El Camino Inca

Steeper than it looks, I promise.

Steps on steps on thousands of steps, following 26 miles in the footsteps of the ancient Andean peoples all of the way to Machu Picchu. As a girl who very badly needed a solid nature fix, it was the best thing I could have possibly done.  Four solid days of hiking and camping in the Andes was good for the body AND the soul.

We began our voyage in the town of Ollantaytambo where the tourist portion of the Inca Trail begins. With a few coca leaves in our cheeks and more in our backpacks, we were ready to go. The first of the four days was rather uneventful – we passed by some ruins and walked along a beautiful river, but we knew that the real challenge would be day 2, in which we would have to hike uphill all day to summit the first mountain pass, at a grand total of 13,776 feet in elevation.

The one notable activity from day one is our introduction to our eleven incredible porters who were accompanying us on the trail. Something that I was unclear about before we got on the trail is just how much support we would have. For the eleven of us on the trip, there were eleven porters plus a cook and two guides. Every day they would race ahead of us with their backpacks weighing up to 88 pounds and get to camp early so that they could set everything up. And by “everything” I don’t just mean tents. For every meal (including tea time, because what would we have done without that?) we sat in a high roofed tent furnished with stools and tables with a table cloth and metal cutlery. The farthest thing from rustic.For lunch, we had soup, the main course, and tea. For dinner, we had soup, the main course, and dessert. In the morning, we would be woken up with hot cups of coca tea delivered right to our tents. To be honest, it was moderately obscene. I didn’t go into the Inca Trail expecting to be waited on hand and foot. I expected to be hiking, camping, sitting on the ground, eating rice and beans out of a cup, and feeling at least mildly self-sufficient. Instead, we essentially had servants. As a person who’s used to going camping and doing everything on her own, it took a bit of getting used to, to say the least.

Beautiful picture taken of our porters by a professional
photographer in our group.

But the bottom line is that these men need jobs. They live in the small poorer towns surrounding Cusco and will come to the Inca Trail for a month at a time, doing the trip over and over and over again so that they can save up enough money to go home and farm their land. They don’t get paid much, but they’re all so happy and positive individuals that you’d never know they spend their days catering to every ridiculous need that the tourists might have. But the truth is that the Inca Trail wouldn’t be feasible if it weren’t for the assistance of these incredible gentleman; For a lot of people, they make the journey possible. So here’s a shout out to those crazy men and their massive calf muscles.

Day two began with uphill, persisted with uphill, and ended with uphill. When you talk to people who have done the Inca Trail, they always warn you about all of the stairs on the second day. They weren’t lying. I swear I haven’t seen that many stairs in all of my life put together. Up and up we went, through the cloud forest and eventually reaching the alpine tundra. From there we were able to finally glimpse the mountain pass that we would eventually be conquering – not the most encouraging sight I’ve ever seen in my life.

But onward we plunged, up towards the clouds. Though the top kept getting visibly closer and closer, it never seemed to be more encouraging. I had probably 500 feet of steps left and was just
about to take yet another breather when I heard a porter coming up behind me. Usually they’re going way faster than you could ever go and so it’s best to get out of the way, but as I stepped to the left to let him pass I heard him say something that I didn’t quite catch…

Me -- “Como?” (what?)

Porter – “Ven conmigo, amiga! Si se puede, no necesitas descansar!” (Come with me, friend! It can be done, you don’t need to rest!)

Me – (deciding it would be best to not whine to the guy with the 80lb backpack) “uhhh… okay!”  

View from the top of the highest pass!

And so we walked together the last 500 feet with me barely being able to breath, and him encouraging me every step of the way. Every time I started to look up at the steps ahead of me and get discouraged again, he would touch my arm or tell me I could do it, I would take one look at his monstrous backpack and remind myself that I had absolutely no right to be exhausted, and with his help I managed to make it the rest of the way to the top without pausing. At the summit of the pass he gave me a huge smile, shook my hand, and continued on his way. An absolute inspiration.

After my new friend left me there on the summit of highest pass on the Inca trail, I took a look around and was blown away. It suddenly hit me – I was in the Andes. And yeah, I know, old news. But for the last three months that I had been actually living in the mountains, it never hit me like it did right then. I looked around me at the incredible, dramatic landscape, and I seriously could have cried tears of joy I was so overwhelmed by it all. Between the endorphins from hiking all day, the fresh air hitting my lungs, and the incredible landscape that was unfolding before my eyes, I could hardly believe it. The Andes Mountains, the Inca Trail, Machu Picchu, all of these things that I had been hearing about my entire life, and I was actually there experiencing it. I literally have no idea what I did to get this lucky. No freaking clue.

