Galapagos, Part 2

Santa Cruz

While researching the Galapagos leg of our trip, Michele and I learned that there are two primary ways to visit, each with its own pros and cons: stay on the main island (Santa Cruz) and do day trips to other islands, or stay on a boat and travel among the islands the whole time. With option 1, you’re more limited to which islands you can see and I think there are fewer excursions in the same amount of time, probably because the boat has to take you home in time for dinner every night as opposed to being able to cruise the entire time. But with option 2, if you get seasick, well, that sucks. And you’re stuck with the same few people for the whole five days, which is great if you like them….. You are also limited in food choices and have less comfortable accommodations overall, because you’re on a boat. Option 2 is also a little more expensive, if I’m remembering correctly.

Hello, friend

Based on these broad-strokes differences, I liked option 1 better and Michele liked option 2 better. I’m stubborn, while Michele is easygoing. Guess which option we selected? I was able to convince her that I would get seasick and make her life miserable if we stayed on a boat for five days, plus I pointed out all the bars and restaurants we could explore at night if we stayed on Santa Cruz. (At the time I thought that was a legitimate argument.) So despite wanting to show off her amazing yacht hair for five days, she graciously accommodated my preferences. We started reviewing the day trips we could take from Santa Cruz, mainly based on what animals we could see where.

Practical Details for Future Travelers

Fish market in Puerto Ayora

We found out when we reached Santa Cruz that people can just fly in and book their excursions from Puerto Ayora very easily, despite everything we read in advance that said that approach was risky and people often spend their entire vacation stuck on the main island because all the tours are booked. We didn’t want to risk it, so we booked a package through one of the many tour companies. I’m happy with how it worked out, but the warnings were extremely overhyped; we could have saved quite a bit of money by waiting to book excursions when we arrived in Santa Cruz. For anyone willing to risk it, I’d recommend that approach.

Pinnacle Rock

We booked through Galapagos Travel Center, and we did the Island Secrets package:

Day 1: Arrive in Puerto Ayora; take a bay tour by boat; see iguanas, seals, and blue-footed boobies; snorkel with a giant turtle; and be serenaded by a crazy boat captain (unexpected bonus)

Marine iguanas

Day 2: Land tour of Santa Cruz island, including lunch at and walking tour of a giant-tortoise preserve; walk down lava tunnels; chill on an isolated beach (Garrapatero); drive around the Highlands and Cerro Mesa; see Darwin Station and a tortoise breeding center; and visit a local coffee roaster and bakery (another unexpected bonus)

Day 3: Yacht to Santa Fe (cacti and cliffs for birds)

Day 4: Yacht to Plazas and Bartolome (Pinnacle Rock and penguins, but no)

Day 5: Fly back to Quito

That's me with a giant turtle!

Island Sights

We got to snorkel for free on days 1, 3, and 4, which was a lovely surprise because the company made it sound like we’d have to pay extra for snorkel gear. I had never been snorkeling before and I’m worried that doing it in the Galapagos for the first time ruined me for all other snorkeling. Over the course of those three days, I swam with a giant turtle, saw a sleeping shark, frolicked underwater with playful seals, held a sea anemone, and followed marine iguanas as they dove down to feast on algae (the only iguanas in the whole world who go underwater for food!). The penguins weren’t on Bartolome as promised, but I was so enchanted by all the other animals I saw up close that I wasn’t too disappointed.

Sea lions and birds

We also did some very light hiking (aka walking for people who just did the Inca Trail) on Plazas and Santa Fe to see Pinnacle Rock and cliffs where a vast array of birds fly in and out (and baby birds sleep in nests on the ground! They have no native predators!). We also saw sea lions splayed out on rocks almost everywhere we went. They smelled terrible and occasionally got aggressive with each other, but I loved watching them laze around and bark like dogs. They reminded me of my Sam.

Food and Drinks

The first day we arrived, Alexandra (our intrepid tour guide/coordinator/second mother) shuttled us to the dock to meet our bay-tour captain and then ran out to get us lunch. We ate on the dock that day, and we had a fancy lunch at the giant-tortoise preserve on the second day. Days 3 and 4, when we were yachting around the Galapagos (I’ve wanted to write that phrase forever!), a cook prepared lunch for everyone and we ate in the little dining room of the yacht.

Yacht life

Breakfast was included with our hotel, but it took us a couple days to figure that out, so we a few breakfasts in town. Dinners were also included in our package, but we had to eat at the same mediocre restaurant every night. We played along the first two nights but then decided to branch out and try other places. Our waiter at the preordained restaurant kept trying to flirt with Michele, but her patchy Spanish and his age (60+) just made things awkward.

There was no veggie food here :(

Overall, the food in Ecuador was just okay. Lunch at the tortoise preserve was the highlight (no, we did not eat tortoise); the rest was really just sustenance. Honestly, we were both disappointed with Ecuadorian food, especially compared to the really good meals we had in Peru. And Ecuadorian beer was awful! We each bought one on the yacht one day­—because how do you not?—but I actually threw mine away because it was so terrible. If you know me at all, you know I don’t throw away booze easily.

