He proceeded to be disappointed and begged me not to change the plans. I was hardcore and refused. It was actually PERFECT because by him guessing what we were doing and me ‘cancelling’ it I was able to (a) learn that he was dying to the do Inca Trail (which I suspected was the case but you never know for sure right?!) and (b) I could totally throw him off on where we were going! Exciting!
Six months later, I had convinced Joep that the Inca trail was off the cards but that I had planned something else fun for us to do. And so, with everything planned we headed to Ottawa airport early Thursday morning before Christmas. I don’t know who was more excited – Joep or me!! After checking in and getting boarding passes to Miami (our connection city) we went through security and grabbed a table at a restaurant for breakfast.
During breakfast I gave Joep a letter that gave him some hints on our destination (and had some lovey dovey stuff in it of course!) and then instructed him to open his first present … it was the Peru Lonely Planet. He was ecstatic! It was so exciting!! I then showed him the first week’s itinerary. He was so excited about this that he didn’t even register that the itinerary stopped 1 week before we were due to come home. Luckily, I had anticipated this would be the case and encouraged him to keep reading the letter. Before long he came across instructions telling him to open his second gift … it was the Bolivia Lonely Planet! Oh the excitement! Even our waitress was excited!!
And so, now that Joep finally knew the plans, we were able to board the plane and get properly excited about our big adventure!! The flights went by without too much trouble and we landed in Lima, Peru in time for a night of sleep before getting an early morning connection to Cusco. After a brief delay, we made it to Cusco and before we had even landed we were marveling!! The views on the flight into Cusco are incredible. The plane flies so low over the mountains that there are times you feel you might end up as a main character in a movie about plane crashes and people eating each other to survive (dramatic much?) … but there was not much time to be petrified because before we knew it we were landed in Cusco and making our way through crazy busy streets to our hotel.
A friend of mine had recommended a great hotel to us – Amaru. There are a few Amaru’s around town and we were at Amaru I (an important factor to remember as you read this …). It was just gorgeous with internal gardens, views over the city and a beautiful room. Plus the staff were super helpful. We dropped our stuff, freshened up and then treated ourselves to some coca tea to help with the altitude sickness. You see, Cusco is 3,300m above sea level. This is high (but we go higher!) and as a result, I had done a lot of research on altitude sickness before we left which I summarized and gave to Joep on the plane over (organized!!). Altitude sickness is caused by acute exposure to low pressure of oxygen at high altitude (I.e. less oxygen in the air). It commonly occurs above 2,400m. There are a lot of weird things that can happen with altitude sickness such as:
- Lack of appetite, nausea, or vomiting – We got none of this! We ate and ate and ate …
- Fatigue or weakness – We already like sleeping so we didn’t notice this.
- Dizziness or light-headedness – This a little bit but not too bad.
- Insomnia - No sir! We slept like babies!
- Pins and needles – Nope. No issue.
- Shortness of breath upon exertion – Got this one. But I get out of breath walking 15mins to work every day so I am not confident it was altitude sickness that caused this.
- Nosebleed – None. Thank goodness!
- Persistent rapid pulse – Mmmm I think Joep got this. I was ok.
- Drowsiness – See fatigue above … It was vacation. We slept.
- Swelling of hands, feet, and face – Those of you who have flown with me have seen my club foot from flying so I cannot attribute that to altitude sickness. Nothing else to report on this one.
- Diarrhea – That’s private.
Yikes right?! That is a LOT of stuff that can happen! But as you can see, none of this affected us severely. The only thing that affected us was Cheyne-Stokes Respirations. Huh? Well, above 3,000 meters most people experience a periodic breathing during sleep known as Cheyne-Stokes Respirations. The pattern begins with a few shallow breaths and increases to deep sighing respirations then falls off rapidly even ceasing entirely for a few seconds and then the shallow breaths begin again. During the period when breathing stops you become restless and might wake with a sudden feeling of suffocation. It’s not considered abnormal at high altitudes but we sure found it abnormal. The noises Joep made when sleeping were positively frightening!
So why were we not as severely affected by the illness as others? Well they say it impacts different people differently but I firmly believe it is because we followed all the advice! We drank a ludicrous amount of water and coca tea on the first day. The Peruvians say that drinking Coca tea, as well as chewing the leaves, increases the absorption of oxygen in blood, which helps combat altitude sickness. We took their advice. We also took their advice to ‘take it easy’ the first few days and just wander around. It was worth it!
