Weekly Report Nov. 19-28

Monday Nov. 19

Cusco! Things began at about 5:30 am as we arrived in the city. We wearily got off of the bus, grabbed our bags, and waited for our other bus to arrive. The morning had a nice chill. I was very thankful for that because my seat on the bus was right behind the heater. A ten hour bus ride behind a heater through the night when you're trying to sleep isn't much fun. Once the bus arrived we loaded up our things and headed for the hotel.
At around eleven o'clock we were scheduled to take a tour of the city. We went to the Cathedral in the Plaza and to several other places around Cusco. In the night not many wanted to go out because we were so tired from the bus ride and city tour, so the night ended early.

Tuesday Nov. 20

We got up at 7:00 o'clock today to go rafting. The busride there took a couple of hours but the sights that we saw along the way kept us entertained. The mountains were really tall and green. On the slopes of some there were designs of shields and different sayings; a pretty typical sight in Peru. I stayed awake for the whole ride, thanks to my new found addiction to lemon candy. Along the river we went, up the winding road to where our basecamp was located. I couldn't wait to get there. It would be my first time white water rafting. The conversation that I had with a girl from Australia named Georgia made the ride go by pretty quickly. We were following a river that looked pretty calm on our way to camp. "That can't be the river that we are going to raft on," I told myself as I peered down through the bus window. I was dissapointed to find that this river was the one which we would be rafting down for two and a half hours. We all got changed into our wetsuits and got ready to brave the icy water. Fortunately I got along with everyone that was on my team, and found that there were several places scattered along the river that supplied a sufficient adrenaline rush. We had several commands to follow: Forward, backpeddles, left back, right back, get down (get down into the boat) and stop. At first it was a little confusing with the right and left commands because most focus going through the rapids was spent on the water and making sure that you stayed in the boat. Then once the rapids got a little harder it was hard to hear in the front of the boat so I missed a few commands. The sights that we saw along the rafting tour were even more amazing than those from the bus earlier. The mountains all around us were enormous.
When we got back to the base camp we were all very happy to be supplied with a sauna and hot showers. There were so many people there that I didn't get to take a shower but the sauna felt great. After the sauna I changed into some warm clothes and sat down for a nice cup on instant coffee. It was really nice to have a hot drink after the chilly water. It was overcast as well during our tour so the water chill really reached the bone. Lunch was a pretty typical Peruvian meal. A nice big bowl of hot soup with a second of BBQ chicken with fries and a bit of salad. The sun came out sometime during the meal so after I was done with my food I was able to sit in the sun for a few minutes and take a few pictures.

Wednesday Nov. 21

Sacred Valley today. Had to leave at around nine o'clock to catch the bus. The bus that we took was pretty comfy.There were extra seats because there weren't any other people with us so I was able to stretch a bit. The early morning was beautiful. It was raining just a little and had rained the night before extensively so there was a bit of fog over parts of the city. The air was cool and refreshing. Having become accustomed to the air in Arequipa I appreciate much more the pure and clean air that we have in Vermont. The air this morning in Cusco resembled the air from back home. Everyone with their rainjackets and backpacks piled into our tour bus at around nine thirty after a short walkup from the hotel. I felt prepared; point and shoot in the pocket, SLR in the hand, and tripod in the backpack. I felt good. Nice clean crisp air, technology at my dispense, and stunning scenory to capture. We headed up from the city headed for the Sacred Valley of the Incas. The views as always were amazing even along the way to our destination. There is so much more green in Cusco than there is in Arequipa. With much more rain the land is much more ferutile and still used for farming. One of the reasons that the Sacred Valley was so sacred to the Incas is because in that day to be rich was to work the best land and make the most produce. As the Sacred Valley comes into view you realize why it was named what it was. Green. Life.
We stopped to take pictures at one of the touristy spots. After about five miutes of taking photos and fighting off merchants we headed for our next destination. We were headed for the only Inca graveyard left standing. The others had been destroyed to create routes for buses to get to Machu Picchu. Again, the sights that we saw along the way gave our destination a run for its money. Most of what made all of our destinations what they were was simply their historical significance. The Inca graveyard was positioned on top of a hill overlooking a long and wide valley. There were ruins all about,which at first sight I thought held the tombs of the Incas. But no, they were just buildings. We looked around for a bit in the first set of ruins then took a path over to another set of ruins and the Inca graveyard. When I thought of graveyard I was expecting something different than what the tombs actually looked like. They were pretty much a bunch of holes in the side of the face of a cliff. I don't remember the exact number but I think there were something like 2000 graves in total.

