We made it, despite a few hiccups

Hi All,

Well, we just made it through our 4-day, 30-kilometer trek along the Inca trail that culminated at the incredibly picturesque Machu Pichu. We believe that the best way to describe our time on the trail is to provide you with a list of things we saw/experienced for the first time:

1) Porters - descendants of the Sherpa line, our 15-member tour was accompanied by 23 of these 5´2´´ mountains lions (only one of them was not 5´2´´, his name was Custina and he stood just a shade under 5, and I made sure to bond with him. He was a good man) who possessed a sixth sense that allowed them to barrel downhill over rocks at breakneck speeds with only sandals on to support the 50lbs they were carrying on their backs. We could not have done the trip without them and they definitely deserved more than having to carry our heavy bags all day and then having to share our mess tent as sleeping quarters at night. Anyway, these fine men will be remembered, if not for their great service to us, then for their putrid stench that made me want to pass out/vomit every time they passed me on the trail (seriously, I could smell them far before I could see them).

2) Scenery - there is no possible way to describe the feeling of stepping out of your tent in the morning and seeing the sun stain snow-capped mountains as far as the eye can see in every direction. If we had a penny for every time we stood in awe of what we saw before us, we would be able to send all of the porters´children to a college like BC or ND.

3) Altitude sickness - well, in our last post, we mentioned that altitued sickness was not a hoax. Well, let´s just say that since then, we´ve found out that altitude sickness can manifest itself in more than just one form. After a few near mishaps near the highest point known as Dead Woman´s Pass (4200 meters, should be renamed Dead Conor´s Pass), I began taking a pepto bismol every time I opened my mouth to eat anything. Here was yesterdays totals: 2 pepto bismol tablets, 7 antacids, and 1 prilosec.

4) Bathrooms - there were only 2 of them, the woods or a hole in a tile floor. TP was not allowed to be flushed, but had to be collected in an open waste bin nearby. And when shared with the porters, these bathrooms smelled like a donkey´s stall the morning after. Woods were always preferable.

5) Ruins - There were so many amazing ruins to go through, so I´ll let the pictures do the talking once we can find a way to get them up on this blog.

6) Dogs - like the porters, they were half of what you would consider normal size to be, didn´t look right, and they were everywhere, all the time. One of the Irish guys on our tour is making a ¨Dogs of Peru¨scrapbook that he will post on facebook when he gets back.

7) Water - you can´t drink it from the stream, so we relied on the porters to boil us water every day. They tended to boil the water in the same pot that they cooked our garlic bread in, so it was not only served hot to us, but we all had garlic breath every day, all day.

8) Stars - I´ve never seen more stars than I did the first night on the trail. It is hard to imagine anything more beautiful than being able to lay on your back and stare up at the stars for an hour before turning in for the night.

Quite a trip and quite an experience. There will definitely be more to come later, but for now, it´s time to rest our weary legs (since we´ve been up since 4am this morning - tried to see the sun rise over Machu Pichu, but the weather ruined it for us).