Nightlife in Puerto Ayora was interesting. The city’s vibe brought to mind a place where cruise ships stop during the day and leave (with all the tourists) before nightfall. There were bars and restaurants, but not many people to visit them. And the Galapagos in general seemed like a destination for older folks, so the few bars we went to were pretty deserted. And we found only one bar/restaurant overlooking the water the whole time we were there! As native Austinites who are used to quality patios and don’t see much water, that seemed like sacrilege to us.

Puerto Ayora

Nevertheless, we valiantly attempted to barhop each night after dinner (the sacrifices you make on vacation), but the places either felt like a TGIFridays or an empty club. On the plus side, we got plenty of rest while we were there.

Retirement Already? Okay!

El Garrapatero

Overall the Galapagos were beautiful and relaxing, which is just what I needed after our slog through the Andes. I feel like I got a glimpse of what my retired vacations will be like, and not just because 75% of the other tourists were retired. We woke up at a reasonably early hour each morning, had active but easy sightseeing trips every day, ate bland dinners in mediocre restaurants every night, and were usually in bed by 10. If being retired means hanging out on beaches like Garrapatero, then sign me up.

Galapagos!! (Part 1)

The train to and from MP has
skylights, soda, and coffee. Why
would you ever hike the trail?

When Michele and I were on the train back to Ollantaytambo from Machu Picchu we met an Italian guy traveling by himself. We chatted about our trips and when we told him we were going to the Galapagos Islands next, he excitedly said that the “Gala [gall-ah] pagos [like the Spanish word for pay]” were lovely. Now every time I think about the Galapagos, I hear it in my head as gall-a-pag-os. I wish I knew how to write phonetics, because that probably isn’t coming across. But it’s different than the American pronunciation. Good story, eh?

I spent some quality
time in Quito

Anyway, Michele and I had somehow made it through the Inca Trail and were ready for some relaxing island time in the Gall-a-pag-os. All we had to do was endure a harrowing collectivo (mini-bus) ride from Ollantaytambo to Cusco (complete with an hour-long standstill on a windy mountain road due to an accident), a few more unlicensed-cab rides, a flight to Lima, a flight to Quito, a flight to Guayaquil, a flight to Santa Cruz, a bus ride, a boat ride, and a truck ride to Puerto Ayora. Easy-peasy!

When we arrived in Santa Cruz, our tour guide Alexandra was actually waiting for us at the airport, holding a sign with my name on it. Michele and I were both astounded and a little giddy. We had set up such welcome parties at all of our destinations because cabbies in the region are notorious for robbing tourist, but Alexandra was the only one on our entire trip who actually showed up. We easily and immediately forgave her many, many personal affronts (“Two women alone at your age? Why do you not have husbands? You must be sad about that.”) based purely on that sign with my name on it in the airport.

The proper way to eat
spaghetti in the Galapagos

It was literally a sign of things to come. Alexandra was brash and in everyone’s faces (including ours), but she got shit done. She hustled us to the front of lines and made people do what she said, all for our benefit. She checked us into our hotel and set us up with a driver to take us around the whole time we were there. She brought us spaghetti on a dock and silverware to eat it with while we waited for our (insane, singing) boat captain to arrive.When we saw a demonstration march through downtown Puerto Ayora on our first night, she filled us in on the labor disputes between locals and the airlines. She explained the rules about living in the Galapagos, how only a few people can have cars and no foreigners can move there now and dogs and chickens are highly regulated, and she told us that too many people are having too many babies. She was a wealth of sometimes-biased insight and she made sure we got the most out of our stay there. I have serious respect for that crazy lady.

2015 Resolutions

I’m big on making resolutions, and I’ve never limited myself to a new year to set them. I’m constantly making lists of things I want to do (save money for X, Y, and Z; complete crafty projects A, B, and C; try this new exercise routine to find my perfect balance to regular workouts; read these classic novels this year; etc.), and I post these lists everywhere. I have a chalkboard in the kitchen with the big ones but I also have lists on my phone, post-its shoved in my purse, and notebooks dedicated to various resolutions scattered all over my apartment. I rarely (if ever) stick to my perfect plans, but I love the false sense of organization they give my all-over-the-map ambitions. Plus it feels awesome to cross something off a list when I actually do it.

So even though I make resolutions all year long, I inevitably get swept up in the frenzy of a fresh year and set some new ones or recommit to old ones that have fallen by the wayside. For 2015 (so far), I’ve decided to focus on the following:

• Bike to work more.
• Learn how to cook like a grown up.
• Win the war with my pets to maintain a clean-smelling apartment ALL THE TIME.
• Turn my 3.6-mile jog into a 5-mile jog. And then do it at least 3 times a week.
• Buy a scooter.
• Quit smoking.
• Be more cultured (which to me means reading more; taking a painting class with the boyfriend; and going to museums, the ballet, and the the-ahhh-ter).

