Pampa´s tour in the wetlands

Hello everyone! I feel like it has been ages since I have posted a blog myself but seeing as Sean is much more punctual and has it a bit more together than I do (and he constantly reads over my shoulder which drives me crazy ;-), it has been more fitting for him to him to get them out!!!

We have had quite an eventful week since we left La Paz and it all began with the road to Rurrenabaque. We were scheduled for a 1030am bus ride on what is notoriously known by all travelers to be the worst bus ride in South America (Yay us!). Yet considering that the plane ride is seven times the cost of the bus ride we decided to take our chances and get on with our bus adventure. hahahahahhahaha!!! If only you could all have been there! (This is the part where we learned that people give out advice because they are looking out for your best interests!) Sean and I were running late due to the fact that I was running around town hunting down an ATM that would take my bank card which ultimately resulted in us running through the streets of ghetto-ville in search of our ¨road side bus station¨. We found it fifteen minutes late and were relieved to find that our bus had not left yet... Little did we know that Bolivian time is much like Hawaiian time only in double slow mo. We ended up waiting 3 hours for the bus to be loaded so we could leave. Finally we left around 130pm loaded down with apples, onions, potatoes, a years stock of coco leaves (well they probably won´t last you a year if your Bolivian), 20 Bolivian passengers and us.

About a hour out of town we began to see why the road was given such a bad rap. The road barely existed and what lay in its place was a dirty, rocky, narrow, winding pathway that scaled up mountains only to come down them on the other side. And to make it all the more adventerous there was a 1000 foot drop into the jungle on the left hand side of the road (which is the side our bus driver drove on so he could see the cliff´s edge).

As we drove on and up the road twisted into sharp blind corners in which double decker buses and cars came at full speed in both directions while teetering off the sides of the previously eroding cliff sides.

About 3 hours into the drive we had settled in our seats and were peacefully listening to our ipods when Sean suddenly began to shake me violently while pointing to a middle aged man two rows behind us. When I looked back I realized that he was standing in the back row of the bus peeing down the back of the seat and watching it flow down the isles of the bus. We instantly picked up our feet, slippers and back packs off the floor and looked back at him in utter disgust which I think disrupted his composed moment of relief and resulted in him stopping and pulling up his pants. Sean and I had no idea what to do or think and we sort of stared at each other armed with all of our stuff and no idea where to put it for the next 16 hours. (Its really kind of funny looking back on it now!) The most ironic part about it was the guy had nearly three rows all to himself and was in the back of the bus and could have easily peed out the window and been less discreet but instead he wanted to torment the bus with his stench and river of pee!

An hour after all that excitement our bus driver came to a complete stop in road for several minutes, which was long enough to stir up some curiousity in the bus amongst the passengers. I opened my window to see what the commotion was about to see our double decker bus´s tires sitting cautiously on the edge of a cliff that dropped hundreds of feet into the jungle.

The bus driver must have been sitting there contemplating his best choice because we remained there on the edge of the cliff for almost five minutes before he made his executive decision. And his final decision was to just floor it and hope for the best. By this time the entire bus had a head poking out of every window on the left side of the bus waiting to see what would happen - and as the driver pressed on the gas we all watched the the earth literally crumble beneath the tires of the bus. I realized how NOT-normal this was when every Bolivian passenger gasped or moaned in relief once we had all our tires back on the dirt road. The peeing Bolivian in the back took the commotion and distraction as an oppourtunity to contiune what he started earlier and finish his river of pee down the middle of the bus because when Sean and I looked back he was going at it again!

In the end we were truly amazed with what our bus was able to get through - death defying cliffs, sand dunes (which came in the morning), sharp muddy corners and steep mountain climbs. Yet considering it all it was a nauseatingly (literally, I almost puked) beautiful drive up through the Amazon basin. Jungle and mountain life mingled together creating a majestic untouched land that can only be seen by the way of the road to Rurrenabaque... THOUGH! don´t let that fool you, we took a plane back! :-)

Nonetheless we arrived in Rurrenabaque early Thursday morning and looked around the hot, tiny, dusty, chicken-filled bus stop and we were pretty clueless about where to go and how to get there. So you can imagine that we were relieved when a English speaking tour agent approached us and hooked us up with loads of information, a hostel and a tour of tiny town.