A little while later when I had come down from my oxygen deprivation fueled Ande Mountain high, I dug into my backpack and pulled out my reward: oreos. So damn delicious.

First view of Machu Picchu from the SunGate!!!

Day 3 was longer, but with many many less steps. We got to see some more cool ruins along the way, but the really exciting part didn’t come along until about 1 or 2am the next morning when we were awakened by the biggest storm I have ever witnessed. And yeah, I know I’m prone to superlatives, but seriously this stuff was not messing around. The thunder was so heavy and the lightning was so vivid that it felt like our tent was being accosted by our own personal storm.

A mere hour and a half later, at 3:30am, we were awakened to begin the final leg of our trek. We forced open our eyes, shoved all of our belongings in our packs, and hiked down to the checkpoint where… we sat in the dark for an hour and a half until the checkpoint opened so we could race up the final hill towards the sun gate.

When the checkpoint finally opened its doors and we were allowed through, we began the final push up to the top of the pass where we would be able to see Machu Picchu for the very first time. The following 45 minutes was a mad dash to the top – all of us sweating balls but far too impatient to stop and take off our several layers of jackets. We walked along cliffs, passing people as we went, until we scaled one final staircase to emerge at the top of the sungate, where we were able to see Machu Picchu for the first time.

So here is my recommendation to you: if you want to see Machu Picchu, hike the Inca Trail. There’s nothing quite like hiking towards something for four days along a path that was quite literally built by the Incas. And there I finally was. After hearing about it, reading about it, and seeing pictures of it, I was actually standing there looking at it with my own two eyes. And it didn’t disappoint.

Entirely inspiring 65 year old couple from Holland who
I met along the trail. Always hiking with the biggest
smiles on their faces. 

For me the most amazing thing about Machu Picchu is what it’s surrounded by. It sits on the saddle between two enormous and steep mountains, circled by the Urubamba River thousands of feet below. The mountains surrounding it are impossibly steep and treacherous looking, making it impossible to not wonder who the hell came up with the brilliant idea to build a city on the top of one of these monstrous things. Those Incas seriously did not shy away from a challenge.

Once we had soaked in our triumphant moment at the sungate, we continued the rest of the way down the mountain to enter the ruins of Machu Picchu. Now, I won’t bore you with whatever random theories our guide came up with, but if you’re ever looking for something to do, check out the PBS documentary on the site. The thing is that even though we’ll never really know what the Incas were thinking or why they did the things they did, this doesn’t stop people from theorizing and making stuff up until the day they die. So while I’ve heard quite a few different stories about this stuff, the most seemingly genuine information I’ve received was from that documentary: check it out, it’s cool shit.

The next four hours or so were spent wandering around, taking the obligatory 726,389 pictures, and having our minds blown over and over again as we contemplated what this incredible place must have been like.

Once we felt that we had explored and soaked it all in as much as we could, we decided to head down the mountain into the town called Aguas Calientes that is located directly below Machu Picchu in order to enjoy some good food and the hot springs. We found a restaurant, paid way too much for some food (Aguas Calientes is by far the ritziest place I’ve so far encountered in Peru) and decided to adventure our way to the hot springs. At this point it was only Dalton, his girlfriend Caitlin, and me because everyone else had supposedly heard that the hot springs were nasty, but we figured they couldn’t be that bad so we decided to check them out.

Famous carving in the ruins -- shaped to mirror the
mountains behind it.

After asking no less than five different Peruvians where the hot springs were, we wound our way to the front gate where we were able to see a picture of the springs… “hmmm” we wondered aloud to each other, “those do actually look a bit grungy.” But hey, we were there, and it was only going to cost us 10 soles each (about $3), so what the heck, right?

We hiked up the river and entered the area with all of the pools to encounter the brownest, most unappealing water you can possibly imagine. But being the conditioned Peruvians that we are, there was no way we were about to waste 10 soles, so we all hopped in. Based on how much my bug bites stung as soon as I stepped in, it probably wasn’t the best idea in the world, but I’m alive and around to tell the tale soo…. Oh well!

We tried out a few different pools: one where there was a guy who was either sleeping or masturbating, one where there was a little girl who liked to throw dirt water into Dalton’s face, and one that wasn’t even warm, and then we decided to cut our losses and call it a day.

