Peru Report (part 2 of 2)

(read Peru Report part 1 first. In fact, if you need me to tell you that, maybe you shouldn’t be on my page in the first place)

…about two hours in I woke up with a splitting headache. Quite possibly the worst headache I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Hmmmm, yeah, it was the worst one. I would have to lie on one side of my face or it would feel like my skull was about to crack open. I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night, so I just laid there trying to be completely still.

In the morning, I was dreading Kerri jumping up and being ready to go. Lucky for me, she slept in and when she woke, she wasn’t feeling well either (not nearly as bad as me). She looked up “altitude sickness” in the peru book I brought and it matched our symptoms exactly.  The last paragraph said something about a headache being a very serious symptom and deserves immediate medical attention. But instead I decided to eat breakfast. Then, we walked slowly down into the main square to go shopping. We spent hours walking around comparing alpaca hats and prices between different shops. It was fun and as the day progressed, my head started to feel better. We stopped for lunch in a really good pastry shop in the middle of downtown. I had a pancake and it was delicious. I also had a coca tea. I was told to drink coca tea to help with the altitude sickness by a few people before I went down there and a bunch of people down there. The stuff is illegal in the states because it is made from coca leaves from the same tree that cocaine is made from (although I know someone in the states that may or may not have some leaves on his or her person). There is even a rumor that it contains trace amounts of cocaine. Let me tell you, if drinking this tea is anything like smoking cocaine… I don’t know what the big deal is. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell if it helped with the altitude sickness. Maybe it did, I don’t know.

We went back to the hostel and the front desk was insistent on helping us reserve our bus tickets. They asked us what bus company we wanted to use. Anything but Ormeño. We went upstairs and I took a nap. Just to be sure we wouldn’t miss it, we went to the bus station to buy our tickets before dinner. We couldn’t find the little stand the company our hostel desk gave us, so we just found another bus that was heading that way. We bought our tickets and headed for some food. For dinner, we went back down to the town and decided on a pizza joint.  The place was packed at lunchtime and now, it was completely dead.  That’s a good sign right? We ordered a pizza and it was kinda weird tasting, but not bad. We taxied back to the hostel to grab our bags and pay our bill.  We were running late (the pizza took a long time) so we had the taxi wait for us. When the guy at the front desk gave us our bill, it was way more expensive then we expected. He explained that it included the two bus tickets they bought for us. We tried to explain that we bought our own tickets and never agreed to have them buy our tickets but with our limited spanish and having no time to argue, I just paid the douchebag for the extra tickets and we left for the station. We got there with a minute to spare.

We ran out to the bus and they told us to just toss our bags in the undercarriage and jump in.  The bus was old and dingy and filled up fast. I had an overweight lady standing in the aisle for the first half hour of the trip literally sitting on my shoulder (her blanket of stuff was filling her seat). It was hot and uncomfortable. I was still a bit sick from the altitude and I was dying of thirst (we didn’t have time to get drinks at the station because we got there too late) and Kerri was just starting to get really sick from the altitude. Neither of us slept a wink. We drove for 6 hours then we hit the spot. Around 5am, we arrived in Cusco. They gave us crap for not having a ticket for our luggage that they told us to just throw in without getting a ticket. It was a long day. We took a taxi to Loki but the hostel was full. So we went to the next hostel on our list and fell asleep just as the sun arose.

In the morning/noon, we were both feeling a bit better, so we walked down to the main square (our hostel was pretty close) and ate at a cafe right on the square. They had cheap internet, so we hung out for a bit checking up with the world. My insides were a painful pureé by this point so it was good to be near a clean toilet as well. We walked around a bit and found the office of our tour company for Machu Picchu.

The final part of our payment was due and they wanted to talk about the trip so that we know what to expect. Neither of us had the money, so we had to head for an ATM after, but while we were in the office, Kerri started feeling really sick again (her altitude sickness came and went) so we decided to head back to the hostel and rest.

The next morning we headed back to the same cafe to eat breakfast. We went to the ATM and took the money to the perutreks.com office. They made it a point to tell us we were the last ones in the group to pay. We actually felt well enough to explore the town a bit. We found a huge covered food market and ate dinner at a delicious restaurant called Jack’s Cafe.

It wasn’t Peruvian food, but at that point, I didn’t care. Also, when we were using the internet earlier that day, a masked man snuck up behind Kerri and gave us pamphlets to a Peruvian play. We found the theater and the tickets weren’t too expensive, so we bought two for the Tuesday night after we returned from Machu Picchu and headed home to sleep.