Thursday Nov. 22

Free day! The day actually started out badly on our free day. It took forever to get everyone ready to go. And our rotary oficial had to get a bunch of things done before anyone could leave. We ended up not getting out until about two o'clock in the afternoon. Once we finally got out it was a good day. I went with a group of five; myself, Adam,Kelli, Andrew, and Paul. We walked around for a bit and ended up going to a place to get massages. That was great. I've never got a massage before. I felt so good afterwards. There were only two beds so while Kelli and Andrew got their massages Paul and I did some souvenir shopping. Adam didn't want to pay fourty Soles (about 13 bucks) for the hour massage so he left to find a better price somewhere else. While we were waiting we also went to a place called "Jack's Cafe". I had a chocolate milkshake and Paul had a beer. Then after our massages we went back with Andrew and Kelli to chill out for a bit before we had to go back to the hotel.

Friday Nov. 23

First day of Machu Picchu. It went pretty well I think. For most of the hike I was among the first of the pack in hopes of gettting some photos without any people in them. There were a couple of places along the way that we stopped either for ruins or for resting. The four guys: Andrew, Paul, Adam and I were in front of everyone. Carlos, our Rotary oficial, said that tomorrow we have to have two guys in front and two in back because a few of the girls were so slow. Just in case something happened he didn't want to be the only one back there. In the morning Paul and I would be in the back and for the second half of the day we would be in front. This is very frustrating. For all of Cusco Paul and I have been told that we have to stay behind for "protection". I missed what the guide was saying on the Cusco tour because a couple of the girls would always wait until we were about to leave and then decide that they wanted fifteen pictures. We'll just have to see how it goes.

Saturday Nov. 24

Long day to say the least. Today we were to be in the back of the group. We had made a deal the night before, the four guys,that Paul and I would be in the back for the first couple of checkpoints then Adam and Andrew would be in the back for the remainder of the day. It didn't exactly end up that way. Zoe has a problem with her heart and is also very out of shape, Stephanie has asthma and Jesse is just plain lazy and out of shape. So Paul and I are behind these girls with Carlos and one of the guides following. This is the second day of the Inca Trail, the hardest day, the day that is almost completely uphill and stairs for miles and miles. To start things off, to get to the first checkpoint, about a half and hour's hike, took us about an hour. Then it started to sprinkle. The rain only lasted for a minute or two, and after about fifteen minutes of rest and getting passport issues worked out we left our first checkpoint. To the next checkpoint should have taken about and hour and a half. It also should have been the place that we switched with the other boys so that we could hike at our own pace.
It took FOREVER.
Carlos and I were carrying Stephanie's backpack as we got to the first checkpoint and continued to carry it after we started for our next checkpoint. I switched with Paul for a bit and then we found a porter to carry the bag. If you want a porter to carry your things you have to barter with them until you find a price that you can both agree on. It is expensive, about 40 dollars for the whole trip. The porters are already carrying a ridiculous amout of weight, but still they don't turn down another 40 dollars if they can take it. They are the ones that are taking all of our tents, food, everything that we need. All that we have to carry are sleeping bags, mattress, cameras, and any food or water that you want. Anyway, we hiked through the jungle a bit, all stairs in high altitude don't forget, stopping literally about every 30 feet for the girls to rest and catch their breath. We finally reached the point where the boys should have stopped, but we grumpilly found that they hadn't stopped. After a few minutes rest we headed out again to our next checkpoint, again, should have taken about one hour and a half. This section took even longer than the one before. And to add to it all, it started pouring, and just wouldn't stop. It was unbearable how slowly the girls were walking. It was nice sometimes to get to see scenory for a long period of time, but only to a certain point. So Paul and I were really hoping that Adam and Andrew would stop at the third and final checkpoint, but as we came to the highest point that we would hike to on the Inca trail we found that yet again we would be following the girls for a few more hours until camp. This point was the highest point that we would hike to on the Inca trail at 4125 meters. For the next few hours to camp it would be all downhill. At the top I was unhappy to find that even though I had asked if my pancho was covering all of my things, and even though everyone said that everything was covered, that my sleeping back was completely soaked. All of these things added together just... pissed me off. So we walked down, down, and down. Finally we reached camp. The night was the worst night of the whole trip. We had been told that this night would be the coldest of all of the nights. So my sleeping bag was soaked, my mattress (about quarter inch thick and didn't help much) was soaked, and a bad mood made it horrible. I ended up getting into a tent with three other people to try to be warmer, but that didn't go well either. I was on the edge so didn't have any room and I was still freezing. Earlier one of the guides tried to help out everyone that had wet things by putting them next to the cooking fire. It was a nice gesture but it didn't help much.

