Ancient History, Volume XIX

In the last installment, I covered the end of the Inca Trail, and all things Machu Picchu. THIS installment has the alternate title "Why you should always purchase travel insurance". And it's going to be wordy, and light on the pictures, simply because there aren't any. So I'm going to randomly insert gifs to make it seem less traumatic than it actually was. It's also weird to write, because it's far more Ness' story than mine... (HI NESSA!! <3) But I digress.

Considering most of the group had participated in the Machu Picchu Challenge (aka staying up for a full 24 hours, drinking), the majority stuck fairly close to the hotel. Ness, in particular, was coming down with a bug and feeling decidedly under the weather, so I brought her large quantities of bottled water, and then headed out with a couple of the non-hungover group members to wander around Cusco. After a trip to one of the markets, where I bought a pair of silver and lapis lazuli earrings for about $15, we headed to the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art. This was equal parts brilliant and hilarious.

The one and only proper picture you'll get here.

The objects were great, but the labels? SO CONFUSING.My absolute favourite? "This ceramic pot from 2500BCE demonstrates clear Cubist and Post Modernist influences". Um. Either the curator who wrote that label was incapable of distinguishing between BCE and CE, or the potter was a Time Lord... *head explodes* Eventually, we abandoned the museum and headed back towards the hotel, as the plan was to head out as a group at 2pm to eat guinea pig.

But by the time I got back to our room, Ness was throwing up and shivering uncontrollably, so I had our tour leader call a doctor. By the time our tour leader arrived, Ness was having heart palpitations, and I was freaking out, to the point of "OMG WHAT DO I DO????" tears. At 2pm, the rest of the group headed off to eat guinea pig, while I stayed with Ness, waiting for the doctor to turn up. She eventually turned up at 2.30, and almost immediately had a heart rate monitor on Ness's finger, telling her that she had a heart murmur and that she was going to phone an ambulance.

Said ambulance never turned up, so we ended up going to the travel clinic by taxi. Therein followed three hours of EKGs and pumping Ness full of drugs while I filled in paperwork and cried. Oh, they also asked us a crap ton of times if she'd been taking cocaine. Uh, NO. But apparently cocaine use is the most common cause of tachycardia in people under 30. WHO KNEW?! At around 6pm, they told me that the drugs weren't stabilising her heart like they'd hoped, and that they needed to transfer her to the ICU at an actual hospital. They also told me that they couldn't get hold of the insurance company, and would I sign a form stating that her family would pay the $3,000 US for the ambulance if the insurance company wouldn't cover it?

Things that are not much fun: signing that form. Things that are even LESS fun: Riding in the front seat of an ambulance. In Peru. Where they drive like lunatics. I thought I was going to die at least a hundred times. At the hospital, the doctor who'd been with us all day told me that she had to go back to the clinic, but that I should stay outside the ER bay in case there was a language problem. This is the point where it would have been helpful to mention that the only Spanish I know is "Una daiquiri fresa, por favor", and "La quenta, por favor". Neither of which were much help in this situation... After about an hour of standing outside the ER bay being useless (and still crying), a woman came up to me and started babbling at me in Spanish. I told her that I didn't speak Spanish, and she gestured for me to follow her. In the ER waiting room was our tour leader, who told me that he'd spoken to the doctors, that Ness had been stabilised, and that we were going back to the hotel. In the taxi en route to the hotel, he told me that I had to phone Ness's mum and tell her what had happened. So I lost my shit again. And then rang my dad and made him do it, because I knew I wouldn't be able to talk to Ness's mum in a coherent fashion.

This? Was basically me for that entire afternoon AND the next three days:

The next morning, the soggy mess that was me dragged myself out of bed and bid farewell to the rest of the group, who were heading off to the Amazon. The representative of the tour company in Cusco came to help out, and took me to the hospital that afternoon. Turns out Peruvian ICUs are terrifying - you have to wear surgical gowns, and there were priests wandering around giving the Last Rites, and the nurses were giving everyone celery leaf tea. I still don't know why. At the end of that day, we still had no idea what was going on, because the doctor spoke hardly any English, and the tour company representative wasn't allowed in the room while I was there (one visitor at a time).

The NEXT morning, I got up and phoned the Australian Consulate in Lima. This happened:
Woman at the Consulate: Buenos dias, Consulato Australiano, habla Nicole.
Me: Uh, yes. Buenos dias. Habla Espanol? No. Crap. Shit. That's not right. Habla... Oh fuck it, do you speak English?