To give you some perspective of where Rurrenabaque is, it is in the north eastern part of Bolivia at the base of the Amazon wetlands known as the Pampas (the Pampas was our reason for going to Rurrenabaque) and it is hot as hell there, which is hard to believe coming from cold weather. Yet Bolivia so far has proven to have tempetures of every variation that one can imagine. I guess that´s what you get going when you have the Amazon and the highest altitude city in the world!

So once we checked in to our hotel we showered up booked a 3 day tour of the Pampas and went to catch up on some sleep from the night before. Sean was able to knock out pretty quick yet I wasn´t as lucky due to the fact that I was marinating in my own sweat. To make matters worse, our fan was broken and I needed to get out so I ditched him and toured the town myself, walking around all its four streets and the river but that was pretty much it so you can imagine how bored I got and was forced to wake him up to hang out with me.

The next day was the start of our tour. We left Rurrenabaque at 9am and teamed up with 7 others our age and loaded into a 4x4 truck to drive three hours east towards the Pampas. It was the sweatest, dirtest ride I have ever encountered in my life (Jen, even worse than when we rode on the top of that Tuk Tuk for half a day in Cambodia!). The driver stopped at a half way point for us to stretch our legs and cool off a little which is where Sean and I encountered the most creative and functional purse ever made, the unisex chicken purse!

Once we arrived at the river Beni we waited for an hour for our tour guide to show up. Soon enough our toothless Spanish speaking boat driver/alligator wrestling/ pirana catching/Anaconda finding guide showed up hurrying us into a boat and ushering us down the river. Within the first five minutes we spotted the first of hundreds of alligators that swarm the river. It was pretty cool how close we were to them watching them lay there with their mouths wide open and flashing their intimating teeth (apparently Alligators lay there with their mouths open like that all day long releasing energy and heat).

About 20 minutes and a hundred alligators later our guide, Mario, announces to everyone that the river is really low and there will be several times where everyone will have to get out of the boat and push the boat! Switching glances amongst each other we tried to figure out if he was joking or really asking us to get into the brown alligator-pirana fested waters and push the boat. He wasn´t joking, silly us!

It was quite entertaining to see 9 scared people get into the water (despite the fact that it was only ankle deep-at most knee high) dipping their toes in one at a time only to yank them out at the mere sight of a stick (I am pretty sure I was the most entertaining of them all!). Mario thought this was the funnest thing he had ever seen and tried to rest assure everyone that there had never been an alligator attack on a human in this river, but I don´t think it really made anyone feel any better!

The ride out to our camp site was the coolest boat ride I have ever been on (no offense Jono). The wildlife flourished on the banks of the river and they paid little attention to the boat passing through it. Several different types of monkeys swung through the canopies above, families upon families of Capybaras (which look like giant guinea pigs)rolled around in the muddy clay near by, hundreds of alligators eyes stared at us and birds as big as me flew about. It was really, really amazing!

Our boat ride took about 4 hours until we reached the camp and by this time the sun was setting and dinner was about to be served. We settled into our cabin rooms, washed up and then headed for the dinner table.

After dinner we headed back to the boat where Sean had his near death experience with a snake. In the dark he felt a snake slither over his foot and he jumped alarming everyone around him. He shouted snake which prompted Mario to find the snake and attempted to kill it claiming that the snake was very, very posionious and had Sean been bitten he would have died within 24 hours. Sean used this moment to dramatize his near death experience...I am still hearing about it today! As soon as we were loaded into the boat Mario took us deeper down the river for about 10 minutes before he parked the boat and disappeared in the darkness. He came back a moment later carrying a baby alligator which he showed everyone while giving us a class in alligators.

