Machu Picchu: The Beginning

Fortunately or unfortunately, things went pretty smoothly for me this time in South America. Fortunately, because for once I did not spend my vacation convinced I was going to die horribly and painfully in a foreign country.  Unfortunately, because my story from this trip is pretty straightforward and not all that exciting. 

Some people have asked why on earth I would return to South America after the Bolivia Experience. This is an excellent question.  What happened was, my friend who we will call J1 said "Let's go to Machu Picchu," and I said, "Okay."

In January when we made these plans for the May trip, I realized that in order to make a 35 mile trek through the Andes mountains at elevations of up to 14,000 feet above sea level, I would need to make some changes to my lifestyle.  For instance, exercise ever. Maybe eat some vegetables.  With the help of my friend who will called be J2, I made an exercise plan that involved the elliptical at increasing incline 3-4 times a week along with climbing 15 flights of stairs 4 times up and down 2-3 times weekly.  In 6 months I did manage to get on the elliptical a total of 3-4 times and I did climb those stairs 2 times. I failed in all ways to prepare myself physically for the trip and began to ask everyone I had ever heard of who had made the climb how physically challenging it was. 

"It's really difficult."

"I'm pretty physically fit but I had a tough time with it."

"The second day....I wanted to die."

"The second day...I thought I was going to die."

This made me nervous, and yet I continued to not train at all. Periodically I would call J2. 

"J2! What are you up to today?"

"I'm at the gym."

"Oh. That's nice. I'm going to get ice cream."

And

"J2! Where are you?"

"I'm on the fourth climb up all the stairs in my apartment building."

"I should do that. Instead I am going to lie down on this bed."

And

"J2! Let's do something tomorrow."

"I'm meeting with my personal trainer for three hours."

"I might stand up in three hours...maybe...."

On the vegetable front, mostly I ate a lot of Chips Ahoy and at least one doughnut more or less every day. Once, I am pretty sure I ate a tomato. I almost ate some green beans one Wednesday, but they disappeared out of the fridge by the time I got up the energy to go downstairs to find them. 

I did, however, make some important changes to my preparation process in relation to the Bolivia process. For one, I did not bother looking up what vaccinations I needed until about two weeks before I was scheduled to leave.  I did the same with visa requirements. Sometimes I would call my sister and shout "I CAN'T FIND MY PROOF OF YELLOW FEVER VACCINE. WHERE IS IT?" but this particular tactic never yielded any favorable results. 

Luckily though, it turns out Bolivia provided me with all the necessary vaccinations and there were no visa requirements so while that could have provided a fantastic story of total failure, I came out a winner. No one even needed my proof of yellow fever vaccine papers. Peru doesn't even care if you run all over their country picking up highly contagious diseases that cause your kidneys to hemorrhage. 

Additionally, legitimately concerned that I would, in fact, die this time, the night before leaving I found a travel/evacuation insurance policy that would repatriate my remains in the event of my death overseas.  As the subject of remains repatriation was a big deal in Bolivia, I emailed my friend from Bolivia to tell her that this time I had gotten the insurance. I was very proud of myself until I received her response, which read (translated): "Hahahaha i my darling, if something happens to you in Peru there won't be any remains."  I found this troubling, but there didn't seem to be any good course of action besides immediately going to bed and pretending I had never received her message. 

I started packing two entire days before the start of the trip.  This is a Huge Deal in my packing habits. One reason for this is that by this point I had decided my only chance of survival on this trek was to carry the least amount of weight possible. I could hardly manage to haul myself around.  Therefore, for 10 days in Peru, I packed everything into my pink flower first grader backpack.  This took some time, as a lot of rolling of clothes was involved and hard choices needed to be made.  For example, did I really NEED more than 3 shirts for 10 days?
Which was more important, the Advil or the blister reducing band-aids? I succeeded at this endeavor by not taking nearly enough clothing or any useful emergency items such as anti-diarrhetics or extra socks.

Things to keep in mind as we head into Chapter 1 and the heart of this story:

1. J1 sent us an email with several hostel choices, once of which owned its own bar called The Horny Llama.  Another of which was a quiet hostel billed as a "spiritual, new age retreat." At the time, we were in party mindset and the idea of a fantastic dance/bar spot right next to our bedrooms was the dream. We chose the Horny Llama.

2. We had read that you had to have at least 2 days of acclimatization time in the city of Cusco.  Any less and you risked dangerous side effects of el soroche, the terrible dreaded altitude sickness with which I was acquainted. Our original desired trek date was for May 27 but they could only take us May 26.  This involved on my end a lot of frantic calling around of bosses to see if I could take an extra day and abandon the children in the name of my own health and safety.  They kindly agreed. 

3. I had completely forgotten to call my credit card companies and bank to tell them I was leaving the country.