Keeping it classy, as always. She DID speak English, incidentally. And was not surprised in the slightest to hear Ness's name (thank you, DFAT!) She said that she'd call the hospital and email me when she knew what the deal was. Shortly thereafter, I got an email saying that Ness's doctor had said she needed to be evacuated to Lima ASAP. That night, I got a phone call from the tour company representative to say that we were being flown out by medevac the following morning, and that our luggage would need to go by cargo plane, because there wouldn't be room on the medevac.

Of course, at this point, we STILL had no idea what the problem was, apart from that it was something heart related. So being evacuated to a better hospital wasn't particularly reassuring. The following morning, I got to the airport, only to be left completely alone in a freezing cold waiting room for an hour and a half. I became increasingly paranoid that they'd flown without me, but eventually a non-English speaking guy rushed into the room, indicated that I should grab all my stuff, and ran me through the airport. This is how I ended up on the runway, holding my stuff in one hand, and my jeans up with the other (because there was no time to put my belt back on after security), being laughed at by a group of Peruvian Air Force officers.

Turns out said officers were our pilots, which led to Ness yelling "I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE THE AIR FORCE!!!!!!!!!!" and bouncing up and down with excitement while they were trying to load her into the Lear Jet. This made the medical staff a little disturbed - apparently you shouldn't get excited when you have an unexplained and unpredictable heart problem. WHO KNEW?!?!? Nessa - in case of future hot air force personnel in emergency situations, let's try for this instead:

Thankfully, the flight to Lima was uneventful, despite the defibrillator that was between me and the doctor. The only problem was that I was supposed to stay at the airport and collect our luggage from the cargo terminal. But we landed at the Air Force base across the road from the airport, and the only way off the base was in the ambulance. So I took a little detour to the hospital. Upon arrival, I was told that I had a phone call. Which seemed kind of weird, because no one knew I was there. But when I picked up the phone to hear "Yeah, g'day, this is Chris from Covermore Insurance in Sydney, how's ya goin'??" in the most bogan, Mick Dundee accent imaginable, I nearly burst into tears again.  He told me that Ness's mum was on a plane to Peru and due to arrive the following evening. This made me feel SLIGHTLY less guilty about the fact that I was due to board a plane to Ecuador first thing the following morning, despite the fact that I'd had Ness, my mum, her mum, our travel agent, the tour company representative AND half a dozen friends tell me that I should keep going with the remaining six weeks of the trip.

I stayed at the hospital until Ness was admitted to the ICU, and then headed back to the hotel in the helps of persuading our tour leader to come with me to the airport, simplifying that whole Kirsti Doesn't Speak Spanish thing. Sadly, he was elsewhere, but several other members of the group - one of whom could at least construct a sentence in Spanish - tagged along for a trip to the airport and back, with a detour via the domestic terminal when none of our phrase books proved helpful with translating "cargo terminal". Thankfully, a helpful LAN employee was able to give the driver directions, and it took us a mere TWO HOURS to get to the airport, get the bags and get back again.

Various other people in the group were going to be staying in Lima until after Ness's mum arrived, so they promised to visit Ness in hospital and look after her pack, which made me feel marginally less guilty. And so it came to pass that I boarded a plane to Ecuador, still with no idea of what was wrong with Ness, other than vague "Oh, it's a heart problem thing" discussions with the doctors. But Ecuador shall have to wait for the next installment (for which I'm sure you're all grateful).

Incidentally, if you want to read this whole saga from Ness's perspective, including what happened after I left, it's here.

TL;DR version: 
1. Cost of travel insurance: $150. Cost of medical evacuation to Australia plus ambulance and hospital stays: probably $500,000. It's worth the $150, just in cases.
2. Don't call on me in a crisis. I just cry all the time.
3. Contact the Consulate in case of an emergency.
4. Learn to do more in the language of the place you're visiting than order alcohol and ask for the bill.
5. Seriously, just get travel insurance. And make sure you're listed as travelling companions with the insurance company.

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XVIII

If you missed the last installment, Mrs. Watermelon got publicly humiliated, and I saw the world's most epic rock.

Day 4 of the Inca Trail started with a 4am wake up. Yup. FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Don't these people know that nothing good ever happens after 2am?? (Name that sitcom!)

Anyway. We were dressed, packed and in the lodge by 4.30am, where the porters had very kindly made us pancakes for breakfast to lessen the "OH GOD, WHAT TIME IS IT???" feelings of doom. Then, after a visit to the moth-ridden bathroom (and if you think THAT didn't cause me to have a minor nervous breakdown, you'd be wrong), we set off towards Machu Picchu. IN THE RAIN.