The following day we woke up early to Mario knocking at our doors telling us breakfast was ready and we were going for a hike through the Pampas to find Anacondas. We set out at 9am and it was already baking hot. There was no wind and the Pampas is like a dirty, dusty plain with tall grass and sparse trees spread about. Sean and I made the mistake of not bringing enough water and we nearly died in the Pampas right there next to the alligators who didn´t make it to water before the dry season hit... Mario was like Indiana Jones of the Pampas - he had no fear of any animal and was able to sniff out Anacondas like it was dinner. While we all fanned ourselves in the shade he was climbing trees and sticking his arms down dark, foreign holes dedicated to finding the snakes so he could show them to us. And he was good at it too. Despite it being the dry season here and his apprehension finding them he was able to spot three of them curled up in the holes of the trees, one of them even poked his head out for a picture.

Around noon we headed back to the camp and had lunch and then got back into the boat armed with Bolivian fishing poles (basically just fishing line and a hook) and went Pirana fishing. The fish were little and smart and were able to take the bait off most of the fishing hooks without being caught except for Sean´s fishing pole!

That night Mario took us further down the river to another camp that had a refridgerator and served us cold drinks while we watched the sun sink behind the trees and into the Pampa´s.

The following day we packed our stuff early in the morning and headed into the jungle for a short walk to a swimming hole where we semi-reluctantly went swimming with the alligators watching us from the shore (I was thrown in!), it was so cool and freshing yet the most paranoid swim I have ever enjoyed.

On the other side of the river Sean managed to coax an alligator from the river to the shore where he was able to get close enough and pet the top of his hed and get close up pictures, it was pretty remarkable!

Shortly after got back to camp we loaded our bags back in the boat and headed back for the river mouth. On our way back Mario suddenly shut the engine off and pointed towards the middle of the river where a dolphin discreetly poked his head up only for a short minute, it was unbelivable to see a rare pink fresh water dolphin litterally five minutes before our tour ended.

We arrived back in Rurrenabaque late in the afternoon and we immediately went straight to the showers where we desperately tried to unearth the dirt from our bodies. As the dirt washed off our bodies and the color of flesh returned we realized that we had picked up hitch hikers along the way. Yes it is true Sean and I found ticks on our skin... It goes without saying we were totally and utterly grossed out and immediately began checking EVERYWHERE for them, but fortunately we didn´t find anymore.

We left Rurrenabaque the next morning by plane, which only took a 40 plane ride over snow capped mountains making it that much more unbelievable that we had just come from the hottest place on earth.

Now we are back in La Paz getting ready to mountain bike the ¨worlds most dangerous road¨ tomorrow.

Muchos besos desde Bolivia, we love you all! Lyndsay and Sean

Bolivia!

Sorry it been awhile since the last post but we haven't had much excitement or much internet...We spent last week working at our hostel in Cusco which turned out to be a lot of fun, by weeks end we had probably 50 new friends and knew Cusco like the back of our hands. Last Sunday night we took the over night bus from Cusco to Puno, which is a town bordering lake Titicaca about six hours south of Cusco. Our bus ended up arriving late and our seats were up against the rear stairs on the bus so they didn't recline at all. What's worse is our seats were also above some part of the engine compartment so we spent an entire bus ride sitting straight up and drenched in sweat while every passenger around us was fully reclined, snuggled under a blanket fast asleep.
We arrived in Puno around 4am and had to wait until 7:30 for our tour company to open. When they finally did the took us down to the lake and we jumped into a boat for our lake Titicaca adventure to begin. The boat went out about an hour from the harbor before reaching the famous floating islands. Supposedly some of the Incas lived in the middle of the lake surrounded by reeds on floating islands also made of reeds to escape the Spanish. Some families consisting of over three hundred people still reside on similar floating islands as a tourist attraction. The islands were much larger than we were expecting, probably fifty yards long and almost as wide and housing probably 25 family members.

As our boat pulled up along the islands and we began to disembark, the locals on the island broke into song and we noticed there were some reed benches set up for us...we quickly realized we had just pulled up to the equivalent of Germaine's Luau or Disneyland or some other horrible tourist trap. The locals showed us all the typical stuff, how the islands were constructed, what they ate, how the houses were made and of course where the Guinea Pigs lived.

