Merry Christmas Eve!

Dec 24^th

Despite the bad start with the plane being a bit delayed I really lucked out. When I boarded the plane there was a child in my seat. The flight attendant moved me up a few rows and I ended up having the whole row to myself, which was wonderful. I fell right asleep. The flight attendant woke me up to make sure my seat belt was fastened and to give me an eye mask and ear plugs which I thought was a nice touch. I quickly fell right back asleep, even ignoring the dinner that they were serving. I didn’t wake up until 6:30am when breakfast was served. I picked at it a little, but was still so tired that I pushed it aside and fell right back to sleep.

I arrived at JFK in NYC at 8am, we were about half an hour delayed but that was fine, because I had plenty of time to kill and would rather be sleeping on the plane than walking around aimlessly.

I got off and went through customs and re-checked my bags. Then realized that I was in the wrong terminal and would need to change. When I did this I had to go through security, which means I dragged the wine that I had bought duty-free though security. I was annoyed b/c I didn’t want to deal with this problem that I had checked on numerous times in Peru. I got the run around, people feeling sorry for me but there was nothing that they could do and so they pointed me to another person to talk too. After about an hour and a half I went back to the American Airlines check in and pleaded with the check-in agent. She was really nice and understanding and gave me a box and we wrapped the wine and both prayed that it wouldn’t break.

I went through security, grabbed a bagel at Au Bon Pain and waited what was supposed to be about an hour for my flight. My flight was delayed because the pilot didn’t show up. I was annoyed. I was so close to home, I had been traveling for three months, and was so exhausted I didn’t know what to do with myself. We waited another hour to get a replacement pilot and took the forty-minute flight from JFK to Boston.

I got off the plane and was so excited to be back in home. I was greeted with big welcome home sign from my mom and dad. As soon as my mom and I started hugging the tears started flowing and we made quite a sight at the airport. I was so happy to be back with them again!

We drove to my grandmother, Mumsie’s, house where I showered and got ready for Christmas Eve. I started feeling really light headed and upset to my stomach after I got out of the shower so I laid down for a few minutes. My mom came to check on me and told me to finish getting ready and as soon as I stood up I threw up. I felt horrible because I called my dad in to clean up the mess. I had been back home for less than an hour and already I was come up with little projects for him to do. Thank goodness I have such a great family! I enjoyed spending Christmas Eve at my cousin Colleens house with the whole family. It was great to be back with the one I love!

Bye for now.

Love,

Katie

Last Day Out of the Country for a While..

Dec 23^rd

I woke up at 5am in hopes that I could yet again get on an earlier flight. This time I was hoping to be with my Canadian friends so that we could all explore Lima together since we all had a fourteen-hour layover. I took a quick shower and packed my bag, which ended up being more difficult than I had imagined. I was exhausted after only getting an hour a half of sleep. I met the Canadians in the lobby of the hotel at 5:45am and by 6am we jumped in a taxi to the airport. I was able to switch flight, again at no charge! Although I wasn’t flying with the same airline our flights were arriving around the same time so I knew that I could find them. The flight was quick, only an hour. I was so tired that I slept the entire time. When I arrived in Cusco I grabbed my luggage and waited literally only two minutes for my Canadian friends. We all shared a huge storage locker and locked our bags so we could enjoy the day without lugging them around and worrying about them. We took a taxi to the beach area and walked around for two hours. I was surprised by the set up of the land and buildings. The beach seemed very nice (although it was too cold to actually enjoy) but there was a huge highway that ran alongside the beach. Then there were huge cliffs that divided the city. I think that they needed better community planning. We were all getting hungry so we went to a huge lunch buffet called Costa Verde. The place was absolutely stunning. It sat right over the water and was open air with huge glass screens so that the wind couldn’t get in. The food was a mix of all traditional Peruvian dishes and local seafood favorites. I loved everything but the shrimp and mango was my favorite! We even had a few drinks to celebrate having such a great trip. After lunch we walked along the water on the stone beach. We sat down and took in the scenery for about an hour, I even happened to lay down and fall asleep briefly on the rocks (shows how tired I really was!)

