My Own Planet

Only in D.C.
Overheard while jogging through my neighborhood amongst a gaggle of trick-or-treaters:

Mom: Ooh, that house over there looks creepy! Have you ever seen ghosts coming out of it?
Kid: No, but they do have an Obama sign.

Dad #1, inspecting the costume of Dad #2's baby: Ben Bernanke, right?

Questions I am pondering today

-Why does the Conde Nast subscription department hate me so much? First there was the war with Vanity Fair; now, after two years of a problem-free subscription to Domino, I suddenly find myself in the midst of a similar battle. I didn't receive my August issue, and when I e-mailed to see if I could get a replacement, they told me they'd just extend my subscription by a month. Which isn't really the same thing, but whatever. The September issue arrived as usual, but then my October issue failed to materialize. I just logged on to see what the problem was, and apparently my account status is classified as "Undeliverable." What does that even mean? I am seriously considering never subscribing to another Conde Nast magazine again. Except I really kind of like Domino and also often use it for inspiration for work. Grr.

-Why does everyone on Gossip Girl insist on calling Jenny "Little J"? I mean, it's not like there's a "Big J" that they need to distinguish her from. Is the "Little" just supposed to reinforce the fact that she's younger than the rest of the cast? And if that's the case, why don't they call Eric "Little E"? Actually, why isn't Eric in the show more? And, most important, where the heck is New York magazine's recap of this week's episode?! (UPDATE: I found it. It was tagged under "The Greatest Show of Our Time," rather than the more impartial "Gossip Girl." Silly me.)

-Why does everyone act like Project Runway's Christian Siriano introduced the word "fierce" to the public consciousness? It's not that I don't love Christian Siriano and all of his pocket-sized gay-ness, but come on. We need to give credit where credit is due. And I believe you'll find that Tyra Banks was using "fierce" on America's Next Top Model way before Christian Siriano was even a blip on the pop-culture radar. Ditto with the Fug Girls and "hot mess." Sorry, Christian. The truth needed to be told.

Saturday, 10.4: Lima to Miami
The next morning, after checking out of Red Psycho Llama, we lugged our backpacks out to the main drag to try to catch a taxi to the airport. We were running a little behind because Bri had had to make a last-minute ATM run before we left the hotel, and the first few taxis we flagged practically laughed at us when we requested a trip to the airport. Just as we were about to give up and have the hostel phone us an official taxi, we managed to snag a ride with what was perhaps the most “unofficial” taxi we rode in during our entire stay in Peru. The trip to the airport seemed much farther than it had in the official taxi (although what the driver had to gain from taking the scenic route, I have no idea, as we negotiated the fare with him before getting in), and as the minutes ticked by, I began to get more and more nervous about whether we’d be able to board the plane in time. Just as I was teetering on the edge of full-on panic, we pulled up to the airport.

Bri’s ability to make Peruvian men swoon continued to pay dividends at the check-in counter when her gate agent upgraded us to the first row of coach, which meant we had tons of leg room. Unfortunately, it also meant that the gaggle of misbehaving children sitting in first class (who were these spoiled brats, sitting in first class before they’d even reached the double digits, age-wise?) treated the area around us like their own personal playground. They were constantly running up and down the aisles, flinging aside the first-class curtain (Bri: “I swear to God, if that curtain touches me one more time…”), and even cutting through the area between our seats and the wall in front of us, where our TV screens were. At one point, three of the little brats even stood right in front of Bri’s seat, completely blocking the movie she was watching. She told them to move, and they whirled around, obviously surprised to see that there was an actual person there. Of course, their parents, who must have been zonked out on Valium or something not to notice the havoc their children were wreaking, did nothing to control their behavior. Needless to say, we were monumentally relieved when the plane touched down in Miami.

Because of our primo seating assignment, we were among the first ones off the plane, and we breezed through passport control and customs, and headed up to check in our bags for our next flight. We grabbed dinner at Chili’s, which was only marginally less gross than the Sbarro dinner we’d had on our last stint at the Miami airport. Since Bri’s plane was leaving a bit earlier than mine, I walked her to her gate, where we bid each other farewell until the next Excellent Adventure, one that (spoiler alert!) will not involve squat toilets. Thank God.

Friday, 10.3: Lima
I was roused from sleep just a few hours later, when Bri got up to go to the bathroom. When she came back to the room, two French girls followed her in. Bri cleared our stuff off of the extra bunks, and they spread out and went to sleep, which was mildly disruptive, but not nearly as disruptive as the impromptu party the night before. Still, this only added more fuel to my growing distaste for youth hostels.

