Friday (8/6/10) - Running and Travel Day
Since I was going to be missing two weekend long runs, I decided to at least try to get in one of them before leaving for Peru. My boyfriend, Chris, willingly agreed to run 20 miles with me and met me at my house early Friday morning. We set out to run 10 miles to his place for a quick pitstop and water refill and then headed 10 miles back to my house. Oh, the things you can see when you cover that much distance by foot! I then got dropped off at the airport, where I met up with my friend and travel companion, Linda, and had a beer before boarding our flight to Miami. Ok, so maybe running 20 miles and then being confined to an airplane seat for several hours was not exactly the best idea! I passed out almost immediately upon boarding the plane and didn't move my legs for a good hour, resulting in them being severely cramped when I woke up. We walked around a lot in the Miami airport to keep the blood circulating through my legs, had dinner at this excellent Cuban place, and met up with Linda's sister and nephew, Janet and James.
Saturday (8/7/10) - Travel Day and Cusco
We boarded our flight to Lima at around 12:30 AM and arrived in Lima around 4:30 AM. I didn't really mind the overnight flight, as I slept through most of it. I had bought one of those horseshoe-shaped pillows, although it was kind of impractical to put it around the back of your neck because then you couldn't lean back. So instead, I stuck it around the front of my neck and rested my chin on it! When we got to Lima, there was someone holding a sign that said "Amanda An x 4." Hey, that's my name! How cool! I feel so special! Instead of booking hotels, flights, and tours separately, we decided to go through a travel agent and not only did they book all of that for us, they also arranged transportation and assistance to and from every transfer point we had. I can't say enough about how nice it was to never have to worry about trying to figure out where you were supposed to go and finding a means of transport to get there. I highly recommend Lima Tours and the Blue Skies Travel Agency. At the Cusco airport, we bought some Peruvian breakfast sandwiches and Coca lollipops (they tasted like stale honey) to help with altitude sickness.
We got to Cusco late-morning and were transferred to our hotel, where we were greeted with Coca tea. It's hard to describe how that tasted, but I actually liked it! We then went out to explore the town and save for feeling tingles up and down my legs, I did okay with the high altitude. We walked down to the main square for lunch, where I tried two very Peruvian items: Pisco Sour and alpaca. The Pisco Sour tasted sort of like a margarita. The alpaca was a little too gamey for my taste. We walked around a few markets and then came back to our hotel to meet our hiking guide at 5 for a quick briefing. Well, the minutes/hours ticked by and no guide showed up. I fell asleep in the lobby for a while and was subjected to this annoying repetitive commercial: "How was your vacation? The world wants to know!" Finally, we asked the front desk to call the tour company and found out the guide thought we were supposed to meet at 6 and would be there "in some minutes." After the briefing, we had dinner at the restaurant next door, where I again felt adventurous and wanted to fully experience Peru by ordering guinea pig. I was NOT expecting a full guinea pig, head, teeth and all, to come out on a plate. I picked up my butter knife and was wondering how to even go about eating it. The waiter saw me and came out and asked if I would like them to cut it up for me, to which I pleadingly responded "Yes, please!" He came back out with it fully cut up but had to put the detached head on top of the cut up pile. It tasted too bad (like dry, gamey chicken), but I could not get over all the little bones and the head and the fact that I was eating a little rodent creature. After that meal, I declared myself done with adventurous Peruvian cuisine and decided I would stick with the meats I am used to from here on out.
Sunday (8/8/10) - Cusco
We had some free time Sunday morning and continued to roam around Cusco, stopping at a little cafe for an excellent breakfast, sitting outside a little street market sipping Inca Kola and soaking up the Peruvian sun, and doing a little shopping at the markets across the street from our hotel. At 1 pm, our tour company picked us up for a tour of Cusco's main sites: the Plaza de Armas, the Cathedral, the Santo Domingo convent monastery, Saqsaywaman, the temple and amphitheatre of Kenko, and the Red Fortress of Puca Pucara. One part of the tour involved a ten-minute hike up the mountain at night and I found myself hyperventilating. Several thoughts ran through my mind: (1) How am I ever going to survive 5 days of this?! Especially with one day involving 10 hours of hiking?!; (2) All that marathon training is good for nothing! One person in our group even needed medical attention.