Sunday Nov. 25

Paul and I were in front today. It was so nice to be able to hike at our own pace. For the beginning of the hike I wasn't hiking very fast, but fast enough to stay ahead of most people. We stopped at a small lake to pick up a few rocks that we were going to use to perform a little ceremony at one of our checkpoints. The ceremony was a tribute to the 3 mountains that were the most important to the Incas. We took three coca leaves and places them under a stone at the highest point that we could find.
Much of the hike today was throught the jungle. The path was very cool looking with overgrown bushes and all different kinds of plants. At one point in the hike a porter passed me jogging. I was trying to catch up to Paul, so I figured that I'd jog with him for a bit. He stopped eventually to rest, but I was feeling good and wasn't even breathing hard so I decided that I would keep going. I got steadily faster and faster, and eventually I was sort of running. It was downhill and the altitude was becoming more and more easy to breath in, so running just felt good. There was a fork in the road about half an hour before camp. You could either take the right, shorter and straight to the camp, or take the left, longer with another set of ruins. I opted for left. I thought that Paul might do the same but even if he didn't I wanted to see the other ruins. So I continued to run, almost tripping on my walking stick once because I had to duck for some branches. I got there and found that Paul had gone the other way. I took a bit of time to climb the long steep staircase of the structure and found a view that was the best I had seen so far. I was at a high point and could see for miles and miles. I took a couple of pictures of myself by setting my camera in one of the windows of the structure, forgetting that I had been carrying a tripod on my back for just this reason. After I had finished at this set of ruins I once again set off running. Down the winding path towards our encampment I went. I arrived to find Paul sleeping in a tent. I was tent buddies with him so I set up all of my stuff and asked him if he had taken the left or the right. Like I had thought he had taken the right, straight to camp. I figured since I had taken a longer trail that there would be more people that had arrived before me, but to my surprise it was just Paul. He had gotten there about half an hour before me. He had begun to run too, that's why I never caught up to him before the fork in the path. I changed my clothes and waited around for a while to see when everyone would arrive. My UVM sweatshirt was soakedwith sweat, along with my other clothes so I put them on top of the tents to dry a bit. About an hour later the next person from our group showed up. It was Nicole, the girl that had arrived first among the girls everyday of the Inca Trail. Every 20 minutes or so more people arrived from our group. The last group of people arrived about anhour and a half after I got there. I was happy to see that Andrew and Adam had been bored out of their minds waiting for the girls. As they arrived in the camp my eyes met with Andrew's and he put an imaginary pistol to the bottom of this throat and pulled the imaginary trigger. But they had arrived three hours before us the day before AND had got to camp before the rain, so they had nothing to complain about. I ended up being the only person of the entire group to see the other ruins. I'm proud and glad to have gone, because I got to see some of the best views on the whole trail.
This was our last night with the porters and our last big meal as a group, so we had a special ceremony after dinner to thank the porters for carrying all of our stuff. We also gave them their tips (a mandatory tip) after thanking them. This night was much more comfortable than the previous, apart from waking up at midnight to the heaving and crying of Zoe, who had apparantly become dehydrated and sick.