We woke up for good a few hours later, and tried not to disturb the French girls as we got ready. After a surprisingly decent hostel breakfast that was miles above what we’d been served at the Mildew Shanty, we headed out to the main drag to browse in some of the stores in Miraflores. The day was cold and drizzly—more Seattle than South America—so we soon found ourselves back at Café Zeta, where we braved the uncomfortable chairs in the name of warming ourselves with fancy coffee drinks.

We decided to grab a cab downtown, both because we wanted to see the city center, and because we were on the lookout for a jewelry market that Jessica, my Peruvian co-worker, had told me about. The first few cabs we stopped refused to take us to the Plaza Mayor, and when we finally managed to find a willing driver, we immediately saw why the others had refused—the traffic was horrendous. It took us the better part of an hour to move across town, but since we didn’t really have anywhere to be, it was a good opportunity to scope out all the people peddling stuff on the side of the road. Unfortunately, we didn’t find a peddler as random as the one we’d seen in Cusco, who was selling mops on the sidewalk. Our driver, however, did slow down to buy a drink from one of them.

We finally made it to the Plaza Mayor, where we wandered around for a while, admiring the architecture (apparently it’s often Seattle-like in Lima, which is why most of the buildings on the square are painted a cheery yellow) before trying to find Jessica’s jewelry market. We didn’t have much luck, but we did come across an adorable band of Peruvian schoolchildren wearing fur headdresses and dancing around in a circle while someone played the recorder. (Apparently dressing up in costume and going out into the town to do something cute is an important part of the Peruvian school day—we’d also witnessed a parade of costumed schoolchildren while we were in Cusco.) We eventually gave up on the jewelry market and decided instead to get something for lunch. We were pretty close to Chinatown, so we decided to try some “chifa,” which is what the Peruvian interpretation of Chinese food is called. However, we couldn’t seem to find the official Chinatown (I later discovered that the map we’d been carrying was about three blocks off in its placement of Chinatown), so we settled instead for a random Chinese restaurant, where the food tasted pretty much like you’d get in any Chinese restaurant in the States. So much for chifa.

We didn’t really have anything left on our agenda in Lima (truthfully, we were both kind of ready to get the heck out of this lackluster city by that point), so after a bit of last-minute shopping in Miraflores, we headed back to the hostel to read magazines and nap until it was time for dinner. We walked to a restaurant a few blocks away that was recommended by the guidebook, and enjoyed our last glass of chicha morada with dinner, followed by our last pisco sour at a sidewalk café across the street. (The drinks really were the best part of Peruvian cuisine.) Once we’d drained the last frothy, sweet-tart sip from our glasses, we headed back to the hostel to turn in for the night.

Continue to Day 16: Lima to Miami

Thursday, 10.2: Huacachina to Lima
The next morning, Bri and I ate breakfast at the pool at a table adjacent to Marika and Urich. (Bri had confessed to me after dinner the night before how much she thought Urich resembled Christopher Knight from The Brady Bunch, and I was unable to look at him that morning without wanting to burst out laughing. Thank God she waited until after dinner to point out that comparison.) After breakfast, we put on our swimsuits again to lounge by the pool until it was time to leave for Ica. Our blissful relaxation was hampered, however, by one of the German women from our buggy the previous day, who had taken a liking to one of the hotel’s resident parrots, and was carrying it around on her hand while squawking back at it every time it made a noise. Even if we hadn’t been a little pissed at her for cutting our sandboarding trip short, this still would have been beyond annoying, so we weren’t too sad to leave our poolside perch behind and get to the bus station a couple hours early again.

Enamored with the tres leches cake at Anita’s, we decided we would buy our bus tickets and check our bags, then head over there for another slice while we were waiting for our bus to leave. Just as we were leaving the bus station to head down to the café, though, a rent-a-cop who had been hanging around near the counter stopped us and began trying to tell us something in Spanish. We indicated that we didn’t speak much Spanish, but he didn’t speak any English, so he mimed stealing something from Bri’s daypack. We figured he was just telling us to be careful of pickpockets on the streets of Ica, so we nodded and thanked him, and went on our way.

At Anita’s, we sat at the exact same table and had the exact same waiter (who, if he thought it odd that two American girls came into his restaurant two days in a row to order the exact same dessert, didn’t let on). After savoring what we knew would be our last piece of Anita’s tres leches cake (sigh), we headed back to the bus station, stopping briefly at an Internet café so that I could look up the address of our hostel in Lima so we’d know where to direct a cab driver. Back at the bus station, we’d just settled in for the rest of our wait when the Peruvian Barney Fife approached us again, this time asking that we pay him 5 soles for “securing our luggage.” Since we’d already been through the luggage check-in process back in Lima, we knew this charge was bogus (in fact, I’m not even sure what Barney Fife was doing at the bus station—it was barely bigger than my apartment, so it’s not like it really needed policing) and flatly refused. He finally left us alone, but we kept a nervous eye on our bags for the rest of our wait, worried that he might steal something from them in retaliation.