And of course keep traveling! Unfortunately, buying a scooter seriously cuts into my expendable cash (i.e., my travel budget). But does that mean I have to compromise my rule about visiting a new country every year? Hell, no!

This year, more than any other since I made my rule, I’m focusing on budget travel. I think I will be able to afford a quick trip to somewhere in the Caribbean for my birthday (December) for less than $1,000. My plan is to find a good deal on an all-inclusive vacation in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic. I also want to squeeze in a girls’ trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley, but I haven’t started running numbers on that yet. I’m pretty sure it will be more than my Caribbean trip, but we’ll see. 

And I resolve to keep writing this blog! I still have to recap the Galapagos, and then I'll start writing more planning and budgeting entries. Happy 2015, y'all!

The Inca Trail: Day 4, Finally

Not the view from camp, but close enough 

I slept like the dead after Day 3. I curled up in my sleeping bag and rested my head on a pillow of my dirty clothes as a sick, sore, exhausted, unhappy human but somehow I awoke renewed … at 3:30 am. That’s when you have to get up on Day 4 of the Inca Trail. Mama Darwin came by to rouse everyone at that unnatural hour without coffee (we had been warned that there would be no coffee delivery this morning), and I sat up in the tent pleasantly surprised. I was hungry again and I actually felt like I could keep food down. I felt rested and capable of smiling. I felt like a real person again.

It was an awkward morning, though, trying to pack up with my headlamp in the cold. Our campsite was on a narrow cliff ledge, basically an alley of tents with a wall of mountain behind and a sheer drop five feet in front of the tent doors. Not the best spot to make a bunch of worn-out hikers pack up before 4 am, but we were all moving too slowly to be in any real danger. Unfortunately, my refusal to visit the toilets the night before had created a situation that I couldn’t ignore anymore, but I still wasn’t feeling the hike to the nasty toilets. I headed over to the breakfast tent to see if anyone else shared my trepidation and if maybe we could come up with a solution. Thank goodness for Justyna!! She instantly knew what I was getting at and offered up a plan: We’d find a spot by the mountain behind the tents (almost all of which were packed up already; the porters are that fast), she’d cover for me, and then I’d cover for her. Everyone else who had already been to the bathroom strongly supported the idea. Apparently these toilets were the absolute worst of all the ones on the trail, and I’m so grateful that I never saw them. Stuff of nightmares, I heard.

My Time in the Spotlight

Amped up on rebellion and my overwhelming need to pee, I grabbed some toilet paper and headed out to find a good spot with Justyna. It was trickier than we anticipated, though. Almost all the tents had been cleared and a porter with a headlamp was standing guard. I’m pretty sure his whole job that morning was to keep people from peeing outside, but seriously? It was going to take way more than one dude with a flashlight to deter me at this point.

We found a tiny bush in between us and the porter, and Justyna generously offered to let me go first. Oh lordy, it was glorious, but halfway through the porter spotted us and started yelling in Spanish. He shined his headlamp directly on me and kept yelling, but my Spanish is pretty much limited to what I learned as a waitress from cooks and busers. We never covered, “You can’t urinate on a Peruvian national park, entitled American bitch.” So I just shrugged at him from my squat and kept peeing in the spotlight. I’m truly sorry, Peru, but you didn’t leave me many options. It was rainy and I threw away the paper, if that counts for anything.

But poor Justyna said she couldn’t go after that. The porter was starting to walk toward us. So we went back to the breakfast tent to eat and wait him out. Long story not-so short, she was successful and we all started out for our last day on the trail. I’m not going to lie to you, dear reader (obviously); I couldn’t wait for this stupid hike to be over. I enjoyed a full breakfast and was confident in my ability to get to Machu Picchu without hurling again, but I was so over the Inca Trail. Mish wasn’t doing so well. She ate a little but she was still feeling as bad as the day before.

I Did Not Sign Up for This

Day 4 is weird. What all the tour companies fail to tell you is the guides from all the different companies compete with each other to be the first group on the trail in the morning and the first to the Sun Gate (a stunning spot about an hour uphill from Machu Picchu where, in theory, the groups gather to watch the sun rise over the ruins below). Which is why all the groups (I’d guess there were four or five others of similar sizes pacing us) camp at the same place on Night 3—it’s as close as you can get to the checkpoint we all have to cross at the beginning of Day 4.

But the checkpoint doesn’t open until 5:30 am. So that 3:30 wakeup call? It was done entirely so we could pack up, eat, and be first in line at the checkpoint. I was so angry when we walked for two minutes and then lined up to wait AN HOUR for the checkpoint to open. I wouldn’t have hesitated a single second if Raul had given us the choice to sleep an extra hour and be last through. But there we were, first in line, with trekkers from all the other groups piling up behind us and doing that obnoxious, persistent line-shoving thing that all crowds of people inevitably do.