Cusco is such a beautiful city and after having a few cups of coca tea we wandered down to the town to soak up the atmosphere. And what an atmosphere it was! Unbeknownst to me while planning this trip, December 24th is the only day of the year that there is a market in the Plaza de Armas (the main square). The Plaza was packed with people selling and buying all kinds of things from food to clothing to pan flutes (more on that to come) to plants! It was so congested and full of atmosphere down there that we decided to eat lunch on the Plaza to soak it all up. After eating lunch and people watching for a while we headed to the Inca tour offices to finalize the plans for the trek. This was unsuccessful because the offices were closed but after asking around a lot of people we managed to contact the guide and he arranged to meet us that evening.
Let me just point out here that Joep is incredibly multi-lingual! We have been taking Spanish lessons from our Argentinean friends here in Canada for a while now. I am lazy about them but Joep is very focused. I didn’t realize how good his Spanish was until we got to Peru and he started chin wagging all over town! Impressive! So with his language skills we sorted out the trek and our ongoing transport before settling in on the balcony of a bar overlooking the Plaza for a game of gin and a few beers. We didn’t go too crazy because we didn’t want to get dehydrated and undo all our good ‘altitude sickness prevention’ work but we really enjoyed the evening sitting there. After nightfall we wandered through the market with the intention of buying Joep his current most prized possession – A pan flute.
Since I have known him, Joep has often spoken about his love of the pan flute and how, as a child, he wished he could own one. I didn’t really take him seriously until I saw how conscientious he was about picking out ‘just the right’ pan flute for his needs. Ay ay ay. It took some time but he eventually found one he loved, haggled with the seller (in Spanish), decided it was too expensive, walked off, got chased by the daughter of the seller, agreed with her to pay his desired price, walked back to the seller, paid for it and gave him a big old tip that brought the selling price back up to the original asking price of the pan flute. Never a dull moment. He was overjoyed with his purchase and we celebrated with dinner at a restaurant right near our hotel before calling it a night.
After an interrupted night of sleep (thank you Cheyne-Stokes Respirations), we slept in a bit on Christmas morning before getting up to a delicious Christmas breakfast (fruit and yoghurt) ad heading down to the churches in the town to check out how Christmas is celebrated in Peru. It was pure madness. Instead of having a long mass and praying, the Cusco people get dressed in costume and dance around!! We were mesmerized and spent some quality time checking them out. After thoroughly enjoying the show, we took the advice of our Inca tour guide from the day before and walked up to Sacsayhuaman (say this out loud … it sounds exactly like ‘sexy woman’). Sacsayhuaman is one of the most famous Inca sights in the world. It sits at 3,701m above sea level which we didn’t know before deciding walk up. The 400m climb in altitude was worth it though because the views of the city from up there were incredible AND we met a few llamas along the way! Sadly, when we got to the site the heavens opened and it began pouring with rain. This doesn’t stop the Peruvian people who just get on with things but we stood under shelter for a while before deciding to head back down. After making it safely back to the town we went in hunt for a delicious Christmas lunch.
Initially we made a very bad decision to eat at an English pub before coming to our senses and heading somewhere more local. It was a great choice! We had a positively gourmet lunch at Cococilli’s sitting out on the balcony admiring the views that you would only see in South America. I even took a few sneaky photo’s of a woman with a llama in traditional costume … they normally ask you to pay to take these so Joep was justifiably mortified (and a little bit entertained) by this. It all added to the festive spirit and we ended up enjoying a very long, very delicious Christmas lunch!
After lunch we wandered around town rehydrating (after wine consumption with lunch) before heading to our Inca debrief. We were heading off the following morning for a 4-day trek through the Andes ending at Machu Picchu. At the briefing we were given a list of things we needed to bring with us and we were also told they would collect us from Amaru II at 6:30am the following morning. Feeling more than a little bit excited, we headed back to the hotel stopping along the way to buy a few things (torch and rain poncho’s!) and to grab a bite to eat (because we were hungry again … what? I told you we didn’t suffer from ‘loss of appetite’!) before crashing for the evening.
The following morning we were all packed up and ready for the trek. As we sat in the reception waiting for our ride we began to get concerned. They were late. We waited a while before Joep asked the receptionist (in Spanish, I’m translating this …) ‘This is Amaru II right?’ Response? ‘No. Amaru I.’ According to Joep, at this point I jumped up and ran in circles with my hands on my head for a while. I hate to admit it but I think his description is accurate. I had spent so long organizing the trip only to have it spoiled at the last minute! Disaster!
