Nov 2 Inca Trail Day 3

And once again I manage to poison Arzu with my deodorant. :) Today we will have a warm shower in the afternoon. We don't have much to walk today, but the path includes 3000 steps down. That will be good for our leg muscles.

While we are having breakfast, it starts to rain :( and except for the fact that we didn't buy the ponchos for no reason, this is no good. Everybody takes time to waterproof before we start walking. We look like a moving rainbow in all the colors we have. :) Going down the steps without slipping is a challenge, but we all manage and after a couple of hours the rain has stopped and we take the ponchos off.  Mine is wet from the inside as well, which is no fun since I took the one that was a little more expensive to avoid exactly that. It is too bad that we don't see anything. This part of the Inka Trail is supposed to be beautiful. Before we make it to the campground we stop at another beautiful and very steep Inka site. It is amazing how they could be built like this!

We did it... Now we are only a 5km walk from Machu Picchu.

We arrive at the campsite for lunch and also for the rest of the day... Before my body even cools down I am going to have a shower. Against what everybody writes on the internet, the showers are cold here as well. The building had to be shut down and so I have to be fast. 

Although I am almost freezing to death in there, I manage to wash my hair and pour water and soap all over my body, and it feels so good after. :) Everybody is jealous of my clean hair... 

After lunch where we almost ruin the table we all have some rest and Arzu tells me the funny story where Israel offers her a foot massage she resists. Carlos then asks from the next tent if he can have it instead, but Israel refuses. :)

At 4pm - before the other groups even make it to the campsite - we go to a nearby Inka Site which is equally impressive as the other one and Ruben explains more about the Inkas. Then we explore on our own and I have to show Carlos the way out because he is lost. :)

Arzu stayed back to read and relax and when I come back she gives me a massage for my troubled shoulder. So here I am half naked in a tent, rain dribbeling on the tent skin, being massaged by my friend... This could be the beginning of a good story, but it's not, don't worry :)

At Happy Hour we get 2 cakes and Phil manages to cut 13 pieces out of one of them. 

This is the last night for all of us and we say good bye to the porters since they will go straight to the trainstation tomorrow morning without a stop at Machu Picchu.

Carlitos is very sweet to organize a hot water bottle for me so I can fall asleep with warm feet. Wake up is at 3am!

Nov 1 Inca Trail Day 2

We get woken up at 5:30 am by Carlitos bringing us coca tea and asking how we slept. Like Babies! No, like baby llamas, he adds. :)

Today is supposed to be the hardest day. The temperature is ok, Arzu survived her first night in a tent and didn't freeze. We warm our clothes inside the sleeping bag before we put them on and do the baby-wipe shower. I almost kill Arzu with my deodorant when I start spraying inside.

Breakfast is amazing. We get pancakes, fruit, bread...

And here comes my body telling the story of today...

The legs: What is she doing today? We didn't have to work that hard in a really long time and although she seems to have not been working in a while and we had to work a lot more, this is really hard work now. We seem to walk up a really steep hill and there is not enough oxygen coming through. Hey, blood, what's up?

The blood: I am doing the best I can but whatever she has been breathing in the last couple of weeks has had a lot less oxygen. She must be in the mountains or something.

The eyes: oh yes, guys, she is and the views are beautiful. As slow as she is moving, I would have all the time in the world to look around and enjoy, but she keeps me on the ground because the path she chose to walk is very uneven and if I don't pay attention, the feet lose control and we all fall down the steep cliffs. 

The brain: "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight,..." I can do this, I can do this, just keep the rhythm and repeat the song. 

The mouth: What the f?$k? Why did I do this to myself? Why am I here and did not take the train like everybody else?

The legs: The group you are walking with is way too fast. Look at them, they are all trained very well. We need to slow down or we are not going to make it if we have to walk uphill as steep as we did for the past 25 min.

The brain: ok, we will walk slower, but then we lose contact to the group and the slow group is too slow. That way we might never make it up and according to the eyes, there is still a long way to go!

The head: why doesn't anybody put a hat on me? It is sunny out and i might get sunburned. 

... 2h into the walk...

The legs: we are going straight... What is happening? Are we taking a break?

The eyes: Yes, I can see the fast group resting and the view, the view guys! You should see this!

The legs: Shut up about the view, I want to relax...

The eyes: Sorry, we have to look and take some pictures!