When the checkpoint finally opened, people started shoving in earnest and we were all sausaged through the gates and out to the trail beyond (foul, unwashed human sausage wrapped in fleece). Raul was doing his best to block other guides from passing us, but he finally accepted that he had a rag-tag group of sickies mixed with chill hikers who couldn’t care less about rank. After about 30 minutes on the trail, we went from first place to last. Now tell me again why I didn’t get to sleep an extra hour, Raul.

But I Did Sign Up for This

Photographing while walking = blurry

The hike itself was amazing. We were still walking along a cliff with the mountain shooting straight up to the left and dropping away (hundreds of feet? Thousands? I’m terrible at distances, but definitely hundreds) to death on the right. There was a chain of mountains across the valley to the right and daylight was starting creep up above them as we walked. It was my favorite part of the trip so far and possibly as close as I’ll ever get to feeling genuinely spiritual. There’s certainly something to be said for physically, mentally, and emotionally wearing yourself down and then experiencing nature in such a raw and glorious setting when you’re waking up renewed. I felt so happy and at peace. And then Raul called over his shoulder, as if he was pointing out a cool Incan ruin, “And this is the spot where a girl fell to her death a few years ago.” Cheery return to reality. We all hugged the side of the mountain a little closer but I continued to marvel at my surroundings and my amazing existence at that exact moment.

Mish on the Monkey Bars

Then we came to the Monkey Bars, an infamous spot on the trail. It looks like a water-carved gully but it goes straight up through boulders, and we had to climb it. A few stragglers from other groups kept trying to pass people, which made it even more treacherous. 

But once we reached the top it wasn’t far to the Sun Gate. We were too late for the sunrise, but that didn’t diminish the experience for me in the slightest. I came up to a little pass and noticed people clustered in front of me, posing for pictures, before I saw what they were posing in front of. It was Machu Picchu!!! And it was breathtaking, spread out below us on a flattened expanse of a lower mountain. Michele agreed that it was stunning but she was trying not to throw up on the Sun Gate, so I didn’t push her for commentary.

The view from the Sun Gate

We got to relax and mill around the Sun Gate for about 30 minutes and take pictures to our hearts’ content. There were group shots, single shots, friend shots, couple shots, new-friend shots, nature shots, every kind of (photographic) shot you can imagine. There were hugs and kisses and couples wrapping their arms around each other while gazing at the ancient city and whispering to each other. There was Michele sitting on a rock not puking and me harassing her about drinking water. It was a beautiful culmination of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we hadn’t even gotten down to Machu Picchu yet.

Best rag-tag group ever

From there we walked down, crossed through Machu Picchu, and exited. I didn’t realize we had to leave the site to reenter through the proper gate, but Raul stopped on our way through the city to give a little talk and let us take some more photos before he made us leave. We also had to say goodbye to Mama Darwin here, because he was going to head into town and back home once we left Machu Picchu (for the first time). I tried to give him the rest of my coca leaves but he said he wanted to take the train home, not fly. Oh, Darwin, you’re lovely and I miss you already.

Heading down

By the time we exited to line up and go back in, the tour buses had started pulling up and Raul knew it would take a while to get back in, so he let us get food and drinks at the restaurant and use the toilets before we reconvened inside. I think it says a lot about my experience on the Inca Trail that I was more excited about pooping in a clean toilet than I was about touring Machu Picchu. But damn if that wasn’t the best toilet I’ve ever encountered in my life.

Machu Picchu

Hydrated, fed, and happy, we all met Raul back inside the gates of Machu Picchu and enjoyed a leisurely walk around the site while he explained various spots. We saw the tiered agricultural area, the residential quarter, and the quarry inside the city where the Incas got their building materials. We learned about their architectural techniques and saw the exact places where they stopped working on structures, for whatever reason, right before they disappeared. (Did one of their black-llama sacrifices actually provide a premonition of the coming Spaniards, as some people believe, causing the Incas to move deeper into the Andes to hide? Did a plague sweep through the population? Did they migrate to another city for some other, unknown reason? The mystery remains!) We peered inside the sacred temple and we put a modern compass on their compass rock to see how accurate their technology was so long ago.

Raul’s tour hit all the main points, and then he said he was going into Aguas Calientes (the town by MP) to wait for us at the café where we’d have lunch. We had a couple hours on our own to explore Machu Picchu before we’d have to catch a bus into town. Obviously Mish and I made a beeline to the llamas. That’s right, folks, there really are llamas hanging out at Machu Picchu. There was even a baby! We took a ton of photos, fed a llama, and then walked around for about another 30 minutes before shrugging and saying, “Well, I guess that’s it,” and heading to the bus stop.

Llamas!

And now comes the bittersweet reminder that the journey really is worth so much more than the destination. Machu Picchu was amazing (and I can’t recommend it more highly), but somehow after everything I’d just been through, it seemed like a footnote. It might be the most awe-inspiring footnote I’ll ever experience, but it was a footnote to the Inca Trail nonetheless. And I’m totally cool with that. I feel like I experienced all the glory of Machu Picchu to the same extent that people who take the bus or train do, but I had such a separate, heightened experience immediately preceding it that I saw the ruins from a different perspective. I saw Machu Picchu as an amazing city hidden away in the Andes, an astonishing feat of human ingenuity and determination, but I like to think I experienced it in a way slightly more akin to how the Incas did: as a welcoming place to poop comfortably after an arduous trek through unforgiving terrain.

