heh. i´m a little delirious right now. first of all, obviously, i´m alive. second of all, i´m exhausted. the trail was amazing. i can´t believe we walked over mountain after mountain. i needed to set up a before and after feel-up of my legs so i know this thighs of steel feeling is not in my head.
where do i even start? the night before i left i was feeling kind of ill, and a little panicky about the trek. we met at 5:45am, which was the latest i´ve woken up since. day one was hard, i took lots of drugs which i think made me tired even though it wasn´t even that steep. we walked for eight or nine hours i think, including breaks. sixteen kilometers, maybe?
day two is the hardest, it´s steep up and up to a place called dead woman´s pass which is 4000 meters up. i was struggling for oxygen until i started chewing coca leaves which helped. made my tongue tingly, and my lungs expand. maybe 12 kilometers and 1000 meters up and down...? could that be right? it was something ridiculous.
i want so badly to explain this but as i type i´m realizing there´s no way. i´ll sum up the walking and say days three and four were easier.
the views, oh my gosh, it´s like walking through a postcard. to the point that i had to remind myself not to take the scenery for granted because i got so used to peaks and valleys. we walked through at least four microclimates, everywhere from scrubby high altitude bushes to lush cloud forest. although the view i remember the most is the rocky path and dirt under my feet, because i was always looking down trying not to trip.
it rained every day. and there was always mist. which would suddenly clear and there´s be a mountain towering in front of you and you had no idea.
day two ended with a long long downhill section. doc martens, by the way, are not cut out for this. particularly, not for walking downhill it seems. halfway through day three, after limping way behind my group for two hours due to blisters all over my toes, i had a choice between taking a shortcut to get to camp or the long way to see some ruins. take a guess what i did? of course i took off my shoes, and hiked up to the ruins barefoot. much better. mud under feet, forest all around, hopping over rocks (which is awkward with a backpack). perfection.
lets see, what else. toilet conditions: nasty. hole in the floor, used by many other hikers. ew.
night of day three: pay for warm showers. campsite near a pseudo bar. many other hikers. a few danced. including me, first alone and then with a brazilian boy.
today we were rudely awakened (extra rude after three shots of tequila) at 4am. we lined up with the other trekkers to get to the sun gate at sunrise, but it was so cloudy you couldn´t see anything. people were taking pictures of white fog. funny. we walked a couple hours down to machu picchu (me in my flip flops) and toured the place before the busloads of tourists came.
machu picchu was massive, mystical and impressive. better than i ever imagined. i swore i was going to climb huaynapicchu, which is the mountain next to machu with an amazing view. it´s a 200 meter climb i think, aka high as hell especially with this exhausted body. but without a backpack it was a lot easier to climb. oh, and i climbed it barefoot again, because it was raining and muddy and flipflops would be dangerously slippery. the pic above is from the top. that´s machu picchu in the background, in case you couldn´t figure that out. at the end of the walk up you are right at the edge of a steep mountain and you have to go through a narrow tunnel to keep going up. so i got hit up with a fear of heights and closed spaces at the same time, while in a state of total sweat and exhaustion. and i loved it. at the very top, it´s nothing but a pile of giant rocks, a view and young people in different languages.
i was feeling like such a weakling during the hike because i was slow but then when i got to the top of dead woman´s pass my guide helped me take off my pack and he commented on how heavy it was. so i choose to feel hard core instead.
the guide by the way, was really fucking attractive. ay ay ay, i could listen to that man talk about the incas all day and all night.
oh and my group was awesome. everyone was so nice and supportive of each other. and right now, we all smell awful.
shit, i have to go meet a friend for coffee. but i want to say the best part: pushing my body to the point where my mind no longer wanders or is busy. just so concentrated on putting one foot ahead of the other that petty thoughts and worries dissapeared. indescribably wonderful feeling.
running off. or, walking sorely off.
4 comments:
sounds amazing. congratulations!
ps so much for your pedicures hehe
Wow!!! I'm so proud of you! What determination! Too bad you didn't have time to practice long walks with your boots, and I know it's not the same, but maybe that would have made you decide to get different boots. You will have, however, great stories to tell your grandchildren. Imagine walking the Inca trail barefoot!!! How many non-indigenous people get to do that! How was your sleeping bag? Where you at least comfortable at night?
Meanwhile, we are back from New Orleans, where we enjoyed the food, the music and the company. Missed you --we stayed very close to the hotel where you and I stayed when you went to visit Tulane and we were at the Amnesty AGM. I'm off to Ensenada next week... the world is getting smaller.
i want you to know, that (i will never want that wagon wheel coffee table), my initial reaction when i was reading your account of what a hardass you were on the inca trail was, "christ, there's no fucking way she didn't pick up a hookworm with all that barefoot hiking business." so, please do me a favor, (mark your names in your books), go see a doctor if you develop an insatiable appetite unrelated to your physical activity, and/or weight loss despite adequate caloric intake.
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