We reached the final checkpoint at about 5.15am, which was something of an issue because they didn't open the gate until 5.30am. Nothing quite like standing around in the rain going "Dammit, I could have had another 15 minutes of sleep..."! *sigh*

Anyway, the gate was eventually unlocked, and we had a delightful hour and a half's stroll to the Sun Gate. I say 'stroll', because there were 200 people walking in a line in the dark, so it was pretty slow going. On the plus side, after the first half hour, it was getting light enough that we didn't need to use our stupid headtorches any more. Such things are always a plus.

The only tricky bit of the walk was the climb up to the Sun Gate, because you have to go up a flight of 'monkey stairs' - really steep and narrow, and basically you had to use your hands to keep yourself moving. That was followed by a couple of steep flights of stairs up reasonably big hills. We finally got to the Sun Gate at about 7.10am.

Now. The idea of getting you up at stupid o'clock and making you hike in the dark is that you get to see the sun rise over Machu Picchu and go "Oooooooh". Instead, we saw this:

Not actually from the Sun Gate. But you get the point.

Yup. More rain. We stopped at the Sun Gate for all of ten minutes before the head guide announced that he didn't think it was going to clear up for aaaages and so we may as well head down to Machu Picchu. That took about 45 minutes, because it was downhill on rocks that were extra slippery thanks to the rain. I MAY have had a couple of little "Oh crap, I'm sliding and am going to fall off a cliff and die" moments. (Obviously, I didn't fall off a cliff and die. Although being the world's first zombie blogger would be quite an achievement..........)

By the time we reached Machu Picchu, it was PROPERLY raining. So we headed for the cafeteria, and spent an hour or so hanging out under patio umbrellas, eating overpriced second breakfast, and waiting for a break in the weather. Our tour leader clearly didn't have high hopes for it clearing up - he took our passports and $20 each, and set off into Aguas Calientes to try and change our train tickets so that we could go back the next day if it didn't clear. But thankfully, by 9am, it had eased to drizzle and we were able to set off on the tour.

And because I don't really remember much of the detail from the tour (BAD ARCHAEOLOGIST), have a bunch of pictures. WHEEEEEEEEEEE:

The tour took about an hour and a half, and then we had two hours free before we had to be on the bus down to Aguas Calientes. So a bunch of us decided that we'd climb the smaller of the two peaks that rise behind the site (the one that's going off the left side of the frame in that last photo). It was only about a 15 minute walk to the top, but the trail was pretty narrow and winding, and there were occasional scrambles over tree branches and rocks and stuff. But the view from the top? Totally worth it.

When we'd finished marvelling at the view, we meandered through the site on our way to the bus.

See that little V in the mountains? That's where the Sun Gate is.

The bus ride to Aguas Calientes was a LITTLE hair raising, due to a millionty hairpin bends. And I'm sure the day visitors really appreciated how delightful we all smelled after four days with no showers. After a lunch of pizza and beer (hey, we deserved it!), it was time to head to the train station.

Oh. AND. The culmination of the Watermelons saga: after she was stretchered to camp on the third day, she declared that she would walk on the fourth day. She made it to the Sun Gate, and basically gave up. The two guides that were with them had to stretcher her down to the medical station at Machu Picchu to get her checked out. Then one of the guides had to go back UP to the Sun Gate to get Mr Watermelon. Because he'd been so worried about his wife over the past three days, that he'd forgotten to drink enough water. And so he'd basically dehydrated himself to the verge of a heart attack. So the guide had to PIGGY BACK HIM DOWN THE MOUNTAIN. And THEN? The SAME guide had to walk back up there AGAIN to get their bags. And the Watermelons spent the whole day at the medical station, and didn't get to see Machu Picchu at all. So yeah. That happened.

(Incidentally? I'm pretty sure that "So yeah. That happened" is going to be the title of my hilariously witty and completely hypothetical autobiography...)

The train ride back to Ollantaytambo ended up being kind of hilarious. Because there were lots of tunnels. And Ness and I were listening to her iPod, which decided to play "Scotty Doesn't Know". So whenever we went through a tunnel, all we could think of was "Mi scusi!" (name that movie), and we'd fall about in fits of hysterics. I'm not so sure it was particularly funny to anyone ELSE on the tour. But WE sure as hell had a good time!