Thankfully the Peruvian people are just lovely and our receptionist called Amaru II to get them to find the tour bus and tell them we were at Amaru I. Within 5 minutes a guide was at our hotel grabbing our stuff and walking us to meet the bus. Phew! We didn’t miss it! BUT – When we got on the bus Joep walked ahead of me really quickly and sat down. I got caught by the main guide, Valerio, who said to me ‘You TOLD me Amaru II!’ He was a bit annoyed. I went bright red, looked for Joep (who was nowhere to be seen) and apologized profusely. In front of the whole bus. Great first impression.
It was all forgotten pretty quickly because we were on our way to walk the Inca Trail! So for those of you who don’t know, here is a very brief discussion of the Inca Trail because I learned a LOT on this trip. But I will summarize it for you.
The Inca Trail is basically a trail that leads from Cusco (which was the original capital of the Inca Empire) to Machu Picchu (which was one of the biggest Inca cities). It is not, however, the only trail. The Inca’s had a heap of trails that allowed them to travel and pass communications through the Inca Empire (which was huge!) to the many Inca cities. In fact, some trails go as far as Quito, Ecuador; others go across to La Paz, Bolivia; there are more leading down into Chile and even more to Argentina! These Inca’s were all over the place! When the Spanish arrived in South America (in 1528) they proceeded to conquer the Inca’s a lot of the villages and cities were abandoned as people moved to the bigger cities (such as Cusco). For many years there were myths of the ‘lost city of the Inca’s’ and in 1911 an American historian (a lecturer at Yale University) called Hiram Bingham found Machu Picchu which he announced as the lost city. By found, I mean, he was lead there by local Peruvian people. So there you have it. Machu Picchu was found and excavated. There was no human damage to the site, only natural damage from the site being left to decay over the years.
Nowadays, largely as a result of this find, there is one very famous Inca trail that people trek. This is the one we did! It is a 49km trek over 4 days climbing to a maximum altitude of 4,200m. The trek takes you through the Andes beginning in the Urubamba Valley, continuing into the Wayllabamba valley before turning back to the Urubamba Valley and finishing at Machu Picchu which sits at an altitude of “only” 2,430m.
On day 1 we only knew bits and pieces of the Inca story and we were excited to learn more! The first day is marked on the map we had as ‘easy’ and so we were feeling very enthusiastic and excited! The first stop was a local town at the start of the trail called “Ollantaytambo” where we stocked up on water and bought our walking sticks (I couldn’t have made it without mine!). When we were all stocked up we set off on the walk. Oh, point of note, you can hire a porter to carry your big backpack. I made sure I arranged this prior to departing Canada. Lots of people didn’t have one which you might think we found embarrassing. Ha! Nope. Those people are crazy!! But it was day 1 so we didn’t know this yet, we just handed off our pack and skipped light heartedly to the trail. Before too long we had struck up conversation with various people in our group and the day was just lovely. The sun was shining, the views were beautiful and the walk was not very strenuous at all! There were a couple of up hill bits but nothing too crazy.
We had a bit of down time to get ourselves organized before sitting down for afternoon tea (I have never been as excited about popcorn as I was for the first 3 days on the Inca trail) followed by more R&R followed by dinner. Hmmm. The first day actually was very relaxed! As nighttime fell, Joep and I retired to our tent. Here came our first challenge. Joep is very tall. People in Peru are not. The tent was made for people in Peru. So on night 1 of the trail, Cheyne-Stokes Respirations were no longer a problem because neither of us could sleep. You’d think this would make us very cranky and not want to walk a full day the next day. Normally you would be right but for some reason, against all odds, we were up at 5am the next morning full of beans and in surprisingly good moods! It must be the fresh mountain air.
We were, however, feeling quite stressed about what was in store for us on Day 2. It is marked on the map as ‘challenging’ and Valerio had warned us many times the night before that the day would be difficult. He even encouraged people to get a porter to carry their bags because lots of people get half way through Day 2 and can’t go on. You see, on Day 2 you walk another 10km. But it is all uphill. Yup. All of it. You climb 1,000m in altitude in 1 day. Ouch. I was very vocal about my fears in relation to this and subsequently befriended a German girl (Arite, you will become familiar with her!) who was with her boyfriend (Tobias). Tobias was the most stereotypical German ever and looked uber fit. Joep and I joked that he was a robot and at nighttime Arite just switched him off. We told them this later on and they laughed and told us that was actually what it was like. So Arite is not as mechanical as Tobias and had fears too. Bonding time.
