What a convenient sized window I just found. If it fits, it sits!

There was that time in Peru when I trekked through the Andes for four days, following the old Inca trail to Machu Picchu. Having been freaked out by the internet that this trek is always sould out months in advance, I had panicked and booked my trek just under two months prior to departure.

I was picked up in Cusco by the trekking company at 5 am (a piece of information I had missed so I was deep asleep when they got there and the rest of the group was already waiting - yicks!). We started the trek at about 3000 metres above sea level, which was no biggie for me as I had been travelling through the Andes for over a month by then and was fairly well acclimatized. In fact on the first day I had fun competing for the spot of "first one there" on every landmark we were to reach. Shame I couldn't have kept that up the remaing three days. That would have been show-off.

This was my first trek ever that extended over more than a day and as I would come to find, the activity grew on me (although I did almost fall over the top of the cliff on the first day. Rookie mistake!).

At nights we camped in little tents and in the morings we packed up to move on. The road was quite tough in some places. The frist day was alright. The second day tough, it was uphill all the bloody way -for eight hours! On this day the trail took us up to about 4800 metres, but thanks to the massive bag of coca leaves I had bought in Cusco and was chewing on the entire way to Machu Picchu, I was doing okay. I was becoming quite acustomed to the taste, although in reality, they probably tasted horrible. But I think I somehow made a decision that they were delicious. Y'know, because they really helped release oxygen and have me breathe better...and get my lips all green. Eww!

On the third day, it was downhill most of the way. At the end of that day, we all wished it would have been uphill again, because AUCH, it was hard on the knees to move downhill for hours! Fortunately, my 15 dollars trekking shoes that I had gotten from a supermarket were holding up nicely against the 120 or something dollar ones most of the other trekkers were wearing, so no blisters for me only!

On the final day we had to start off at around 3 am while it was still pitch black dark, so the torches and headlamps came out. Although I'm not really an early bird, this was quite the experience. Safe of course for my knees which were still ridiculously sore frem the day before. And of course, it was still downhill for the first hours on that day, because why not? For my backpack I had contructed a home made solution to keep my big sleeping bag strapped to the top of it. But naturally, this final day, when we were all trying to be the first to arrive to see legendary Machu Picchu come out of the mornings fogs, was the day the straps holding my sleepingbag gave in. That called for another home made solution, although it made me loose my spot in the "race". That didn't sit well with me though, so I raced ahead overtaking several trekkers from other groups on the way. I was later told by a guide from another group that with my little backpack construction, turning my large sleeping bag sideways, I had almost knocked several trekkers off the narrow route and off the cliff (oh boy, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!!!!). 

Eventually we reached a clearing with a few less than impressive looking ruins. By then the sun was coming up, and for some reason we were waiting there. I didn't know for what, there was nothing to see. The thick fog lay as a white blanket across the mountains. We couldn't see anything. That was to change though. After a long wait, we sensed that the fog was moving around, and little openings started to appear, revealing that there was indeed domething hidden behind it. The the openings would close again or shift to a new position. After what felt like hours, the fog finally cleared, revealing an ancient city hidding deep within the Peruvian mountains!

There was that time I got to feel the effect of staying at really low budget hostels - quite literally! This was in Cusco, Peru, but I heard similar stories from other backpackers in both Ecuador and Bolivia as well. Thing is in low budget hostels, not everything is up to western standards (you don't say, eh?), and this unfortunately tended to include the wiring in the showers, that in many places was a bit more exposed than I would have liked, considering we were dealing with electricity and running water. In this particular case, I probably should have recognised the rubber bands around the shower handles as a give-away, but since I preferred to not having to give up on showering for a couple of weeks, I went for it anyway - and then my ignorance was punished by a nasty electric shock which had me leaving the shower running, terrified to reach through the water to shut it off.

I eventually gave up on the cause and asked the hostel staff for help, and over the next couple of days I was entertained by the stories told by other backpackers about similar experiences; one guy was apparently knocked out by the electric shock from a hostel shower in upper Peru and was found unconscious by the hostel staff - guess I got off quite easy, eh.