That night, after quite possibly the most welcome shower I've ever had, we all headed out to Inka Grill for dinner. If you're ever in Cusco, GO TO INKA GRILL. Seriously. The food is fantastic, and if you order guinea pig, it comes to the table with a little crown made of red capsicum/bell pepper on its teeny tiny creepy-looking head (We didn't order guinea pig, hence the lack of photos. Someone at a nearby table did though). Oh. And order the warm chocolate tart. You won't regret it.

After dinner, we went out for a few well earned drinks. And several people tried to complete the Machu Picchu challenge - staying up for the full 24 hours and drinking. After one (free poured, and therefore disgusting) vodka raspberry, I caved and headed for bed. At least I got a good night's sleep before the unexpected drama (HI NESSA!!) that was to come the following day... Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun: to be continued.

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XVII

If you missed the last post in this series, you should probably go read it. Because Day 3 of the Inca Trail won't make a whole lot of sense if you haven't read about Day 2. Just sayin'...

Day 3 started much like Day 2 - coca leaf tea in the tent at 6am, and me attempting to convey that the smell of it was making me gag, so could they pretty please take it away now? Day 3 also started with the liberal application of Dencorub in an attempt to make my legs actually work. This had the downside of meaning that I spent the day smelling like an arthritic old lady. On the UPSIDE, it masked the fact that I'd hiked about 25 kilometres in the past 56 hours, and hadn't showered in that time...

The less than spectacular view from our tent. Those tufts of grass in the front?
That was a ledge. It was really fun trying to get out of the tent without falling off.

Breakfast was at 6.30, and we were back on the trail by just after 7am. We were heading for the second main pass, which was thankfully not a millionty kilometres uphill, like Dead Woman's Pass on Day 2. At about 7.30, we overtook the Watermelons. They'd been made to start walking at 4am again. Can we all just stop and marvel at the fact that within 25 minutes, we overtook the people who'd been walking for nearly 3.5 HOURS????? Yeah. That happened...

About half way up the pass, we came to an archaeological site. It wasn't the most fascinating of locations, but it was conveniently located at the "If I have to walk one more step, I will cry/scream/collapse" point, so the half hour break there to explore was much appreciated!

I may have gotten all "The canyon of the crescent moon"-y when I saw the shape of this.

From there, it was a fairly hard slog up to the second pass. But our tour leader conveniently located himself behind me, and may - at times - have actually resorted to pushing me towards the top. Between the crescent moon temple-y thing and the summit, we passed into the cloud forest and things gradually became foggier, which was kind of fun. Somewhere along this second slog, I located the most amazing thing I saw between the start of the trail and Machu Picchu:

"Fuck you all for walking on me" (my boots for scale)

Yup. It's a rock that looks like it's flipping people off. (No one but me noticed this. I'm so glad I took a photo.)

Eventually, we reached the top, and the head guide informed us that there was an archaeological site a few hundred metres down the other side of the pass. It turned out he meant a few hundred metres in ALTITUDE, not in distance. So it took a little longer than we anticipated to reach the site. But it was totally worth it when we got there. 

To get into the site, you had to climb up a really steep, narrow set of stairs cut directly into the rockface. We had about half an hour to explore on our own, and then the head guide gave us a talk about the history of the site. I remember it being fascinating, but not a single thing about the content. Whoops?

From there, the trail passed through a campsite, where the most spectacular thing of ever happened.

I wish I'd been brave enough to take pictures of it like someone in the group did. But I was too busy marvelling at what was happening: Mrs Watermelon - the bane of everyone's existence - was carried through on a stretcher by four of the porters. Not, you understand, because she'd injured herself. Just because she was so far behind that she was physically incapable of catching up. The porters thought it was HILARIOUS. And we, to be perfectly honest, did too.

As we finally contained our "OMG DID THAT JUST HAPPEN???"-y behaviour, the head guide told us that it was about an hour's walk from where we were to the spot where lunch would be served. And that lunch wouldn't be served until 12.30. As it was only around 10.00, there wasn't much point in walking quickly. So we took our time, enjoyed the scenery, took lots of photos, and got super excited when the trail tunnelled through a rockface.

Yup, Ness and I are wearing three day old clothes. Whatever.

After a lunch of quinoa soup and alpaca spaghetti, we were relieved to learn that the afternoon was almost entirely downhill. And rather a LOT of downhill - we dropped 800m in altitude between leaving the lunch spot and arriving at camp! The afternoon took us, for almost the first time, along old Incan roads. So that was amazing. Even more amazing, but somewhat demoralising, was the fact that you were constantly being overtaken by porters, who were carrying 25kg loads, and RUNNING along the trail. Usually wearing sandals... 