The stomach: Am I getting some energy here? Is there a snack? ... Oh yes, there is!

The blood: I am not getting enough oxygen anymore. How much more do we have until the top? 

The eyes: we are at half way, but it seems like everybody is having the same issues with the breathing.

... 20 min later ...

The brain: "in the jungle, the mighty jungle..." Why is there nobody to talk to?

The eyes: because she is too fast for the slow group, where her friend Arzu gets pushed by the Israeli Israel and too slow for the fast group, where Paul is already coming her way again because the other team mate Ben lost his camera and he is kind enough to run down and up again to look for it.

But I can see the top, the boobie, Dead Women's Pass. This should be the highest we are going to.

The ears: I heard someone saying this is at 4200m and then we go down into a valley and back up to 4000 and down again before we can all sleep.

The eyes: I see Carlitos waiting for the slow group. 

The ears and the mouth: let's have a conversation!

The legs: oh yes, some rest!

... The last 20 min ...

I cannot do this anymore, I have no power and drag my body up on the walking sticks. Up on top the fast group greets me with a big applause. I try to catch my breathe to take some "I made it pictures" and am happy to be there!

When the whole group is there and had a little rest, we take group fotos and start the descent. It is steep and I would love to have my skies with me and some snow. The knees are not happy, but it is better than uphill. When I look around, I can already guess where we are going after lunch... Steep uphill again :(

But first there is lunch. And again Sebastian has outdone himself. I have no idea how he can cook such good things with so little equipment, which is all being carried by the porters. 

The spot where we have lunch is the campsite for the second night for most of the groups. They don't make the second "bump" until the next day, which seems like a good idea when I am resting on the ground, hoping some angel will come and carry me up the second mountain. But there is none and Ruben keeps telling us it is only 20 more minutes, but this is once until the first breakspot, then the Inca Site, then 3/4 up and then finally we make it to Dead Man's Pass. Considering that Dead Women's Pass is called like that because of a boob shaped mountain, you can only guess why this pass is called Dead Man's Pass :)

We have some Ritter Sport chocolate and make our way down. The stairs are really steep and uneven and it takes more effort to not fall than going uphill. Arzu, Ruben and I walk with the Canadians, but for me this is too slow and so I speed up after a while. It is misty, we are walking in the clouds, but after a while the view clears and we see a wonderful valley and we know, it is only downhill from here. :)

By the time Arzu, Ruben and I make it to the last Inka site for today, people are already coming back from the 100 steep steps up. Arzu doesn't want to go up and I am also more excited about the upcoming bathroom and so we skip it. Carlitos will not be happy since he is explaining this site, but we cannot help it. We walk to the campsite and are already washed and deodorized when the others make it here. Our tent is next to the guides and Carlitos tells us that snoring is not allowed. Well, we are the girls... So they should be the ones taking care about that. :)

For dinner we hear some ghost stories from Ruben and he claims they are all true. I am not so sure whether I should believe it and choose not to in order to be able to sleep. 

Our tent is not closing all the way and since the Canadians were talking about tarantulas coming into the tents at night, we need to improvise so that Arzu can sleep. Luckily the duffle bags are multifunctional :)

Those are the porters carrying everything for us, tents, tables, food, our luggage,...

Oct 31 Inca Trail Day 1

With a very bad feeling I am getting into the taxi at 4:05 and at the meeting point we meet Ben, who is also very pale. He tells us that he had been sick before and he is scared he won't make it. Well, that makes two of us. 

Everybody except for the two Canadian girls, which were already late for the briefing yesterday is on time. We also have some of the porters on board who will carry everything the same way we walk. We are on the bus for about 2h before we have breakfast in Ollantaytambo. The restaurant is open air and it is very cold. Since it has rained all night, it is also damp and I still feel sick, uncomfortable and not ready for a four-day-hike. My tablemates try to convince me to eat something to get some energy, but all I want to do is go back to Cuzco. We go to Ruben and Arzu explains that we are not sure whether we are fit enough to do the trail. He is very understanding and tries to tell us that everybody manages and we shouldn't be worried. We should try and until the second day it is possible to rent a horse or a donkey to come back if it is really not possible. After that there are the porters to carry someone out in case it is necessary. I am now thinking that I will at least try and I buy a banana to have some food for later when I can eat. The last 20 min on the bus. Everyone starts to get ready at km82, we are the first group to arrive. The porters pack their bags. We get a big plastic foil to put our things on while we buy the last necessities for the hike from the local women.

