The Best And Worst Day

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I'm writing this on Wednesday morning as we had a very busy day yesterday and I started to feel pretty ill yesterday afternoon so by the time we got back to the room all I wanted to do was try and sleep. Yesterday we had the best and worst day so far on the trip! We woke up pretty early, had breakfast then wandered off to find the tour company office who we had the ATV tour booked with as we realised we had no details of the time we would be picked up from our hotel in the afternoon to go on it. We found the office but it was closed but ten minutes later a guy turned up and we got our pickup time of 1-1.1pm. It was about 9.15 by this point so we had a few hours doing to play with. So we got a taxi up to the local Inca ruins which are just outside Cusco called Sacsaywaman which is pronounced Sexy Woman! Steph made me pronounce it to the taxi driver as she thought I'd got it wrong but nope, we got in and headed off. Ten mins later we arrived and bought a tourist pass which allowed us to get in plus access to another load of sites including the site of Moray which we were to visit on the ATV tour which we would have to pay for later so we were all sorted.



Once we entered the ruins there were a couple of guides loitering offering their services. We hadn't planned on getting a guide and turned down the guy first who was offering an hour tour for 60 soles. In the end I negotiated his services for 40 soles (you're supposed to haggle over here!). Although there were three American girls who arrived the same time as us so he actually suggested we make a big group and he was going to charge them 60 and us 10! However they turned him down. We started the tour which actually turned out to be very interesting. The guide who's name we later found out was Epi spoke very good English and was very funny as well as a good story teller! He told us about the site, how the stones were carved by the Incas and more importantly how they moved such huge stones around without machinery hundreds of years ago which was a question everyone wanted to know. We had a couple of guys from Equador ask to join our tour which we agreed and although English was their second language they joined in happily asking their questions in English so we could understand too. Epi showed us stones which had as many as 19 corners carved into them to ensure they would fit together with the surrounded stones and told us all about why the walls were built in that way which made them earthquake safe. He also showed us walls build by modern day Incas who he joked had been nicknamed the Inkapables because they workmanship wasn't good compared to their previous ancestors. Once our tour finished we thanked Epi and got a selfie with him before wandering around on our own where we found some alpacas and tried to get some selfies with them but they were more interested in eating the grass. We then left the ruins and looked to get a taxi back down to Cusco but there wasn't any to be found so we started the walk downhill to get back which was about 1,5km. I think this was probably our first mistake along with the fact we hadn't put any suncream on because it was pretty cloudy. Half way down the hill we stopped at a little shack and had a cheese sandwich and got some Gatorade as we felt a bit dehydrated before carrying on back down into Cusco, I felt fine at this point but it was about to change!



We had about 30mins free at the hotel before being picked up for the ATV tour and it was here where I started to get a bad headache. I had been taking ibuprofen since we arrived on the odd occasion to ward off any altitude headache but this didn't seem to be doing anything. I tried to get my head down for half an hour and downed a Gatorade bottle of orange squash hoping it would go away. Our pickup was due at 1-1.15 but at 12.55pm the phone in the room rang and it was reception saying our pickup was here so we rushed down and jumped in the taxi and was dropped off in the local square to join four American girls who were there waiting also. We all jumped in and then it drove around in circles trying to find another two people before we set off to drive to the ATV's an hour away. The journey was bumpy and windy and I just tried to sleep as much as I could as my headache was still booming. We eventually got to the ATV's where we had to fill forms in with our details including our passport numbers. Steph somehow found a photo of hers on her phone but I didn't have a clue of mine so just wrote down some random numbers! We then all jumped on the ATV's, 2 to each one. I drove first with Steph on the back and we had to do a test run to show we were able to drive them ok before we set off. We rode for 30km in the fresh air through valleys and fields and through some small villages to Moray which is an old Inka farming site. I started to feel less sick with the fresh air but still had the headache. We took some photos then switched and Steph drove to meet the bus where we got on and drove to the salt mines. The pictures just look like muddy pools of water but in the summer it dries out and they harvest thousands of kilo grass of salt from the pools which is then sold all over the world. It was here were I started to feel even worse, my headache was really bad and I was feeling really sick, I was trying to be cool but the guide noticed and said 'hey lady you feel ok, you not look good' so I just said I was OK just a headache and he said it was probably the altitude. We were at 3700m which is 900m less than the highest point of the trek. At this point I just wanted to get back to the hotel.



Steph drove the ATV back to the starting point but not before we had a hairy experience! We were following everyone else and were at the back of the group when we all drove through a village when a huge bull with horns came stomping through the village followed by a guy with a big stick shouting at it. It had escaped and he managed to drive it back to the way it came from in between the middle of the group of us. This wasn't so bad but a bit nerve wracking, however a bit further along we came across about 6 huge cows which could have been water buffalos with huge horns being drive down the road we had to drive down. There was a couple of kids, a women and a bloke trying to control them with sticks and throwing stones at them. Our group of ATV's negotiated past a couple of them before we got stuck behind two, which were unruly and started kicking their back legs up and grunting loudly. The women threw huge rocks at them and we managed to get past them before coming across another huge one which was standing across the road completely blocking it. Steph stopped the ATV and said what do I do and I said it will move in a minute then just fly past it. I was conscious that the two we had just past were just behind us! We were completely separate from the group at this point. Finally it moved but started walking down the middle of the road and I just told Steph to tank it past it as fast as she could so we could get past and catch the group up so we drove past within about a mere of it and thank god made it past ok. We then followed the rest of the group back to where the bus was where we had an hour bus ride all the way back. Again I was still feeling ill by this point and was wishing the time away to get back to the hotel. I was also starting to worry if it was altitude sickness by this point and panic with the trek only two days away. Finally we made it back to the hotel where I lay on the bed and then was sick (tmi?!). I drank some water and felt a bit better so we went for food where we just had pasta then went back to the hotel where I popped more pills and tried to drink more water and noticed how sunburnt my face was which must have been from the morning. We hadn't put cream on because it was literally cloud and no sun. We couldn't work out whether it was a bit of sun stroke, dehydration or altitude sickness that had made me so ill. I was leaning more towards dehydration and sunstroke as we'd been in Cusco 36 hours by the time I started feeling ill and thought it would have happened sooner if it was altitude sickness. The pins and needles in my feet have been getting stronger and almost painful at times, Steph's been having the same. Anyway we had an early night and I was praying I'd feel better in the morning.

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