We decided that we had seen everything that Lima had to offer and that we should head back to the airport. We hit a lot of traffic and it took us nearly an hour to get to the airport. We got our luggage out of storage and checked in. We did some duty free shopping then had dinner at the airport food court. I settled on McDonalds because they really didn’t have any good options.

 I said by goodbyes to my Canadian friends and went to my gate. The plane was delayed about an hour and of course and I was surrounded by screaming children. I was so exhausted that all that I wanted to do was board the plan and fall fast asleep. At around midnight we finally boarded the plane, I am worried I might be in for a long night.

Bye for now. Almost home!

Love,

Katie

The Amazing RACE to Machu Picchu

Dec 22^nd

Cross that off my bucket list! It’s official, I can now say that I’ve seen four of the seven wonders of the world! Wahoo! The day started brutally early at 4am. By 4:30am we were off and hiking. Little did I realized when we started hiking that we would only be hiking for about 500 feet until we reached the gate which blocks the entrance to Machu Picchu. It was still pitch black as we started our less than five-minute hike to the gate. We sat at the entrance pleased that we would be among the first through the gate, and waited for nearly an hour. During this time it went from pitch black to light outside, although we were all exhausted. When the gates opened it became clear that this was going to be an interesting hike, we had 500 people behind us who were all racing to be the first to enter Machu Picchu. This part of the hike was supposed to take about three hours, but our group did it in under two. We literally sprinted the whole way. I fell behind the group a few times because the rocks were slippery and wet and I almost went tumbling down the mountain several times, which scared the life out of me. At points of the hike there were “monkey stairs” meaning that you actually needed to use both your hands and feet to crawl up because the steps were so narrow you shoe wouldn’t fit even half way on the step- it really seemed more like rock climbing to me. We made it to Machu Picchu at around 8am and took tons of the typical touristy pictures, which I loved. It was really nice, even though we almost killed ourselves to be there first, we got some great pictures without tons of tourists in the background. 

Mario went ahead and grabbed tickets for Wayna Picchu (“Young Mountain”) which is the mountain behind Machu Picchu. Several people in my group really wanted to hike this mountain to get beautiful pictures of Machu Picchu from above. I was exhausted, hungry and dehydrated but I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t hike it so I decided to go with the flow. Plus I felt like I had come so far why stop now and regret it later? There are only ___ tickets to Wayna Picchu given out per day and Mario grabbed one for everyone on our hike. Our tickets allowed us to start hiking anytime after 10:30am so we still had some time to kill. Mario led us on a guided tour throughout Machu Picchu. I can’t even believe the Incas, they seem like genesis’s. At 10:30am we started off for our hike on what I later heard (not sure if its 100 factual, but I would believe it) is the most dangerous mountain in South America. That being said the hike seemed like an hour straight uphill. It was more rock climbing than normal hiking, much of the hike had ropes to hold on to. I was out of water before the reached the top and had lost the group. By the time I finally reached the top the group was getting ready to go down. I caught my breath and took some beautiful pictures.