Yes we did!

Inca Trail, Part 3: Nope, Don't Want It

Before Day 2

On Day 2, Michele and I rise and shine with coffee in the tent (delivered by mom and one of my favorite porters) and start to mentally prepare for what everyone says is the hardest day of the Inca Trail: hiking to Dead Woman’s Pass, anywhere from 12,000 to 14,000 feet up, depending on your source. (Spoiler alert: Day 2 is not the hardest day by a long shot. I would do a week of Day 2s to avoid a single Day 3.) I brave the outhouse toilet situation and see adorable guinea pigs running around in a hut on the way back to camp; I try to ignore the fact that humans will soon eat them. When I get back to the tent Michele apologizes because she kicked over my coffee and it all went on my sleeping bag. She tried to clean it up with the little bit of toilet paper she had, but my bag is sitting in a coffee puddle. At least I love the smell. I ring it out, roll it up, and pack it along with the rest of my non-daypack gear in my duffle bag. All fourteen of our group gather in our fancy-pants meal tent for a breakfast of champions while dad gives us the rundown for the day, then Michele and I take our “before” picture, and IT’S ON.

Happy me on Day 2

Day 2 is certainly challenging, with lots of strenuous uphill hiking and rock stairs, but I don’t mind it. I like cardio and I’m getting a good workout in some gorgeous scenery. Plus I’m getting my money’s worth out of my rented hiking poles and my new boots. We stop for lunch on a bitter-cold, blustery outcrop in the mountains, and we all rave about having a tent to eat in rather than having the brave the wind with food. Lunch is extra warm and delicious, and when we’re done everyone seems excited but wary to keep going up.

I’m still pumped and excited about the trail in front of us, more so than most people in our group. Turns out I like cold and altitude and uphill challenges more than the average person. It’s exactly what I wanted out of the Inca Trail and to this day I don’t see why people think Day 2 is so difficult. I mean, it was a good hike, but it never seemed unreasonable to me.

We made it to Dead Woman's Pass!

Michele is enjoying it less than I am, but she comes up with a good strategy to deal with the uphill: no long breaks, but short water breaks frequently. Just keep walking up. We make it to the pass and take some photos. I’m happy and I feel good. It’s cold but exciting. It’s exactly what I imagined the Inca Trail would be. Unfortunately, the other side of the pass awaits us….

Downhill

The downhill and my
 trail anger start here.

This is where the Inca Trail stops being a hike and starts making me angry. We have about an hour and a half or two hours of sheer downhill clambering over giant rocks. No trail. Rocks. Each step is about 1 to 2 feet down. With every single, step my joints are slamming into themselves. The longer we go, the angrier I get. Michele told me later that she stopped turning around to check on me because she could tell by my gruff exhales and continual “fuck this” mutterings that I was still alive. I fell once. It hurt.

But eventually we make it to camp, somewhere in the middle of the pack, and everyone who already arrived is huddled in their separate tents, nursing wounds, I assume. I’m so mad at this unexpected joke the Incas are playing on me that I smoke a cigarette, despite saying I absolutely would not smoke on the trail (R had been smoking already, so I feel emboldened). But it at least gives me a chance to get to know a few porters better, because we instantly become buddies while they share my cigarettes. I can’t understand how they’re happy and joking despite having hours of work ahead of them and knowing what they just went through (sort of, but not really because I didn’t have 30+ pounds strapped to my back as I stumbled down rockslides).

Mish and I after Day 2

Dinner

My soup tastes weird so I don’t eat much of it, but the rest of dinner is nice. The bathrooms do nothing to ease my anger, but the group commiseration on our experiences of the day help a little. (I wasn't the only one who fell!) Then it’s bedtime and luckily, before I can dwell on how tomorrow is all downhill, I pass out.

Day 3: Sick

I wake up the next morning feeling a little queasy and tell myself it’s just nerves about an entire day of downhill. It has nothing to do with the weird soup last night. We go to the breakfast tent and when the food comes I realize it’s not nerves. I feel like I’m going to throw up just from the smell of breakfast, but I know I need fuel for the day ahead. I offer my plate to Mama Darwin and walk outside the tent with my water and a little mug of quinoa porridge. It seemed the least offensive of the options and I know it’ll at least give me protein. I try to choke it down but only get through about half of it. It’s going to be a rough day.

We get going on the trail and amazingly we go uphill for a little while. My spirits rise a tiny bit until we stop for a water break and some porters run by. I know we all stink at this point, but in my sensitive state the rush of odor as they speed by exceeds my coping abilities. A particularly pungent porter passes me and my porridge is coming back up. Before I really know what I’m doing, I’ve rushed over to some plants on the edge of the trail to feed them my quinoa. So much for my protein for the day.