They did not explain how they had satellite TV inside of their reed houses or why most of the handy crafts they tried to sell us looked like they were made in China. They after our lessons and tours every single local instantly transformed their little area into a bazaar. They had all sorts of stuff to sell and no shame in looking like they were going to cry if we didn´t buy something. Luckily Lyndz and I have been training for this moment for the last seven weeks and had no problem watching them try to whip up some tears without us giving in. They were nice enough to take us out for a boat ride on one of the traditional reed boats, where when we got into the middle of the lake they requested we pay five Soles (about $2) each. No one dared to find out what would happen if you didn´t pay because the lake is freezing cold, and the locals didn´t look to friendly when they weren´t dancing and singing.

After departing from the floating international marketplace, we headed to the island Taquile about three hours boat ride away. Upon arrival we were again greeted by a mob of locals that would divide up our group and take us home for an overnight home stay in what was suppose to be a traditional house. Our family walked us up the hill to their house and it looked pretty much like any low income apartment building...We had our own room with a regular bed, carpet, electricity, and a locking door, not what we were imagining a ¨traditional home stay¨ to look like! We put down our bags and headed to the middle of the island where we were to meet the rest of our group and hike to the mountain in the center of the island. There were suppose to be ancient Inca ruins at the top of the island but when we got there it looked like someone had spend a few days casually throwing rocks into a pile. It was hard to believe these were the same Incas that built the trail and Machu Picchu. But it did make for a nice sunset.

We headed back down to our houses and were greeted by our families who had costumes ready for us to put on for the big dance! Keep in mind at this point in the evening we had not slept in almost 48 hours, the LAST thing that sounded like a good time was putting on these costumes and walking to the other side of the island for Inca prom.

Arriving at the dance we noticed pretty much everyone had the same look on their face as we did, everyone was there against their will. The Peruvian flute band began to play all the local women ran over and grabbed us and pretty much forced us to dance...let me clarify, by dance I mean join hands with the 50 other unwilling tourists and run in a huge circle. Thats it. Run in a circle. No dance skills required. Oh did I mention the average Peruvian flute band song lasts like 15 minutes? It was awesome, I highly recommend it along with sitting in bus seats that dont recline.
Needless to say we slept well that night and woke up around 8am to board our boat again. They took us to another island called Amanti where we again climbed to the top of the mountain in the middle of the island. This one had no cultural significance, just a ton of locals selling the same crap as everyone else. We figured they must pay the guides to take us there or something because there was NOTHING to do on the island. Two hours later our boat arrived back in Puno and we headed off to a hostel to catch up on sleep. The next morning we had to be at the bus station at 5:30am for our bus accross the boarder into Bolivia. We woke up, checked out and got to the bus station right on time, but no one had shown up to work at our bus companies office. At about 6am we started getting really worried and found someone who told us they thought the bus was just really late but we couldn´t understand why. Another half hour or so later we finally saw the bus company representative who explained to us that our bus would not be coming that morning. In a panic we asked why and he told us that there was a water dispute between Cusco and another town and so all the locals in Cusco had blocked every street with huge boulders bringing traffic to a stand still and no one had been able to get in or out for several days! We realized how lucky we were to have gotten out of Cusco when we did, which was about twelve hours before the roads were blocked off. We asked the rep what our options were and he told us that in another hour there would be a bus that could take us across the boarder to Copacabana, Bolivia and then the bus company would have a ¨small bus¨ to take us the rest of the way to La Paz which was our original destination. We were pretty relieved to know that we were still going to get to La Paz the same day, and we were really only going to be delayed by about five hours.
The first bus ride was great, it was a huge double decker bus that showed up and left on time, and got us to the boarder in no time. Crossing the boarder was a lot of fun because turns out that some time ago the Bolivian President came to the US and he was charged almost $200 dollars for his visa into our country. So like a mature guy, when he returned to Bolivia he put in place a $150 visa charge for Americans only. Its a really awesome experience watching 70 other people from other countries snicker at you while you pay a small fortune and they pay NOTHING. Lynz and I had also got yellow fever shots before heading to South America because Brazil requires it to enter their country. Little did we know that Bolivia also requires AMERICANS ONLY to have yellow fever shots, so needless to say we got lucky there...or so we thought. Half way through filling out our paperwork some American kid comes up to us and is freaking out asking us if we have our yellow fever, we tell him we do and he tell us he doesn´t. We tell him good luck and thought to ourselves ¨sucks to be him¨. Well five minutes later we see him on the Bolivian side of the boarder and we ask in amazement how he got across without documentation for the shot. He replies ¨the fee for not having the shot is five bucks¨, laughs and walks away....We paid almost $150 for those shots!!!! Oh well at least spreading yellow fever around Bolivia is one less thing we had to worry about, we were now in Bolivia!

