Peru day 5

Day 5
The festival was today so there was a lot of activity. Many of us watched the big ceremony from our hotel breakfast room.

Debbie and I walked around and finished our shopping and ate this delicious sandwich. It is a heart attack waiting to happen.  It had egg, cheese, ham, bacon, chicken, and sausage!! More meat than I should eat in a week!

Eric led a hike around less touristy parts of Cusco.  It is interesting what people's perspectives are.  Several people commented about poverty. Honestly, it never registered with me - it was nothing like India. People also warned me often about cars or poop on the street. Again, it was nothing like India and I am always aware of poop and cars!!! We passed a house with a red bag hanging from a stick. That signifies they have chicha - local corn beer. Several people tried it. Others didn't want to risk anything before our trek.


 We also packed for the trek. We could put up to 16 pounds in our porter bag and we could carry what we wanted on our backs. I put my sleeping bag and my clothes in the porter bag and carried this on my back. My trekking poles, sunscreen, bug spray, Vaseline, my medicine, first aid kit, hat, gloves, scarf, poncho, jacket, snacks, wet wipes, tp, a bag to put the used tp in, my headlamp,  and a water bladder with 2 liters in it. I looked like a big purple turtle.

Peru day 3 and 4

There are a million things I could talk about in these blog posts, but trying to keep it short and sweet :) 

Peru day 3

We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel. My headache was gone, but I still drank coca tea. We drove through the Urubamba valley to Pisac. On the way, we stopped at a llama farm and weaving co- op. We saw how they died the yarn with natural items and learned all about the differences between alpacas, llamas, and vicuñas.

We saw the ruins in Pisac, then went into the town to eat empanadas :) and shop at the market. I got a blanket, gloves and a hat with ear flaps.  We all went to dinner together and saw a cultural show while we were eating. I got to eat alpaca which was ok and guinea pig which is always delicious.  :)

Most of the people in my group are runners that did Rim to Rim together so I'm kind of odd man out. Most of them are over fifty and far fitter than I am!!!!  There are a few couples and several women here alone without their husbands.  Many of my friends think it  is odd that I do such grueling, active things as vacation so it is fun to meet people who enjoy it.   I am making friends :)


Day 4

We had a free day today so I went with some of the women to go to the super mercado and the open market. Many people chew coca leaves or eat things with coca in them so help with altitude sickness.  Cocaine is derived from coca leaves so it is illegal in many countries.

I stole this off of facebook - Jenny, Amy and Shari are getting a little excited about the coca products :)

 People were buying coca tea bags to take back to the states and just say " tea" on the customs form.  Lorrie had, coca tea, cookies, candy, and flour. I told her she would be detained and on the no fly list!!  I went with Carol and Lorrie to the big market. they had fruits, vegetable, meat (including whole pig heads!) they also had lots of crafts and it was a fun place.

Inti Raymi is a famous festival for the sun so the streets are really crowded with locals and visitors. There were parades everywhere and it was so crowded it was hard to move!

I went back to the room to wait for my roommate, Debra to get done working so we could go to lunch. We met up with some other women and went to a restaurant called jacks near the square. I had a delicious BEEF burger.  Cathy and I wanted to see the cathedral but it was closed until 4:30. We walked around to all the stores and watched the endless parade. It stared to rain and was really cold so we hopped into a really cute restaurant and sat in an enclosed balcony so we could be warm and watch the parade.

When the cathedral opened, we went in and I soooo wish I was allowed to take pictures. It was so bizarre and there is no way to explain it.  Catholicism in South America is usually mixed with native religions so the Catholic Churches in Ecuador would have statues of the volcano god in there or Jesus in a casket. This church had crazy paintings and sculptures. We thought some of them were pirates!! There was a painting of the last supper with them eating a guinea pig!! We cracked up laughing.  One of the people in our group said they heard a guide say it was a chinchilla but either way, I don't think that is what they ate at the last supper!  There was also a painting a a huge saint carrying a child Jesus on his back and when I say huge, I mean he was using an entire palm tree as a walking stick.  Weird.

We walked back to the hotel and went to our trek briefing. I'm getting nervous about this hike!! This altitude is killer and we are hiking 6 to 10 hours a day.  No showers for four days and sleeping on the ground. Temps are supposed to be around 30 F. Holy moly! I'm going to freeze to death if I don't pass out from the altitude first. 

Machu picchu

Macchu Picchu!