Our campsite that night was just near the Incan site of Wiñaywayna, so when we got into camp, we headed along a path to check that out. It was pretty awesome, although I didn't go down to the bottom for fear of not being able to walk back up the stairs again! 

The campsite that night had a lodge (PROPER INDOORS!!) and a bar, so we made the most of that while we were waiting on dinner. After dinner, we had a thank you presentation to the porters, in which we all had to introduce ourselves. Each of the unmarried women got a huge cheer, which was kind of hilariously awkward.  The porters who'd had to lug Mrs. Watermelon down a million flights of stairs got an extra large round of applause. 

And then it was off to bed for some well earned rest before our 4am wake up call and the final trek into Machu Picchu. But that's a story for next time.

Questions of the day: would you rather walk uphill for a million hours or downhill for a million hours? (One kills your thighs, the other kills your knees and ankles) And would you have laughed at Mrs. Watermelon being carried past on a stretcher? Or am I an evil bitch who's going to hell for laughing?

Oh, and most importantly: have you ever seen a rock making inappropriate hand gestures????

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XVI

If you missed the last episode, it featured the first day of the Inca Trail and you should probably go and read it first so that you're not horribly confused. Just saying... (Also, this is going to be light on pictures, because we've gone over our internet downloads, which means uploading happens at 2002 speed. So...sorry.)

On the morning of Day 2, we were woken at about 6.15am by the porters banging on the outside of our tents and offering us coca leaf tea. While coca leaf tea is meant to help with altitude sickness, it mostly just made me feel nauseated, so I spent about five minutes trying to convey that I wanted hot water instead of tea. We had to be up and packed and in the mess tent by 6.30, which meant it was kind of a rush to do while juggling hot beverages. But there was porridge and pancakes calling to us (not literally, because that would be creepy...), so it wasn't too much of a struggle.

We started out along the trail at about 7.15,  and even the slog from our campsite up to the control point was painful. We saw a bunch of people (note: I did not say 'passed'. We SAW them as *they* passed *us*) doing it with full packs (there were porters carrying ours), and I still have no idea how they didn't die.

From the control point, the climb to Dead Woman's Pass started. And it was absolute and utter Hell. Within a terrifyingly short period of time, Ness and I had fallen behind. The only person we saw from our group was one of the guides, who'd been sent back to walk with us and "improve his English". As his English was pretty good, that was probably code for "make sure the girls who didn't do anywhere near enough training don't die, because that would be bad". So poor Eddie had to crawl along at a snail's pace, listening to me wheeze like an old set of bagpipes.

The Andes are HIGH, y'all. (Note: we did not actually climb this)

We finally reached the first designated rest point just before 11.00. On the plus side, about ten minutes before that, we overtook Mr and Mrs Watermelon. After their less than stellar performance on Day 1, they'd been made to start walking at 4.30 IN THE MORNING. So at least after that, we knew we weren't the absolute slowest in the group!! About 15 minutes after we got into the rest stop, Mr and Mrs Watermelon arrived. They sat down next to us, and within a couple of minutes, we heard snoring. Mrs Watermelon had toppled over sideways and was fast asleep. So that was...interesting.

As great as it was to reach the first rest stop, the problem was that from there, you could see up to Dead Woman's Pass. And it was A MILLIONTY MILES AWAY. As we were leaving the rest stop, we ran into the head guide. He told us that at our speed, we were probably about another hour and a half from the summit. That was more than a little depressing. And from this point on, the trek was actually WORSE. Because you'd reach a hundred metre-ish stretch of flat ground and convince yourself that it was the top, only to turn a corner and see another stretch of uphill ahead of you. 

About half way between the rest stop and the summit, I lost my shit and burst into tears of exhaustion and pain and "I don't want to do this any more". At which point Ness demanded that I stop before she start crying too. Shortly after that, it started to get colder, which made things even more uncomfortable.

We eventually reached the summit of Dead Woman's Pass (4,215m/13,828 feet above sea level) at about 1.15pm. The head guide was waiting for us, and informed us that Mr and Mrs Watermelon were still about two hours away, so that was a small moment of smug. The summit was FU-REEZING, so we stayed long enough for a photo and a celebratory Sublime, and then headed down the other side.

Don't I just look so thrilled to have another hour and a half to walk?

The other side was straight downhill. I lost Ness not long into the downhill section, because I got stuck behind a group of rude Scandinavians. Turns out the downhill part was much easier going, but also really freaking hard, because any time I stopped for a drink or to take a photo, I could feel my legs shaking uncontrollably. And I knew if I stopped for more than a few seconds, I wouldn't be able to keep going. Basically? I have very few photos from Day 2.