Here we go... I see the sign and we start the hike with a group picture.

Now I can't go back. It is cold and still cloudy and before I even realize it, Carlos stamps my passport with the first checkpoint stamp. I am on the Inca Trail. Now the only way to keep my self-respect is by ending it in Machu Picchu. I still don't feel well, but decide to walk it off.

We start easy and take several breaks on the way. So far it is going ok. When we stop at the first big Inca site, I am hooked and want to do this. The site looks amazing from above and Ruben explains why it was built here, what the different buildings mean and that you can see the shape of a snake surrounding it.

By lunchtime we already did half of our goal for today and it has not been that bad. We are greeted with a bowl of water for everybody to wash our hands and faces which is very welcome because it is sunny out and although it has not been that bad yet, we are all sweating.

We don't expect much to come from the cooking tent, but are all extremely surprised when we get handed little saucers with guacamole, grated cheese and a Nacho. Wow! And this keeps going. We get extremely delicious soup, trout with vegetables and rice and a vegetarian option and in the end Andean Peppermint tea for our siesta. It is amazing what can be done with a portable kitchen!

We keep walking and soon get passed by the 22 porters with all our things. Each one of them carries up to 25kgs on his back, all the way up and down just like we walk. They carry tents, our things, food, cooking gear,... Only the water comes from the mountains and gets filtered and boiled for us whenever we stop somewhere.

We walk past amazing mountain scenes and a camera cannot in any way catch the atmosphere.

After lunch we start going uphill and it gets a little more strenuous, but with all the good food in my stomach, I feel fine.

The group gets divided in two, the runners and the slow ones. I am finding myself too slow for the runners, but too fast for the slow ones and so I am walking alone.

Arriving at the first campsite I am amazed. It is beatifully located and has a great view into the valley we just climbed. I get some hot water and a towel to wash myself and use it extensively, also to dunk my feet. :) The tents are set up, the duffle bags with our belongings are waiting.

Before Happy Hour everybody is standing around in a circle talking and we notice that most of us are wearing Llama socks and Flipflops. It looks very funny and will probably be the sight for the next couple of happy hours we will have.

Happy hour consists of tea/ Milo (hot chocolate) or coffee with cookies and popcorn. This is the appropriate way to end a day of hiking.

We go from Happy hour straight to an amazing dinner and from there straight to bed. Everybody is dead tired from getting up so early and at 8 everything is quiet, literally.

What a good first day considering my doubts in the morning!

Mixed Feelings

I am writing this post on the night before the Inca Trail, but it will not get published until after...

It is 8pm...

This morning we went to the office of our tour operator to pay and rent the rest of the things. They gave us a map and we see how exactly we will hike the next couple of days. So it looks like the first day will start ok-ish with 12km, the second day looks like a night mare of 4h steep uphill, 2h downhill, 2.5 up and 1.5 down, all in all 16km. The third day is ok with 9 km more or less down and the last day is anyway when we are at Machu Picchu in the morning after a 5km hike.

So we have our moment but convince each other, that it will be ok. We can easily do it.

At 5 we have the briefing and get to know our guides and the group. Both guides are young and the group is also relatively young. There is one older guy, but the rest looks like to be in their 20s and 30s. Now Ruben starts to explain and I feel like I am getting more and more dizzy when I hear him talk. At one point I almost need to get up and go outside to get some fresh air. I feel sick. I don't know how I am supposed to hike uphill 6h in one day being a person that doesn't hike ever. What was I thinking? Everybody looks very confident and so I try to catch my breath and calm myself down. It sounds like once we survived the second day, it is a piece of cake. I don't dare to ask what happens if you get sick and cannot go on and noone else seems to think about it.

We come out of the meeting and I am ready to faint. Maybe my body will get sick tonight already so I can't go? What about Arzu? Will she go alone then? Did I really go that far and now I am giving up? NO! I will do this! We got all the equipment, we are ready and we will do this.

Now I can pack my bags.

Oct 30 Cuzco, getting ready for the Inca Trail

I wake up from the smell of nailpolish. It is 7am and Lady Arzu is having a beauty salon in her bed, doing her nails. Really? Yes!

