Going to Machupicchu tomorrow on the Inca Trail at like 5 am. If you don´t know what that is...
So I have to get up at like 4 am everyday and hike for 10 hours or something ridiculous. This girl I know did a slightly different trail, and one morning when they woke up one of their llamas had been eaten by a PUMA in the middle of the night... and I can´t shower at all for 4 days. I don´t know which is scarier. Hopefully I can keep the whining to a minimum with copious amounts of chocolate.
Here´s a little blurb:
The Inca Trail is Peru's best known hike, combining a stunning mix of Inca ruins, mountain scenery, lush cloud-forest and rich subtropical jungle. Over 250 species of orchid have been counted in the Machu Picchu Historic Sanctuary, as well as numerous birds such as hummingbirds, waterfowl and the majestic Andean Condor. The star of the Sanctuary is the spectacled bear - a shy, herbivorous animal that is extremely rare and close to extinction. Essentially the Inca Trail is a mountainous jungle hike leading to the sacred Inca city of Machu Picchu. The 45km trek is usually covered in 4 days, arriving at Machu Picchu at daybreak on the final day before returning to Cusco by train in the afternoon.
I´m skipping class right now... it´s a hot bright sunny day and I felt like wandering around with an ice cream. It feels like such a small town already, everytime I leave the house I see someone I know, bartenders or musicians or shop owners or fellow students. It totally feels like home! We went to this cool market town last weekend, but missed the last bus back and had to take this scary rickety cab home along crazy windy rocky half-unpaved roads in the pitch black and couldn´t WAIT to get back to Cusco. But that was ok compared to the bus driver who kept falling asleep and going into the wrong lane. Anyway, I feel like I´ve lived here forever already, and it´s only been a month. The trip is officially half over, and when I get back from Machupicchu most of my friends from school are leaving for South American adventures elsewhere. I´m staying to do my volunteer work at the orphanage for another month.
Considering extending my ticket and maybe spending Xmas/New Years up in Ecuador, then flying down to Argentina for a couple weeks. Everyone is surprised that I didn´t have more extensive traveling planned (and I thought coming to Peru by myself for 2 months was crazy). All the Dutch girls have like 6 months just to go all around S. America, totally comfortable with traveling alone, and a couple guys have round-the-world tickets. I´d never even heard of such a thing until I got here. Makes me feel like a lightweight. These people have the best stories you´ve ever heard, of biking down Death Road in Bolivia, drinking the best red wine and eating $5 steaks in Mendoza (Arg.) 6 inches thick that you cut with a butter knife, of surfing and beach towns and floating islands made out of straw in Lake Titicaca. Aaah. Who knows when I´ll have the opportunity to come back?
Well have to go rent my hiking boots now. I just went to pick them up, but the shop was just sitting there, totally wide open with no one in it. Kinda weird. Running out of things to tell about Cusco because it feels so normal now. The weirdest things I´ve seen lately have come while studying the behavior of Germans at my school -- not to be mean, but as a group they are the most socially awkward people I´ve ever met. And I decided that the corners of Avenida el Sol/Mut'uchaka/Allaytambo have replaced Fullerton/Halsted/Lincoln as my intersection of choice. Cusco... Chicago.... I always have to say I moved here from Las Vegas because no one has ever heard of Chicago. I can´t believe it´s snowing there. I laid out on my back porch this morning!
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