We eventually staggered into camp at about 2.45pm, and were brought MASSIVE plates of food, which was more than a little welcome. The afternoon was spent playing more cards, and eating enormous quantities of popcorn. At about 5.30, we found out that Mr and Mrs Watermelon were SO far behind that porters had had to run back with food supplies. They eventually staggered into camp just as the rest of us were sitting down to dinner, and were taken straight to their tent on the verge of collapse.

The evening was spent playing more cards, including a game called 'Nervous', which involved slapping other player's hands. After several rounds resulting in bruises, it was decreed that all rings must be removed before someone ended up with a broken bone...

And so ended the second day. Well. Apart from the fact that when we finally left the mess tent to head to bed, the stars. Oh my God, the stars. I've never seen anything like it. And I imagine the only time I'll ever see anything like it again is when The Doctor turns up and takes me for a wee jaunt in the TARDIS.

So yeah. If you're wondering whether to do the Inca Trail? Day 2 will nearly kill you. But the stars make it totally worth it.

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XV

If you missed the last installment, it featured Incan sites, baby llamas, and the most annoying woman of EVER - Mrs. Watermelon.

The first day of the Inca Trail started at the ungodly hour of 5.15am. We were at breakfast by 6.00, with the intention of being on the road by 6.30. In the end, it was more like 7.00, which was extra irritating because I could have done with an extra half hour's sleep! We drove to Ollantaytambo (where we'd been the previous day) and stopped for second breakfast. Because apparently going on an epic trek turns you into hobbits?

We finally reached the starting point - Kilometre 82 - at about 10.00. There followed an enormous photo taking exercise - photos had to be taken with everyone's camera to document the event:

That's Mr and Mrs Watermelon on the far left. Some of us MAY have cut them
out of the photos to more nicely centre the sign...

From there, we headed through passport control and set off along the trail. About 10 minutes in, we had to stop and wait for Mr and Mrs Watermelon to catch up. And we were waiting longer than we'd been walking before they appeared. This proved a terrible omen for how the rest of the trek would pan out... On the plus side, it gave us plenty of time to take photos of Mt Veronica, which is 5,860m high and therefore picturesquely covered in snow:

Eventually, it was decided that we should just keep walking and one of the guides would stay behind with Mr and Mrs Watermelon. So we ploughed on without them. Eventually, we came to our first challenge: a climb which increased 50m in altitude over 200m. So basically, it was like walking up a 200m long flight of stairs. It was a test for the rest of the trek, and there was a time limit of half an hour to get to the top.  If you didn't reach the top in that time limit, they'd send you back and get you a ticket on the train to Aguas Callientes instead. Thankfully, we made it in under the half hour, and there was a nice view over an archaeological site at the top, so at least there was something nice to look at while you got your breath back!!

We walked for a couple of hours, and eventually came to a village where we stopped for lunch. Lunch was quite funny because there was a group of piglets running all over the place and tripping everybody up. Luckily they were super cute, so no one minded too much!

The afternoon was much the same, except with an increasing number of hills as we got closer to the first campsite. Ness and I finally plodded into camp at about 5.15pm, which was some ways behind everyone else. But two full hours ahead of Mr and Mrs Watermelon. TWO. HOURS. As the first day is only 13 kilometres and largely flat, this REALLY didn't bode well for the following day... Apparently the guides had tried to persuade her to get a horse to the camp site and save her energy for Day 2 (on the first day, the path goes through a bunch of small villages, so there are horses everywhere. I was not impressed by this, being terrified of them). She refused. As a result, the guides were...not impressed with what happened on Day 2 and Day 3.

Not long after Ness and I got into camp, we were called to the mess tent for afternoon tea - mountains and mountains of popcorn and tea. Once we'd run out of popcorn, we broke out the cards and played approximately a millionty rounds of Shithead until it was time for dinner, just after Mr and Mrs Watermelon finally staggered in. Dinner involved purple corn pudding, which can best be described as warm, unset jelly/jello. Mmmmmm, DELICIOUS. (Except not)

Then it was back to playing cards until about 9pm when we decided it was probably a good idea to go to bed. This involved a trip to the toilet.

