Personally I think we did pretty good. Were carrying packs on our backs. (which were probably 5 times lighter than what the porters were carrying.) Oh ya, so after we reached the top of the pass, at altitude 4000 something meters, where it was freakishly cold and devoid of good breathing air (it was called
dead womans pass...very encouraging name, I know) I was like yay yay we did it.! nope. We still had to go all the way down. Probably another 2000 steps. double wow. The porters ran past us with huge, and i mean HUGE packs on ther backs and set up our tents and cooked our food, all before we got there. Friggin amazing. Made the rest of us look like weaklings. The third day was the most interesting, we saw a bunch of Inca sites and a lot of different flora and fauna. Bout 4 hours hiking before lunch and 4 hours after. Pretty good. Felt pretty dead by that time though. Had a good dinner and then went out to this building place where we hung out and played cards for a bit. Headed off to bed not long after cause the wake up call was 3:30 the next morning.
Alrighty 4th day, we got up early, had a pancake, and said our goodbyes to the porters, and then headed off to the control gate. Control was suppose to open at 5 but the guy was about 15 minutes late, which was a bit hilarious because pretty much all of
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me walking across a bridge us 200 trekers were at this one gate that we couldnt get across. We were pretty anxious to get to the Macchu piccu Sun Gate in time to see the sunrise over it., which was at about at 6:30. From the control to Macchu Piccu was a 6 km walk ( we pretty much ran along this path that was like mountain on one side and a steep drop down the other...kinda sketchy) mostly in the dark(using our flashlights of course) and we all made it there in time. Too bad it was cloudy there and you couldnt see it through the clouds till about 7, by which time we had already walked down into it. But everything was good and we all made it safely, Macchu Piccu was awesome, and the whole experience was definetely one i will never forget.
We spent about half the day in Maccu Piccu, and then went into this little town (forget the name) to get lunch, which was delicious. The restaurant was amazing for us after the trail cause it had clean flush toilets with tissue paper yay yay yay!!! lol cause we had just spent 4 days pissin/ plopping in either holes
in the ground with ship all around them or on 3 legged toilets that you had to balance while taking a leak into a plastic bag toilet where if the ´toilet´tipped all the crap inside would pour out all over you. haha nice visual huh? Not that Im complaining, because it was still an awesome trip and it made even the most simple toilets look like heaven. okay enough about the potties. sorry
Righto so we took a bus to get back into Cuzco and got there around 10 pm, where I dropped into bed for a long, long time.
Next day I did absolutely nothing cause i was super sick and just too damn lazy. Ate raisins and crackers. And tea.
The plan for the next day was to go to the amazon forest, where we´d stay the next two nights. We took a plane into Puerto Maldonado, which was a small town where you could take a half an hour boat ride to the Amazon jungle lodge. We got to the lodge at around 1 pm, i think,. and had a great lunch there. Holy crud the jungle lodge was friggin amazing. Soo beautiful with a pool
and a tiki bar type thing, where they played tiki bar music and served drinks and we played pool and cards. lol. Anyways, After lunch, we walked around the rainforest where our awesome guide showed us tons of really cool stuff (sorry i know thats really vague) I dont think i bothered to take too many pictures either. lol. sorry again. maybe ill try to get some off the others later. After our little hike, we went back and had dinner, and then went out again that night by boat to see the caymans, which are kind of like small crocodiles. very cool. After that we headed off to bed.
The next day we woke up at 5 am to go see some really cool/pretty birds. We saw tons of these bright green ones, which i also couldnt take a picture of cause the zoom on my camera sucks as*. Next time im bringing a better camera. bit dissapointed. oh well, i know what i saw and im pretty sure i wont forget!
Right so after that, we had breakfast, and then headed off by boat to monkey island, where we saw tons of really cute monkeys and fed them
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people on the trail bananas and yay i have pictures. Then we were off to another island, where we walked for a bit and saw more cool stuff and then took a boat on this really cool river in the middle of the rainforest to the lake there, where we had lunch. Scott and Jason jumped in. lol good for them! the rest of us are wimps. haha. Took the boat and walked back and got back just in time to see sunset at the lodge by the lakeside. Really really pretty. Will never forget that night, cause it was sort of our last night on the trip. Cause the next day all we did was pretty much take a plane back to lima, go for our very last dinner together, and then went to the bar (not an irish one this time lol). We all said our goodbyes, (very sad aww....) and then off to bed.
The next morning, we took the plane from lima, peru to Quito, Ecuador, for the second (and longer) leg of my trip!!
Right now Im in Quito. I've settled into my hotel and had the orientation today, so I´m off to try to catch the bus tomorrow
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beautiful scenery to get to the reserve. Hope I get there alright. Gotta get dropped off the side of some random road in the middle of no where. ha. Wish me luck guys!!!
bye!!!!
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Jenny
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O_O WHOA!!! Those are some awesome photos. hahaha, I love reading your blogs, so funny. Makes you appreciate all the little things we have after going on a trip like that, huh? I can't believe you guys have wild little toucans running around ^^