On the bus ride back, instead of a double feature, the attendants passed out cards for a game of bingo, which I chose to skip in favor of a nap. We did get to see one movie, Chasing Liberty starring Mandy Moore, which was by far the best movie we watched during our hours of Peruvian bus travel, which is pretty sad. As we got closer to Lima, the traffic began to pick up, and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to wait until we reached the station to use the bathroom like I’d hoped. (Not that there was anything wrong with the bus bathroom, but it was a little difficult to manage while riding down the bumpy highway.) In retrospect, though, I’m glad I was forced to use the bus bathroom, because it was there that I encountered one of the most hilarious translations I’ve come across in my travels: On the trash can, there was a sign reading, “Please do not hurl the sweepings into the bin,” which was clearly translated by someone with easy access to a thesaurus.

It was dark by the time we reached the bus station in Lima, and we hailed a cab to our digs for the evening, a hostel called Red Psycho Llama. Although we’d reserved a private twin room, the guy at the front desk assured us that we’d be much more comfortable in one of the more conveniently located dorm rooms, and since they were hardly booked up for the evening, we’d have the whole thing to ourselves anyway. We agreed, and settled into our new digs, which were pretty cramped, with three bunk beds wedged into a fairly small room. (Also, the beds didn’t have blankets, forcing me to use the one I’d bought for my parents.) With no one else but us in the room, though, we were able to spread out our stuff on the beds we weren’t sleeping on.

After a quick consultation with the guidebook for restaurant recommendations, we took to the streets to Miraflores to try to find something for dinner. Our first choice, a hip coffeehouse called Café Zeta, was fairly crowded and had insanely uncomfortable metal chairs that were way more fashionable than they were functional, so we ended up next door at what appeared to be their sister restaurant, Adios Chow. After feasting on American diner food, we wandered around Miraflores a little bit before returning to the hostel.

After a quick e-mail check, I decided to take a shower before heading to bed. Although our dorm-room setup meant we had to use the shared bathroom, there was literally no one else staying on the entire floor, so again, it was like having a bathroom all to ourselves. Only I couldn’t quite get the water temperature where I wanted it, and that, in combination with once again having to dry myself with a cheap, completely non-absorbent kitchen towel, led me to make the following declaration to Bri upon returning to the room: “I am almost 30 years old. It’s time for me to realize that I am no longer a youth, and therefore should not be staying in youth hostels.” I knew I’d likely end up eating these words on a future Excellent Adventure (you really can’t beat youth-hostel prices, and some I’ve stayed in, such as Refill Now in Bangkok, have been really awesome), but at that point, I felt I’d reached my youth hostel threshold of tolerance.

Little did I know that that threshold would soon be tested again—although there were very few guests at Red Psycho Llama to make much noise (and, thankfully, no makeshift disco like at the Mildew Shanty), I guess whoever was working at the front desk, which was conveniently located just below our room, thought it would be a good idea to invite their friends over for some late-night carousing. Neither my earplugs nor my iPod (with noise-canceling headphones) were particularly successful in drowning out their excessively loud conversation, and so I tossed and turned until roughly 3 a.m., when the noise-makers finally went home.

Continue to Day 15: Lima

Wednesday, 10.1: Huacachina
Our sandboarding tour wasn’t scheduled to leave until the afternoon, so we decided to devote the morning to some well-deserved R&R. After being woken up by the resident macaw, we ate breakfast by the pool and then decided to see what the town of Huacachina looked like in the daylight. It was slightly less eerie with the sun shining, but still relatively deserted—on our lap around the lagoon, we probably only saw about 10 people.

Back at the hotel, we put on our bathing suits and took our books and iPods out to the pool to lounge in the sun. Although the water was quite chilly, and there was still a bit of a nip in the breeze, the bright desert sun was hot enough to entice us to wade into the pool for a few quick laps. While we were swimming, a German girl, Judith, came to dip her toes in the pool, so we chatted with her about our travels so far.

