Our group: Kelly
and Lindsay, Courtney and Mary, Nick and Tanya, Robert and Valerie,
Solenn, Alex and Branwen, Mark, myself, Miriam and Camilla.
Woke up to the
most beautiful sunrise. The sun was hitting just the snowcapped peaks
in the distsance to the west. We ate breakfast of toast, jam, omelet,
fried plantains,and sausage (hot dog pieces). I quickly put in my
contacts and we had our porter ceremony. We all stood out in a
circle, freezing by the way, could barely feel my hands and dipping
them in the hot water in the morning felt super weird. Anyway, we all
stood in a circle, 3 guides:Marco, Eber and Ronnie, and 20 porters
and 1 cook, and the 15 of us. We all said our name, age, and where we
were from. A lot of the porters were from the same village and
evidently walk 10 miles to a bus and then take a train to come to
work and then carry 50 lbs on their backs up a mountain at least 4
days days a week, if not more. It was one of their birthdays, Juan,
and we all said happy birthday to him. The llamas looked on as we all
got acquainted and took a group photo.
We headed out
after that and had a little bit of uphill climbing today. My muscles
in my butt, thighs, knees and calves were very sore today and I got
that good combination of pleasure and pain from working them and
stretching them again. We had a snack after about 2 hours of hiking
with an apple and a pack of strawberry frosted cookies that reminded
me of iced animals. There are too many scenic views and vistas that
are absolutely indescribable, so I won't even try, but just know that
I've been immersed in beauty for three days straight now. Some of the
360 degree views are enough to make everyone in the group stop
talking and just look around and breathe for several minutes at a
time. The weather was clear and warm all morning and then we began
our 2.5 hour descent to camp.
I talked to Mary,
Courtney's mother, a woman of about 55 and in great shape for any age
really. We talked about her son in the military, benefits, the Hurt
Locker (movie), movies and life in general. I have had some really
good one on onetime with a few of my fellow hikers. Alex and Branwen
both go to Manchester U, and Alex studies zoology/conservation,
Branwen studies biology and both are in Peru early before they meet
up with a school trip on the Amazon. Solenn, a lovely 30 year old
accountant from London, Lindsay and Kelly, both very nice upper
twenty-something accountants from San Fransisco, Mary and Courtney,
mother/daughter from Arizona, and Nick and Tanya, both originally
from Belarus, but living in New York.
We arrived at an
amazing Inca site with a dozen or more giant terraces. Before that,
Eber gave us a talk about Incan beliefs and the main focuses of their
belief system. Condor, puma and snake, reciprocity, work, learning,
potatoes, corn and coca. He drew all this out with a stick in the
dirt into something called the chacana. After that, we made it to the
terraces. Some of the group gets split up a bit because we all walk
at different speeds, so sometimes I'm near the back because I'm
stopping to take take pictures a lot. I, by far, am taking the most
of anyone, but I'm also fairly fast, so I catch back up to the front
or, at least the middle usually. This allows me to get to know
everyone a little bit as well. The group I'm usually with is me,
Mark, Courtney, Mary, Kelly, Lindsay, Solenn, Nick, Tanya, Alex and
Branwen. We arrived at the terraces and just marveled at the
immensity and beauty. They are about 7 foot high and close to that
wide, carved into a steep mountain, where if you look down, you get a
little frightened at the steepness. There are probably 20-30 of them
here and a building at the bottom. After a rest, I showed Branwen,
Kelly and Lindsay some yoga postures and I sort of taught my first
yoga class on the terraces near Macchu Picchu. We can actually see
the back of the mountain where it is, but it's on the other side. The
stretching of the yoga was exhilarating, especially my favorite
position, pigeon, which stretches the hips.
Another 10
minutes down from where we are and we were at camp for the day. It
was a short day, as it is only lunchtime, around 1pm. We had
“mushroom ceviche” to start, toasted corn, quinoa soup, lomo
saltado, rice, fried cauliflower, tuna stuffed yucca, an amazing
chicken salad with pulled chicken, slightly toasted potatoes, a
refreshing cucumber and tomato salad and Andean corn pizza. After
mint tea, some of us had a nap. I took about an 1.5 hour nap and it
began to rain, the sound of rain on a tent is very soothing white
noise to me and it lulled me back to sleep. I woke up, it was dark,
almost completely, and we all went on a short hike. The others
started off as I was waking up and getting ready. Nick and Tanya were
slightly behind as well, we were escorted by Juan, one of the
porters, to join the rest of the group. The headlights were a
necessity at this point. I couldn't see much, but it was another
beautifully terraced site, and we had another Inca history lesson and
headed back for happy hour and dinner.
We ate cake with
a strawberry frosting and icing that read, “Welcome to Macchu
Picchu”. The astounding thing to me is not so much the amazing
food, which I would gladly eat anywhere, let alone on a 4 day hike,
but that all this great stuff is made on camping equipment that is
moved 2-3x a day! Ha made a cake! Evidently, they create a makeshift
oven by using a large soup pot, putting a rack in it and covering it.
It was a little bit dry, but I'm not trying to be a dick...it was a
cake, it was good. I had my usual hot cocoa with coca leaves and
milo, then we had dinner. Chicken kebobs stuck into a cabbage carved
to look like a turtle, pasta, yucca, veggies, beef and an amazing
apple pie with caramel frosting for dessert. A bit more mint tea,
then we figured out the tipping as a group. We ended up giving each
porter about s/70 and the chef about s/120, and we will tip the
guides later. Each of us put in about s/100 for the tips.
We had another
little circle outside and gave the tips to them. After that, a few of
us talked to Marco and Eber for awhile and I handed out my business
cards to everyone for contact info. Bedtime. Gotta get up at 330am
tomorrow to see Macchu Picchu! What a great day! Less hiking, more
relax, reflection and getting to know my new friends. And I got to
walk around barefoot most of the day. I want a hot shower and a beer,
but I wouldn't trade where I'm at right now for probably anything
else in the world. Goodnight.
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