There were 200 people in our camp and everyone was trying to get to the sun gate as soon as possible. We got up at 3:30 so I slept in my clothes. The porters packed everything up so quick they practically dragged my sleeping bag out from under me! Debbie, Kathy, and I  actually got to have breakfast with the group. We started down to the permit control at 4:25. It took less than 10 minutes then we waited until it opened at 5:30. It was really funny to hear people concerned about walking down in the dark for only a few minutes. I started and ended the last two days in the dark!!

Kathy, Debbie and I walked with Nancy and Michael and watched as all these people passed us. Michael and Nancy were here two years ago when it was ran as a race in ONE day. I can't even imagine. I took 29 hours ( lunches included) I have no idea how people finished in less than 12 hours.  Michael was very helpful telling us what to expect especially when we got to the monkey wall. It was straight up and I guess some people walked up with their poles!! Crazy. We crawled on our hands and feet.  We reached the sun gate soon after that.  It took a little over two hours total.

From the sun gate, you can see the promised land - Machu Picchu!! It was a perfect sunny day!! Cathy and I barely made it into the group shot. That's the problem with being in the back. I think there were a few group shots that the three of us are not in...

The whole point of hiking the Inca Trail was to get to Machu Picchu, but some people were so exhausted that they had a hard time enjoying it and just went to the hotel in Aguascalientes. Kathy and I explored for about an hour and a half.  We were looking for the condor :)

Our guides kept telling us there were facilities at Machu Picchu - actual toilets!  with SEATS!  hot running water and soap!  It was so awesome we used them twice :)

Aguascalientes is a 30 minute bus ride away.  We stayed at hotel presidente.  The town only exists for tourists coming from Machu Picchu so it is really expensive and several people had incidents of not being treated fairly at stores and restaurants.  I explored town a little and rested before dinner, but I was still really struggling with walking - so much pain!!  We all ate together at a restaurant and celebrated our accomplishment.

Inca trail day 3 the descent

The DESCENT inca trail day three

Today was a rough day, but I finished!

The altitude made me so sick.  I took my med, drank coca tea, chewed on some coca leaves, and sucked on coca candy....  I'm seriously going to leave Peru with a cocaine habit!!!!!

beautiful views today

Cathy, Debbie, and I started early in the dark with Marco as our guide.  We had to climb another pass, Runkuracay, today.  We would climb a bit and rest. I was so nauseated that I was trying to eat my sandwich a bite at a time. Finally I threw up and felt a little better, but every time I ate or drank, it came right back up. It is hard to hike when you have no fuel. The trail was much more crowded today so we had to stop often to let porters and hikers pass. These porters were resting and let me take their picture :)

I tried to eat a passion fruit because I thought it was like an orange.  I love passionfruit juice, but have never seen an actual passionfruit.  It was bizzarre!!!  To open it, you smash it on a rock and you see these tentacle things attaching the peel to the fruit.  The fruit itself is gelatinous with seeds in it - it looked like an alien!!

We were supposed to stop at a campground tonight then get up early to hike the last few hours to Machu Picchu. Carol was really sick with some respiratory thing which was making it really hard on her lungs.  They strapped her to a stretcher and had porters carry her with Myra running behind them. They were going to take her all the way to Macchu pichu so she could see a doctor and sleep in a bed. We saw her a few times. She had a different view than we did - all she saw were trees and sky! Those porters were moving! They got to MP by 1:30. By contrast I got to camp around 6 and hiked another 2.5 hours the next day. The porters haul our stuff but never get to see Machu Picchu. Myra pause and let the ones that were carrying Carol enjoy it for a few minutes.   Someone in our group saw a woman slung half conscious over a porter's back and he was hauling her out.  I'm wondering how many people have to be hauled out?  A person in our group told me they looked up safety statistics on the Inca trail to find out how many people die on it etc. and found no information.  We were not sure if that was good or bad!!!


We got to a site with ruins and Victor was waiting for most of the group to catch up so he could give a tour. I stayed down to watch the bags because I just didn't have it in me to climb unnecessary steps. We made it to the lunch site and all I could eat was some soup and a few bites of yam. I refilled my bladder and we started again. I was having trouble with it leaking and I asked Erik to look at it. Best we could tell the pressure of my gear was making it leak.

The trail was " inca flat" for awhile and we walked through a cloud forest that was amazing.

Considering I was so sick, I was still making good time and we caught up to a group of our people at a view area. We stopped to use the bano ( just a squat hole) and the group was gone by the time we got there.