We needed to make an ATM run, so we decided to go into Ica to have lunch. Still thinking about the ceviche we’d had in Lima a couple of days before, we had looked up the address for a cevicheria in Ica before leaving Huacachina. However, after wandering up and down the dusty streets (which were completely chaotic thanks to the multitude of tuk-tuk-like taxis with flashing lights and blaring sirens designed to attract riders), we were unable to find any signs of a cevicheria, and headed back to the main square to eat at a café called Anita’s, which also came highly recommended by our guidebook. We were immediately tempted by the mouth-watering desserts lining the bakery case at the front of the 1950s-style café, and finished off our lunch with a piece of divine tres leches cake. After lunch, we decided to walk to the bus station to see if we could buy tickets for our trip back to Lima the next day. The ticket window was closed when we got there, though, so we hailed a cab back to Huacachina to get ready for sandboarding.

At around 4:00, we gathered in the lobby with the rest of our sandboarding group: Judith, whom we’d met earlier, plus a Dutch couple, Mariska and Urich, and an Irish girl whose name we never learned (but whom I thought of as Eve, because apparently assigning random names to Irish people was sort of a hobby for me on this trip). We all climbed into the huge dune buggy and motored slowly (and loudly) through the streets of Huacachina until we reached the entrance to the dunes—then our driver let it rip! Suddenly, we were on a rollercoaster without a track, bounding up and down steep hills of sand at breakneck speeds. Unfortunately, the initial thrill was over all too soon, as we had to stop and help another dune-buggy driver from our hotel who seemed to be having mechanical difficulties.

The two drivers finally managed to get the errant buggy working again, and we took off on another heart-pounding spin across the dunes. This time when we stopped, it was for our first attempt at sandboarding. Our drivers offered little in the way of instruction, simply loading the sandboards out of the buggies and indicating that we were to strap them to our feet. I had a sudden attack of nerves and decided to wait until everyone else had gone first so that I could go down a part of the hill that wasn’t quite as steep. Of course, that turned out to be the spot where everyone else chose to walk back up, so I had to wait even longer for them to move out of the way. Once I gathered up my courage enough to edge my board down the hill, I managed to stay standing for all of 5 seconds before tipping over onto my butt. It was impossible to get back up again without the board sliding down the sand, so I decided to just turn over onto my stomach for the rest of the way down the hill, which was fun despite the copious amounts of sand that stuck to my face and flowed down my shirt. When I got to the bottom of the hill, Bri was just getting ready to start her second run. She managed to stay upright as she soared down most of the dune, but wiped out just before the bottom, also getting a face full of sand.

I guess figuring that we’d cut our teeth on the “bunny slope,” the drivers took us to a much steeper hill next. It looked deceptively gradual from where we were standing, but I could tell there was a major drop-off after about 20 feet or so. I didn’t realize exactly how much of a drop-off it was until I saw Urich and Eve, like tiny little dots, waving up at us from the bottom of the hill after they’d slid to the bottom. Gulp. Once again, I was the last one to go as I screwed up every ounce of my courage. And once again, I fell on my butt after about 5 seconds. Not wanting to sift half of the Ica desert through my shirt again, I decided to take this run sitting upright, which was awesomely fun. Until, that is, I decided to express the awesome fun-ness of it to everyone else by throwing up my hands like I was on a rollercoaster. Free from my clutches, the sandboard stayed behind without me, and I went careening down the hill on nothing but my butt. Unsurprisingly, that trajectory didn’t last long, and soon I was tumbling shoulder over shoulder down the dune, during which I heard a terrifying cracking sound. I somehow managed to stop myself from tumbling (just in time to look up and see my board soar down past me on its own) and sat up, fearing that I’d broken my collarbone or at least ripped my shoulder out of its socket. Yet everything still seemed to be in working order, and so I ran down the hill to meet the rest of our group.

A German woman in the other buggy, however, did not escape so luckily. We didn’t actually see her fall, but suddenly she was there on the ground next to her buggy, clutching her shoulder and writhing in pain. One of the drivers managed to coax her up to a sitting position, but when they tried to load her into the buggy, she cried out in pain. They decided that it would be easier for her to get into our buggy, which was much lower to the ground, so our group joined an Israeli couple in the other buggy. All of the Germans, save two women, piled into our former buggy and rode back into town with their friend. Once they were safely on their way, our buggy took off again, taking the hills at a slightly more sedate pace this time. The driver stopped at the top of a large hill and asked, “Sandboard?” Bri and I had our hands on our seatbelts, ready to jump out of the buggy and give it another go, when the German women practically screamed, “No!” Bri and I looked at each other, both unwilling to be the one to pipe up and say, “Uh, actually, yeah, we’d like to do it again.” I mean, yes, the accident had left us all a little shaken, and I could certainly understand the reluctance of the German women to continue sandboarding while their friend was injured (although had I been in their position, I might have, I don’t know, gone with my friend to the hospital instead of continuing the sandboarding tour), but we’d come all the way out to the desert primarily for this experience, and we weren’t ready for it to be over so quickly. Before we could muster the courage to pipe up with a dissenting opinion, though, Urich loudly agreed with the German women, and the rest of the buggy nodded in assent. Even more unwilling to be in the minority now, Bri and I kept our mouths shut. We took a few more turns over the hills in the buggy, stopped to snap some photos of the sun setting over the desert, then returned back to the hotel.