Poor Michele is also feeling sick, but she has the toilet paper and somehow my water bottle. I make her bring me both and she tells me later that coming near me and my after-gags almost made her hurl too. (Travel buddies!) I clean up and we keep going. I still feel like vomiting but I’m empty now. My trail friend Danielle kindly gives me some Emergen-C packets to put in my water and they make a world of difference. (If you hike the trail, definitely bring some.)

Misery

The rest of Day 3 is horrible but it is also the most beautiful part of the trek. We are cutting through mountains with breathtaking vistas and passing Incan ruins and I wish more than anything that my knees could handle the brutal steps (they call them the Gringo Killers) and that I wasn’t feeling so sick.

Beautiful and horrible

Everyone in our group is gnawing on their coca leaves and swearing they help, so I keep trying but not only do they not help, the taste makes me want to vomit even more. We get to the lunch spot and Michele and I have to sit outside the tent and stare off in the distance to avoid being sick from the smell of food.

I also have to pee, which makes my nausea about one billion times worse. The toilets are horrific. Smells, sights, sounds (the sounds are mostly made by my shoes as I walk over things nobody should have to walk over in an attempt to find a toilet)—everything is enough to make a healthy person sick…and I’m not healthy. I keep thinking they should just let us do our business in nature and bag it out, like when I walk my dog. The whole trek would be so much more pleasant that way.

I'm scattering unrelated
Day 3 shots throughout rants

Somehow I make it back to fresh air and rejoin Michele in staring at the horizon. Mom comes out to see how we’re doing and brings us special tea that he promises will solve all our problems. I love Darwin with my whole heart, always and forever, but his tea is worthless. Dad comes out with some weird-looking bottle and says, “You’re going to put your face in my hands.” Thank goodness he’s looking at Michele and not me when he says this—she’s too nice to argue. He puts some of the liquid from the bottle in his palms, rubs them together, and then shoves his hands around Michele’s face while I try not to puke-laugh all over everyone. “Breathe deeply,” he says, over and over. Finally he lets her go and she pulls her head up. She looks dazed for a second and then starts smiling and nodding noncommittally. (You need to understand that Michele is super-humanly polite.) Raul says, “Better?” Michele smiles bigger and says, “Yeah, actually, that really helped.” She turns her smile to me, vindictively, as if to say, “Your turn, pukey.”

My face smelled like Raul's hands here

Before I know what’s happening Raul’s hands are surrounding my face and he’s telling me to breathe deeply. I need air, so I obey. His hands smell minty, but I can’t help wondering when he last washed them. He smothers me for a good minute so I’m forced to breathe in his minty-germy hand cocktail multiple times, and then he finally releases my head. “Better?” “Um…sure. Thanks, Raul….thanks?” I am not better.

Hating life right about now

Lunch is over, I have no food in my stomach, I still feel like I’m one weird inhale away from throwing up again, we have about five more hours of downhill joint torture to go, and my face smells like Raul’s hands. I’m not at my best. My pace had been snail-like on Day 2’s downhill, but today it’s pretty much a crawl—maybe a baby who is just learning how to crawl and keeps stopping for naps. I’m dragging Michele down with me, and we’re now the slowest people in our group, other than poor D who had bronchitis and had to be carried on a stretcher for a spell. And I’m still cursing like a sailor with every giant step down.

Hours go by this way until we get to a point where the group has gathered to wait for us, because there’s a fork in the road. Go left, and you get to see glorious Incan ruins that only trekkers get to see. If you take that route, it’s “an hour” to camp. Go right, and you go straight to camp, no extra sights, and you’ll be at your tent in “30 minutes.” I really want to go left, because I chose to hike the goddamn Inca Trail. I want to see it all! And I can tell Michele really wants to go left as well. But there are so many stairs that way. And I am so sick and weak and frustrated by the world I’m living in. I would swear that my knees are both broken. I keep looking back and forth between the two trails, and I feel like such a failure of a human being, but I finally say it out loud, “Michele, I’m really sorry, but I have to go right. I just can’t go left.

My coca-leaf prayer
went unanswered.

But if you want to go left, please do. I don’t want you to miss out because I suck.” She’s one of my best friends, and we’ve been friends forever, but she’s so polite that sometimes I can’t even tell when she’s lying to be nice. Either way, she says she feels like shit too and she just wants to go to camp. So we both go right. (I love Michele.)

Still going downhill

Dad said it would be about 30 minutes to camp going right, but I figured that meant an hour at my pace. So we keep plodding along and it gets to be about an hour and I still see no sign of camp. We turn a corner and there are two porters. Turns out they are waiting for us because we are the last people in the group. They follow really closely behind me. Then Raul appears from behind them and tries to give me a pep talk about how close we are to camp. But we are going down switch-backs (I kid you not), and every single step is two to three feet down (for real), and I’m sick and exhausted and my kneecaps are about to grind into dust and I have these three dudes breathing down my neck to try to make me go faster. Literally, I feel their breath on my neck and in my hair.