I’d like to say that ‘it actually wasn’t that bad’ or ‘it sounds worse than it is’ … but I’d be lying. It was BRUTAL. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Not only are you giving yourself an extreme physical work out but you are doing it in high altitudes with almost no oxygen in the air! We set out at 6:30am and sure enough, it was all up hill. Thankfully, Valerio explained very clearly where each of the resting points were so we could have short-term goals.
By the first resting point, Joep and I were both gasping for air and exhausted. So was everyone else … except for Tobias. We had something to drink and a snack before heading off to the second resting point. Somewhere between resting points 1 & 2 I got into a rhythm. It wasn’t a very fast rhythm but it was a rhythm nonetheless. It involved right foot forward, left foot forward, right foot forward, left foot forward … nothing more. I figured that as long as I was moving forward I was fine.
And so, in my ‘rhythm’ I made it to the second resting point and Joep was shortly behind me. At this point we were 2/3’s of the way up. Almost there. But the final leg was the worst one. A steep rocky climb with hundreds of giant stone steps … there was no time to think about it because as soon as we had regained enough breath to begin chatting again we were heading off. I slipped straight back into my rhythm. Joep was yet to decide on a rhythm.
Approximately half way through the last leg, whilst walking back a bit to find Joep and give him some encouragement to keep going I decided I would let him in on my ‘rhythm’ secret. And so I informed him that he just had to ‘find a rhythm! Find a rhythm Joep! I just go right foot, left foot and I am doing fine!’ If looks could kill, you would all have been invited to a Peruvian funeral. Firstly, Joep didn’t like my ‘rhythm’ advice and thought it was stupid. Secondly, who asked for my advice anyway? Okaaaaaay. I went back up the mountain and kept my rhythm to myself for the rest of the climb.
After some serious hard work, I cannot even begin to explain the elation I felt when I saw the summit! There were plenty of people already up there (I do not profess to be superwoman!) and I couldn’t wait to join them. I ‘rhythmed’ my way up the last steep lot of rocks and stopped at the top step to throw my hands in the air and bathe in my own glory! Made it! To 4,200m!! It was incredible!! Even though I was exhausted and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs if I wanted to, I was grinning from ear to ear and almost wanted to cry a little bit! What a sense of accomplishment! They should bottle that feeling and sell it.
Shortly afterwards, Joep joined me at the top and I could see on his face the exact same feeling that I had myself. Priceless. It was just incredible. We took a few pics and caught our breath and high 5-ed many times to celebrate our accomplishment. Alas we couldn’t wait up there for too long because it was cold and starting to rain so we bundled ourselves up and began the trek down the other side of the mountain towards our camp.
In comparison to my triumphant climb up however, the climb down was a bit of a disaster. The rocks were super slippery from the rain, they were also exceptionally jagged and I was afraid. I took my time heading down but despite the caution I showed, I had a fall. We were walking with me in front and I took a wrong step so my foot flew out from under me. I had a poncho on so I couldn’t get my hands up to catch myself and before I knew it I was flat on my back. The first part of me to hit the ground was my upper left rib cage and it huuuuurt. For a second I was afraid I had broken a rib and we were going to experience yet another international hospital.
Thankfully, after catching my breath and calming down I decided it was definitely just bruised and I would be fine. I was right. But boy was I in agony for a while afterwards. Moving my left arm was painful with a capital p. Luckily for Joep, there was no time for complaining so we pulled ourselves together and continued the walk down. We made it to camp without further drama and, after eating lunch, I proceeded to pass out cold for a few hours while my body recovered. We had walked 10km, climbed 1,00m in altitude and back down 800m in altitude in just under 8 hours! Hardcore.
Joep spent the afternoon chatting with our new found friends and, when I arose from the dead, playing gin with me. Dinner was another hilarious affair of good chats, good food and all around good feelings before we all went to bed nice and early for another 5am start the following day.
