The Picchu

After a total of three hours sleep the two previous nights, three airport runs, and demasiado tearful goodbyes in Duran, I hopped a plane to Peru on Saturday morning, August 13th. Little layover in Lima, then got into Cusco around 5pm, thrilled as hell to see Chris Peterson's ugly ass waiting for me outside the airport. I think his first words were "Brother! You look like shit!" The lack of sleep, emotional drain of the goodbyes, and going from a sea level equatorial climate to the top of the damn Andes threw my body for a loop, to say the least. My body still isn't used to sub 80 degree temperatures, but those first two days in Cusco were the worst--no matter what I did, I literally could not get warm.

All good though... that's why they make mate de coca, right? We went out to dinner that first night and I got after a big plate of lomo saltado and washed it down with a nice warm cup of coca leaf tea. We went to bed early so I could catch up on some sleep, then we hit the hiking first thing Sunday morning (with more mate de coca for breakfast, claro). Chris had booked us on a four day trek to Machu Picchu starting Tuesday morning, so we wanted to get me acclimated to the altitude as soon as possible. He took me up to a few vista points above Cusco and we checked out a couple ruins and old Incan caves. Amazing stuff, but I felt like the fat kid in gym class huffin and puffin the whole way, asking Coach Peterson for water breaks every 20 minutes.

click here to see pics from the Cusco 
ruins and stove building in Pachar

Sunday night we bussed to Urubamba, a little town in the Sacred Valley a couple hours from Cusco. We woke up early Monday and spent the morning building stoves in the community of Pachar, just outside of Urubamba, with ProPeru, the volunteer program Chris is working with. After my year in Ecuador, it was really cool to see another volunteer program and the different work they were doing in Peru. The community was incredibly grateful (both the families we built stoves for fed us delicious lunches), and you could tell that the stoves were really going to be a positive thing for the communities. Click here for more info about the Pro Peru Stoves Project.

We headed back to Cusco Monday afternoon, ran into a little parade (pics in the album above), then got to bed early for another early morning Tuesday. Our 4 day Machu Picchu trek started right away with a 6am pickup, breakfast, then van ride up to the Abra de Malaga Pass, at 4,350 meters above sea level. From there, we started a 3 and a half hour bike ride, during which we literally went from the snowline at the top of the Andes to tropical jungle at 1,430 meters above sea level. Needless to say, we had to stop halfway to strip some layers.

click here to see pics from days 3,4,5 
on the road to Machu Picchu... 
biking, rafting, hiking, zip-lining

After the bike ride, we lunched, had a little nap, then did some white water rafting on the Rio Urubamba. We stayed in Santa Maria Tuesday night, then Wednesday morning were up at 6am again to start the hike to Santa Teresa. Stopped by a coca plantation--they assured us that the leaves were for tea, not la cocaina--hiked up to some old Inca trails high in the mountains (see pics in the album to the left), then back down to the river, ending the day relaxing in the natural hot baths of Santa Teresa (yes, the speedo made an appearance, but sorry, no pictures). After the biking and rafting the day before, then hiking all day Wednesday, the hot baths were aaaaaamazing. Cold beer, hot baths, call it a day.

Thursday morning we went zip-lining (pics & video above), then continued the trek to Machu Picchu. We followed the Urubamba River from Santa Teresa to Aguas Calientes, where we spent our last night before the Picchu. We left the hostel at 4am Friday morning and hiked something like 1,850 steps up to the entrance of Machu Picchu. Sure we could have taken the bus, but where's the fun in that? We crushed the hour hike in just over 30 mins, and promptly changed our shirts when we got to the top (our guide warned us we would sweat our asses off).

The gates opened at 6am, and Chris and I were in the first group let in (we would have been THE first if it weren't for a group of over-motivated Germans who were just ahead of us on the hike). We had about half an hour to cruise around the ruins before sunrise, which was absolutely beautiful. I'll never forget standing above those ruins in that crisp mountain air with no one else around (after the first hour or so, the ruins just got packed with turistas). We also hiked up Wayna Picchu, the mountain you always see in the background of Machu Picchu, which had some amazing views looking back on the ruins of Machu Picchu. The pictures (link below) should speak for themselves, but looking at them now, it's impossible to capture that feeling of being at the top of these mountains, immersed in this incredible display of human history, and surrounded by just sheer natural beauty. One of the many humbling experiences this year.

pics from The Lost City