Once we had collected M, the four of us went down the street to SAS Travel to check in and get our final information. SAS stands for something and something. South America...Stuff? Something Adventure Something? Savy Adventure Squids? I just don't know. But we went there and checked in and showed them our passports and then they asked for our immigration cards. Three of us pulled out little white pieces of official paper.
One of us said, "What the hell is that?"
Three of us said, "The piece of paper they told us to keep when we went through customs that they said was very important."
One of us said, "Aw shit."
So I had to run back to the hostel and sift through all the crumpled papers in my backpack and pockets praying that it hadn't been part of the handfuls of paper I had thrown away. Luckily, I found it squished among some trash.
I started to run back to SAS but after half a second stopped and tried not to die as my lungs constricted, my head rushed, and I gasped for breath. Then I continued leisurely onwards where I presented my immigration card and everything was okay. The man at the SAS desk went over our reservation with us and we discovered that they had charged and booked me and Jessica for the Huayna Picchu hike on the last day. J2 and I had originally opted out of the Huayna Picchu hike because at the time we were both out of shape and the idea of a "very strenuous, somewhat dangerous" hike at the end of 35 uphill mountain miles and 4 days of camping sounded terrible. Sitting there though, finding out we'd been signed up anyway, we decided we might as well. After all, J2 was now in the best shape of any of our lives, and I was an idiot.
SAS also told us they were doing a promotion and could offer us a free tour of the Sacred Valley in the morning. The catch here is that the Sacred Valley is several thousand feet lower than Cusco, and not the best place to acclimatize. Seeing as how we'd lost the whole first day, the second day was all we had to build our lungs and hearts and blood and whatever else. Additionally, we had to get up at 6 in the morning for the bus. Having not slept in 48 hours and about to embark on the most physically challenging undertaking of my life, this wasn't super appealing, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity after all.
We had dinner at a fun restaurant nearby, and returned to the hostel to shower and sleep. Unfortunately the showers were outside in what as I said was the start of winter, so this was extremely difficult. It was a very short shower in which I did not wash my hair. As I mentioned, we had chosen this hostel because of its party nature, intending to party like crazy and live it up with such a conveniently located place to dance dance revolution only 1 minute away from our beds. However, reality was that by 9 p.m., we were all in bed ready for sleep. We could always party the night we got BACK from the hike.
Three of us fell asleep immediately. But I have always had a hard time with sleep, and I was awake for a little while, until the music from the Horny Llama started.
The Horny Llama was RIGHT next to our room. Right next to all the rooms. And the bar appeared to turn into a club around 10 p.m. A club filled with booming loud music. So loud that the bass was making the bunk bed frames vibrate. It was as if I had gone out to a club, found the spot in front of the speakers, and laid down. My heart was vibrating. My head was ringing. The music was kind of awesome. But as the hours ticked by I started feeling sicker and sicker. Breathing was becoming hard. Lying down in the altitude somehow makes it more difficult. I hadn't slept since the day before I left on the trip.
Somehow the others slept. I'm not entirely sure how. They say there were tired, but honestly I don't care how tired you are, that is some hard business to sleep through. I lay awake all night vibrating with the music and wondering if my shallow breathing and rushing head was a foreteller of death. Thank goodness for the repatriation of remains insurance I had bought!
At 5 in the morning people's alarms began to ring and I was unsure if I was relieved the night was over or horrified that now 72 hours had gone by without a single minute of sleep. My hands shook as I climbed out of the top bunk and landed in a sad heap on the floor. I drank some water from my bottle, cried a little, took a pill J2 handed me, and followed the others outside and down the road to SAS and climbed into a van full of strangers that drove us into the Sacred Valley, which was very beautiful.
We saw many Incan ruins, and learned that the Incans were not in fact Incans. Inca is the Quetchua word for king, and so technically the Incans were not the entire people, but only the rulers. The normal people were Quetchua. I think. This was my understanding through the haze of sleep deprivation and altitude inspired delirium. We walked around a few sites, learned about terrace farming techniques, and had lunch at a nice place with a buffet. I carefully avoided the steamed (not BOILED) vegetables, the cheese, the milk, and the salad. No one else chose to be as cautious. It is true that by the end of lunch I was beginning to feel like one of those paranoid cartoon caricatures with crazy eyes. "CHEESE. IT COULD KILL US ALL." and "OH MY GOD. THAT GREEN BEAN DOES NOT LOOK WET ENOUGH WE COULD ALL DIE." But I stuck by my principles faithfully and completely.
During lunch we got to know the other people in our group, many of whom were mildly interesting. One woman from Indiana described her small town as "50 miles past where Jesus lost his sandals" a phrase I will use for the rest of my life. Another had just gotten married--they were Indian, and it sounded like it was an arranged marriage. We had one man traveling alone who worked for FedEx transporting "dangerous materials" which was the most interesting of all. What is dangerous enough to be considered "dangerous" by FedEx but still legal to put in the mail?? A mystery I will spend my life solving. Possibly with repeated attempts to mail dangerous materials through FedEx. Trial and error! The scientific method!
In the evening we stopped in a town called Chincherro, famous for alpaca dyeing. The wool, not the whole llama. We were given a speech by a young girl named Anna about the different dye techniques and tools. She held up a small bone.
"This," she told us, "is the bone of a tourist who did not buy anything from us....haha. I just kidding. This is bone of llama we use for combing."
Everyone laughed. But everyone also bought a beautifully dyed alpaca souvenir.
That evening we had to be back at SAS at 7:00 for our pre-hike briefing. We all squeezed into a little attic room in the office. We were 17 in total minus our 3 guides. The guide gave us a basic idea of what to expect from each day and strongly encouraged all of us to hire a "chaskey" if we had not already, to carry our belongings up the mountain for us.
I was at this point pretty sure I was going to be dead as well by mid-afternoon the next day because I still had not slept at all. We got back to the hostel where I had intended to take a shower, but due to the cold and intense shivering and desire to live to ever be warm again, I decided against it. Instead I stared down an Italian boy at the hostel computer so I could use the internet to send final goodbyes to my loved ones. While sitting there in the empty common room, a movement by the couch caught my eye. At first I had no idea what it was because my eyes were telling my brain some unbelievable things, but as the movement hopped closer and closer, I realized it was indeed a white rabbit. What was a rabbit doing in a hostel common room in Peru? Had it escaped the kitchen? Were rabbits even native to Peru? Why was it indoors? Was it dangerous? It was closing in at an alarming rate. I still hadn't fully comprehended that it was a real rabbit. We stared each other down as it hopped closer and closer until at about a foot away, it broke eye contact and veered left, through the door way and down the hall out of sight and out of my life as unexpectedly as it had come. Shaken, confused, and mildly delirious from exhaustion, I gave up on the internet and went to bed where I did finally fall asleep at 2:00 a.m., as the club music was at about half volume.
This was exciting, until we remember that I had to wake up at 5 a.m. in order to begin the 35 mile greatest physical challenge of my life.
To come in Chapter 3: The Ascent
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