I did it!!!

Well, I finished the Inca Trail! I was told that it was 23 miles, but when Kathryn and I added it up, it was more than that. I am trying to look it up right now. Not only did I finish it, but I carried my pack the entire time!! Day 2 of the hike was awful, it was literally 4 hours of stairs, with basically no flat spots. It was pretty miserable, especially with carrying the packs. Kathryn and I both carried them. And even better, we were among the first group of 5 or 6 people to reach the top. I was surprised about how out of shape people were. One girl was like ¨well I power walk to class every day¨and then another was like Ï havent worked out since before spring break¨and I was like wow.. haha. Everyone kept asking us if we hiked before or like worked out just for the hike.. but we both just run regularly. But we were at the front of the pack for the entire hike! We had about 5 or 6 guides that went with us, and then around 40 porters. On the 2nd day, about 10 people carried their packs and the other 30 paid a porter to carry them. It was definitely by far the hardest day. The top of the mountain of day 2 was called ¨Dead Womans Pass¨.. so thats kind of scary. But it felt great to be at the top. The porters were insane. Most of them wore sandals, and they carried bags bigger than them, and they went running past you every day. They carried all our tents and food. Not only did we have sleeping tents, but we had tents to eat in, along with tables and chairs. They fixed us 3 meals a day, and gave us snack packs on some days. We had pancakes one morning, and omelets another morning, and porridge. We had tea, coffee, and hot chocolate every day, soup with every meal, bread with every meal, then different stuff like noodles, potatoes, rice, yuka, vegetables, spaghetti, and stuffed peppers with every meal. We also had tofu one night, which I tried for the first time. All the food they cooked us was good. We also had dessert, like chocolate pudding, sangria, and some purple corn dessert. Also, yesterday it was one guy Brandon´s birthday, so for breakfast, they come in with like 4 cakes, complete with icing! I have no idea where they came from or how they made them.. It was crazy, like 5 star camping. But it was still like camping because we were in tents and no showers and we carried our packs, so it was still fun and hard. Most nights we went to bed at 9ish, and got up anywhere from 5-6. We got woken up with tea in the morning before breakfast. The toilet facilities were... interesting. They were like toilets in the ground, so you had to squat over them but they were so gross. I would have much rather used the woods but they dont really want you to because of the streams and stuff. I had a really warm sleeping bag so I wasnt cold at night in the tent. It only rained once for like 15 min while we were eating lunch. The hike and the mountains were amazing, it was so cool just walking through the middle of the Andes. The 3rd day was by far the prettiest, the path was more relaxing and it went along the side of the mountain and you could see everything across the valley and all the mountains. There were a few ruins that we stopped at along the way, but they werent very interesting considering we were on our way to Machu Picchu! And the stars at night were so bright, Ive never seen so many stars! On the third day, when we reached our campsite, you kind of just walked around the corner of the mountain and it just opened up to the other side of the mountain and it was the most beautiful view ever, my jaw dropped for like 5 minutes. We were so high that we were at cloud level, it was so so pretty! We watched the sunset and that was awesome, then we watched the millions of stars come out. Waking up that next morning was great too, with the view as soon as we opened our tent. We watched the sun rise too. It was like sitting on top of the world. That last morning, we woke up at 5 to get an early start to make it to Machu Picchu. I was so anxious to get there. Every corner of the mountain we walked around, I was just waiting for it to appear. It kind of got hard at the end, especially because we knew it was so close and it was a few uphills at the end. Then all of the sudden we could see it! It was such a great feeling, and a great view of the ruins. We still had about a 30 min walk till we reached it, but we stopped and waited for the group there and it was great! The ruins were so amazing and pretty and it was so big.. when we got to the bottom, I was in the first group of people down, and then we saw the rest of our group (the ones who didnt go on the hike) so that was pretty cool. I cant even explain how cool, amazing, etc. that Machu Picchu was. We were supposed to kind of just go to the hotel, shower, and go back to Machu Picchu for the day today, but we had a change of plans. Do you remember when I talked about the strikes that happen in Peru? Well there was a strike that started today so the train back to Cusco wasnt going to be running today, so we had to get on the train last night to get back here to Cusco in order to be able to get back to Lima when we needed to. So we had about 3 hours in the ruins, which wasnt enough. I could stay there all day. But we walked around as much as we could, being as tired as we were and being pressed for time. Then we had to take a bus down to our hotel, and we went to the train station at 730. The people doing the strike were mostly farmers, and they block the train tracks.. so some of them had already arrived last night and they were sitting in the tracks with spears and bows and arrows, Carlos told us that they had come from the Amazon jungle to get to the strike.. which explains the spears.. it sounds crazy haha but they just stand there, they arent violent. There were also police everywhere, with big rifles.. so it is kind of scary but then again it wasnt, because everyone else was just doing their normal stuff on the streets and stuff. So we got to the train station at 730 and were supposed to have a train at 930, but didnt leave until just before midnight. We finally got to our hotel at 330 AM, then we took showers because we hadnt showered in 4 days (ew). So we slept in this morning and have a free day today since it was supposed to be spent at Machu Picchu. We might get massages tonight, I cant wait! I was just uploading pictures on photobucket but my camera went dead, I will go charge it and I think we will probably come back here tonight since we dont have anything to do. I am excited to post them!, even though I dont think the pictures will do justice what it was like in real life. John called me already today so that was fun, and I am about to call my mom! I will probably think of more stuff to add to the blog later.. I cant think of everything. Oh also it was fun because all the guides were really nice, one was named Ramigio and he was my friend because he sat with me on the bus ride to the trail, and he could barely speak english. Then yesterday I walked with one guide, Ruben, and he talked my ear off in spanish, but a lot of it was hard to talk about, because sometimes he was talking about stuff like politics and Obama and what I thought of certain trade agreements, haha! But it was so much fun!! I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Another thing I am excited about it meeting our family on Friday! Well actually it is just one lady that Kathryn and I will be living with, Senora Pilar. Last night on the train, Carlos (the director) sat with us and we talked to hima bout Pilar because he is the one who picks the families. He said that she is about 48ish and she has been with the program for all the years they have been doing it (which is like 8 or something). So thats a good thing! He said the families are really excited to have all of us, so I can´t wait! Carlos is from Peru and is fluent in English and French too, and knows German but is not fluent, which I think it really cool. He is really funny too and really nice. His other job is an author, then in the summer he has about 3 or 4 US college groups that come to Peru, but we are his biggest group.

on to answer everyones comments,

John, are you talking about the Inka Cola? it is a popular drink here, made by Coca Cola, and it is a sweet type drink, kind of unexplainable but is like a mix of banana, bubblegum, and pineapple maybe? hard to describe, but it is good! They have Inca Cola shirts and I want to buy one.

Jimmy those animals in the pictures were guinea pigs.. I held one and then later on that day I ate one. haha. Tell Rosie I hope she feels better. and tell Max hi. I keep showing their pictures to people, I miss them!

Mom thanks for showing Aunt Marcy and please dont tell Zoe about the guinea pig. I am glad I never had one as a pet or I wouldnt have been able to eat the poor thing.

Allison I was thinking the same thing.. but I am not looking forward to starting class. We meet the families friday and start class on monday, but only have 16 days of class. so thats not good bad!

Susan thanks for showing Dolph the pics! The whole trip def. is a blast, you should try it sometime :P

Okay I will post pics later!!!!! So make sure to check :)

Love Rachel