We left the hot springs, bought some candy, and wandered into the main square laughing at what a classic Peruvian adventure it all was. And that’s when it hit me.

Our team!

It’s obviously true that I’ll miss a lot of things about Peru. I’ll miss the people, the ancientness of it all, and even some of the food. But what I’m really going to miss most is the messed up adventures like we had that afternoon at the hot springs. I’m going to miss having something completely out of the blue and unpredictable happen to me every single day. I’m going to miss walking by a random guy peeing in the street yelling “it’s a free life, baby!” or walking into the main plaza to find people performing traditional dances to celebrate yet another saint, or sitting down at the kitchen table and taking a huge bite into what I thought was squash, but what actually turned out to be little pieces of cow ligament.

I’m going to miss being surprised every day.

As much as I’m absolutely ecstatic to be finally going home after a whole year away, leaving this place is going to be devastating. I’ve fallen in love with the chaos of it all. I’ve fallen in love with the fact that even though I’ve lived here for nearly four months, every day is completely unpredictable. I’ve fallen in love with the people, the culture, and the family that I’ve discovered here. Leaving here is not going to be an easy feat.

But how lucky am I, that I’m able to have so many people and places sharing a part of my heart? I couldn’t have asked for a better host family here. I have a mom who would do anything for me, host siblings to make fun of me, and a little host nephew to humor me. I’ve met travelers who have inspired me to believe that traveling the world is not beyond my grasp, and I’ve made friends here who have helped me through a little bit of everything: good and bad.

The sadness that I’m feeling now because of my impending departure from this truly life-altering experience is tempered by my gratitude for the amazing people that I’ve encountered. Because that’s what it comes down to, really. The sum of the experiences that I’ve had down here in South America has been incredible, but they’d mean close to nothing without all of the human connections that I made along the way. From the travelers I’ve encountered, to the friends in my program who have been through so much with me, to the host family that has been there every step of the way. The experiences that I’ve had with, and often because of, these people are what I’m going to carry with me moving forward.

And since in about 12 minutes it’ll officially be Thanksgiving, thank you. Thanks to each and every person who I’ve encountered along my way, because whether you were the porter who helped me to the top of the pass, the painter who needed my help with his English homework, or the travelers that I’ve connected with along the way, you have absolutely shaped my experience here. I could even honestly say that you were the ones who created my experience here.

So this year, for Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the random life events that have brought me here and allowed me to meet the stellar personalities that I’ve encountered in the last several months. You’ve taught me that it’s not really the places that you see, or the things that you conquer, that make an experience memorable. Instead, it’s the human connections that you forge along the way.

Gracias por todo,

Hannah

Also if you're looking for a thought provoker, check this video out! (it's short, I promise)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-OYmHVchQ&feature=share

Our Mid-Program Crisis

Casually exploring some Inca ruins after school.
 Too cool for words. 

With a grand total of 31 days left in South America, things are beginning to get serious. I’m realizing, more than ever before, how much I’m in love with this place. From my host family, to the environment, to the crazy way that people do things here, this continent has stolen my heart.

As you may begin to notice in the following paragraphs, after we got back from break in Bolivia, we all had a “mid program crisis” of sorts. We realized that our time in Peru will quite literally be gone before we know it, so we made it our mission to do as much as we possibly can with the time we have left. We sat down, made a list of things we wanted to do before we left, and starting checking things off it that very same day. The following tales are my attempt at recounting our many crisis-fueled adventures in the past couple of weeks.

The adventures began with a casual horseback ride to some Inca ruins. So essentially the way it works if you want to go with the cheap option is that you walk up towards the outskirts of town until you run into some guy on the side of the street offering rides. Sounds legit, right? So we found a guy, negotiated a price, and we were on our way. Once we had hitchhiked our way up to the pasture with an older guy who gave us (three girls) his number so that he could “practice English” we were able to finally meet our steeds.

Why walk when you could just eat instead?

We walked over the crest of a hill into a green and luscious pasture and set eyes on three shining, strong, tall, and illustrious horses.

NOT. The animals were indeed present, but I’m not sure I would call them horses to be exact. Some sort of large donkey or perhaps really fat deer, but horses? Ehhhh….. But then again, we were paying a total of $15 to ride these things, so who were we to complain. As our friendly guide began pairing us up with our hors… uh, whatever they were, he asked us if we wanted to go alone or if we wanted a guide. Me, being an expert equestrian and whatnot, decisively said no. The other two were unsure, but I convinced them that we’d have more fun alone, and the horses knew the path anyway, so what did it matter? Oops.

