Various Adventures - Part I

Group Email- 31/07

My Dear Friends,

Since I last wrote you --also from Cuzco, I believe-- I have had an infinite number of excuses as to why I was too busy (etc.) to sit down and write this email. Today, I do not.

I am currently staying at a hostel as sticky as a spider web, where there are far too many parties, not enough hot water, and an endless dizzying rotation of people. Three days ago was Independence Day, last night I sat on a bean bag chair next to a drunk Frenchman, watching a very very pirated copy of Pirates of the Caribbean, and today I walked into a protest and stumbled through a cloud of pepper spray. As these are some of the least interesting anecdotes of the last few weeks, I fear this email will have to be broken up into three parts, in an attempt to fit it all in:

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The guide leading the group on the Inca Trail was named Freddy. "Not Frederique, not Frederico- Freddy!" He was short and stocky (like most of the people here) and smiled so much my cheeks hurt just looking at him. Even more amusing was his habit of referring to everyone collectively as ¨Family¨, at least once per sentence.

I, however, was not doing the Inca Trail, but the Lares Trek, and ended up with a woman named Noyme, whose mind was just about everywhere but the Sacred Valley. The guides met us at our hostel in Cusco, gave us a pep talk and eleven identical duffel bags; baggage rules were strict, as all our stuff (including tents and portable kitchen) were being carried by mules/short horses, or porters on the Inca Trail.

The next morning we set off for the Sacred Valley, a wonderful washed out landscape filled with corn and quinua (a sandy grain, supposedly the healthiest in the world) fields as far as you can see. On the way we stopped at a village project supported by the tour company, where all the women still weave in the traditional style, including using natural dyes from plants. This was quite fascinating, and I battled for some time with my usual penny-pinching self before deeming it community service and buying a scarf from a woman named Francisca. I swear I have never seen someone so grateful at making a sale. The others took pictures of llamas.
We drove to a really incredible ruin called Pisac. It is difficult to do justice to yet another "ruin", a word frequently applied to anything that is crumbling or has a vine growing on it. Still, what I find striking about these sites in Peru is how they do not seem ruined. The old stone walls seem to be still growing out of the hills, symmetrical and even, and camouflaged so cleverly into the landscape you might miss them, if it weren't for the small boy trailing along behind you playing what sounds like Green Sleeves (badly) on a pan flute, or the old women selling water. The Incas originally lived and built at the top of mountains (which they believed to be sacred), where they were protected from landslides and flooding. It took the Spaniards to bring them down.

We stopped for lunch, which was slightly uncomfortable as three people in the group were suffering some sort of stomach malady, and the rest of us just felt guilty. At this meal the two British Barbies decided they were not well enough for the trek (one of them was not well, the other just went along to keep her company) and there was a great rush to change plans and find a hotel for them back in Cusco.
In the meantime we drove on to a town called Ollantaytambo (say this three times fast) and climbed up another long set of stone stairs in some structure supposedly shaped like a llama. The Incas were great at this apparently, making their settlements into shapes (particularly the Inca trilogy- condor, snake and puma), but as clever as they obviously were I sometimes feel the guides are just trying to make the story more interesting.
We stayed in a hotel that smelled dreadfully of nicotine, and two more people in the group started to feel sick. I spent a very frustrating and overpriced hour in the single internet cafe trying to get my memory card burned to CD, as it had just occurred to me that 30 pictures weren't going to cut it for 3 days of hiking.
On the way back to the hotel I found out that because the Barbies were not doing the hike, R. (our group leader, who was supposed to be coming on the Lares Trek with me) had to go back to Cuzco to make sure they were alright. I was somewhat upset about this, as I was already vastly nervous about the hike, and now would be doing it with only one other person I had never met.
Inca Trail hikers started off at 6 AM the next day, and I wandered around the town (really just a plaza with two arms) until 8, when Noyme arrived, packed T. and I up in a taxi and started off on three hours of incredible, flirting-with-death kind of mountain driving. T. (the other person), it turned out, was not only Canadian but had gone to the same university as me (albeit 10 years ago). She went to school for dance in Toronto, and now is working as a travel agent in Vancouver-- and I feared only I was this random.
We stopped at a market along the way, and the drive bought three large bags of flat Peruvian bread. On we drove, getting higher and higher (my nose started bleeding again), when suddenly we spotted two small children waving to us from the side of the road. I want to say they were in "traditional costume", but in such remote areas the locals are still wearing the same heavy hand-knitted garments they have always worn, unlike in Cusco where such finery is only seen on dolls and pre-pubescent girls posing for photographs. I asked where the children had come from, as we seemed so far from everything, but Noyme said they would live on a farm nearby, and that they spent the day just standing there, waiting for cars to pass by and hand them things. All three bags of bread were empty by the time we reached the highest point (4700 m) and were told to get out of the car and "Take a photo", although the wind was bitter and the light was all wrong for pictures.

The car stopped in the middle of a field by a stone wall, and we were told to have lunch and wait for the horses to get there. Neither T. or I wanted lunch, as we were eager to get started and convince ourselves (okay- convince myself) I was not going to die here, in the middle of a Kodak moment. Meals were a huge undertaking on the trek, as they involved setting up a large tent and table, complete with table cloth and candles, several exhaustive courses, and about a gallon of coca tea.
Not unlike my retelling of the Salt Flats, there is less to say about the hike itself than all the little details that surrounded it. The itinerary we were given went something like this: Day 1 hike to a beautiful lake, hike to two beautiful lake, see llama and alpaca. This we did. The sky was very cloudy and it started to rain for the first time this trip. Then as we climbed higher the rain turned to snow, and yet our temperature stayed the same.

For me the whole time spent going uphill was like forced meditation. All I could do was think about breathing: in and out, in and out, in and-- how deep could I breath, how long could I go between breaths... Every time it seems like too much and I want to call out to Noyme to slow down I open my mouth and can't hold onto enough air; it seems easier just to keep moving and complain later. You have to remind yourself to look up, and wonder how it is you fit into this incredible, bleak, uninviting landscape.
At the time I described it as half wonderful and exhilarating, and half a complete nightmare. Sometimes it was hard to know where to draw the line. For at least the first four hours of that hike I kept on asking myself why anyone in their right mind would sign up for such torture... and then you reach the top, and you know.

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That's all for now, but wait for more of the journey in the next few days. And I'm sorry if you tried to check my blog (hint hint) and found it not working. It is back online now, and pictures and writing are added frequently. Be well.

Much Love,

N.

-- "He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream, and he sometimes wondered whose it was, and whether they were enjoying it." Douglas Adams