 I usually am not afraid of heights (I mean I did jump out of a plane after all) but the hike down was terrifying. We still hadn’t eaten anything at this point and I wasn’t feeling well. My body was shaky and deprived of food and water. The group was all supposed to be meeting in town at 1pm for lunch and to gather to head back to Cusco so I felt rushed and pressed for time. I hiked and hiked and all of a sudden I started to feel like I was in a very unfamiliar place. I continued to walk a bit more and luckily found Sabio, one of the Canadians in our group who wasn’t part of the Canadian Army. Unsure what to do we decided to continue down the mountain a bit more, thinking that at least we were going the right direction and hopefully it would come out at the same place. At this point we hiked about fifteen minutes down to realize that we weren’t passing any tourists and that the path was getting more and more sketchy. We decided that we needed to head back up and find the path that we needed to be on. I didn’t know how I was going to make it. Thank god I had Sabio with me because I was at my breaking point. I felt so sick and was miserable. Luckily Sabio set the pace and we somehow make it together. We found the poorly marked path after we hiked for about half an hour. We knew that we were really late at this point. Our friends were waiting at the bottom for us, which was really sweet of them. I bought a bottle of water and felt much better even though I was holding back tears because I felt so horrible. I was relieved when we got to the restaurant called “Mother Earth” and met up with Mario and the rest of the group. We ordered food and relaxed. It was wonderful to be in a real restaurant and know that roughing it was over. We boarded the train for the hour and a half ride towards Cusco. Then we boarded a bus for another hour ride. By the time we made it back to the hotel in Cusco it was 6pm. It took a little while to reassign everyone rooms and get our bags out of storage. I was happy to have a hot shower and nice queen sized bed all to myself. I fully enjoyed getting clean and having Internet access. I called home and let the ones I love know that I survived the hike and I loved it. At 8pm our group met for a farewell dinner. We went to a nice restaurant that Mario recommended and all enjoyed feeling pampered. After we danced the night away at many of the local bars and clubs. Many of the places offered 1 free drink so we jumped around from place to place, checking out the scene and spending next to no money. I had a blast dancing the night away. It was a perfect ending to a fun trip with new friends.

Bye for now.

Love,

Katie

The Worst is Over.

Dec 21^st

Woke up at 5:30am and left at 6:30am. We had an hour and a half hike straight uphill. Then we finally got to even ground! Today was much easier in terms of steepness; most of the hike was slight up and down, but nothing drastic like the days before. We stopped at several Inca sights where I continued to be blown away by how advanced these people are. They planned everything out so neatly. I feel like this could have been a civilization that we studied in my “community planning and development” classes. Today it rained or misted almost the whole time we were hiking. It was interesting to see some of the slights, then all of a sudden not be able to see 10 feet in front of you because you were literally sitting in a cloud. We stopped for brunch around 10:30am and had a pancake with dulce de leche. I loved it, despite many of the people in my group not liking it. We continue to hike for other 2-3 hours most of which was downhill. I was able to keep up with the group, which was nice. Mario even commented that I impressed him. We arrived at the camping site around 2pm and had a late lunch. My stomach was very upset so I picked a little at lunch but gave my food to the Canadian guys to eat. After lunch I enjoyed my first shower in 3 days! For those of you who know me well, know that on any given day in the states I may take 3 showers, so you can imagine what it was like for me to go 3 days without showering. The campsite has a pay shower for $5soles (about $3USD) it was the best investment that I could have made. After I was clean I took a nap for just over an hour. I haven’t been sleeping almost at all at night so the daily naps are what save me. I woke up at 4:30pm just in time for afternoon tea. Afterwards we all decided that we were still thirty and that we should go to the local restaurant at the campsite and grab some beers. We sat outside and enjoyed the view of the beautiful mountains that quickly disappeared in the clouds. We went back to the campsite just in time for dinner at 7pm and enjoyed chicken with rice and veggies. I still had a little bit of a stomach ach so I didn’t eat too much. Afterwards we collected a pool of tips for our 22 porters since we will part tomorrow morning. We also donated items that will be useful to them since many of them don’t have appropriate gear. I felt bad that I didn’t have more to give, but I gave one of my t-shirts (may be helpful for them, as well as help to promote myself). We said our goodbyes to our porters and shook their hands; many of them kissed us and seemed very thankful. I hope that our tips were enough for them, they work so hard for us! After we said our good byes we decided that we should enjoy each other company a little bit more and have a final beer together. We all talked and the time passed quickly. At 10pm we headed back to the campsite and called it a night. I went to bed at 10:30pm. We are getting up at 3:30am to be the first ones to Machu Picchu. I have been having a blast this entire time (minus the pain I am in from hiking), but will look forward to sleeping in a real bed with my own private bathroom. I am counting the minutes till I get to Ogunquit. I can’t believe that in just 3 days I will be back in New England celebrating Christmas with my family and friends. I have been having so much fun traveling but will be excited to see everyone when I am home.