So the three of us took off down the path, with our horses being a little pokier than we would have liked, but it was okay because the views of the mountains were absolutely unreal. We made it all the way down to El Templo de la Luna (Temple of the Moon) and dismounted so that we could explore the ruins. That was our first mistake. Our second mistake was to drag our horses over to a fence and put the reins on the posts (even though all of the cool kids – aka the tourists with guides – were doing it).

Though my horse grudgingly, but somewhat cooperatively, allowed me to attach it to the post, Morgan’s horse was a different story. We managed to drag it over to the post and gently place the reigns over the wood, but the second we turned around we heard a big noise and instantly began to regret our choice. Now, these horses weren’t exactly anything to be proud of, but I don’t care how big a horse is… when it’s rearing up on its hind legs and neighing five feet from your face, it’s just a little scary. Apparently Juan the horse wasn’t so happy with his new arrangement, so he decided that the best solution would be to rip the post right out of the ground.

At that point we realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to leave these horses unattended and explore the ruins, so we hopped back on, turned around, and went back. Or, we would have if Claire’s reins hadn’t broken and any of us were able to actually get back on our horses… see what expert material we are?

Some passengers that we picked up on our
four wheeler ride.

While we were gracefully attempting to remount our steeds, another group walked by and their guide asked us where our guide was. In response to our reply that we didn’t have one, he goes “well they never should have let you do that!” Yepp, helpful. Thanks. Before too long someone up at the pasture must have noticed our absence, and a boy came galloping down the hill to assist us. He made a few “tisk tisk” noises, helped us back up on or horses, (somewhat) fixed Claire’s reigns, and we were on our way.

Once we got back up the top, the man we rented the horses from was gone, and the boy conveniently told us that in order to continue we had to pay him more. And then it began to hail. To quote Clarita, “as emotions heated, the storm began to pick up” and I used every ounce of my impressive Spanish vocabulary to tell him in no uncertain words that we would not be paying him more, but we would be continuing with our tour. I might have even thrown an “en serio?!” in there somewhere. Again with the sass.

 After arguing for a while, our friendly guide finally showed up again, and agreed to take us the rest of the way on our tour himself. The boy joined us, we laughed and made up, ‘twas a great time. The things is that stuff like this will happen to you every day in Peru whether you like it or not. It’s unpredictable, ridiculous, and hilarious. All you can really do is recognize it for the what it is (great story material) and enjoy it anyway. So while I might be all sarcastic and cynical in the retelling, the truth is that even in the midst of it all I couldn’t help but take a step back and laugh, because this is Peru. And as absurd at it is every single day, I’m going to miss the hell out of this stuff.

A little taste of Halloween. We were... bunny
leopards! (obviously) 

The next on our list of adventures for that weekend was a four-wheeling trip up in the mountains surrounding Cusco.  We rallied the troops (including JFast!!!! Too freaking cool) and ventured out into the drizzly Cusquenan morning. With minimal training, no waivers, and hearts yearning for adventure (cheeeese), we took off. This time WITH a guide. Though nothing occurred that warrants another way too long story, a good day was had by all. We got to race through mud puddles, do donuts in fields, and have amazing views of the Sacred Valley all day long. Another worthwhile adventure.

Then I returned home for lunch and my host family proceeded to attempt to get me drunk. When I protested that I had to write a paper they responded that the alcohol would “give me inspiration.” Just another casual Sunday afternoon.

The following Wednesday we skipped school for the rest of the week (badasses) and took a night bus to Arequipa, Peru in time for Halloween. Perhaps one of my favorite South American cities yet. We spent our first day exploring the city and taking a free walking tour, which wasn’t nearly as exciting as the one in La Paz, but informative all the same. After going to a restaurant to try 4944847 different kinds of potatoes, we returned to the Wild Rover hostel to get ready for the Halloween festivities.

The Plaza de Armas in Arequipa

The next day once we had waken ourselves up enough to pack up and be ready to go, we headed to the bus station with a couple guys we had met on the walking tour to make our way to Colca Canyon. Being the free spirited travelers that we are, we were counting on being able to just buy bus tickets and head out, but since when has anything happened that conveniently in South America. The earliest tickets we could find for the 6 hour journey to Colca Canyon left at 1am. Due to our time limits we would have to start hiking pretty much as soon as we got off the bus, but we didn’t have much of a choice so we ended up buying the last seven tickets available.