I fall asleep again and we don't leave the hostel until 10 to have coffee and breakfast at Jack's again. It is really nice there, good atmosphere and good coffee, although today I already know about Starbucks so I am fine. :)

Breakfast for me means either some eggs, toast with jam, muesli or Pancakes/ French Toast... Breakfast for Arzu means cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers and this morning it means Steak sandwich with fries and mint lemonade. 

After we laugh off the cultural differences we head to the Llamapath office to pay the rest of our trip. We also rent the sleeping bag for Arzu, walking sticks and more comfortable mattresses. Now all my cash which I collected in the ATMs all over Ecuador is gone... Maybe not the worst since ATMs here seem to work and once I am in the US I won't need all those dollars in cash.

We get a little pamphlet with the details of the trail and we are both a little more shocked than we want to admit. We will walk more than 1000m uphill, not in length, but in height!!! What were we thinking? We are not hikers and we think we can do this?

But none of us will admit this to the other one and so we follow our shopping list and get snacks, medicine, rain ponchos, coca candy, baby wipes, deodorant,...

For lunch we sit on a nice balcony, just for the two of us, overlooking a busy street and of course we are spending some time in Starbucks and some time shopping souvenirs and a new jacket for me since Delta apparently never found mine which I left on the plane. 

Then I decide I still want that bag from the one shop and we have to go back. He let's us pay in Euros and this way we easily change some more money. 

We are not hungry yet and so we go back to the hotel to pack our things into the duffle bags we got from Llamapath for the porters to carry.

And this is where the big mess starts. I decide to take this opportunity to pack everything plane ready, especially the souvenirs I didn't send home. So I unpack literally everything, dust off my backpack from the Bolivian desert and start all over.

Arzu is doing the same thing. By 10pm we are ready, have taken showers - the last ones for a couple of days - and turn off the light to try to sleep. I hear Arzu dozing off, but I am wide awake. This is bad. I need to sleep. So I am watching a show on my ipod to make me sleepy, but it doesn't work. I get more and more worried that starting a four day hike with no hiking experience at all might not have been the smartest idea. The later it gets and the more I watch Arzu sleep, the scarier this whole thought gets and I am working myself into a nice panic attack. All of a sudden I am sitting in bed, breathing heavily, heart pounding very fast. I cannot breathe anymore, I get dizzy and don't know what to do anymore. I have never experienced something like this. I try to think that these are only 45km I need to walk in 4 days, so it is really no big deal. Slowly I get calmer again and try to sleep. 11:50pm, 01:30am, 2:15am, I am still awake and the heart starts pounding fast again. I try to calm myself down by reading about people who thought they couldn't do the Inca Trail and find a blog by a girl who also thought she was not fit enough. But did she also not sleep the night before the first day? I am hungry and I feel weak. I have no energy to even get out of bed to go to the bathroom. This way I will never make it and I am thinking of ways on how to explain to everybody that I cannot join. I am wondering if Arzu will still go and I am hoping she will. She should't miss this experience because I am too weak to go.

At 3:30am the alarm clock goes off and Arzu wakes up. She sees me sitting in bed, breathing heavily and I tell her I can't go. I have a very strong feeling that I cannot come and I won't make it. She tells me to finish packing my things and at least come to the bus to talk to the guide. My heart is pounding fast and when I come out of the bathroom I have to sit, I cannot breathe and I really don't want to go.

I know from my nightly online research that the first two days you can be brought back by horse if you twist an ankle or can't do it anymore. With this knowledge and Arzu's motivational speech I am at least willing to come to the bus.

Oct 29 Cusco

The night was ok, but we are completely confused when we arrive in Cusco at 4:50 am.

Lots of people are waiting to offer us a taxi, accomodation and other things. We go to a corner and a lady with an ok offer for a hostal finds us. She organizes a taxi, we get in and are in a room only 10 min later. Great. So we get to sleep a little more with horizontally...

At 10 we are ready to hit the town, for breakfast. Arzu finds a great place on Foursquare and so we try to find our way there. The place is awesome, they serve real cappuccino, fresh orange juice and French toast...

Getting out from there after a while, we try to find the center of town. As we walk in one of the narrow alleys, I see a guy with a Starbucks cup and I chase him down. He is a bit shocked by my asking, but offers help for a desperate coffee addict and shows us the way :) I love Cusco already... 

Before we head there though, we do a little of sightseeing. There are a lot of churches here and you can really get lost in the tiny alleys and walkways, but luckily there are squares everywhere and you can find your orientation back.

