Living to tell another tale

I´ve gotten way behind on my blog. Right now I am in La Paz. Jessica has left and I´m chillaxin on my own.

Anyway, before I get into Day 2 of my Inca Trail Trek, I have to write about what happened to me yesterday. After our Trek Jessica and I decided to go to Copa Cabana on the Bolivian side of Lake Titikaka. About an hour and a half boat ride into the lake is an island called Isla Del Sol. We had a wonderful time there. The island was beautiful, the people were nice and it was all in all a good time. On the way back we used a different boat company than the one we had taken there since we needed to catch a bus to get to La Paz so that Jessica could make her flight. As we we got on the boat to secure our seats I said to Jessica ¨this is the most ghetto boat I have ever seen´. As we waited the boat started to fill with people, too many people. The boat, which probably fit 30 comfortabley was crammed with about 60 people, mostly tourists. The ride back started off very nice. Jessica and I chatted while two hippies sat on the floor of the boat playing the banjo and singing songs. After about an hour a south american woman on the boat interrupted the happily singing hippies to point to a puddle forming behind them. At this point everyone looked over and we noticed that the boat was filling with water. At first it seemed like a little leak but then it started pouring in quickly. A group of locals took control filling buckets with water and throwing them over the side. At this point I was sure we were going under and I was trying to figure out how I could avoid getting my camera wet. Considering we were pretty far off shore this should have been the least of my problems, but Jessica assured me that we would be able to make the swim (she later said that if we went under she expected me to drown in a fit of craziness). Luckily, we didnt go under but instead made an emergency landing on a nearby island. We were later rescued by another boat and made it back in time to catch our bus to La Paz. Now back to my trek:

DAY 2

I woke up that morning feeling a lot better but well aware that I couldnt make the hike. I psyched myself up and said today is the day I get over my fear of horses, and thank god it was. The ride was really nice. My horse was great and we made it to the top (4600 meters) with no problem. There were snow covered mountains all around and it was quite cold. Having paid for the horse I was pretty sure when we got up there that that was it for the day. I figured they knew I was sick so the horse would just take me to the camp site. Boy was I wrong. After my horse left me and my group arrived we began what turned out to be a 7 hour hike through down the mountain and into the jungle. Luckily I was feeling 100 percent better but by the end of the hike I, along with everyone else, was exhausted. We finally arrived to our camp site and threw ourselves down on the ground ready to crawl into our tents and go to sleep. But where were our mules? where were our tents? Where were our bags?! Turns out all of our horses became ¨sick¨and our bags would not be arriving until later that night. We built a camp fire and waited. One hour, two hours, three hours, no mules. At around midnight it became evident that our stuff was not coming. We were piled into the storage house of a local family on a dirt floor with dirty blankets to lie on and teeny blankets to share between 2 people. Jessica and i froze to death all night, and slept about an hour each.

Day 3 coming soon!