When we got back to our hotel, one of the ladies standing outside had been pestering us to buy her jewelry over the last two days and we finally decided to give in to her. While looking through her jewelry, a bout of dizziness/blurriness came over me and I suddenly felt like throwing up. I dropped the jewelry I was holding and ran for the bathroom. I sat there for a couple minutes until it went away and then met my travel buddies in the lobby and explained what just happened. This was my first and luckily my only episode with altitude sickness during the trip. I had been so worried about getting altitude sickness because (1) I am highly susceptible to every other sickness known to man (air, sea, motion, etc...you name it, I get it) and (2) being an intense, aerobic exerciser, I am constantly feeding oxygen into my body, which puts me at higher risk for more severe reactions when subjected to low-oxygen environments.
Monday (8/9/10) - Day 1 of Salkantay Trek
We were picked up early on Monday morning and driven in a van to Mollepata, where we stopped for breakfast and also bought wooden walking sticks, which were a lifesaver on the trek. Our tour group was nice and small and personal, consisting of me and my 3 travel buddies, two Germans, one guide, one cook, one assistant cook, and a horseman. We were on some pretty intense snake roads and I found that if I kept my eyes closed and didn't look outside, I didn't get as sick. I became an expert at sleeping on moving transportation by the end of this trip. We were supposed to start our hike from Mollepata and stop at Cruzpata for lunch, but for some reason I am still not too sure of (think it had something to do with the extreme cold conditions expected that night), we were driven to Cruzpata, where our cooks prepared lunch and our horseman put our gear on the horses. Our cook and assistant cook were excellent on this trip and I felt so well-fed during our multi-course meals that included bread and soup, a main course, dessert, and hot drinks. I was constantly hungry on this trip and devoured every meal as if it was my last, thinking the rest of my group was doing the same, only to look up from my empty bowl at everyone staring at me and laughing. Darn that runner's metabolism! I was picked on the entire trip for my ravenous eating habits. First came the tapeworm theories, then came the nickname "Picaflor," which is Spanish for hummingbird, because of my petite size (I was the smallest one in the group but ate the most) and the way hummingbirds neverendlessly eat and fly around. Even the cooks and guide were in on the picking!
After lunch, we set off on our 3-hour hike to our campsite for the night. Much differently than the previous night, I felt like a million bucks. I blazed through the trail effortlessly (okay, so maybe all that marathon training is paying off after all!), only stopping occasionally to take in the breathtaking scenery and snap a few photos. I made it to the campsite, Soraypampa, where our tents were already set up and the cooks fed us a post-hike snack of popcorn, biscuits, and hot drinks as they prepared dinner. I love being out in the middle of nowhere where you can see the sky light up with stars and the milky way. Our guide pointed out the Southern Cross, which was so blatantly obvious in the sky that I couldn't believe it! I spent 5 months in Australia and could never once pick the constellation out, even on those super starry nights in the outback! We were right next to the glacier and that night was miserably cold, -5 degrees Celcius to be exact. I put on as many layers as possible and even had hand warmers (good call on Linda's part), but still thought I was going to shiver to death. Mainly my nose/face was cold and since the cooks had fed us all those warm liquids (soup, tea, coffee) for dinner to keep us warm, I had to pee so bad and kept convincing myself that if I was shivering this much in my sleeping bag in a tent, I did not want to be outside! This is probably the first and only time that I will say 5:30 AM could not come soon enough! Finally, our assistant, Willie, knocked on our tent with Coca tea and after putting that inside my frigid body, I was able to somewhat function again.
Tuesday (8/10/10) - Day 2 of Salkantay Trek
We were fed omelets for breakfast (James was not hungry and I ended up eating his in addition to mine) and given a snack bag with fruit and cookies. It was still miserably cold when we set off on our hike that morning and that made me short of breath as I climbed the mountain. This day was extremely challenging and Janet ended up paying to ride a horse for a good portion of the trek. James fell behind and I later found out he had altitude sickness and Linda stayed back with him. They gave him oxygen and altitude sickness medicine and our guide, Diego, spent much of the day running up and down the mountain finding horses for them. I was the fastest in the group and ended up in front, with the two Germans occasionally catching up to me and then falling behind again. Part 1 of this day's trek was straight up the mountain on these neverending switchbacks. It was extremely daunting to look up and see the trail wind up and up and up without any sign of the top. At first, I was thankful that I at least didn't have to run up these trails until the trails were so steep that even just walking slowly up in made you pant. I finally made it to the top (4600 m high), but it was so cold and windy that I only stayed there long enough to snap a couple photos and then continue on with my trek with the thoughts of "Where's lunch?" lingering in my head. The horses dropped everyone off at the top and they had to walk down the mountain, so I caught up to Janet. With two walking sticks, I was struggling to get down the steep rocky trails, so I could not imagine Janet doing it without any since she gave her sticks to James. I offered her one of my walking sticks, half of my water, and told her I'd see her at the lunch site. It was getting later and later and I kept thinking lunch had to be around the corner, only to turn the corner and see the trail go on endlessly.