Bye for now.

Love,

Katie

Stair Master 10 Billion.

Dec 20^th

I survived! But… Today was definitely one of the hardest workouts I’ve ever had. The morning started at 5am when we all got up and got ready for the day and packed our bags. We had breakfast at 5:45am and were on the trail at 6:30am. We had a five hour hike, mostly up hill, and I was dreading every moment of it. I had slept horrible the night before. I really have only slept in a tent twice in my life and both times I had outdoorsy friends with me to push me through is. Last night I was alone in the wild, luckily I was surrounded by the Canadian Forces so I felt a little more secure. I heard all sorts of things in the night, I woke up every time someone went to the bathroom, or when animals moved around and even when it started to downpour. I was tried and as soon as we had walked for 5 minutes I was already out of breath and questioning how I’d make it through the day. Somehow I managed. We stopped about every hour for a little bit to get the group caught up with one another. The first hour and a half was uphill and seemed awful, but I had no idea what was in store for me after the break. We rested for 20 minutes and had snacks then were on our way. The next hour and a half we crossed “Dead Women’s Pass” which is 1200 stairs up. Let me clarify the stairs, they are not nice cement stairs that are evenly placed and easy to walk on, they are rocks that are all different sizes and levels, some of them are a foot and a half high. Let me tell you, I will be coming home with buns of steal, my butt is killing me! One of the Canadian Force guys, Jeff, was really nice and hiked with me the whole way. We chatted about life and it made the hike much more fun. I was pleased to make it to the top and catch up with the group. We got some great pictures and enjoyed the view, even though the clouds did roll in. We waited at the top for about 20 minutes, it was very windy, cloudy and cold.

 When it was clear that the others were still pretty far behind Mario gave us clear directions and sent our part of the group on the last hour and journey to the campsite. Luckily, this part of the trip was all downhill, which is much prefer.

 Jeff and I hiked along with six of the others in the group (even the two who hiked part of Everest!). Parts of the hike down were challenging because the rocks were all wet and very slippery. I almost fell a couple of times. Almost everyone in our group has hiking shoes which help to prevent twisted ankles. I didn’t have any, so I tried to carefully place my feet. I luckily did rent two poles which have been great for this hike, it has really helped me keep my balance, given me an arm workout, and prevented me for falling flat on my face a couple of times. We got to the campsite at 12pm (30 minutes earlier than Mario said it would take us). We waited for a few more people to arrive and had lunch. Lunch consisted of veggie pasta and was quite tasty, although I would have liked to have a little more protein. After lunch I changed into dryer clothes and took a nap for an hour and a half, which was wonderful. We had afternoon tea and biscuits at 4:30pm and followed it with an intense game of spoons where the looser had to do funny things like pushups in front of everyone and yell “ I’m a big loser” at the top of their lungs. I luckily saved myself the humiliation and never lost! We had dinner at 6:30pm which consisted of pork and rice. I really don’t like pork so I ate about half and gave the rest to one of the Canadians, Mike. Mike gave me his dessert in return, I think that was a pretty good trade J. We have an early day tomorrow, we’re getting up at 4:45am to start hiking before the sunrises to I turned myself into bed nice and early at 8pm.

Bye for now.

Love,

Katie

Let the Hiking Begin!

Dec 19^th

I woke up this morning at 6:45am to shower and get myself packed for the day. At 7:30am we all met downstairs and have breakfast together. It wasn’t my ideal breakfast, especially because I knew that I would need a lot of protein to get me through the long day of hiking. Breakfast consisted of a single flat pancake, mango juice, and a piece of bread with jam. Luckily I had brought peanut butter so I got at least a little protein. At 8:30am we loaded back on the bus with all of our duffel bags and we were off. We drove for about an hour and got to the starting point of the Inca Trail (kilometer 82). We had to show our paperwork and passport (we even got cool stamps- my passport is quickly filling up) and we were off, starting our hike at 10am. The first hour of the hike was great. I lead the way (believe it or not!), it was all flat and very easy. I was very excited to be keeping a good pace. The four hours following were completely horrible. We started to go up tons and tons of stairs. I quickly felt out of shape.