It’s just too much. I pull my headlamp out of my backpack (because it’s dark at this point; we should be eating dinner right now), turn it on, and start crying silently as I take giant, joint-crushing step after step down toward a camp I can’t even see. My tears are blurring my vision, and I’m trying to wipe them inconspicuously because I don’t want Raul asking me what’s wrong. I’m so angry and sore and sick and tired and I think the Inca Trail is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done (and I’ve done a lot of really dumb things). Finally we see a camp … and it’s not ours. We have to keep climbing down absurdly large steps to pass every single other camp before we finally get to ours. It is the absolute last campsite. But oh my god there’s a tent for me. I just have to find my duffle bag with my sleeping gear and I am DONE for the day. I have never wanted to be so done with something in my entire life.

So lovely but I
managed to hate it

(Side note: you know you have a good travel buddy when you stop thinking “I” and start thinking “we” because you know you are both experiencing the exact same misery. I noticed I started writing that way without even realizing it.)

We finally get our stuff and set it up in our tent and change into PJs. It’s probably not even 8, maybe not even 7, but neither of us has any concept of time. All we know is our own exhaustion and pain and illness. We both crawl into our sleeping bags to “rest” before dinner, even though we’re both too sick to sit in a tent full of people eating. But that’s what we tell dad when he comes to see how we’re doing. I wonder if I’m going to pee on myself in my sleep, but I honestly don’t care. The porters pointed out the toilets as we descended to our camp, and they are a good five-minute hike back up steps. I could do that, but there is no way I would make it back down. In my condition, I actually think that peeing on myself would be better, so I take the risk and succumb to the joy of laying down on the hard earth in my sleeping bag. (For the record, I didn’t have an accident.)

More scenes from Day 3

Dad comes back a little later to say dinner is ready and we both tell him we can’t eat. He tells us that if we want to tip the cook and porters, we have to do it tonight. There’s a tipping ceremony after dinner. I ask him if he can come get us for the ceremony, because we want to tip but we can’t be around food. He agrees, and comes back about an hour later. By then I’ve given myself a wet-wipe bath in my sleeping bag and done various tent yoga stretches, so I’m feeling slightly better. But Mish has been half asleep, so I know she feels no better; I offer to take her tips to the ceremony for her. She wakes up long enough to throw some money at me and I hobble out to the dinner tent.

The lingering odor of dinner is almost unbearable, and I have to breathe through my sleeve. Dad gives a little talk that seems to go on forever, but finally I’m able to put money on the table for Mish’s tips and my tips, and then I say my goodnights. It turns out I missed the actual ceremony part, where the trekkers give the money to the porters and cook and say nice, heartwarming things about gratitude and camaraderie and life-altering shared experiences (you know, one of the main reason I did the trail in the first place, but whatever). I feel bad that I missed it, but, given the opportunity with the same circumstances again, I still would have gone back to my tent to sleep. I was so miserable, you guys. So very miserable.

But it gets better. Machu Picchu is tomorrow! I promise it’ll be worth it, so please stick around. 

The Inca Trail, Part 2: First-World Guilt

Oh, blogging, right? Okay, when I left you, my shoe had disintegrated into worthless bits and pieces and I had four days of hiking in the Andes ahead of me. But the trek group had stopped at a scenic overlook with its own little convenience store (a shack selling water and Gatorade), so I figured I was fine. I’d just buy some duct tape and be on my merry little way. Nope, no duct tape at the store. And my intrepid guide Raul assured me that duct tape wouldn’t do the job anyway (holy hell, I know he was right now that I’ve lived through the absurdity that is Day 3).

 

This is Raul. He might have hated me.

So Raul and I stood around the store dumbfounded for a minute, and then I said, “Well, we’re only 20 minutes in. I have cash. Should I go back to the village, buy the best ‘hiking boots’ I can find, and catch up with y’all later?” Raul shook his head and said, “No, you’d never catch up with us.” He looked back at the little store and went over to the woman behind the counter without another word. I waddled back to Michele to laugh about how stupid I was for not making sure my trusty hiking boots were up to the task before leaving. I planned everything else so carefully! The boots had never failed me.

Hiking slippers

Raul came back carrying small, white, used tennis shoes. “These are her son’s. [The seven-year-old I saw running around?] Try them on.” I just laughed and told him I couldn’t take a kid’s shoes. But he stared me down until I tried them on to prove that, no, I do not share a shoe size with a little boy, saving me from the argument that I wouldn’t literally take shoes off a child’s feet to enjoy my vacation. He seemed annoyed, but returned the shoes to their rightful owner. It was about this time that my savior and fellow trekker, Peter, came over and offered me his “camp shoes,” comfy, slipper-style loafers that he had planned on bringing out only after a long day on the trail, to putter around the campsite in and let his feet relax. And he was kindly offering them to me, to stink up with a day of hiking before he even got to enjoy them (not that my feet stink, of course). They were huge on me, even after I put on a second pair of thick, wool hiking socks, but I could make them work. Raul seemed okay with the idea as well, and told me I could hike in them for Day 1, but I would need to give my shoe size and 100 soles to a porter so he could run back to the village, buy me boots, and meet us at camp that night. (The porters are amazing.)

