Where to begin, probably most of you on Facebook are aware that the day didn't quite go as planned, and the night just slightly worse. So I'll pick up where Chip left off, we were sitting in a van, on the wrong side of a landslide somewhere high in the Andes. A couple pieces of equipment had been brought in an were starting to clear the huge amount of rock and dirt blocking the road in front of us. From a distance it looked to be about a 950 Cat sized loader, pretty decent size machine. Fog and rain kept rolling through the area, and all you could hear was a diesel engine, and rocks rolling down the hillside below. After a few hours, the road was clear, and then the real chaos began, Peruvians are some of the worst, most impatient drivers Ive seen in all my travels, easily on par with South Koreans. I'm not stereotyping, this is all from personal experience. One lane was opened first, and the cars, trucks and vans started making their way through. There was a very long line, due to the road being closed for 7 hours or more, there are no easy ways around in this area. Finally we were able to continue heading down the mountain, and made it to a restaurant for our lunch/dinner stop. From there it was 3 more hours to our destination. Many of you know how much I enjoy riding motorcycle through twisty mountain roads, but you should also know how much I HATE being a passenger in a crowded van traversing those same types of roads. Add to that the overly loud Spanish music, limited airflow, and obnoxiously loud young passengers, lets just say I wasn't my usual cheerful self. Just sit back, close my eyes, and think of better times, knowing that this to shall pass.
So you can probably imagine how happy I was to be dropped off in the darkness around 10:30pm just before the rain started to fall, with our only instructions being a rough hand gesture towards some train tracks saying "camino dos hours" Walk two hours??? The trip we were sold arrived at this location at around 2pm, with the option of a 20 minute train ride along the river, to a town with hot spring where we could soak and relax our evening away before a good nights sleep and a morning bus ride up to Machu Picchu for our guided tour, pure tourist style. Now, lets snap back to reality, I realize the landslide would be called "an act of God" and beyond the control of the tour operators. (do people not realize that good things are "acts of God" as well?) But after spending 14 hours in a van with 19 other people, and being dumped out into the darkness at the end of the road and told to walk the last 2 hours to your destination, its hard to see the silver lining of the clouds, which just happened to arrive shortly after we started walking and begin to dump their wet cargo on the 50plus miserable soulss trudging up the railroad tracks lit by few people who though far enough ahead to bring flashlights. Luckily our new friend Dick was one of those people. I was equipped with great rain hiking gear, a cotton t shirt, and a down jacket. Things started looking up when I found a perfectly intact plastic bag that I could put my jacket into to keep it dry. As the air cooled, we just kept walking faster, building enough body heat to keep warm as the rain increased. You just get to the point where you accept your fate, walk two hours, which turned out to be about 7 miles. My opinion is that any walking distance over 30 minutes needs to be given in distance, not time. Because I'm pretty sure our 2 hour walk, took less time than many of the other's 2 hour walk, and we all ended up at the same destination.
Once we arrived in Aguascalientes after midnight, soaking wet, we realized we had never been told the name of our hotel that was booked and paid for. We spent the next hour trying to reach the tour company to find some information, finally we were given the name of the hotel. The next challenge was to find it, Which we soon did, with the help of a cop. We woke up the front desk of the hostel and were showed to our room, the three of us walked in and stripped down to our skivvies, hanging up all our clothes to dry, which they didn't, and crawling into our twin sized beds, still wet. We woke up at 6am to a knock on the door, it was our guide, he needed our passports to buy our entry tickets into Machu Picchu, he asked when we wanted to go, and since we could still hear the rain pouring outside, we said later, much later, and went back to bed. I later walked out to the balcony, in my underwear and a down jacket, and saw the front desk guy. Asked him if he could throw some stuff in the dryer for us, he said yes, so I went back, to the room and grabbed all of our wet gear and handed it to him. About 45 minutes later, all our clothing was delivered back to us, warm and dry. We got dressed and headed out to the bus station to buy our tickets. Our passports had been returned with our entry tickets, which was good, because they were to be used heavily today. Present passport to buy bus ticket, walk across street, present passport and newly purchased but ticket to get on bus, arrive at main gates after 30 minutes bus ride up incredible switchback road with awesome views, present passport and entry ticket to get through main gates, then walk out into Machu Picchu. I don't think anyone hasn't seen pictures of this place, and its still breathtaking as you round the last corner on the path and it all comes into view. We followed our tour guide and learned quite a bit about the place, pretty amazing. We took pictures, and then rode the bus back down the mountain to catch the train back to Cuzco. We changed our ticket back to Cuzco for an earlier train ride so it wouldn't be dark on the way out, a different train than the one we missed the day before. This one was a 2 hour ride in the opposite direction, that ended with a 2 hour van ride, but thankfully not through the mountains this time. Arriving back at Hotel Kamilla we found our bikes were still there and untouched, our laundry was clean, and there were hot showers to be had. After cleaning up, it was off into the rainy night again in search of dinner in the downtown area, then back to our nice warm beds for a well deserved good nights sleep.
So to sum it all up. Not every day is picture perfect, and when you're faced with a night hike your unprepared for things can look a bit sour. But when you accept your fate and start putting one foot in front of the other, you start to see some good things. A plastic bag to keep your down jacket dry for later, a warm bed, putting on clothes fresh from the dryer, real coffee, and the clincher was a perfect day at Machu Picchu, rain on the way up, rain on the way down, and sunshine while we were there. They told us it has been socked in with fog all week. So it all started with a landslide, and ended up with big smiles, and a fresh check mark on each of our bucket lists. So, "act of God" yep, it was, all of it. And I thanked him for it.
Now for pictures
 |
| Somewhere in the Andes |
 |
| Do I really have to caption this one? |
No comments:
Post a Comment