Cusco is a really nice town. This is the first time since Cuenca, Equador that I have the feeling, I could stay longer than a day.

After our Lattes we start the shopping tour. Although it seems like they all offer the same things like in Bolivia and partly Ecuador, there are always things to look at and admire. The Mercado Central is unique. It has a mixture of artesanial things and food. In the hallways the women sell bread with ceramic faces baked in.

When we come out it is raining and we have to wait about 20 min before we can continue our explorer tour. The second the sun is gone, it gets cold and we wonder how cold it will be on the Inca Trail. Bht we are not thinking about that yet.

For lunch we have salad! Purified water for the washing makes it possible and it tastes great. 

This is a great and lazy day to relax. We go back to the hostal and sleep a little more before we get ready for a night out. We pick a club with live music, Arzu even gets dressed up (she brought clothes for that, I am in jeans and my most fancy t-shirt) and we check out the space before we look for food.

And then the evening takes an unexpected turn. We end up in a place that has pizza, Mexican and Peruvian food, right next to the club. In 1h we should have eaten... Well, no!

We sit down, don't get a menu for quite a while and when we finally order, the Australians from the next table start talking to us about how long they are already waiting for their food. The place is not really full, so it shouldn't take that long, and we are hoping.

We talk to those guys and the two women that are with them leave before their food arrives. Exactly one hour after they had ordered, they are getting it. They eat fast and leave since they will start the Inca Trail tomorrow.

We wait for 1.5h, even the guys that came way later get their food. So I go to the counter and tell them i don't want the food anymore. We get Arzu's soup and my Guacamole. And that is what we are having for dinner... After that we are both annoyed and tired and go home. This is not how we expected that night to go.

Oct 28 Isla del Sol and Peru

And again we have to get up early. This vacation is no relaxation when you check the times we get up, but this is how we wanted it.

Sitting in the boat to Isla del Sol it is smelling heavily like gas and then it starts to pour. I wish we would have stayed in the cosy bed and spent the day relaxing instead. But it is too late. 2h of freezing and holding a scarf in front of our faces later we are on the north side of the island. There is not much to do except for the 3h hike to the south side and we are searching for a coffee place to have our first coffee of the day. I am glad Arzu is as addicted as I am. The coffee place is really cold and so our mood doesn't improve. When it stops raining and we see a little bit of sun we head outside to search for the gold museum. We find a room that has a museum sign on the outside and check it out. This is fun. There are only a couple of shelves with old bones and vases. In 2 min we are done. 

So we decide to hike a little bit, but the first lama getting in our way scares Arzu and we go back to town, finding a place to lay down on the "beach" to relax and get some sun. 

BTW I am Canadian again today. :) The Germans which were with us on the boat are embarrassing and they even come from my home town Ulm. I cannot admit that I am from the same place.

After 3h we pass free range pigs :) to go back to the boat and go to the south side of the island where we pay 5Bs to go off board and have lunch with a great view. 

The way back seems forever but we still make it back on time. We get the laundry - and believe it or not it is dry - shop a little more, eat lemon pie, which is served by the slowest waiter in the history, and we are not spoiled any more and organize sandwiches. Arzu almost kills the waiter when he needs a calculator to figure out how nuch change to give from 110 to 120 we give him. And even then he has no clue what to type.

We schlepp ourselves up the hill to the hotel to get our thngs and have to wait for the bus to open (@Dad, Mercedes Benz) before we can sink in our first class seats. The 2 extra Euros were totally worth it and we enjoy the luxury. :)

15 min into the busride we have to cross the border. First we need to get the exit stamp from Bolivia and I am remembered of the border crossings in Africa. 

We need to cross the river by foot but not without stopping at the great Peru sign for a picture. We almost step into the wrong buildings twice and the bus lady is already annoyed with us, but finally we get our Peru stamp.

The bus takes three hours to Puno and the heat is not turned on, so we freeze like hell. The windows are leaking and I am glad I got the sleeping bag from the luggage. Otherwise we would have frozen to death.

In Puno we have a layover of 1.5h and are not allowed to stay on the bus. So we walk around the bus station which is freezing because all doors are open. There are still tourists though running around in sandals in 30degree weather. We are freezing through the layover and are having some fun in the restroom where the wall is sprayed with "do not wash your hair, armpits or feet here!" What?

When we board the bus again the heat is turned on and so the rest of the night is comfortably warm and we can even sleep.