Success! It was probably a 20-minute delay in total, but I handed over my cash and shoe size to a man I would later tip very well, and then the trekkers finally gathered in our circle to introduce ourselves. I was in Peter’s slippers. Everyone laughed politely when I introduced myself as Laura, the girl whose shoe broke. (Remember when I said I would live up to the title of “that jackass” in the group?) Raul introduced himself as our trek “dad,” and our assistant guide, Darwin, said he would be our trek “mom.” And then we carried on hiking, as you do on the Inca Trail.

Incan ruins

 

Burrito

Day 1 was a lovely, easy hike. There were a few steep areas that had us all breathing heavily, but for the most part it was a nice, manageable-in-slippers hike through relatively lowland terrain. We passed Incan ruins and pre-Incan ruins; we were passed by horses and burros and real burritos; then we stopped for lunch near a creek, and wow was it a shock to me. I thought we’d be eating PB&Js on the grass with our water bottles, but we arrived at our designated spot to find a tent with a long table inside, covered in tablecloths. The porters served us a three-course meal that the cook had just prepared, on real plates with real silverware.

Everyone was happy
that I was taking their picture.

A note about the food, though. When I booked the Inca Trail, it gave me the option of specifying that I was a vegetarian (and said it wasn’t a problem), so I did. And two other people in my group did as well, apparently. We sat down in the lunch tent and Raul came in to ask if there were any vegetarians. Justyna, Rob, and I raised our hands. Raul said, “Real vegetarian, or you can eat fish and chicken? Because it is hard for our cook to make vegetarian meals.” That worked on Justyna and Rob, and they begrudgingly said they could eat fish and chicken if they had to, but I refused. Oh, my dear Raul. We had some good standoffs. He tried staring me down again, but I won this one and got vegetarian meals through the whole trip (and the food I was able to eat was almost entirely delicious). I mention it in case another vegetarian is considering the trip. They say it’s fine when you book, but be ready to stand firm when the food actually comes out.

After lunch we had some time to kill, and Raul told us there were western toilets we could use for 1 sole or squat toilets that were free. Michele was feeling brave and decided to go for the squat toilet. Her reasoning was, everyone should try a squat toilet once, so why not now? Can’t argue with that.

Lunch spot

When she came back she said it wasn’t too bad. She said there was toilet paper and it was decently clean. She’s a damn, dirty liar, but I trusted her and followed her adventurous lead. Off I went, all happy in her lies of cleanliness and ample toilet paper, only to discover splatter patterns that belonged in a TV crime show and a distinct lack of anything to wipe with. And yet now I look back fondly on that as one of the nicer toilets on the trail.

After lunch we hiked for a few more hours, taking breaks every now and then for photos and breathers. We got to camp around sunset and our tents were already set up for us, duffel bags laid out on a tarp. The porters were running around, cooking, setting things up for us, boiling water for us to wash our hands in big bowls, and laying out tea service. Yep, we had tea service every night before dinner. And shortly after tea, my boot delivery arrived.

 

Day 1 campsite

The whole trek was a bizarre juxtaposition of first-class service and beautiful scenery mixed with physical discomfort and nauseating facilities. (I think I became a slightly dehydrated because I was actively trying to drink as little water as possible to avoid the toilets. Don't do this.) Every morning Mama Darwin and a porter came to each tent and woke us up with our choice of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate. We repacked our bags but left everything else for the porters to break down while we ate breakfast and listened to the plan for the day from Dad Raul. Then we would take off, leaving a massive campsite for the porters to deal with; about an hour later those same porters would zip past us with giant packs weighing them down. They had to get to the lunch site in time to set everything up and start cooking before we arrived.

I definitely experienced first-world guilt from the situation. Michele and I made sure to book with a company that treats its porters well, but we saw guys in other groups go by wearing threadbare sandals and old, wool, suit pants. Even with our respectable company, the porters were working so hard, carrying so much weight, cooking and cleaning for us, waiting to eat until we had all finished, and I never saw them set up tents for themselves. I don’t know where they slept. And they were so kind and funny and helpful the whole time.

I knew to expect it going into the trip, but it was still pretty shocking. I reminded myself that porter jobs are sought after in the area, and that our group was being paid a living wage and not forced to carry over the legal weight limit, but it was still difficult to process. If you’re considering hiking the trail, the best advice I can offer in this regard is to do your research in advance so you know your porters have the best possible working conditions, and then bring more tipping cash than your tour company recommends so you can try to assuage your guilt in true first-world style (more money).

I still need to tell y’all about getting sick, the misery of Day 3, and the glory of Machu Picchu, not to mention the Galapagos! So please stay with me as I slowly get around to writing it up. Thanks for reading!