I have since learned that the Canadians who all know each other are part of the Canadian Army, and they are all in good shape. I wasn’t last, but stayed towards the back of the group for the remainder of the day. I huffed and puffed my way along, hating how awful I was feeling. We have already seen some really cool ruins and Mario has given us a lot of good information. At around 1pm we stopped for lunch. I was shocked to learn the porters carry literally everything besides water. Our group consists of two guides, 16 tourists and 22 porters. The porters basically run the whole time. When we arrived at the lunch stop they had set up a make shift kitchen and were busy cooking for us. One guy was responsible for carrying the propane tanks which they use to cook, another carries all of the pots and pans, another carries the tables and chairs, another carries all of the utensils and plates/cups/bowls, etc., its unbelievable! Lunch consisted of asparagus soup, veggies, and chicken, I was so hungry that everything tasted great! We hiked for about another hour and a half after lunch. During which time the porters cleaned up the lunch area and sprinted past us with all of the belongings so that they could set up our tents and sleeping bags before we got to the camp site. We arrived at the sight at 4pm. I was exhausted and happy that we were done for the day. The worst part for me is that today is supposed to be the “easy” day and tomorrow is supposed to be the most difficult! I am in trouble! I really don’t know how I’m going to make it through the day. Everyone seems to be a little scared about tomorrow, but I am especially scared since I was towards the back of the group. Let’s hope that tomorrow I am well rested and ready to go. Tomorrow is 9 kilometers straight uphill. We pass “Dead Women’s Pass” which is supposed to be awful. I hate going uphill, I am fine with the distance as long as it is straight. I carried my computer as well as a lot of electronics that I was afraid to leave in the hotel. Tomorrow I am definitely going to put more in my pack for the porter to carry. I feel kind of bad doing that, but I literally might die if I don’t. We officially met all of the porters when we got the campsite. We have 2 cooks, 6 guys carrying our backpacks and sleeping bags, was well as 4 people carrying the tents, and 10 people carrying all of the food that we will eat. Each porter is only allowed to carry 25 kilo, a law set in place by the Peruvian Government. There are several checkpoints and sometimes some of the bags need to be rearranged. I was shocked that the guys were a range of ages from 21-48 years old. Most of them had children and families back home. Almost all of them only wore sandals- which blows my mind. Our cook recently won a race the same distance and parts of the Inca trail that we could be hiking over four days. He completed the race in 3 hours and 45mins. That’s pretty astonishing because we hike at least 5 hours a day for 3 days straight and about 3 hours on day 4. We had tea and popcorn at 5pm and played cards for about an hour. At 7pm we all had dinner which was trout, rice, and veggies. I wasn’t a huge fan of the meal, but I knew I needed to eat something. We were all tired and have a long hard day ahead of us so we went to bed at 9pm.

Bye for now. Pray that I make it through tomorrow!

Love,

Katie

Gotta Get Out Those Hiking Shoes!

Dec 18^th

Although I wouldn’t consider it “sleeping in” waking up at 7:15am felt great after getting up everyday in the five o-clock hour in the Amazon. I finished packing and got ready for my hike. I was still a little bit nervous to not know anyone and I was especially nervous that my bag was going to be overweight even though I tried my hardest to only pack the essentials. I headed downstairs at 7:45am and weighted my bag in the lobby with a scale that was provided for us. I quickly realized that I was right and my bag was too heavy so I tried to shift things around, the worst part was that I still had not put my sleeping bag in my duffel bag, which will add at least another kilo. I did the best that I could and crossed my fingers then put my regular backpack in storage.

Breakfast was included with our room, but I didn’t have much time to eat since I had spent so long trying to reconfigure my bag situation. I grab some yogurt and granola and sat with the Canadians.  They seem really nice, they all definitely know each other so they already have a bond, but they were all very welcoming to me.