Day 3. They told us it was mostly downhill. They lied. Over breakfast in the morning we were informed that we would start the day climbing from 3,600m in altitude BACK UP to 3,900m in altitude. Imagine our reactions! Ha! We were surprisingly upbeat! What was 300m when we had conquered 1,000m the day before! So it wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t unbearable. My highlight of the climb was when we had stopped for a chat as a group Valerio says to us ‘See the top there? That is not the top. When you get there you will see another top. That is also not the top. Do not be fooled. You are only at the top when you see a lagoon on your left.’ One of our American group members then asked ‘If I get delusional and hallucinate a lagoon on my left I’m just going to stop there ok?’ We appreciated the humour. In my opinion, it was kind of nice to know what we were in for and, once again, when we made it the 3,900m mark we were all in VERY high spirits! The icing on the cake was that the weather was way nicer than the day before! After reaching 3,900m it a lot of walking up and down for a long time.
The uphill bits were rough but I found the downhill bits harder BUT we passed through the Inca tunnels on this day as well as that was super cool! Tunnels literally carved into the side of the mountains. Inca-redible (How lame is this joke? We have said it so many times that it doesn’t sound lame to us anymore). Finally, after lunch it was almost entirely downhill. Joep and I took our time and Joep was super nice about letting me hang onto him whenever I was afraid (best future husband ever!). We were also treated to a couple more Inca sites along the way. It was at one of these Inca sites that Valerio told us that we had a couple of options for getting to the campsite. From where we stood there were 2 options. A short option and a long option. You would think that we went for the short option right? WRONG! But for a good reason. I asked Valerio which option involved the scariest, largest amount of steps … the short option. Decision made. We were going the long option. Luckily, the long option also included an extra Inca site! Bonus! And believe me. It was a bonus. Intipata Inca site was the trip highlight for me (and I think for Joep).
As we turned the last bend, the views were incredible, the sun was shining and there was an amazing site before us! The whole group had decided to take that route and we were almost the only people there so we all pulled up a piece of grass and settled in to enjoy the sun and Valerio’s Inca tales. It was surreal. Every time I think of it I smile to myself. Just amazing!
When we managed to drag ourselves away from this little piece of heaven, we headed down the final few kilometers of our 13km walk that day (yes, 13km in one day!) to our final camp of the trail. The camp on Day 3 is the most exciting camp because there is a stone building to eat in AND you can pay 5 solas for a lukewarm shower! Heaven.
Upon arrival at the camp, Joep and I made a bee-line for the bathrooms, paid our money and cleaned ourselves up. If you asked me to get in a shower like that right now I would be grossed out and decline. At the time, it was pure luxury after 3 days of serious physical workouts and no showers. Feeling all clean and fresh we walked the 5 minutes to the Inca site near our campsite called Winay Wayna (we still were not Inca’d out!), which was so worth it, coz it was really amazing!
It is also notable that whilst at this campsite I realized that my ears were horrifically sunburned. While brushing my hair after my shower I bumped my brush against my ear and it hurt. I asked Joep to look at it for me and it turns out my ears were horribly blistered and pussy. Gross! I looked at Joep’s in return and his were the same! We’d been walking for 3 days and we had been religiously slathering our faces and necks in sunscreen but we had totally forgotten about the tops of our ears. It was so painful and disgusting! Lesson learned: The sun is strong when you are in high altitudes. Put sunscreen on ears.
By the time we had noticed the awful state of our ears we decided that we had earned a rest and so we got some beers, grabbed our German pal and toasted our success on the Inca trail AND Joep’s BIRTHDAY! Yes! I planned it that we would arrive at Machu Picchu on the day of Joep’s 30th! After a few beers and a few rum & cokes (Joep lugged a bottle of rum with him on the Inca trail, that is dedication) we enjoyed a great dinner with the gang. The food was fantastic on the last night!! And the chats were as fun as ever.
In addition, on the last night you get to thank your porters with the group. These porters are amazing. The trek that we walk, they do at running pace carrying at least 30kgs on their back. Yowsers! They are up before us, in bed after us and they don’t stop working the whole time. In fact, Valerio told us that a few years ago there was a race to see who could do the Inca trail the fastest. Professional athletes came from all over the world to compete and the race was won by a porter! The trek that takes us 4 days to do, he did in 3 hours 47 minutes. This is a true story. How insane is that??
So we all stood around while Valerio introduced each of the porters and told us what they carried (eggs & bread was my favourite one!) and then we got to shake their hands to thank them and give them a tip as a group. It was really lovely and one of my favourite parts of the trip.