We woke at 4am or something crazy like that. The hostel we were staying at let us store our extra baggage there so we didn’t have to hike with everything we had, just what we needed. The trek guide met us at the front door of our hostel and walked down to a nearby street where a private chartered bus (more like a giant van) was waiting for us (and the 14 others in our group). They bussed us up to a small town that I couldn’t spell or pronouce even if I wanted to so we could eat breakfast. I could have crowd surfed off that bus (and seriously considered it) with how swarmed we were with people trying to sell us water bottle holders, walking sticks, and coca leaves.

The restaurant we ate at had a stable of guinea pigs out back. I figured it was one of those situations where you go and pick the one you want to eat…kinda like lobster.

I wasn’t feeling too daring (thank you stomach ache), so I stuck with the eggs and toast. Afterward, we had to drive another hour or so to get to the Inca trail starting point. We were swarmed by old ladies selling hiking poles and all that again. They gave us our sleeping mats (they provided them but we had to carry them) and we started the hike.

It wasn’t very steep anywhere for too long, but the air was SO thin, we all started panting pretty easily. I hadn’t been eating much the last few days trying to get my intestines back in order and the lack of energy was hitting me.  We stopped for lunch and the porters setup a large tent with a long table and little stools for us to eat in.  The food throughout the trip was really good. We had a number of soups, different meats, pancakes, teas, cakes, cocoa, etc. I was really impressed with the three course meals throughout the hike.

On the handout they gave us, it rated the first day’s hike as “a warm up”.  And by the time we made it to camp, I thought, “if today was a warm up, the rest of the hike is going to kick my ass.” But then I thought, “Nah, I can do it.”  I was right the first time. It started raining so we ate dinner and quickly introduced ourselves to each other.

There were 16 hikers, 2 guides, and 20 porters.  Within the hikers there were 6 from the US, 2 from Canada, 1 from Germany, 3 from Ireland, 2 from Austria and 2 from Norway. Afterward we went to bed. Even though it was raining, it was pretty warm.

The next morning I woke up with a wicked stomach ache. I spent some time up in the bathroom (aka hole in the ground) and apparently the assistant guide noticed I was up there a while. He asked if my stomach was doing okay and I said no. They said they’d make me a “magic potion” to help. It tasted a lot like tea. It might have helped, but I didn’t notice any significant change.  The second day of hiking was supposed to be the hardest and it was. It was 5 miles straight up a mountain, over 1000 meters straight up. The first half of the day I did okay, but I couldn’t eat lunch and that did not help the second half of the day. At the peak, we were 14,000 feet from sea level.  To put that in perspective, when I went skydiving years ago, the plane was flying at 13,000 feet when I jumped out. The hike was largely climbing rock stairs laid out by the Incas hundreds of years ago.

I made it to the campsite and crashed. Most of the group got together to have tea and play games, but I felt like trying to sleep off my intestinal issues. I didn’t get much sleep though cause my tent was pretty close to the food tent where everyone was laughing and making a ruckus.  I did get up for dinner and tried my best to eat it and then back to bed.

The next morning I felt a lot better and the uphill hike for day 3 didn’t look as impossible as it did the day before. We hiked for about a half an hour before stopping at a small Incan ruin. It was raining again and a lot cooler than the first day. The ruins were supposedly an outpost that looked over the valley. I bet the view would have been beautiful if it wasn’t completely foggy. It was kind of eerie.  Then we hiked about a half hour more uphill and reached the peak for the day, the rest was mostly downhill. Our guide tried to get a little Incan ceremony going with coca leaves, but some of the group was really far behind, so we had to wait a long time and were ready to get going.

It rained and rained. It rained off and on most of the day. We stopped at a couple more Incan ruins. The last one had some sort of aquaduct that was still working. The ruins weren’t as complex as Machu Picchu turned out to be, but I almost enjoyed them more because I knew the only people that would see it were the ones that hiked the trail. All the old and lazy people that bussed to Machu Picchu would never see it.

Kerri was miserable though because she wore indoor soccer shoes (that were not waterproof) and had water soaked up her jeans.

We decided to run the rest of the way (the last few miles) and so we did. It was fun passing wide-eyed people, flying past them as they slowing made their way down the trail. We were the first to camp needless to say. I was tired and sore and Kerri had blisters. But I did notice that the Americans in our group were always the first ones to the camp and I believe we were the only nationality that didn’t pay for a porter to hike our backpacks at least one day.  I mean, I’m not saying Americans are hard core or anything but….BOOYAH!!