Soon after I had a few quick bites it was time to leave. We all carried our duffels to the van and formed an assembly line passing our bags to Mario who would then throw the bags to the top of the van where the driver would secure them down. As Mario received my bag he made a grunting noise and said “that ones definitely overweight.” I hoped it wouldn’t be more of an issue and jumped in the van and we were off.

            

First stop was at a spot known as “sexy momma” were we saw Peruvian culture and saw the work of the Incas even though huge amount of the stone work was destroyed by the Spaniards. There was also have a statue of Christ, I think they call it ‘Blanco Christo,” that looks very much like Christ the redeemer.

Next stop was at a small Peruvian village where the women make many wearable things. We saw the process of getting the wool, dying it, spinning it into yarn, and making clothing out of it. The women in this particular village are the wives to the porters who will be carrying our bags. We saw many of the towns’ children. I feel bad that their lives are hanging around while their moms sew and sell things to tourists and that all they really have to look forward to is growing up to do the same thing. Our guide, Mario, explained to us how important the tourism dollars are to these people and pointed out the improvements that have been made to many of the local house, from cheap material to bricks with real roofs. We all laughed because a couple of the houses even had satellite TV- so we all concluded that we must be getting ripped off. I still had no cash and had done my shopping the day before so I looked around and took some pictures.

From there we headed to lunch. We went to a Peruvian buffet with all organic food. I tired many typical dished, but wasn’t a huge fan. We have learned a lot about the food here, for example Peru has 3,000 different kinds of potatoes. The Incas also were very smart with growing crops and did all sorts of things to make different kinds of crops grow at different levels of land. I’m quickly starting to realize how smart and civilized these people were even thought they lived thousands of years ago. I was lucky enough to be able to charged the whole bill on my credit card and took the cash solving my ATM dilemma. I was so relieved!

Our next stop was to get our energy. We stopped at a local bar and all tried two types of corn beer, one plain and one with strawberry. I thought the plain one was horrible, but the strawberry one was quite tasty. Mario showed us the typical way to drink here in Peru, spill a little on the ground to start off to give thanks to mother earth, blow on the beer to gift thanks to the spirits, and lastly cheers to everyone. We also played a typical drinking game that was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, but loved the game. Basically you get gold coins (a little bigger than quarters) and throw it at this draw-looking table that had different holes. In the center there is a frog with an open mouth. Each hole has a different point value and the frogs’ mouth is the highest point. You stand back about 7 feet and throw the 12 gold coins towards the table, when your finished you open the draw and count up the points depending on which hole you got the coins into. The scores are recorded and tallied at the end. I was really bad at the game, but had a lot of fun playing. I need to find one of those games for home!

Once we had lots of energy we were ready for our first real ‘hike.” Which was 200 steps up to the Sun God Shine.  This was the first time we got to see the work of the Incas up close. I was impressed to see two “men” carved into the side of a mountain. This blows New Hampshire’s “Old Man in the Mountain” out of the water. The mans faces are located so that the sun shines perfectly on them in the morning and also so that the southern cross constellation is ideally located next to it. The hike wasn’t too bad, lots of steps which I hate, but Mario seemed to think that we all did well and that we’d make it up Machu Picchu. The next few days will be the true test.

After we returned to the bus for a two-minute bus ride to our hotel. We settled into our rooms. I am luck and again got a double room all to myself so I spread out and tried to decide what I should do to make my backpack lighter. I also took a quick shower.  We had the rest of the afternoon to do what we wanted and the group really wanted to bond so we decided to decided to grab a few bottles of alcohol and sit in the open courtyard and get to know each other. I was really glad to get to know everyone better. The group seems great; I really enjoyed hearing about peoples’ lives and travel stories. We grabbed some dinner at a local restaurant that was nothing special and shared each other company. I think this is going to be a really fun trip, even if the hiking does kill me.

I went to bed at 11am, knowing I would need to rest up and have my energy for the long day of hiking ahead of us!

Bye for now.

Love,

Katie