The ups and DOWNS of the alternate Inca Trail

So I survived the hike, though only by a little....

Night before day 1: We were told to be ready by 4am on the morning of our 1st day of hiking. At around 10 pm I realized I had a major crisis with registering for my classes in Bolivia. I went downstairs to the internet cafe to work it all out, and despite feeling fine all day I started feeling a touch of altitude sickness. I figured it would go away and went to bed at around 11pm. A few minutes later I started feeling sick and broke into a cold sweat.

Day 1: I woke up at 3:30am having only slept a few minutes and still feeling pretty sick. Jessica and I were picked up by a taxi at 4 am and brought to what we assumed would be a bus station to meet our guide and group. At around 4:15 we arrived at the ¨bus station´ which was actually a street corner filled with locals gawking at us. Luckily our group showed up about 15 minutes later. The bus ride was 3 hours long and I began feeling sicker and sicker as we got closer, and thus higher, to the starting point. We (well everyone but me) sat down to breakfast and were informed that day 1 would include 11 hours of hiking. As we started to hike I felt noticabley better, and despite a lot of walking uphill I was able to hold my own. After 6 hours of hiking we stopped for lunch at which point I started seeing white spots and feeling as if someone had smashed me in the head repeatedly with a hammer. I couldn´t eat lunch and could barely move so my guide urged me to take a truck with the cooks the second half of the day. I really didn´t want to but I didn´t want to hold up the group so I agreed. My group left and I went with the cooks to the truck, which was by far the scariest vehicle I have ever seen. It looked as though someone had set it on fire. Before I sat down the driver lifted up my seat to expose the engine and told me he was pouring cold water on it to cool it down. The driver, a local woman and me piled into the front of the truck and 8 guys got on top of the roof. The moment we started driving I realized it was a mistake. The roads were narrow and steep and the drop off to our side seemed to go on forever. On every curve the driver would comment to the woman how dangerous it was an how many people had died there. At one point, during a particularly steep curve, the truck stalled and the 8 men on top jumped off and started to push. I am truly amazed that I made it out alive. We finally got to what I thought was our camp site and I was releaved to see an obviously American girl sitting on a rock amongst a group of random men and women dressed in very traditional Peruvian clothing. It turned out she was sick too and was about to leave on a horse to another camp site, meaning I would be left alone amongst the locals. Thats when things got a little crazy. The driver started asking me for money and having none on me and refusing to spend any more money than I already had, I played dumb. The group of locals knew I was sick and pretty much forced me to rub pure alcohol from a soda bottle on my forhead whilst calling me ´Mami´. Then one of the local women started hysterically crying for no apparent reason and the group offered the same alcohol I had rubbed on my head for her to drink. Then out of nowhere one of the guys in the group, who was drunker than anyone I´d ever seen, passed out face first onto the floor. The rest of the group laughed and told me he was dead. AT THIS POINT everyone except me disappears leaving me alone in a field horrified, confused and feeling much sicker. Then one of the cooks appears and tells me to follow a random man to where we would be camping. Against my better judgement I started to follow him until I realized he was leading me uphill into a forest. While the man continued walking I walked back to the field I had been at hoping to see my group in the distance. I didn´t but I did see another guide that I recognized and ended up following him up the hill to the campsite. Having had such a stressful experience and having just walked 15 minutes up a hill with altitude sickness I arrived at the campsite and basically passed out. When my group finally arrived and the tents were pitched I dragged myself to my tent truly positive I might be dieing. I could barely open my eyes from the pain in my head, was nauseas beyond belief, was freezing cold and at one point had a nose bleed. I was pretty sure my brain was bleeding and I was on my last leg. My guide came to my tent and offered to hire a horse for me to ride the next day causing quite the catch 22. On the one had I knew for a fact that I couldn´t walk for 12 hours the next day, but on the other hand, as most of you know, I am truly terrified of horses. Since I was so tired and sick I finally agreed to rent the horse fpr the next day though I pretty much decided there was no way I was going to ride it.

Day 2 and pictures to follow...