Monday Nov. 26

Finally, the day comes that we would arrive at Machu Picchu, one of the wonders of this world. We awoke early to get a good start on the other groups. At four o'clock my alarm went off, and I was surprised to find that soon after I heard other groups already heading off into the darkness. We got ready as quickly as possible. We ate our usual breakfast of bread, crackers and instant coffee and at quarter after five headed out for Machu Picchu. Paul and I were once again forced to stick behind. We only had one checkpoint today though, and there Andrew and Adam told us that if we wanted we could go ahead because we wanted to hike Waynapicchu, the mountain directly behind Machu Picchu. I really wanted to hike it, because I had heard that they only let 400 people in a day. I ended up being wrong; they let only 400 people in at a time, but still it was nice to go at my own pace again, which today was a powerwalk. We got a couple of nasty looks from other groups because we had passed them everyday and they were getting sick of us, but I wasn't too worried about them. I was determined to get there early enough to get some pictures without 1500 people in them and to hike Waynapicchu too. Paul and I arrived at Machu Picchu at seven o'clock. We could have seen it earlier at our checkpoint, La Puerta del Sol, but it was so overcast that we weren't able to see it. Coming into the ruins of Machu Picchu made all of the dumb crap that happened on the Trail worth it. The sun started to come out, there weren't many people there... it was perfect. We sat on a rock, where we saw a couple of Dutch people that we had seen rafting and in Cusco, so Paul talked to them for a bit and I just soaked in the view. It really couldn't have gotten much better. We were at Machu Picchu, one of the wonders of the world. It had taken four days of hiking to get there. We had walked up and down thousands of stairs, trekked through the pouring rain, sweat enough to lose about 10 pounds, run, crawled, laughed, fought.... and we were finally there. The experience cannot be the same if you go on the train. It just can't be the same. All that you work through be hiking the InceTrail makes you appreciate what you are seeing so much more. We waited about an hour for the rest of the group to get there. The guide said that we had time before we needed to go to the checkpoint for Waynapicchu, so we went with them to drop off our bags before our tour of the ruins. We walked around, heard talks of the most important people to discover Machu Picchu and just enjoyed where we were. At ten o'clock the guide said that we should head to the checkpoint for Waynapicchu. I was number 107 to enter. Just the four boys decided that they wanted to go. The trail to Waynapicchu made the Inca Trail look like it was for little girls. Without backpacks we were panting and had to stop for breaks several times. But once again once when we reached our destination it made all the work worth it. At the top of Waynapicchu we could see all of the ruins of Machu Picchu, along with a 360 degree view of all of the surrounding mountains. We met a woman from Miami there who shared water and some trail mix with us. It was very generous of her. We thanked her a lot, especially because we had to leave our backpacks down at Machu Picchu and didn't have any water or food. Once we got back down off of the mountain, we walked around a bit, and then it was time to go. We loaded onto our bus and headed for Aguas Calientes (Hot waters). I thought that it was going to be something like the thermal springs that we visited in Colca, but it was just a city. We ate at a little restaurant in the city and then headed out back to Cusco. We took a train for a couple of hours that was pretty comfy until Ollantaytambo, then a bus to Cusco.Pretty quiet night, everyone was so tired that they just went to bed.

Tuesday Nov. 27

Nice day. Didn't have anything planned to do so we just walked around for a bit. We ate, then I went to an Irish Pub to watch the Champions league soccer games. Paul, Andrew and I were there for 4 or 5 hours just watching the games. It was really nice to hang out with them for a while and relax.
At six thirty we were back at the hotel leaving for the bus station. Really long bus ride back. And it was unbearably hot too. I was trying to sleep but it was too hard with the heat. I slept for a little while, but then for a while I was just sitting trying to sleep in the dark.

Wednesday Nov. 28

Arrived at 5:00 in Arequipa. Tired but safe. Took a shower and slept for a few hours. Ate lunch with the family and talked about the trip a bit. Now I'm just sorting and loading photos and trying to organize all my clothes and stuff.

Amazing week. Now I can say that I have seen one of the wonders of this world. I have hiked the Inca Trail, I have been to Machu Picchu, I have hiked Waynapicchu, I have seen Cusco. I hope that everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving. I didn't get to do anything for Thanksgiving this year but hey, we'll just have to make up for it next year. I'll post another report at the end of this week, but just a short one. Then it will be back to one every week for a while.
Love you all, can't wait till we see each other again.
-Jack

p.s. Mom the hiking shorts were amazing, I don't know what I would have done without them.