After dinner we had a birthday cake and gave our tips to the porters and chefs.  We played some card games and hung out as a group for a while, but we didn’t stay up too late because we had to get up before sunrise to make the final hike down to Machu Picchu.

Morning came way too fast and we quickly packed and lined up to head down the final trail to Machu Picchu.  There is a checkpoint that you cannot pass until it opens at 6am, but EVERYONE in the camp tries to get there first. The first half of the trail there was completely crowded and these stupid people that lined up early to get there were slowass hikers. We’d pass them whenever we could and most of them would give us a dirty look, one lady was holding her hiking pole out as if that’s going to stop me. At the halfway point there was a large lookout area that you can see Machu Picchu from…on a sunny day. All we saw was fog.  We did hike it right on the ending cusp of the raining season, so I can’t complain.

After resting a few minutes we started down the final stretch of our 49km hike.  Before we knew it, we were standing on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a bunch of fog. This was it. Machu Picchu was standing just outside our view. We watched the llamas and relaxed for about an hour and there was a break in the fog. We took as many pictures as we could and then hiked down into the ancient city.

The fog had cleared away and our tour guide took us around pointing out the highlights of the different buildings  It was really amazing walking through and seeing the size and scope of the place. You could almost see the Incans walking down the same stairways and stone walkways. It was beautiful.

I was exhausted, so we hopped on the bus and headed down to a small town called Aquas Calientes. It was known for it’s hot springs.

The plan was to eat and then relax in the hot springs until our train left that afternoon to take us back to Cusco. We ate with our group. I had a hamburger that I’m pretty sure was not from a cow. Maybe guinea pig. Maybe llama. I don’t know, I don’t care, it was good. A couple of guys in our group had heard the hot springs weren’t exactly clean so we decided to skip it and just play cards until our train came. I slept most of the ride back. We had to get off and take a bus into Cusco. We didn’t get there until 10pm. I showered and crashed in a bed, two things I hadn’t done in 4 days.

The next morning we woke up and went to go bungee jumping. Kerri had never been. I was going to do it too but 1) I’ve done it a number of times and 2) they only wanted cash and I didn’t have enough on me. But it was a high jump and Kerri did it like a champ. We went shopping, ate at Jack’s Cafe again and headed down to the theater to see a play called Kusikay (or something like that). It was kind of a poor man’s Cirque de Soliel. I really liked it. It was in Spanish, but the projected the translation in English above the stage. To be honest, it still didn’t make sense. But it didn’t matter, it was about the costumes and dancing. Afterward I stopped by the internet cafe and Kerri headed back to the hostel.

We flew into Lima the next morning and had about 24 hours to kill. Neither of us were dying to be there, we wanted to just go home, but our flight wasn’t until really early the next morning.  So we stored our bags at the airport and headed into Miraflores, a district of Lima.

We sat in the park and read for a while and then went to see a movie (Vantage Point, don’t waste your time), then hung out in McDonalds, then the park, anyway, yeah you get the idea. We ended by going to see 10,000 B.C. It was late, but the movie was SO boring I slept through the second half of it. It was the last movie they showed so we grabbed a cab to the Lima airport. We only had about 5 hours until the plane so we didn’t want to pay for a hostel. We looked all over for a couch or some chairs to crash on at the airport (We even looked in the little church, but the single pew was taken) but the only thing we found was a couch in the Starbucks…and it was taken.

I wasn’t about to stand or lay on the hard floor, so it was time to take advantage of a Peruvian custom. We noticed while we were there that a server at any restaurant will never bring you your bill until you ask for it. I guess they consider it rude. So we went to a little cafe with padded booths. Keri ordered a tea and we slept on the booth seats for about 4 hours. They never brought our bill The place wasn’t busy at all, so whatever.

We finally jumped on the plane and after a hella long plane ride we landed in Miami. We had enough of a layover to catch a bit at chili’s at the airport and finally, headed home. Kerri’s family came to greet her at the airport and Nancy came for me   Aahhhhh…..thanks for reading

I took a lot more pictures than I could fit in this blog. To see MANY MORE of my pictures from the trip, you can go here: (pictures of Peru)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toddhamilton/sets/72157604730564489/
and here: (Machu Picchu and the Inca trail)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/toddhamilton/sets/72157604630263623/