The Inca Trail

Happy Hallowe'en! My Hallowe'en candy is a Costa Cañonazo chocolate bar and Mike's is a Nestle Sublime. Mmmm. Wierd new candy.

Two days ago we trekked, with our tired, achy feet, to Machu Picchu, the ruins of the Inca Empire on the side of an Andean mountain, rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 (He took the Inca mummies from the site to Yale University and they´re still there, chillin'.). It was surreal to be up so high surrounded by mountains and clouds, wondering how humans could ever imagine and construct such an elaborate community in such a difficult location, out of stone, no less. The Incas must have had some big biceps.

The hike was a Wonder of the World on its own. Forty-eight kilometres in length and up and down thousands of metres of mountainside for four days. It was sometimes quite hard to catch your breath. Not for the scared-of-heights (Hi Dad!). The guides suggest chewing coca leaves to prevent altitude sickness and give you energy. I chewed the cud for a while and it was fine but Mike claimed they gave him arithymea. Some sections of the hike were nice and warm, some cool and the apex of my misery came on Day 2 when we hiked 6km UP and it was pouring ice-cold rain at the top of the mountain. I thought my fingers were going to fall off. Then we had to hike DOWN a few kilometres of steep, wet, uneven stairs. Nerve-racking, but I made it with Mike´s help. Mike was awesome. He jogged some parts, the little shit.

You have to do the trail with a group. Ours was Andean Life and they took care of the accomodations (tents) and food (all good three-course meals), carried by a few porters, who ran the trail in sandals with huge rice sack filled with anvils on their backs. Our guide was Virgillo, who taught us a lot about the Incas and there were six other travellers: Wolfgang and Marina, a German couple, Mike from Brooklyn, Jeanette from New Zealand and Lina and Natalia from Sweden. Luckily they were all really fun people and we had a blast together. An Aussie couple, Carrie and Brett, joined us at the ruins on the last day. We had beers at Cuzco's Irish pub last night.

We're in Cuzco one more night. It's a beautiful little city with an awesome giant market. There are sections of the market with aisles of people selling the same goods -- fruit, bread, rice, spice, fish, pig heads, bags, hairclips, etc. Product differentiation is rough with so many sellers and it´s tough to decide who to buy from. We had smoothies this morning (strawberry, pineapple and orange juice), 2 for a buck, yum. The meat section was eye-popping -- whole animals with faces hanging around being hacked. One woman had a huge bowl full of live frogs at her feet. (I didn't freak out. I peered into the bowl. I´m pretty sure the giant toad I saw in the jungle has cured me of my frogophobia. So that means Christine has to watch a whole Rod Stewart concert on DVD. Muahahahaha.)

Tomorrow we take a bus to Puno.

Until next time, Kristen and Mike