Super attractive hiking fashion

See that little shack in the right top corner? That was the toilet. Getting there involved avoiding tents and trees and trying not to trip up a hill using fairly useless head torches. Using the toilet was...an experience. It was a drop pit squat toilet. And lots of people had missed the hole. The resulting smell led to rather a lot of dry retching on my part. And then, while I was waiting for Ness to gag her way through a trip to the toilet, I spotted a freaking TARANTULA wandering along the ground. This understandably caused me many panicky "MUST KEEP TORCH ON IT AT ALL TIMES SO I KNOW WHERE IT IS" feelings, closely followed by "RUN AWAY AS FAST AS POSSIBLE" feelings.

So yeah. An excellent night's sleep was had after that..........

Next up, climbing the steepest effing mountain of EVER, and everyone is grateful for a lack of tarantulas.
K xx

Ancient History, Volume XIV

In case you missed the last installment, it covered Puno and an awkward homestay on Lake Titicaca.

The morning after we returned from the homestay, we got up to discover that there was no hot water in the hotel because the hot water heater had burst. Shortly thereafter, the water was turned off full stop. At least we were still able to brush our teeth due to the need to use bottled water for such things!

So it wasn't a particularly enjoyable six and a half hour bus ride, particularly when there was only one stop (and therefore one toilet break!) on the entire drive. Upon arrival in Cusco, it was pretty much a sprint to the showers. Although not before Nessa and I discovered that, unlike the rest of our group, our room was a dungeon with some kind of medieval padlock on the door. It was impossible to get open in a hurry, and once you eventually got the lock undone, you had to go down about three stairs to actually get into the room:

That evening, we had our briefing for the Inca Trail, and met the four people who were joining our group. There were two couples, who were quite a bit older than the rest of the group: one couple were sweet and hilarious and in their 40s. The other couple? Were a millionty years old, and very VERY annoying. Okay, technically it was just HER that was annoying. She was loud, unfit, and got everyone's names wrong right up until the end of the tour. After about 10 minutes in her company, I mentioned quietly to various members of the group that she was going to annoy the living shit out of me. I was promptly told to not be so judgemental and to give her a chance.

Within 24 hours, almost every member of the group had come up to me to say that yes, I was right and she was the most annoying person on earth. Needless to say, I got ever so slightly I-told-you-so-y. We decided that we needed a safe word so that we knew to suddenly stop talking if they came up and we were bitching about them. After a day or so, the safe word became synonymous with their names, and we just called them Mr and Mrs Watermelon instead... (Not to their faces, obviously!)

The following day started with a trip to Saqsayhuaman. Our guide for the day promptly informed us that it's pronounced "sexy woman". It's super awesome and historic and HOW THE HELL DID THEY MOVE THESE ENORMOUS STONES?!?!?!

Yet another unflattering photo of me for scale

Minus me so you can appreciate the awesomeness

More of the site

It would be even more awesome if the people of Cusco hadn't used it as a quarry up until the mid-20th century... ANYWAY. You also get a pretty spectacular view of downtown Cusco from Saqsayhuaman:

By the time we'd finished there, my inner archaeologist was flailing with excitement (Lor: this is kind of like when Ana's inner goddess does a samba, only much more awkward and nerdy. And not over a creepy stalker weirdo). We then headed up to Tambomachay, which was some kind of Incan spa or shrine to the water gods. Or both. Jeez, archaeologists. Make up your minds...

From Tambomachay, we went out to the Sacred Valley, which is pretty spectacular:

...and then to a llama/alpaca/vicuña education centre. Which basically ended up being "OMFG Mrs Watermelon is making us all stabby. Thank God there are baby animals here that we get to feed":

It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!! 

Eventually, we were dragged away from the babies left the education centre, and drove into Pisac where we were set free on the market and had empanadas for lunch. Om nom nom nom nom. Lunch was followed by a trip to a chicha brewery. We were given samples of chicha, which is completely and utterly vile, and - if I remember correctly - slightly chewy... Call me weird, but fermented beverages should not be chewy... There was also strawberry flavoured chicha, which was equally disgusting. The chicha brewery also had a room full of tasty snacks/adorable pets:

They're guinea pigs, in case you can't tell...

Our final stop of the day was Ollantaytambo, which was a royal Incan estate, and is super dooper awesome and amazeballs. Especially if you have an inner archaeologist:

Those are Incan storehouses about half way up the mountain. SUPER PRACTICAL!

After a couple of hours of me flailing around like an excited idiot and the rest of the group going "Hey, that's kind of old and nifty", we headed back into Cusco. Our tour leader issued us with our bags, sleeping mats and walking sticks for the Inca Trail (eek!!) and we spent a delightful evening packing by torchlight, because the hotel conveniently had a blackout. It was excellent preparation for the next four days. Or something...

