Hello all! I am back in Cusco after the most amazing 5 days of my life. Machu Picchu was incredible to see, and it was amazing to think how hard the Incas worked to bring all the building stones up the mountain, and also how much they had to climb mountains in their daily life. As amazing as Machu Picchu was, for me, the trek there was the more meaningful experience.
The trek we did was really challenging, and maybe we should have thought about the fact that it said moderate to difficult when we booked it since the most exercise I got before the trip was taking walks around my neighborhood with John. We hiked 6 to 7 hours a day and about 9 miles per day. The first day was without a doubt the hardest as it was 6 hours all straight up the mountain and also above 15,000 ft so breathing was difficult. I have never been so cold as I was that first night. It was -15 degrees celcius and we were sleeping at a small pass between two snow capped mountains. Even with all our clothes on and a hot water bottle in our sleeping bags, neither of us could get warm. Luckily that was the worst night and day, and from there everything went well.
Bianca and I got lucky with our guide, a woman named Norma who grew up in Cusco and is one of the only female guides for the Salkantay Trek. She was really encouraging and funny although she did have some really funny qualities that we started to notice later in the trip. For one thing, she was really bossy. Not in a mean way, just in a way that had Bianca and I cracking up. She would tell us things like "you lay down for an hour then you shower," "you drink this tea" or our personal favorite was "go down to the river, look for 10 minutes then you come back." She also really didn´t like animals, which we realized a little the first and second day, and it became more and more apparent as she told us some ridiculous stories. Two are worth repeating.
1. Norma and her mom house students who are studying abroad, and one year a French girl was living with them and adopted a cat off the street. The cat lived in the house with the girl for two weeks, but Norma´s mom always hated the cat. One day, the French girl went to class, and Norma´s mom found the cat sitting on a chair in the kitchen. So obviously, she picked up the cat by the tail and swung it around over her head and threw it out the window, and it was never seen again.
2. There are a lot of stray dogs in Cusco and Norma and her mom do not like all the barking and noise they make. One particular time, there were so many dogs barking outside their house that they decided to do something about it. So that night, they put out poison and the next day there were a lot less dogs. Direct quote from Norma " I think we got 40 of them!" At first, this story really freaked Bianca and me out, but now we can´t stop laughing every time we think of her telling it.
Aside from her penchant for murdering animals, Norma was an amazing guide. We ran into her in the city yesterday, and she walked around with us and helped us run some errands, showing us better, cheaper places we wouldn´t have found ourselves.
So back to the trek... The second day we walked 5 hours in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. We stopped for lunch in between, and the food we ate was amazing. Our cook was named Ruben, and we had three courses for breakfast lunch and dinner. It was more food than we could eat, and it was better than any of the traditional food we had tried in Cusco. The third day day we only had to walk for 6 and a half hours in the morning, and then we stayed at that site to camp that night. The third night was the least restful sleep we got, because we were in a small town that played music til about 1 am, then woke up at 5 am and played more loud music. It´s one of the cultural differences we have noted, that there is always music blaring in Cusco, from every house, early morning til late at night.
The fourth day we did something very unconventional. We had asked Norma if she knew anything about the ziplining site that was close to where we were camped. She said she would try to find out, and the next morning when we climbed in the bus (we had to drive to the next place to hike) she said "Want to go ziplining?" We were so excited, but I was also a little scared. We got to Cola del Mono, which was just a hut in the middle of the jungle, and there were three boys who looked to be about 15 that were our guides. With our lives in the hands of children, we hiked up the mountain to the first line, and off we went. There were six in total, and they zipped back and forth over a canyon. It was an amazing view and such a rush jumping off the platform and zooming out in the open. The best part was the Norma and Ruben came too! We made Ruben do them all first and told him it was because he was the hombre of the group and had to be the bravest. The last line, they asked Bianca and I if we wanted to do the superman. Bianca immediately wanted to, so they turn your harness around and strap you in so you are facing the ground and a guide is holding your legs behind you. I wasn´t to sure I wanted to do this, but the guide egged me on, so I did. It was exhilirating, and definitely the closest I will ever get to flying.
After our little zipline detour, we got back on the road and hiked the last three hours to Aguas Calientes, the town under Machu Picchu. The town was nothing special, and we went to bed early that night so we could wake up at 4:30 the next morning to get in line for the buses. In Machu Picchu, there is a mountain called Waynu Picchu, from which you have the most amazing view of the ruins, but only 400 people are allowed to climb it per day, and of course everyone wants to, so you have to get up early to get the "special stamp". In the picture of Machu Picchu at the top of my blog, Waynu Picchu is the big mountain in the background. Luckily the early wake up call paid off and we were able to hike the mountain. It was difficult (for the Kunkles, similar to the Beehive in Maine, but even more narrow and straight up) and took about an hour and a half, but the view from the top was incredible. After spending some time up there, we wandered through Machu Picchu for a couple hours. Norma explained to us that Machu Picchu was never finished, and that the only Incas who ever lived there were the ones who were constructing it. It was an incredible amount of work for no one to ever enjoy it.
While Machu Picchu was amazing to see, for me, hiking the 4 days to get there was the more incredible experience. I am so used to instant gratification at home, and this was anything but. By the time I got to Machu Picchu, every part of my body hurt, I had more blisters than I knew was possible and I was exhausted, but so proud of Bianca and myself for doing it. We pushed ourselves and worked really hard, and we loved it so much we are already planning a few more treks in Peru. But not today; today we are going to get massages, then the work can begin again :)
I hope all is well at home. I love you and miss you all!
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