the first 4-day hike

um. SO much i could write about. and in FAR more detail than i´m willing to sit here and type out at the moment. the past eight days feel like they should have happened over at LEAST a month´s time. i´m just going to give bits of the first hike first and i´ll blog about the the other trip at another time.

lessons learned from my first hike - the lares trail:

• sometimes a 0530 pick up to the meeting spot that the agency promises you just means that one of the employees will meet you at your hostel, hop in a cab with you and tell the driver to drive to the meeting spot. oh, and you pay.
• it´s nice having a bit of a bus ride to sleep on the way to the beginning of a trek especially if it´s means waking up at 0430. oh, and also if you went out the night before and didn´t make it to bed until 0300.
• trek breifings the night before are good as you can meet your group before you start trekking and get an idea of where everyone´s at.
• it´s nice when people from your group recognize you while at the bar after the trek briefing and then you realize that you´re not the only one who isn´t doing the resposible thing of trying to get the most sleep as possible before the trek.
• the andes are GORGEOUS - but i think i still like the rockies more.
• a ¨gentle upwards slope¨ in peru actually requires quite a bit of effort to get up - especially if you live in the prairies of canada.
• peruvian flats - not actually flat but undulations of up and down, up and down.
• it´s a little disheartening when you climb up what you consider a rather difficult uphill only to have the guide tell you that the hard part starts next.
• sometimes the view really IS worth the pain of feeling like your heart is going to burst and your lungs don´t work.
• thin air sucks when you´re trying to climb up a mountain.
• i find it reassuring to know that there are people who work for the UN who have a wicked sense of humour. =)
• people from all over the world, of different backgrounds and worldviews makes for a really fun and interesting group of people to be trekking with for four days.
• being short 17 horses and 7 porters makes for a HELL of a lot of work for the 4 porters, 1 cook and 1 guide that we did have.
• porters are AMAZING. not just in their physical ability to carry a TON of stuff and STILL walk faster than you but also in their commitment to make sure you´re still as comfy as possible.
• the cook was AMAZING - gourmet meals, TONS of food, three times a day. all prepared in the middle of nowhere.
• getting lost on the way to the campsite with a fellow trekker who also has no idea where to go, in the dark and in heavy rain in slippery mud - not fun at the time but a great story to tell and i can look back on that night with a smile and chuckles.
• finding two other fellow trekkers who were actually MORE lost than the two of us made the evening of lostness even more interesting.
• i can become quite desperate for hope and not be the most rational when i´m lost in the dark and don´t even know what i´m looking for. i honestly thought that a half-foot wide mud path across a muddy hill was a good idea - until the guy behind me slipped down it. but then we all went down to where he was because there was something that looked like a path down there. that and there was no way we were going to be able to pull him back up.
• knowing how to speak the local language is IMMENSELY helpful when getting lost in rural areas. having a source of light is also good - especially at night because they don´t have street lights.
• i´m really glad that i tested out my sleeping bag back home before coming to south america because even though i was really cold during the hike at some points, i knew that i had a warm sleeping bag to crawl into once we hit camp.
• i go up and down a mountain back home in a day and feel sore the next day. but i felt fine every morning after trekking for hours the day before. not sure why that is.
• the ability of the kids i came across to have fun with so little makes me wonder why we feel like we need so much back home to be entertained.
• the last place we stayed in was a hotel in a city but the whole city didn´t have electricity. it was cool to see that life went on and people continued with business despite the lack of electricity. if i were in canada, i would have just stayed at home and wondered what to do.
• machu picchu is SUPER cool. i took a ton of pictures.
• the machu picchu version of vancouver´s grouse grind is called wayna picchu - the mountain beside machu picchu that you can climb.
• nineteen people can go on the exact same trip and come out with nineteen different opinions and experiences.
• even after four days of early starts, long hours of walking, and ok amounts of sleep, you can still find the energy to meet up with people an hour and a half after getting back for drinks and not get to bed until 0400. and then waking up an hour later to meet up with the next group for the next four day hike, well, that´s another story for another day...