A few miles after crossing the boarder we got to the town of Copacabana where we were to change to the ¨Small bus¨. ¨Small Bus¨ in español apparently means van.

We packed in like sardines and took off on the remaining three hour ride to La Paz. The ride was beautiful, almost the entire trip was right along the shore of Lake Titicaca, and at one point we even had to jump out of the van and watch it and all of our bags get ferried across the lake while we took a separate boat.

After arriving La Paz, even as tired as we were, Lynz could not wait to go shopping with the Bolivian currency called Bolivianos. The reason being we get a 7 to 1 exchange rate on the dollar, so basically she thought we were suddenly rich! We had heard from a bunch of other travelers about the ¨Witches Market¨ where you can get potions and spell making ingredients so we were intrigued and headed that way. Turns out they are not messing around, the most popular item for sale are the Llama fetus´, frogs, snakes and other reptile bodies, voodoo dolls, and of course what witch can go a day with out glitter.

Also Bolivians are extremely fond of popcorn they literally have entire streets lined with bags of popcorn for sale, and every bag is the size of a fridge!

What Bolivians are not so fond of is having their picture taken so sorry for the lack of good photos. La Paz is an awesome city, its the highest capital city in the world, our altitude is over 12,000 feet! The locals seem to be the most friendly out of anywhere we have visited so far, and no one hassles you to buy this or that, which is a welcome change. But best of all everything is dirt cheap! Today was dedicated entirely to shopping (lucky me) and we spent the day at the ¨Black Market¨ where you could find any knock off ever made, pretty exciting if you are in need of a pair of ¨Niky¨shoes!
Well tomorrow morning we board a 20 hour bus to the town of Rurrenabaque that is famous for its jungle. We are going to go on a two night three day tour of the Pampus where we should see just about every animal that lives in the Amazon. The weather is suppose to hit almost 100 degrees every day and we will only be a few hundred feet above sea level for the first time in more then a month! With transportation to and from La Paz taking 20 hours each way, we dont expect to be back here for about a week. We hear Rurrenabaque has nice hostels but no guarantee of internet so dont be surprised if you dont hear from us for a while! Adios!

Sean & Lynz

Get us out of Cusco!

Hey everyone,

So as you may remember Lynz, Jono and I came to the town of Cusco two days before our Machu Picchu hike. We stayed at this hostel called Loki, (the same chain of hostels that we stayed at in Mancora) and before we left to hike Machu Picchu we learned that you could volunteer at the hostel in exchange for free room/board/food. It sounded like a pretty sweet deal so we let the manager know we wanted to volunteer a few days after our return from Machu Picchu. Well our first few days back from Machu Picchu were pretty exciting mostly because Jono was still here, and we were still brand new to Cusco.

Our first day back we found a company that does white water rafting expeditions about two hours outside of town, so we hoped in a van and after a 10 min crash course in white water rafting we took off down a mighty stream....

I guess its not the wet season around here so what should normally be a raging river, was just a trickle of its normal self. Don't get me wrong, we had alot of fun, but there was definitely no danger factor involved whatsoever in this adventure.

So as kids do when the begin to get bored and have no adult supervision we started looking for our next big thrill. Well after talking to some locals who pointed us down a dark narrow alley we found what we were looking for! Now I must warn you this activity is frowned upon back home, so please only read on if you promise not to judge us for doing what we did that night....We ate the Cuy and the Alpaca! The two furriest, softest, warmest animals on this continent were on our dinner plate. We had been hearing about these two local delicacies our whole trip but had not come upon them until this night. Knowing it would be our only chance to experience them before Jonos departure, we decided on the Oven roasted Guinea Pig and the Alpaca (Llama) skewers! To our amazement, the Guinea pig came out like a true worrier, adorned with a tomato battle helmet and a fire pepper logged in its little jaw! The guinea pig was fully intact, including beaty little eyeballs and pointy claws!