Although our trip was cut short, we still received a celebratory (free!) pisco sour from the hotel bar when returned, which went a long way to lift my spirits. As we sipped our drinks, Bri and I chatted with Urich and Marika and the Israeli couple, Tomar and Carrin, about everything from our favorite movies to the healthcare systems in our respective countries to the economic crisis (a favorite discussion topic on our trip, as the American economy was literally collapsing while we were traipsing around Peru). After a while, we decided to all get dinner together, and went our respective ways to get cleaned up beforehand.

Once we’d managed to remove most of the sand from our bodies (I say “most” because I was still finding sand in my ears for days afterward), we met back up with the two couples in the lobby and set out in search of a restaurant. Our options were obviously limited, so we went for Italian again, despite Bri’s aversion to the idea of eating Italian food in Peru. (Personally, I reasoned that if there were so many Italian restaurants in the country, it was just as much a part of their culture as the restaurants serving Peruvian food.) You’d think that after our lengthy chat over pisco sours, we wouldn’t have had much left to talk about, but we ended up staying at the restaurant until nearly 11, discussing a variety of topics. (Our dinner conversation was a bit lighter, though, trending toward recounting reality TV shows—apparently Extreme Home Makeover is very popular in Israel—and comparing driver’s licenses.) By the time we finally left the restaurant and parted ways at the hotel, I think we were probably the only people still awake in all of Huacachina. (Never mind the fact that the six of us probably constituted approximately one-fifth of the town’s total population.)

Continue to Day 14: Huacachina to Lima

Tuesday, 9.30: Lima to Huacachina
Completely underwhelmed with the city of Lima, we were anxious to get on to our desert adventure. So after another unappetizing-but-free breakfast and one last e-mail/Facebook check, Bri and I bid the Mildew Shanty a very welcome farewell and hailed a taxi for the bus station. We got there a couple hours before our bus was scheduled to depart, but we figured it was better waiting around at the clean bus station than at the Mildew Shanty. We checked our backpacks (yes, there was a bag check at the bus station—they don’t fool around with their buses in Peru) and then headed up to the snack bar to get something to eat (and, in my case, to be endlessly amused by the sign on the counter offering pieces of “pye”).

At around 1:00, we got in line to board the bus and were soon settled in our seats on the top level. As indicated by the baggage check, bus travel in Peru is a lot like plane travel—the seats are big and cushy (bigger and cushier than plane seats, actually), and there’s even beverage and food service. So maybe bus travel in Peru is like plane travel used to be. However, there was one similarity between Peruvian buses and their American counterparts—their fondness for showing awful movies. Our selections on the ride down included Along Came Polly (bad) and Last Holiday (worse). Incidentally, the bus I took from D.C. to New York earlier in the year also screened a Queen Latifah movie. What is it with Queen Latifah movies and long-distance bus travel?

Anyway. Other than a brief stop in Paracas (which we decided looked very nice, and had us wishing we’d built some time for it into our itinerary), we cruised right down the coast to Ica, arriving shortly after dark. Bri and I hailed a taxi at the bus station to drive us the 5 miles or so to Huacachina. No sooner had we turned out of the bus station, though, than we got pulled over by a cop, and the cab driver got out of the car to talk to him. I guess whatever offense he’d committed had been minor, because he soon got back in the car, and we were on our way. He tried to talk us into booking him for a winery tour the next day (Ica is close to Pisco, where they make the famous liquor used to make pisco sours), passing us a book filled with testimonials from other travelers, but we demurred, and somehow managed to get out of the car without being roped into it.

We’d made reservations at El Huacachinero, one of the few hotels in town, before leaving the Mildew Shanty, so after checking in and dumping our bags, we decided to have a little look around the town of Huacachina, which was our first introduction to the eeriness of it. Huacachina is this tiny little desert oasis that was once the resort town of choice for Peruvian royalty (it was so popular that a picture of it even appears on one of their currency notes), but is now pretty much deserted except for the backpackers who come in search of cheap accommodations and the chance to go dune-buggying and sandboarding in the desert (which was totally why we’d come, too). When we were there, there didn’t even seem to be that many backpackers, so after wandering up and down the street (and being followed by a stray dog who, while nice enough, was no Hermie the Worm-Eating Dog of Chiang Dao), we decided to just go back to our hotel and eat. We stopped at the front desk to book our sandboarding tour for the next day, then gave in to the Italian-food pressure (it seemed even more prominent in Huacachina than elsewhere in Peru) and ate pasta by the pool before calling it a night.