We started down the steep decent - over 2500 stairs. We had been warned about this, but I don't know if it is possible to train for this part!  They are very uneven and I was very thankful for my trekking poles! I fell once on my butt and so did Cathy because there was a lot of loose sand. It took us about 4 hours to get down.  We had followed porters at several big stops, but we saw no one for a long time so we were a little worried we had gone the wrong direction.  I don't speak Quechua, but my Spanish was helping us a lot. We got our head lamps on because it looked like another dark finish. I'm so thankful Cathy stayed with me. By the last hour I could barely move. Lupus made my joints hurt so much - my knees and ankles were killing me.  I also started to get blisters on my feet which was the first time I had that problem. We finally spotted Joel waiting for us by a sign and he pointed us in the right direction and it was going to be another hour.  I was in agony by then and for the last 200 steps or so I said " just one more step" every time I stepped down.  We finally reached the campsite in the pitch black so Joel got confused and led us the wrong way so we were the last two to arrive.


I was so relieved to finish -  I started sobbing. I had only kept one bowl of soup down all day and was in so much pain and hiked for 12 hours with very little fuel.  This lovely lady, Sue, took my boots off and washed and rubbed my feet - she is an angel! Everyone was very encouraging and proud of us for finishing.  There wasn't a question of finishing.  I have finished every race I have ever started.  Several times I have ended up in the medical tent (and the hospital once) at the end of the race, but I have finished every single race I have started.  It is just a matter of how miserable I am :)


The porters made us a cake!!  a cake!!  on the trail.  Not sure how they did it!  I didn't get any pictures of it or the porter ceremony because I was so out of it from the hike.  Our porters are amazing and Erik led a ceremony where each porter told us their name and what they carried for us.  We collected tips and shared it with them.  We saw other groups doing similar ceremonies - it is a really nice way to honor them and end the trip.


Debbie and my tent was with the porters so we didn't have to walk far, but I still needed Erik to help me walk.  I went a few feet away from the tent and used my water bottle to brush my teeth for only the second time dueling the hike.  Someone my wet wipes got tossed so Annie gave me hers and I  used a wet wipe on my face - that was my "shower."  I conked out and actually got some sleep - not a lot because we had to get up at 3:30 am. the next morning.

Inca trail 2 dead woman's pass

Dead woman's pass - Inca trail day 2
Since Debra and I were slow and came in last, they had us start early. Wake up was at 5 am and we were to leave at 5:30 which is when breakfast started for the others. We got a ham and cheese sandwich and a banana instead of the hot breakfast the others got. Joel went with us and I would hike ahead then sit on a silla de Piedra - Rock chair until Debbie caught up. We took a break about 45 minutes in to eat, take our jackets off and put our headlamps away since it was light now.

The ear flap had was a great purchase!

llamas!

I was feeling less nauseated today so I got pretty far ahead which means I was hiking alone for hours. Since we stayed at a little used campground there wasn't anyone else on our section of the trail. 4 hours in I climbed into the woods to pee and saw the first of our group pass. This woman Susanne was always first she was in her sixties and a mountain goat! When I'm in the back I never get to interact with anyone, but today was cool because I got to say hi to everyone as they passed me.  I made it to lunch in 6 hours and it wasn't quite ready so I hung out and we cheered as others came in. The guides were impressed with how fast I was moving compared to yesterday. It got cloudy, chilly, and windy while we were eating.  The food is pretty good and the soup is always the best part. There were women selling candy and Gatorade - this would be the last we would see for a couple days so obviously I got some chocolate :) Then I made a mistake.

I made it to lunch!

cold and windy

I should have just left after lunch and stayed doing what I was doing. But there was a group of about 8 people who were hiking together and came in an hour after me and since I left an hour early we figured we were going the same pace. So I waited for them so I'd have company. Big mistake. Their idea of resting a lot was walk a few steps then pause for 30 seconds. My idea was to walk a little further and sit on a rock chair for 2 min to catch my breath. I was having a hard time keeping up. We were headed to dead woman's pass (warmihuausca) which is the highest elevation on the trail - 4,200 m. (about 14,000 feet)   We climbed straight up for hours. It was hard to breathe for everyone, but my lupus lungs made it more difficult.   I let them go and trudged on by myself.  It was rediculously hard - my legs and lungs were burning.   When I got to the top, the group that I had been walking with was  taking pictures and I though great!  Finally I will get some pictures with other people! But when I got to the top I couldn't see. My vision was all blurry and I couldn't breath. Victor put this stuff on his hands - a mixture of lemon and rubbing alcohol and made me sniff it a few times. My vision started to clear, but the other group had left. So no pictures :(