We all schlepped back to the Wild Rover, hung around with some cool cats until midnight, and then dragged ourselves back to the bus station.

After a ridiculous 6 hour bus ride in the middle of the night in which they checked our tickets no
less than four or five times, we arrived in the hopping town of Cabanaconde. There, we scavenged some breakfast, bought tickets for our trip back to Arequipa (we had learned our lesson) and then prepared ourselves to descend into the canyon. Now only to find the trail… Since most people tour the canyon with a guide, there is essentially no signage telling people where the trails are. On top of that, for some reason cartographers haven’t taken a huge interest in exploring the canyon, so topographical maps are nonexistent. But surely the locals would know, right?

The thing with many Peruvians I’ve encountered is that they just tell you what you want to hear. For example, one might ask, “el sendero es por aca, no?” which means “the trail is through here, yeah?” to which they will consistently reply “si, claro!” or “yes, of course!” …no matter whether it actually is, and no matter whether they actually know what trail you’re talking about. After questioning a few locals and consequently encountering a few dead ends, we decided to just walk until we saw something promising. In the end we stumbled upon a tour group so we asked their guide if he could point us in the right direction. Victory.

The next 8 hours were spent zig-zagging our way down into the depths of the canyon with the end result of arriving at our hostel in an oasis called Sangalle near the river at the very bottom. If I was a better writer, I would attempt to describe the way my knees were about to collapse by the time we reached the bottom, or how incredible it was to think that this gaping canyon was once level with the rest of the landscape until the river slowly but surely carved away at the stone, or the way the cold river water felt against my blistering feet before we stopped for lunch… but the truth is that there’s not much to say about 8 hours of walking, so check out my pictures and let your imagination do the rest.

Colca River at the bottom of the Canyon. SO refreshing.

The next morning we woke up early enough to hike out of the canyon and catch our 11am bus ride back to Arequipa. Again, I won’t go into detail, but trust me when I say that the three straight hours of stair-master butt toning that we did that day did NOT get me all that excited about the Inca Trail. But it was all good practice, nonetheless.

We made it back to Cabanaconde just in time to buy some delicious ice cream and catch our bus back to Arequipa (6 hours) where we would then hop on another bus back to Cusco (10 hours) just in time to take a quick shower and head to class at 9am. Worth every second.

So those have been the adventures spurred on by our mid-program crisis. Tomorrow morning at 5am we take off to follow in the footsteps of the Incas all the way to Machu Picchu… SO excited for some more nature time. This past weekend I came down with what I thought was some sort of food poisoning, but after a quick visit to the clinic I discovered that it was in fact a parasite eating at the walls of my intestines. So needless to say, nothing much exciting happened this weekend other than me watching WAY too much TV and journaling my little heart out. So yeah, I’ll have a few friends to keep me company while walking up all of those steps on the Inca trail…

And because there’s no way I could go a whole blogpost without getting at least a little bit sentimental…

I’m pumped to go home! This place has taught me so much and I’m absolutely still looking forward to the next month of adventures that I’ll have here, but home is sounding more appealing every day. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been to my house, nine months since I’ve gotten to goof around with my brother or have quality chats/adventures with my dad, and the few days that I got to see my mom before I left was hardly sufficient to make up for the months of absence. I want to wander through the woods with the dog and just breathe it all in.

Life has been SO good to me lately. I go to a good school where I’ve made a ton of incredible friendships and connections, I got to work at the most mind-blowing summer camp this year with some of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met, and now I’m here in Peru going to school and living and adventuring and being taught a new lesson every single day. Sometimes I can’t wrap my head around it all. But the downside is that because of all of these crazy adventures, I don’t get to be around the people and the foundation that made all of this possible. And what I’m finding is that it’s increasingly hard to be present here in the moment, but also demonstrate just how thankful I am for everything that’s gotten me here.

How could  you NOT miss the heck out of this
crazy beautiful place?

So I know this isn’t even close to being sufficient, but here’s a big shout out to the coolest, most supportive family a girl could ask for. You all are the reason I’m here and able to do these things, and there’s no way in the world that I’ll ever be able to tell you how thankful I am. I miss the heck out of all three of you and can’t wait to see you on the 15^th of December. 31 days!!!!!!  

But now it’s time for my little parasite friends and I to bid you adieu… we’re off to Machu Picchu! (I’m a poet, it’s cool)

Nos vemos,

Hannah