Continue to Day 13: Huacachina

Monday, 9.29: Cusco to Lima
I felt a little better the next morning when our alarm went off at another ungodly hour (which we definitely felt the brunt of, having slept in the previous morning). We were out the door before 6 to catch a cab to the airport for our 7:30 flight. Since the Cusco airport is relatively small, I figured we’d be fine arriving just an hour or so before our flight, but it turns out that I seriously underestimated the number of tourists who would be fleeing Cusco first thing in the morning—the check-in line at LAN was huge. It didn’t help that a horde of Japanese tourists managed to get in line right in front of us, although their Peruvian tour guide’s outfit (a striped velour tracksuit with a cartoon dog appliqué) did provide us with much amusement as we fretted about whether we’d make it on the plane. Somehow, we made it through the check-in line, the airport tax payment line, and the security line just in time to dash onto our plane before they closed the gate. (The only casualty was Heather’s red windbreaker, which she accidentally left in the security bin.)

The plane was late taking off, though, so I continued to fret about whether Heather would have time to make her connection in Lima to her Miami flight. Fortunately, her backpack was one of the first off the belt, and the check-in line at the Lima airport wasn’t nearly as long, so she was able to get away just fine. Once we’d seen her off, Bri and I decided to head back upstairs to the food court to regroup and see if we could find a hostel for the evening. We’d decided that we wanted to stay in Barranco, which was supposed to be a hip, artsy neighborhood along the coast, but when I called our first-choice hostel, they didn’t have any rooms left. I moved on to our second choice, which did have a double room available, so we grabbed a taxi from the taxi stand (“I think this is the first actual taxi we’ve ridden in during our entire trip,” I told Bri as we pulled away from the airport) and headed for our backup choice, The Point.

Bri had sent me a link to The Point before our trip, but I’d pooh-poohed it because it seemed like too much of a party place. But the guidebook’s description of it (rooms in a colonial mansion, hammocks in the courtyard, free breakfast and Internet) seemed decent enough, so I wasn’t concerned when we ended up having to book there. Once we arrived, however, it was immediately clear that my first impressions of The Point were correct—it was a total party hostel. And not just a party hostel, but the type of party hostel where everyone’s so intent on partying that they don’t care if everything around them is dirty, shabby, and broken. In other words, the kind of place I wouldn’t have chosen at 19, much less 28. But we were already there, so I decided to give it a chance.

I consoled myself with the thought that at least we had a private room. Our private room, however, was not in the guidebook-specified colonial mansion, but rather in a rudely constructed shack on the edge of the courtyard, adjacent to a ping-pong table. (Bri: “I could have built this myself.” Me: “I could have built this myself this afternoon.”) The rickety little room barely had space for two beds, and neither the industrial carpet covering the floor nor the dim bulb encased in an old wicker shade did much to add atmosphere. Nor, for that matter, did the permeating smell of mildew, although it did lead us to nickname the room “The Mildew Shanty.”

Needless to say, we were eager to get out of the Mildew Shanty as quickly as possible, so after helping ourselves to the less-than-appetizing dregs of the free breakfast and doing a quick e-mail/Facebook check (during which we looked at pictures from my 10-year high school reunion, which had happened while we were at Machu Picchu), we decided to head to the Cruz del Sur bus station to see about buying tickets for our trip to Ica the next day. We probably could have waited and bought tickets just before departing, but we didn’t want to take any chances, and besides, it’s not like we had much else planned for our time in Lima.

After we purchased our tickets, we decided to take a taxi to Larcomar, an upscale shopping center built into the edge of a cliff over the Pacific Ocean. It was pretty nice, so we spent quite a while there, looking around in the different shops (which were a little too pricey for me to justify buying anything) and grabbing a snack at the food court. Since we knew our hostel was relatively close, we decided to walk back along the road bordering the ocean.

When we arrived back at the Mildew Shanty, I was pretty tired after our walk (which ended up being a little longer than I’d bargained for) and was ready for a nap. However, while paging through the guidebook trying to find ideas for dinner, we realized that the one thing we’d been looking most forward to in Lima—eating ceviche—would soon be impossible, as cevicherias tend to only be open during the lunch hour. I located one a few blocks from the hostel that was open until 6, so although we were pretty tired and not all that hungry after our food-court snack, we booked it over there for an early dinner. (This proved to be a good decision, as the ceviche was delicious.)