Finally, my redemption came at 1:30 PM! I was the first one of my group there and Willie pulled out a chair for me to sit and gave me some juice. Diego came 15 minutes later, followed by Freddie and Lydia (the two Germans) another 5 minutes later. No signs of Janet, Linda, and James, so the cooks served us first. They eventually got there at around 2:30 PM and were fed as Diego told us three that we had to set off for part 2 of the day's trek if we wanted to get there before dark. I spent most of this part of the trek alone again until Diego caught up with James on a horse and handed him off to me before going back with the horse for Janet and Linda. James felt better after taking the altitude sickness medicine and stuck with me the entire way until we reached the campsite. It was interesting to see the change of climate from snow-capped mountains to tropical rainforest. We got to Challway, our second campsite, at around 5:45 PM with no sign of our group anywhere since they had not arrived yet. The cook and horseman eventually showed and got our tents up and dinner going right away, but Diego and Willie stayed back with Janet and Linda. The hike was challenging enough in daylight, I have no idea how they managed it in the night, since it is winter in South America right now and the sun sets early. Willie spoke very little English, but would tell Linda, "Warning! Perilous danger!" whenever they were close to the edge.
They arrived around 7:50 PM and we didn't have dinner until well past 9 PM. I had thought that maybe we would have pre-dinner snacks again and didn't eat anything between lunch and dinner. With all that activity and no food in a 7 hour span of time, I thought my stomach was going to eat itself and was dizzy with hunger, on the verge of passing out. I inhaled 3 plates of spaghetti that night. It wasn't as cold at the second campsite and I slept a little better than the first night, although I still woke up a couple times in the middle of the night with a frosty nose.
Wednesday (8/11/10) - Day 3 of Salkantay Trek
We took a 45-minute hike alongside the Salkamayo river to where buses were parked and James and Janet were supposed to get on one and meet us at the lunchsite. James felt good and decided he wanted to hike and Linda opted to wait for Janet and take the bus with her. They witnessed a rockslide and were stuck for two hours as a bulldozer cleared the path. The rest of us hiked for a good 5 hours, with Diego pointing out native vegetation and getting to try passion fruit along the way. Lunch was in Lucmabamba. I was so thrilled to be able to use a flushable toilet, it's amazing how much appreciation you have for the little things when you have to live without them. We were then driven to Santa Teresa village. I was definitely tired of hiking by then and welcomed the car ride. We parted ways with the two Germans then because they did a 4 day tour and were going straight to Aguas Calientes to see Machu Picchu the next day. Santa Teresa was in a warm, tropical climate infested with mosquitoes. We spent the afternoon in a hot spring, which was so relaxing! The khakis I had worn for 3 days straight were so dirt-covered and grimy that I took them into the water and rubbed them with a stone to get some of the dirt stains out. Hey, it worked and after a day of drying out in the sun, I had fresh semi-clean pants to wear to Machu Picchu! I was attacked by mosquitoes when I got out of the hot spring and did not sleep well for another night in a row because I woke up itching like crazy!
Thursday (8/12/10) - Day 4 of Salkantay Trek/Aguas Calientes
We were supposed to spend the morning hiking three hours, but Diego decided that we would take the car to our next destination instead since hiking along roads that are being shared with cars would not be fun. All the other groups had left (it was interesting to see the same people from different tour groups over and over again along the trails, campsites, and even the airport), so the campsite's monkey, Pancho, decided to come over to greet us at breakfast. Pancho apparently loves tourists and likes to raid their bags for treats. The curious little guy fished around our leftovers from breakfast and then took a liking to James. When Diego got us to walk up the mountain for a good view of the town, Pancho ran after us and clung to James arm for a ride. He ended up peeing on James' arm and then on my bag twice (he must've thought my bag was a toilet or something) and that's when I had enough of Pancho. We had lunch and spent a long time waiting until finally taking the train to Aguas Calientes, the city closest to Machu Picchu. I even witnessed a cow get slaughtered and skinned off the side of the road during that time. Is it bad that it reminded me of skinning our cats in Anatomy class? The train ride to Aguas Calientes felt incredibly uncomfortable and long too me. There was hardly any room to move and every sore muscle that I had in my body from hiking was cramping up.