Next up: The Inca Trail, on which Mrs Watermelon gets even more crazy and annoying, and on which I think I'm going to die.

K xx

Ancient History, Volume XIII

If you missed the last installment of the story, it featured hot springs, Andean condors, altitude sickness, and head-eagles. And a good dose of drunken singing by the numerous Australians in our group.

The following morning saw us getting up at stupid o'clock to catch a bus from Arequipa to Puno. A number of people (including our tour leader!) were still drunk, so the bus ride was...interesting. It was also filled with truly terrible movies, including The Game Plan, in which The Rock discovers he has a kid. Really quality stuff.

Our first afternoon in Puno mostly consisted of food, if I remember correctly. And an awful lot of television. The following morning, we piled into pedal trikes and headed for the docks. I'm fairly certain our trike driver nearly died of a heart attack through overexertion getting us there.

Super flattering photo. Except not.

From there, we boarded a boat and headed out the floating islands on Lake Titicaca. The floating islands are really nifty. For starters, they FLOAT. And the Uros people live on them! Just bobbing around with a shit ton of water underneath you. Kind of like a boat, only it's a giant boat that's made of stuff that decomposes pretty quickly... The islands are made out of the local reeds with peat underneath, and they're anchored to the floor of the lake. The local people showed us around, and gave us some of the local barley bread to try. Along with the reeds they use to build the islands. They taste like celery (aka DISGUSTING)...

Demonstration of how they build the islands.

We then had a trip on a reed boat to another island, which caused me to panic that the entire thing (the boat, not the island) was going to fall apart under my body weight and I would drown in Lake Titicaca. Logic: sometimes, my brain lacks it.

The boat in question

Unsurprisingly, the boat was completely sturdy and made the trip without any problems at all. On the second island, we got back on a boat that had a motor and allowed us to be more than 2 feet from the water, and had a trip of several hours to Amantani Island, where we were to have an overnight homestay. Upon arrival at Amantani, we were divided into groups. Ness, Sydney Sider, and I met our host mum, and attempted to make small talk via the A5 sheet of paper we'd been given listing various Quechua phrases. It did not go particularly well...

She took us back to the house and showed us to our room. Soon, her 11 year old daughter came home from school, and attempted to make conversation with us in Spanish. We'd done some basic phrasebook type Spanish before leaving Australia, but being able to order beer or ask for the bill really doesn't help that much in a homestay situation... Especially when Spanish is a second language for both sides of the conversation. #AWKWARDTURTLE

After a lunch of quinoa soup, potatoes and grilled cheese (YUM!), we were taken up to the local soccer pitch. Playing soccer at altitude is not an enjoyable task. Or so I hear - I was having trouble breathing just from walking up the hill to the soccer pitch, so I sat on the sidelines and laughed at the misfortune of others made encouraging comments.

Following the soccer playing (or lack thereof), it was time for a 'little' walk. Trying to climb a mountain at altitude is not fun at the best of times. But when you're being followed by a small child playing Frere Jacques (badly) on the panpipes? That kid was lucky he didn't get punched in the face... From the top of Pachatata, you could see clear across the lake to Bolivia, and we got to see a pretty spectacular sunset/moonrise:

Back at the house, we had dinner and met the rest of the family. This included a toddler, whose name we never learnt but who we nicknamed Squealie due to her...exuberant nature. After dinner, our host mum came into our room and assisted us in putting local costumes on over our clothes. There were many many layers involved, and I ended up with a super attractive boob shelf.

I conveniently don't have a photo of myself in this attire.
So here's one of Ness instead. Sorry Nessa...

Then it was a walk up another giant hill (in the dark!) to a dance with every tourist on the island. Turns out? Running around a room in some kind of conga line for fifteen minutes at a time AT ALTITUDE? Not real fun. Well. It WAS fun. It was just hard to breathe by the time we finished. After a few hours of "Oh God, I can't breathe", it was back to the house, where we passed a freezing cold night under about a hundred layers of bedclothes.

The following morning, the three of us bade a fond farewell to our host mum and Squealie (the others already being at school/work), and the entire group boarded a boat back to Puno. We had the afternoon to ourselves and, as someone had a copy of the Lonely Planet, a few of us decided to check out their recommended sights in Puno.

One was a total waste of time, but the other? That featured a statue of the first Inca, and a pretty spectacular view:

Next up, travelling from Puno to Cusco, a whole bunch of historic stuff, and our group gets some exciting new additions. (And when I say 'exciting', I mean 'batshit crazy'...)

K xx