I have officially become the first victim of the Lares Trail. Only 5 minutes out of our hostel as we walked in the darkish street of Cuzco on our way to our meeting spot to begin our trail; My friend motioned us to look to the yellow tape in the constructions site with the word peligro. As I turned my leg went immediately and entirely into an opening in the middle of the sidewalk. It was a flash back to my Omatepe incident when I fell off the boat in the dock. Fortunately the weight of my backpack tilted me so that I didn't entirely fall in the hole but I did manage to get a nice scare and become momentarily incapacitated. I managed to get up and after making sure I hadn't broke any bones continued on. I guess it gave me a story to tell but it did hurt a bit. Anyways, now that my incident was out of the way the rest of the day was amazing.
All in all an amazing day. We started off at 8, after an awesome breakfast. I was not prepared for the amount of comfort I would be in; in three night trail. Amazing food; slow pace; tables, chairs, etc. The most exciting part was the awesome views. Inca ruins in a majestic valley with sheep, llamas, and adorable shepherding children. A beautiful river run the entire length of the valley and recurrent picturesque scenes kept me exited. A plethora of plants also showered the valley walls. At night the sky was illuminated with stars and colorful clouds.
Sheep I'm the Lares Trail
Inca Ruins
The something valley
Day 2
Holy smokes it's cold up here in the Andes. Last night was very cold. Very very cold. I managed to sleep enough time but for some reasons kept waking up every now and then. And I refused to go pee pee until the morning. They had told us to bring a water bottle for water. Basically they fill it with hot water and you hug it at night too keep warm. It kept me somewhat warm along with the sleeping bag, supposedly thermal blanket and wool blanket. They woke us up at 5:30 with hot tea; which was awesome. Ate like kings again and then began hiking at 8. We finished climbing up the valley and began going down hill through the pass.
There were some llama farms and tons of sheep. I did manage to see my first viscacha! The viscacha is a cute Andean rodent that lives in the mountains and takes the sun on top of boulders. That was my favorite event today. The viscacha is in one of Jose Maria Arguedas short stories: El sueño del Pongo. It is my favorite short story and am glad to finally have met it. At lunch it began to hail and as we made our way towards night camp it began to rain. We then reached a town were some women were selling handmade alpaca clothing. There was a small town there were people grow alpaca and llama. The rest of the way was not so hard in terms of terrain but it kept raining. Our night camp is in a town in a flu vial valley. There is pretty river running near it and there is a fog forest in the hills.
I also just realized what this fog forest means for my clothes; they will never be dry. Even my screen is full of fog and rocio as I type this. It will be an interesting day tomorrow.
Look from my tent
Andean Lake
Viscacha!
Day 3
Today was easy. We got up late... Or later than any day so far in any case. The night was pretty chill but not too cold. We woke up had breakfast and walked for about an hour to the thermal waters. The thermal waters were pretty nice. First shower in two days. The water was a questionable color in the pool but it felt amazing. A lottle furry dog got into one of the pools. i guess he was trying to escape the hot temperature but ended up in the hottest pool. Then we had lunch and took a bus to Ollataitambo and a train to Aguas Calientes. From there to Machu Picchu!
This dog started fallowing us on our second day and went with us until we reached the thermal waters.
My camera was so moist in the morning that the lense couldn't focus for the group pic
Day 4
Woke up at 4:30 and had a scolding hot shower; is either one or the other here. Then we took a train to the entrance of the historic sanctuary of Machu Picchu. It was an amazing experience. I even managed to take pictures of a viscacha that was running around the ruins. A millipid was not so lucky. I was trying to cross the path when a guide stepped on it. It made the most cruchy sound I haver heard an animal make; I spontaneously covered my eyes and screamed. It was sad I was trying to make sure no one did step on him but the guide was prancing around.
Anyways Machu Picchu is amazing. We walked around and went up to the sun gate. There is many rules here. In order to protect the sanctuary due to the high volume of tourist, many things are not allowed. The most obvious being climbing the walls. Which is exactly was an ignorant girl did. I think the guard deleted her pictures.
Machu Picchu
Viscacha!
Travel with friends!
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