We got to Aguas Calientes and Diego checked us into a hostal, only to later find out that he had confused the hostal name with the hotel we were supposed to stay at. They had already given us rooms and one of the guys at the front desk came by and rambled off a spew of things in Spanish that I couldn't make out and all I heard was that we had to leave "Ahorita!" Things eventually got straightened out and we were situated in the right place. It felt SO good to finally take a shower, although I wanted to scream when I saw how covered my legs/body was in mosquito bites. I finally got a good night's worth of sleep that night in a comfy bed.
Friday (8/13/10) - Day 5 of Salkantay Trek and Machu Picchu!!!
We had breakfast at the hotel and were supposed to meet Diego at 7 AM to take the bus to Machu Picchu. He didn't show and when 7:30 rolled around and he still didn't show, we left a message with the hotel receptionist and walked over to the bus station by ourselves. It turned out he overslept and he eventually met up with us at Machu Picchu and handed us off to this crazy eccentric guide that enunciated everything he said in English and had some crazy theories about these "V's" that pointed to mountains and things. It was absolutely amazing and breathtaking to finally see Machu Picchu, the prize from our 5-day long adventure. As I walked through the site, I just imagined what it would've been like to have actually lived in such a spectacular place. I love ancient historical sites and felt the same way when I walked through the Colloseum and Pompeii. I had wanted to climb Wayna Picchu to get a good view of Machu Picchu, but that was limited to the first 400 guests with tickets and the others weren't up for it. So instead, we climbed up to the Intipunku, the Sun Gate, which is the entrance you would've come through if you'd taken the classic Inca trail, as opposed to the alternative Salkantay trek that I did. We got our taste of what taking the Inca trail would've been like. It seemed a lot easier with a lot of stone steps, as opposed to dirt and moveable rocks. When we told other guides and locals that we did the Salkantay trek, many were impressed with us, so it had to have been a hard trail. It started pouring when we got to the top and my camera died because water got inside (luckily, it dried out overnight and revived itself). Going down the slippery steps on the way back was seriously perilous danger!
We took a train from Aguas Calientes to Cusco that night. It was so slow moving and took us close to 5 hours. We met up with Jose Luis, Willie, and Diego for dinner in Cusco. It was again so nice to sleep in a warm and comfy bed that night.
Saturday (8/14/10) - Lima
We boarded a plane from Cusco and arrived in Lima around noon. Lima had an international, metropolitan big city feel to it, almost like NY. I didn't like it as much and preferred the small town feel of Cusco over it. I also noticed that Lima didn't seem as touristy and not as many people spoke English. I put my Spanish to good use there, as some people we had to interact with barely spoke any English at all. After checking into our hotel, we went to a restaurant nearby and ended up eating for 2 whole hours. The food was once again spectacular, as was every meal I had in Peru. The Peruvians definitely do not get enough credit for their fine cuisine! Since our Blue Skies Travel Agent is Peruvian, she told us that if we wanted to try something a little different and non-touristy, we should go to the Brisas de Titicaca folklore dance show that night. We got there early to get tickets and had an hour to spare. Since the area where the show took place wasn't exactly the safest and most happening part of the city, our cab driver offered to take us on an hour-long window tour of Lima. The show was pretty cool, although it was interesting that they would do a dance and then allow all the guests to come up on the stage and dance in between each one. It was also pretty interesting to see all the guests go up and dance and all know the same dance routines (salsa, merengue, etc.). Much different from American club grinding!
Sunday (8/15/10) - Travel Day
We were picked up early and transported to the airport for a long day of traveling back home. It took forever to get through all the securities and I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that they searched our bags again before we boarded the airplane and took the drinks that we had just bought in the terminal away from us. The 5.5-6 hour flight to Lima went by relatively quickly for me, I slept through all but 30 minutes of it. Then I found myself in Miami, back at square one, sitting across from Linda in the Cuban place with the same exact dinner as last time, and oddly enough, wearing the same clothes as last time because it was my only clean outfit left! This is where it all started and where it all ended. The 2.5 hour flight from Miami felt gruelingly long, after surviving the whole day of traveling and wanting to be home already!