The waiter gave us a few minutes to laugh, gag and take pictures before coming back and offering to cut it up for us to make it harder to recognize and easier to eat...

2 Min's later he came back, and it looked worse then before!!! Now the head was no longer connected to the body but rather placed next to the rest of him, still looking at us!

The Cuy was pretty awful tasting and there is hardly 2 ounces of meat on the whole thing, but at least we can say we tried it! The Alpaca was a bit better, it tasted like lamb cooked in those packets of 99 cent taco seasoning you can get at the grocery store on the ethnic isle.

So the next day Jono left town, but unfortunately for him and fortunately for us he forgot his IPhone in the hostel. Lynz and I got to make a day out of trying to figure out how to ship it to Lima overnight, so he could pick it up before his flight the next day. We got to run all over town buying boxes and tape and trying to find an overnight delivery company, all the while hoping he checked his email before flying home so that he would know his phone was en route to him! The good news is we just got an email from him letting us know that his phone did get back to him in time, the bad news is we have not found anything else to do in this town since then!

The past three days we have spent walking around waiting for our volunteering shifts to start at the hostel, but yesterday when the schedule came out, we were pretty bummed to see that each of us have four shifts, and only one is together! So basically Lynz and I are not going to see each other this whole week! If we had not befriended our managers already we would be packing our bags tonight to get the heck out of this town, but we don't want to burn any bridges. We have committed to working out this week at our hostel and then hoping on a bus first thing next Monday! We will update you again when something INTERESTING happens!

Pachamama! (Mother Earth)

Hello everyone!

We have safely returned from Machu Picchu and have settled back into the cute little town of Cusco. The trip was such an amazing experience, hands down one of the best I have had in my life.


So to begin Jono, Sean and I left on Friday morning at 530am and joined a group of 10 others. We had a really cool group of people and dynamic between all of us flowed nicely.

After a two hour drive we stopped for breakfast in a nearby town where we got taken for all we were worth for snacks and a barely fulfilling breakfast. Once back on the road, it took us another half hour drive to the trail head where we checked in with the government officials and started the walking the ¨Inca flat¨ trail. Our guide, Max, continuously told us that the trail was ¨Inca flat¨ and not ¨gringo flat¨, which would obviously lead one to the assumption it is ¨somewhat¨ flat- ummmmmmm no... in ca flat means ¨lets go straight up this hill and come down it on the other side only to come up it again¨! By the first hour we finally realized that we should expect the opposite of what the guide said from that point on.

So to back up here a minute let me paint a picture of how this is all going down for those who might not know about the Inca trail.

First of all the Inca trail is a 26 mile trail that was originally built by the Incas leading to the unassailable citadel Machu Picchu, also known as the lost city of the Incas. Only 500 people (porters, guides and tourists included) are allowed on the trail per day and there are many regulations that must be met- so as you can imagine we had booked this trip about 6 months prior. For our group of 13 people we had 19 porters, 2 guides and one donkey ( I am just joking about the donkey). The trail can only be done by foot so we had to carry all everything on our backs... Well we just carried our personal items and sleeping stuff while the porters had all the weight!

We arrived at the trail head around 11am (and 2400 meters high) and began hiking in the midday heat. Fortunately for us it was a beautiful day that day; although I have to admit it made the hike a bit more difficult to hike but after 6 weeks of cold weather we were more than happy to embrace sunscreen and shorts. About 3 hours into the hike we came over a plateau that dropped sharply into a river that flowed through the massive Andean mountains that towered above us. Coming up towards the end of the plateau revealed our first sight of the one of the ancient Inca ruins. After looking at hundreds of pictures over such long periods of time it was incredible and slightly surreal to finally be seeing them in person. Unfortunately we were looking at the ruins from afar and weren´t able to see them up close but our guide took up this opportunity to begin our 4 day education of the Andean people and their history.