On our way back to the hostel, we wandered around the neighborhood a bit to see if we could find a place to buy towels, as neither of us particularly wanted to remember our time in the Mildew Shanty with the towels emblazoned with The Point logo that were for sale for a pretty penny at the reception. Our search didn’t turn up any good results—the only towels we could find were kitchen towels at the local grocery store, but they were cheap enough (6 soles, or $2) that we could use them and then throw them away, so we each bought one.

After making some calls home and checking e-mail again (the free Internet was the only redeeming feature of The Point, so we were determined to use it as much as possible), we decided we weren’t ready to face a night in the Mildew Shanty just yet and regrouped to go back out for a nightcap. Unfortunately, though, the cool bar we’d read about in the guidebook was seemingly nowhere to be found, so after wandering up and down the street a few times, we finally ended up at some sort of coffeehouse/artist’s co-op store where we were practically the only patrons. After a beer for me and a fancy coffee for Bri, we reluctantly headed back to the Mildew Shanty…only to find that in our absence, the bar, which was just across the courtyard from us, had been turned into a nightclub, complete with throbbing dance music and flashing lights. Awesome. Thankfully, the combination of earplugs, a sleep mask, and a dose of the cough syrup with codeine that Bri had bought at a pharmacy in Cusco was enough to drown most of it out so I could sleep.

Continue to Day 12: Lima to Huacachina

Sunday, 9.28: Cusco
Having woken up before dawn for practically our entire trip, we were shocked to discover when we roused ourselves the next morning that it was already 10:30. Given the late hour, we decided to forego breakfast and get on with that day’s itinerary, which was a trip to the Pisac market for one final souvenir-buying extravaganza. We did make one stop on our way out of town, which was to the camping-equipment store where we’d rented our trekking poles. Much to my dismay, both the store where we’d rented our poles and the one where we were told to drop them off were closed. I hoped at least one of them would open up later in the day, but I started to mentally prepare myself that I might not get my license back just in case.

We caught a cab to drive us the 10 miles or so through the mountains to Pisac. Once we arrived at the market, we browsed together briefly before realizing it would probably be wiser to split up, since we were all looking for different things. After about an hour of wandering through the maze of stalls (during which I scored a potholder for my grandmother, a crèche for my mom, alpaca scarves for all of my friends, and an alpaca finger puppet for Nikki’s baby), I managed to track down both Heather and Bri, and we set off to find a place for lunch.

I had noticed several cafes bordering the square where the market was set up, so we headed in that direction, finally settling on one with a balcony overlooking the market, which ended up having what Bri would deem “the nicest public restrooms in all of Peru.” We all ordered alpaca cheeseburgers and fresh-squeezed juice (Bri had what would become another favorite Peruvian specialty: chicha morada, a sweet purple corn drink), and while we waited for our food to arrive, we compared what we’d bought so far.

The wind had started to pick up considerably while we were eating lunch, and we could tell a storm was imminent, but we still had a few remaining souvenirs to get, so we rushed off in search of them. All of the sellers were starting to pack up their stalls in anticipation of the coming storm (plus, it was nearly time for the market to close anyway), but I managed to find my remaining item—a gorgeous alpaca blanket for my parents.

For some reason, Heather had become possessed by a fierce need not to pay more than 30 soles for our cab ride back to Cusco, so instead of heading to the parking lot where we’d been dropped off to try to find a cab, we decided to try our luck on the streets of Pisac instead. (It is here that I should mention that most cabs in Peru are not actual cabs, but rather regular people who put “Taxi” stickers up in their windows and give rides to tourists to make a few extra bucks. Heather had read about this phenomenon in our guidebook before we arrived in Cusco, and we decided we wouldn’t get in a cab unless it met the description of an “official” taxi set forth by our guidebook. Of course, that lasted all of 10 minutes before we realized that “official” cabs are few and far between in Peru.) Anyway, we managed to find an “unofficial” cab driver who quoted us a price of 35 soles. Heather was ready to keep searching, but as the rain was starting to pick up, Bri and I implored her to just go with the 35-sole cab.

I started feeling queasy after all the twists and turns on the ride home, so while Bri and Heather did a bit more souvenir shopping, I decided to go back to the hotel for a nap. On my way there, I noticed that the camping-equipment store was now open, so I was able to retrieve my driver’s license before settling down to sleep. I also noticed that our room was still plagued by a pervasive foot smell, which I remedied by opening up the doors to the balcony and placing all of our boots outside.

