Can I get a Woot Woot?: The End of an Era

Hello there.

I would like you ALL to please do yourself a favour and click on the following link.

It will change your life on this earth forever (or just the next 3 minutes).

http://myadventuresandcake.com/

Thank you for your time.

This is why we travel

I am back from the Jungle Inca Trail and will now blog about it accordingly. Well actually I got back from it a few days ago and am now in Mancora and the post has been sitting half-finished since Cusco. But I have now come back to my hostel after having several after-lunch beach side cocktails with a chick I met from Kurdistan and decided that now was as good a time as any to hit this bitch on the head (the post, not the Kurdistani.)

The trek was to take 3 nights and 4 days and I ended up in a fabulous group of people comprised of a lovely English girl, a sweet young couple from Texas, 2 precious English public school boy brothers who I wanted to put in a blender on high and spread on a cracker and an adorable teenager, also from Texas and his hot dad. We all started bonding about 3 seconds after getting into the bus. And this bonding continued when we got stuck in the snow about 3 hours later, had to push our bus on and off for several kilometres and then eventually had to get out and carry on on foot, in what can possibly be described as a mild blizzard.

Good times were not had by all.

The plan for the first day had been to travel by bus up to Abra Malaga, to 4350m, where we would get on to mountain bikes and weeeeeeee down the mountain. But the weather took this plan and stomped on its face. With steel capped boots.

Because after several hours of pushing the bus through the snow and after seeing droves of people walking down from the other side of the mountain, we realised that we weren’t going to be going anywhere in the bus or on our bikes and we all made the decision to get out and walk.

I must admit I got slightly hysterical when we had to take refuge in a random church at one point, to get out of the stinging snow. My imagination ran away with me and I pictured sleeping the night in the freezing church or worse carrying on and having to bury into the snow if the weather deteriorated. I even went so far as to decide that as Landon was the youngest at 13, it would only be right to put him on the bottom of the snow hole we were going to dig to shield ourselves from the cold, and as I was the third oldest I was going to have to be somewhere near the top. And the possibility of me losing at least some fingers and the odd toe or thigh muscle was high. But I mentally slapped myself, said a little prayer (we were in a church after all) and put my game face on. I wasn’t the only one entertaining morbid thoughts. Chatting to some of the group after the fact, everyone had had their own little scenarios playing in their brains – some more dramatic than others. Well that was the girls, because all the boys were thinking was: What would Bear Grylls do?

The trudging.

At one stage, while walking down the hill in the freezing rain, just as it was getting dark, one of the guys shouted “This is why we travel!” and it stuck in my brain and I have been thinking about it a bit.

We obviously don’t go looking for trouble when travelling but it’s during times like that, when we really just want to collapse in a heap and rock in the foetal position but instead keep on going, putting one foot in front of the other, that we learn what we are made of. My word – that last bit was dramatic! I must say that being a drama queen is a skill that can’t just be learned! And now I am going to sound like a complete wanker because I am actually going to quote something to better illustrate my point. (Please try not to vomit in your mouths.) There was a quote on a plaque at the eco village I volunteered at that went a little something like this: “The ship of the soul is in more danger in the calm of pleasures than in the storm of adversity.” Basically. Shit got real. And it was character building.

Anyway, a bus eventually picked us sodden lot up, after a great deal of traipsing on the road in the dark and took us the rest of the way to our hostel. Our poor original bus driver, Fernando wasn’t so lucky and didn’t manage to get his bus back to Cusco. He spent the night in the cold bus, stuck on the mountain in the snow, with zero food and not much to drink, the poor sausage.

The rest of the trip was all pink fairies and unicorn babies after that.

The second day we hiked for what felt like a million kilometres, quite a bit of it in the rain. At the beginning of the day, our guide came across a certain fruit that the people in the area used to use for war paint, amongst other things, and we all got our war paint on. And when I started feeling wet and a little peeved at all the rain that was falling on my head, all I had to do was have a look at the person next to me and I would have a giggle at how ridiculous they looked. We had all also purchased plastic ponchos at the start of the trip, which came in very handy in the rain. Everyone had different colours – pink, purple, green, yellow etc. To passers-by we must have looked like a travelling freak show - with our painted faces and colourful garb.

Unfortunately, because we had started a little later than expected that second day, we ended up on the last part in the dark, trying to traverse our way over slippery rocks next to a raging river – with about one head torch between us, which was hairy. But then we arrived at our destination, the magical hot springs. And we celebrated not dying for a second day in a row with cold beers, while soaking in the hot water and discussing the gun laws in the States. That night we stayed at this awesome eco lodge in Santa Teresa, where we had an amazing meal, a hot shower and we crashed hard.

The next day we got up early and headed down the road to experience some zip wiring awesomeness. Everyone got strapped into a harness and marched up the hill to unleash our inner James Bonds. I have done zip wiring before but this was extra cool. Because instead of doing it just once, we zip wired down 6 separate lines, pretty much one after the other until we got almost to the foot of the hill. After this, a bus took us to the hydro electric plant in the area and we carried on our trek to Aguas Calientes, where we would stay the night.

The next day we got up at 3.30 in the morning and walked to the Machu Picchu gate at the bottom of the hill, to wait for it to open at 4.45. It took me about an hour to walk up the 1816 steps to the gates to Machu Picchu, panting like a herd of buffalo the whole time. The reason we had got up so early was to witness the sunrise over Machu Picchu. However it was not to be on account of the mist. But it was still really special being up there at the crack of. And instead of getting through the front gates and seeing everything Machu Picchu had to offer one time, it kept us a little in suspense and only slowly revealed itself to us throughout the day.

Our guide took us on a tour around the ruins and then left us to slog up to Wayna Picchu. A smidgeon of trivia for y’all (I learnt y’all from the Texans and I adore it): Machu Picchu means ‘Old Peak’ and Wayna Picchu means ‘Young Peak’ in Quechua. Anyway by the time the panting herd of buffalos got to the top of Wayna Picchu, the mist had cleared and I could see forever. So although I had promised my knees I was going to give them a rest after my early morning exertions I am glad I lied and did it anyway.

Machu Picchu Montage

'Twas like we were up in the clouds.

Amazing. Innit?!

View of Machu Picchu from the top of Wayna Picchu



The money shot.
(That's Wayna Picchu in the background. Yes that is what I climbed thank you very much.)



In short, because I have run out of oomph and need a post-boozing nap - the whole thing was one of the best things I have done since the start of my trip. Wouldn’t change a thing!

The End.