As we hiked up and down and in between the Andean mountain ranges every moment or so someone behind us would call out ´porter!´ and we would all move toward the left and let the porters pass. Now let me tell you about these guys - they are like dark, little Latin versions of superman! Although I they are many regulations that prevent the porters from carrying too much weight these guys still carried quite the load. On average the porters were carrying somewhere between 60-80 lbs (this was probably about half of their weight... Little guys :-)

Most porters had only ghetto make shifted shoulder straps, slippers and were between the ages of 19-66. These guys also ran the trail! I have to admit it is a little humiliating when a 66 year old porter runs past you with a 100lb load on him while I was huffing and puffing up the hill with my 20lbs backpack and walking stick.

As we reached one of the last stops to take a break before heading to camp we came across a porter carrying a refrigerator!!! I joke you not, this guy was hiking the trail with a refrigerator on his back. For kicks Sean hoisted it up on his back giving the Peruvian locals a good laugh.

We reached our first camp site around 530 that evening and our porters had already set up our sleeping tents, pitched the dinner tent and were busy making dinner. The eating and sleeping situation was incredible, I couldn´t believe the production, treatment and set up these guys had going on. I have never camped so good before - and I probably never will again. Each meal consisted of 3 to 4 courses of really good food and with each meal a tent was set up with table cloths, silverware a selection of drinks, a hand washing station and all kinds of stuff. The only thing I could think about was who I would make my porter for the next Kalalau trip.

The campsite itself was breathtaking. We had hiked about 600 meters up in elevation that day and it landed us on the point of a mountain with the Andean mountains surrounding us on every angle. Every time I looked up at them they took my breath away, they are just so massive, so full of life and so isolated. As far as I could see it was just mountains, rivers and jungle.

Since we had some time before dinner was served Sean and a couple of the other guys from our group took on the Peruvians in a high altitude soccer game in the most beautiful setting anyone has ever played soccer in while the rest of us gathered together and tried to stay warm.

On the second day we woke up bright and irritatingly early (5 am wake up call!) and were on the trail by 615 trying to beat the midday heat. The second day was known to be the hardest day and it was a day I was dreading. We had 1200 meters of straight up hill to complete in 3600 meter (about 12,000 feet high) altitude. So not fun! I was already hurting from the day before and so I took the easy route and hired a farmer who offered his porter assistance to carry my bag to the next camp... This was a big mistake for me because I have not been able to live this down with the boys since.

And just like Lynz quit on carrying her bag up the mountain she quit on writing this blog, so now your getting Sean´s version of the story from here on out....(Just kidding, shes under the weather and is heading to bed.)

So Lynz did pick a great time to let me take over the blog because her version and my version of day two are drastically different....about 30 pounds different!! At 6 in the morning, local farmers come to our camp and ask if they can carry your pack up the mountain all the way to the second camp about nine miles away. As you can tell, Lynz took them up on this offer and Jono and I did not! This up hill stretch probably took us somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 hours and several thousand stairs. These of course are not your average stairs ether, these are Inca stairs, all different sizes, heights, shapes and whatnot. This makes for 5 hours of hiking without looking up from where your next step is going to be so surprisingly one of the body parts that was most sore the next day was my neck! One of the things that really kept me going during this grueling climb in very thin air was thinking about the people that built these steps on the trail hundreds of years ago with no modern tools or anything. It defintely made me feel like I was being a wuss for complaining about just walking on it, when these people not only had to Carry all of these rocks, but they had to shave them flat and fit them together into perfect puzzle pieces!
So upon reaching the summit of ¨Dead Women's Pass¨we stopped for a few quick pictures before beginning our decent down the mountain on another several thousand steps that were equally as brutal on our muscles!

Around 300 in the afternoon we reached camp and once again everything was set up and all we had to do was toss our stuff in our tent and sit down for another amazing meal. Jono and I elected to shower (separately) in the cold mountain water that was just melting glacier water from a couple hundred meters above our camp. I don't think I can recall ever being so cold in my life! Water that temperature literally takes your breath away. This camp was nestled in between three mountains in one of the biggest valleys I had ever seen, I don't think I have ever camped anywhere so beautiful before, and that's saying a lot.