That night, for the first time, both Joep and I managed to doze off for a few hours. Unfortunately, on Day 4 we had to be up at 3:30am. And so we were rudely awoken at 3:30am to the sound of Spanish speaking porters pounding on our tent. The noise of the porters was nothing in comparison to the drumming of torrential rain on our tent!! Uh-oh.
We had been super lucky the entire time and mostly got rain in the nights while we slept so the days were pretty clear with only occasional showers. Our sneakers aren’t properly waterproof so we took some advice from the Spaniards in our group and had been putting plastic bags over our socks before putting our shoes on (best tip ever by the way). At 3:30am however, with Peruvian porters shouting at us to ‘Vamos! Vamos!’ we were not concentrating. We threw our sleeping bags into our pack, put our poncho’s on and vamos’d!!
As I stepped out of the tent into the pitch dark, pouring rain I landed ankle deep in a giant muddy puddle … I then turned to Joep who was behind me with the torch and shouted ‘Its like being in ‘Nam!’ In reality, I am sure it was nothing like being in the Vietnamese war. For starters we weren’t under fire. But still, at the time it was a good analogy! Joep appreciated it.
It wasn’t until we got to the dry food hall that I realized – Joep was 30!! Thankfully I realized before we saw the rest of our group!! When we saw everyone else they went straight into ‘Happy Birthday!’ mode and there were high 4’s all around. Awww!! Joepinator was so happy even though it was 3:30am and we were all wet. I was so happy that we were there together to celebrate it! What a wonderful experience! For the next couple of hours we ate breakfast and napped at the table. The plan had been to walk almost directly after breakfast but the torrential down pour wasn’t stopping so we waited. It didn’t stop and eventually the waiting was given up on and we walked.
My goodness was it raining! Pouring rain. We had 6km’s to walk and most of it was pretty easy going but I think it was the hardest day of the trek … all because of the weather for sure! At one point, I was really starting to lose faith in my ability to ever get to Machu Picchu. At this point we turned a corner and came face to face with a vertical climb up a rocky wall. I am not exaggerating. Even the guys in the group were scared. But there was no time to think. Everyone clambered up the wall and I managed to make it up as well even though I kept stepping on my own poncho and tripping over my walking stick (jeez) and the entire climb I was announcing ‘Oh I’m afraid. I’m properly afraid. Yup. I’m scared. Really afraid.’ It was worth making it to the top thought because at the next bend there was a llama just hanging out! I was so excited! I chatted with him and we were face to face when I was warned about llama's spitting at people. And so ended the love affair.
After a few hours of walking, we finally made it to Machu Picchu! Some people say when they saw Machu Picchu for the first time they were blown away! These people hadn’t just walked for 3 and a bit days and seen everything that comes before Machu Picchu. Still, despite the cloud cover, it was pretty amazing to be there!!
After enjoying the tour and judging other visitors for a while, there were some tough decisions to be made – Stay in Machu Picchu and hope the sun comes out? Or go back down to the town to get dry clothes, warm up and eat? The group was divided but Joep and I made the easy decision.
It was Joep’s birthday and we needed to celebrate with food and some beers!! And so, after sharing contact details with our new pals, we headed back down to Machu Picchu town where we set up camp in a local restaurant to get dried off and fed. Feeling contentedly full we wandered around the town before finding a spot in the sun (which eventually DID pop its head out!) for an afternoon of beer drinking and relaxing. Before too long we were joined by our German pal for some fun chats and more beers and Joep’s 30th was celebrated in pretty impressive style!
Joep and I were booked on the 4pm train back to Cusco so we couldn’t go too crazy in case we missed it! Thankfully we are getting better at this ‘being on time’ stuff as we get older and we managed to make the train back on time.
The train ride was uneventful and very relaxing and before long we were back at Amaru I. A couple of very looooong, hot showers later and we fell into a real bed for the first full night of sleep in days. It was heavenly!
And so ended Joep’s INCA-redible 30th birthday! I don’t think I am wrong in saying that it was a total success! We managed to get through 4 days of trekking through the Andes despite lack of sleep due to Cheyne-Stokes Respirations and a tiny tent, blisters on our feet (I had some whoppers! Joep is tougher than me and had none), horrifically sunburned ears, less than ‘happy’ stomachs and a big fall on my back on some rocks. When I summarize it like this it sounds awful – But imagine how good it must have been considering we dealt with all of this and finished every day with big content grins on our faces!!
But the adventure didn’t end there … more to come!!
No comments:
Post a Comment