Carol had a cold and was really struggling at lunch so they sent her with a guide. I saw her coming up and Cathy not far behind her. Cathy had been puking all day and not doing well so I waited at the top for them.  Carol and I rested and took one picture with her camera - I will post it when I get it :)   The guides pulled oxygen tanks out of their bags and had to use it on Cathy. The three of us started down towards camp. Cathy got far ahead and  I stayed with Carol since she was so sick.  The farther we went down the better I felt.  We were camping at Pacaymayo - 3550m -  A guide had Carol's pack so I gave her the last of my Gatorade that I had bought at lunch. At one resting point I put my head lamp on and made sure she had hers so we would be ready when it got dark.  We finished in the dark and were greeted by several people ( Sue and Dawn were the main welcome wagon I think!)   and had people lead us to our campsite.

My experience of the trek was different in some ways than the others in the group.  When you are last, you leave and arrive in the dark so I never really saw what the campgrounds looked like.  We didn't get to eat breakfast with the group.  I don't have a lot of pictures, because I had to just keep moving to get to camp before dinner.   I have very few pictures of anyone besides myself because I was alone so much.  I got to know the guides better than some of the others though :)

This was a huge site with lots of groups so we had to keep all our stuff inside the tent to keep it from getting stolen. There were flush squat toilets ( way nicer than Indian squat toilets!!!)  but they were far from our tents. I used them before bed, but when I got up in the night I just peed by the tent. Since we were last,  Debbie and I got a small tent so I had to sleep in the fetal position. There was also a huge tree root under my part of the tent so it was very uncomfortable. Cathy and carol were fortunate that their roommates were fast and could pick out good tents for them. Cathy and carol went straight to bed, I ate and felt ok. I woke up nauseated in the night and sucked on coca candy to combat altitude sickness. Little did I know that I was going to have a very rough day the next day.  

Inca trail day 1

Inca trail day 1

I woke up vomitting. I took the altitude sickness meds for two days but it made my stomach hurt and my limbs tingle so I didn't take it for three days in Cusco and was fine! I got some coca tea down me and a dry biscuit. I also started the medicine again. Other people were sick too so we weren't sure if it was altitude sickness or food born. We left our suitcases in storage at the hotel then loaded up our two busses.  I was glad others were as nervous as I was about starting the trek.

our packs ready for the porters

We had a two hour bus ride to Ollantaytambo there were many winding, hilly roads so I was trying not to get sick. The town was cute and I got a little llama zipper pull - Senor Llama - he was a good buddy on the trek.


We toured the ruins and used the facilities then had a 45 minute bus ride to kilometer 82 where we were going to start the trail. Our camp cook made our lunch there and I got some noodles down.  We paid the lady a sole each to use the bathroom, packed up our stuff and got in line at the checkpoint.  We showed our permit and passport and got everyone through.

Our group was with Eric's adventures so we had Eric, his wife Myra, coach jenny, and our guides Victor, Cesar, Marco, and Joel.  We cheered and clapped for the porters as they came through. We had 32 people and 40 some porters.  They carry all the food, tables, chairs, cooking fuel, trash, and our packs. They are super fast and they get to camp before us and set up and get dinner started. At breakfast they pack up, pass us, set up lunch etc.  They are absolutely amazing and I was constantly in awe. Ours were anywhere from 20- 70 years old. Debra and I got behind very fast because I was still super nauseated and she had ankle surgery in February and moves slow.  A guide always stays with the last person so we had Cesar to explain things to us and take our picture.

Debbie and I 

Cesar and I 

 He says when your heart goes boom boom stop and rest and drink water.  This part of the trail is "inca flat". Lots of ups and downs but not for long. We walked in the Urubamba valley and near the Cusichaca river. We saw the ruins of Llactapata and camped near there. Our group started later than others so we were alone on the trail and we stayed at a little used site so we had it to ourselves. It took Debra and I less than 3 hours to finish and we got our stuff and put it in the last tent. We had tea time and snacks, then dinner. It was cold and we had several tents put together for one long tent for us to eat together. There was a disgusting toilet to use and horses roaming around so you had to watch for poop.  It was so funny - there was lots of poop on the trail and and people were constantly looking out for it. Trust me. I know how to avoid poop! And there was less on the trail than on the streets of Mumbai!