We got to bed early after a couple of games of ¨Left Right Center¨(A dice game that you play for money) and had another 5am wake up call. The third days hike starts out again with a huge climb in elevation which is about the worst thing ever at 5am half awake on sore muscles in thin air. But reaching the summit again we were greeted with the first Inca ruins that were actually able to enter and explore. Once again I could hardly wrap my mind around how these things were built without modern tools, every detail down to the aqueducts and irrigation systems were still flawless after hundreds of years of exposure to the elements and the tourists. The third days hike wasn´t too difficult until the last third where we came upon the ¨Gringo Killer¨section. The ¨Gringo Killer¨section is miles and miles of downhill stairs, that don't sound too bad until you get about a half an hour into it and your knees just turn to jello or dust or something.

My legs were shaking half way into it and I thought it was just a matter of time before I went tumbling down the stairs and off the cliff edge thousands of feet to my death! The last section just before camp we came upon another Inca ruin that rose hundreds of feet above the trail and made for quite the view!

We were now above the town of Aguas Calientes and were seeing our first sights of civilization since the beginning of our trek.
The camp on the final night was only a few hours from Machu Picchu and the plan was to wake up at 330 in the morning to make sure we were the first group to get on the trail and arrive at the ruins by sunrise. Well around 10pm that night it started raining and it didn´t let up by the time our wake up call came at 330am. We reluctantly got out of bed and packed up camp in the downpour. We ran down the hill to the checkpoint for the final portion of the trail that you once again have to show your trail permit and your passport for. Only problem is the checkpoint person doesn´t show up until 530am so everyone just has to stand around in the rain and the dark until then. Luckily for us we were the first ones to arrive at the checkpoint so we were able to get under the roof and out of the rain, but another 200 or so people weren´t so lucky and were stuck in the freezing rain for the long wait.

When 530 finally rolled around we pretty much sprinted down the final two and a half hours of trail in the pouring rain. We were cold, wet and in some pretty sour moods because we knew if it was raining this hard we would not be able to see a thing when we arrived at Machu Picchu. The final stretch of the trail the rain started to let up and as we looked ahead we could begin to see the ruins peaking through the clouds. We arrived at the area where you see that typical ¨Machu Picchu¨ photo taken from and began to snap away.

It wasn´t the best conditions, most of the ruins were still under the cloud cover, but at least it was something, and a few mins later the clouds rolled in again and Machu Picchu completely disappeared.
Everyone in the group was pretty upset, we had planned, paid for and hiked all this time for a five minute glimpse of the the ruins and now there was nothing to see. We went´down to the area where you have to show your permit to get into the ruins and then fallowed our guide into one of the buildings where he gave us a half an hour or so long history of Machu Picchu. When we came out of the building to our surprise the weather had cleared and the clouds had lifted! We began to walk around the ruins in utter amazement! The pictures you see and the articles you read do not even begin to paint the picture of how incredible this place is. This place must be made of millions of stones, EVERY SINGLE ONE has been hand carved, sanded, carried and fit with the rest, and the most unfathomable part is that the majority of these stones weigh hundreds if not thousands of pounds! Some of the larger ones must weigh more then your average car. But that is only the beginning, as you walk around you begin to see aqueducts flowing through most of the ruins, each one perfectly measured out to regulate the flow of water, descending only a fraction of an inch to insure the water never puddles up or runs too fast. The way these networks of aqueducts are set up is that they run under most of the buildings meaning that Machu Picchu was planned before it was ever built. What I mean is that the Inkas didn´t just build a new building when one was needed, they had this whole place planned to the fraction of an inch before the first rock was ever lifted!
As we made our way up to the temple section of the ruins you could tell the difference in care they put into building this sacred section. These buildings and shrines were built with the detail of a Michael Angelo painting. Each rock used was sanded down so fine, removing all edges, corners and flaws before being fit together with such precision that you couldn't even fit a piece of paper in between two stones anywhere on the building!

Around this time we decided to head back up to the viewing area to get some more pictures where we were greeted by the local llamas that were happy to pose with us for some pictures!

It was only about 9 in the morning at this point but we were exhausted after so many early mornings and so much hiking, so we decided to make our way down the mountain and into town.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and gorging on greasy food before hoping the train back to Cusco where we checked back into our hostel and slept for the next two days!