The Andes, February 4th-8th

4th
We left our hotel in Lima at 3:30 am. (!) to catch the plane to Cusco, where we arrived at the hotel at around 7:30 am. We had coca-tea with coca leaves (yes, THE coca-plant.. the stuff that used to be in Coca Cola...) because it is good against altitude sickness, and Cusco is at app. 3400 m. over sea! I unfortunately spent the first day being sick because of the altitude.. Our guide told us that normally 60 % feel sick within few hours after arriving at these heights, and this first day was meant for us to get used to the altitude. It was amazing how you could tell the difference - apart from feeling sick - I got short of breath just by going up the stairs to the 3rd floor! There´s not a lot of oxygen in the air up there...

5th

On Thursday, we began our trip going to Sacret Valley to see the Incan site Pisac and the village Ollantaytambo (pronounciation: "OOOOjantajtambo" with the face and high pitch voice of an old Kung Fu fighter....;-D ). We drove a minibus through beautiful landscapings and passed by a small village that GAP Adventures (the agency that arranged the trip) helps by giving them lamas and alpacas (a sort of lama, but it only gives you 1,5 kg. wool every 2 years, so it´s VERY expensive, and also very soft!) so the women can get wool to make products + letting the men work as porters for GAP in the different trips they do.

Later on, we saw 2 different Incan sites: the first one was Pisac with the Sun and Moon Temple, where we had the first try-out "hiking" for about an hour (already then, I was thinking to myself that I had gotten myself into a mess by going on this hiking-trip - I was SO short of breath... I actually think my loungs are too small......;-) ). It was very impressing to see how the Incas had built their important buildings (temples etc.) with techniques that could save them from getting destroyed in earth quakes. Look at this wall from the Sun Temple at Pisac:

It is not straight but leaning inwards so the walls could support each other in case of an earth quake. Also, the floor was made with poles and filled with pebbles - in that way, the shocks from the earth quake would fade out - VERY hich tech! Actually, some Japanese ingeneers have studied these buildings to use the same techniques in Japan...
We also visited Ollantaytambo, which was originally called Tambo, which means something like "protection", since this village was situated between 3 important places in the Inkan Empire, and protected the main entrance. The important and religious buildings are made from very smooth stones that they had cut out to fit into each other perfectly (like Lego). That is, there is nothing keeping the rocks together - they simply fit perfectly!

Some of the rocks they used weigh around 90 ton(!), and to me it is still a mystery how they could have dragged these rocks to far and to these altitudes! We stayed at a hotel in Ollantaytambo, and for dinner, we had the most cheesy pizza I´ve ever had - I LOVE cheese, but that was cheese with pizza, not pizza with cheese....!:-D Ollantaytambo is in 3800 meters altitude, and we knew we had to hike even higher..!

6th

We got up early to drive for 3 hours from Ollantaytambo to the entrance of the Lares Trek. We passed by 4500 meters altitude and knew, that we would hike up to that same altitude the next day... At the camp, our porters (we had porters to carry 6 kg. per person in a duffle bag) and chef made us a very tasty lunch that we had in a tent, and then it was time to begin our hike! We started around 1pm and had 3 hours going up and 2 hours going down ahead of us.. Not long after we had set off, we felt the Andean weather; sudden rain! So we got our rain ponchos on (luckily, I had also put on my waterproof pants, which turned out to come in handy) and kept going. I could have cried and wanted to turn back several times already going up this first hike, but when we reached our pass of the day at 4100 meters, I forgot about the pain instantly - it was so beautiful to see the two valleys between the tip that we were on.

It is funny to be at the same altitude as the clouds, and somtimes even above them. Hiking these mountains, you see both rain and sunshine (mainly rain, since it´s the rainy season), small rivers and water falls, rocky and hard soil and swompy and lush valleys, a lot of lamas, alpacas and goats, small local children dressed in traditional peruvian clothes (and often the small children didn´t have any shoes! I´ll tell you, it was VERY cold, so I could imagine that they must have had no sensation left in their poor, small feet..) who we would give some bread that we had bought for them. They live in small houses that are built the same way the Incas did it 500 years ago!!

7th

We got up around 6am after not getting a lot of sleep..:-S We went to bed early the night before(around 8pm), but still, sleeping on a thin air mattress in a claustofobic sleeping bag, constantly sliding downwards because we were on a hill, are not great conditions for a night of rest. Anyway, we hiked for around 5 hours (including breaks!) - of course, my brand new hiking boots gave me blisters, but they were not too bad... When we got to our lunch camp, the crew had already passed us by and had put up a tent and made delicious food! They had also put up what some people would call a hole in the ground with a small tent around it, but which was actually the bathroom....... hmm.. I kept thinking I had tried worse at the Roskilde Festival, but in the end, this was worse..:-S

Anyway, after a wonderful 2-hours lunchbreak, we continued our hike going upwards for 3 hours towards our higest pass of the trip; nearly 4600 meters! It was great to know that we had finally reached the highest point! From thereon it was only going downwards! It was great to finally reach our camp at 4100 meters around 5pm, and even tough not everybody was feeling too good, I think we all had a great afternoon/night, before we hit the pillow around 8:30pm.

8th

We slept in late - until 7am! Still without a lot of sleep, but we only had a 3 hours hike left down the mountain, so I tried to enjoy it as much as possible. But even though I would have sworn that I prefer to go down rather than going up, 3 hours of going down is actually kind of tough on your tired legs... Well, we arrived to a small village where our minibus was waiting for us, and we drove back to Ollantaytambo for a lunch break. It was great..! After that, we caught the train to Aguas Calientes near Machu Picchu. It was an old looking train with panoramic windows in the ceiling so we could enjoy the beautiful view of the mountains on the 1/2 hour trip. We went into the high jungle, as it is called, and it was funny to see, how the landscaping became more and more lush and green as opposed to the rocky mountains we had been used to, without many trees or bushes. We arrived to our hotel in the town Aguas Calientes around 6pm, and Jess, Gav, Lasse and I went straight to the hot springs (from that the name Aguas Calientes) before dinner. It was.... well, hot, but it also felt like bathing in a gigant bowl of chicken soup because of the smell and the muddy water.. Jess, Gav, Lasse and I went for dinner with our guide, and Jess and I had alpaca-meat (the lama-like animal). It tasted great! Like a mix between lamb and beef...

Well, we went early to bed, ´cus we had to get up at 4:30am the next day to get to Machu Picchu. But that´s another story:-)