When Bri and Heather got back, we took some time to pack up our stuff before heading out to celebrate our successful completion of the Inca Trail (and Heather’s last night in Peru) at Jack’s, a popular tourist restaurant in San Blas. There, we toasted with pisco sours and feasted on tacos. Unfortunately, though, whatever stomach issue had plagued me at lunch came back with a vengeance at dinner, so again, while Heather and Bri shopped their way back to the hotel, I made a beeline straight there to take a shower and crawl into bed. This time, even though I took more medicine, the nausea didn’t go away, and I spent a restless night on the edge of vomiting.

Continue to Day 11: Cusco to Lima

Saturday, 9.27: Winay Wayna to Machu Picchu to Cusco
To my utter dismay, when we woke up the next morning at 4, I could still hear raindrops dripping on our tent. Heartbroken that the past three days of physical and mental exhaustion were going to culminate in disappointment rather than the majestic spectacle I had envisioned, I went about the chore of getting dressed and packed up with considerable grumbling and whining, which did not sit well with my tent mates. Finally, Heather barked at me, “Look, it is what it is, OK? So let’s just get ready and go. I can’t take any more of the whining!” Of course, she was right—my whining wasn’t going to make things better, and was actually just making them worse for her and Bri since they had to listen to me, but in my highly emotional state, I wasn’t interested in reason. I traded the whining for crying, but tried my best to hide the tears that were sliding down my cheeks. (I suspect my sniffling gave me away, but neither Bri nor Heather said anything else about it.)

When we finally got packed up and exited the tent, I discovered that all the drama had been for naught—it wasn’t raining anymore; the drops I’d heard were from the tree above our tent. That improved my mood somewhat, but I still was feeling pretty emotional, so I hung back from the rest of the group, fighting back tears for most of the relatively short hike to the Sun Gate. The majority of the trail was “Inca flat” until we got to the Gate, at which point we had to climb the steepest steps we’d encountered yet—in fact, it was more like climbing a ladder than walking up steps. But as soon as we reached the top and rounded the corner, there it was: Machu Picchu. The sight of the vast city laid out below, gleaming in the sun’s first rays, took my breath away, and I let out a small gasp. All the physical torment and the emotional anguish of the past few days fell away, and I hurried excitedly to find Heather and Bri so we could congratulate ourselves on reaching the end of our journey.

Actually, though, our journey wasn’t quite over yet; we still had to hike down to Machu Picchu. On our way down, we passed some day-trippers who were hiking up to the Sun Gate to get a glimpse of the view we’d just witnessed, and we couldn’t resist tossing a few glares their way when we saw their clean clothes and shiny hair. Once we’d reached the classic postcard vantage point just above the ancient city, what was left of our group (Mark, Jim, and Bill had gone ahead of the rest of us to try to get tickets to climb Huyana Picchu) stopped to pose for pictures. I thought about the first time I saw that famous picture of the llama looking out over Machu Picchu in a National Geographic at my optometrist’s office when I was little, and part of me couldn’t believe I was standing right where that llama was. (I had Bri take a picture of me re-creating the llama scene so I could adequately capture the moment.)

Once we’d satisfied our photo-op needs, we descended to the entrance to check our bags. It was a relief to be able to walk around without a backpack, although at that point my legs were so exhausted that, for most of our tour with Marcelo, I was more concerned with trying to find a place to sit down than with listening to everything he had to say. After acquainting us with the basics, Marcelo turned us loose to wander around on our own. After a brief rest, Heather, Bri, and I set off through the winding passageways that led between the stone structures. The funniest moment of the day came when we were heading out—Heather was about to go through a doorway, when all of a sudden a llama came barreling around the corner to get a drink at a small pool inside one of the buildings. It scared her half to death, but Bri and I, who were a little further away and therefore not right in the llama’s path, could not stop laughing.

After we’d explored most of the city, we headed down to the café near the pickup point for the bus that would take us to Aguas Calientes. We celebrated the culmination of our journey with ridiculously overpriced sodas that tasted amazing after drinking nothing but water and Gatorade for four days. We rode the bus (which follows a crazy zig-zag road down the mountain) with most of the rest of our group, and all filed to the restaurant that served as the designated Peru Treks gathering place. After dropping off our bags and downing pizza, French fries, and beer (all much-needed indulgences), Heather, Bri, and I set off in search of an Internet café so we could reconnect with the outside world. As it turns out, four days without civilization isn’t all that much, so once we’d checked e-mail and Facebook and watched a few YouTube videos, we weren’t sure what to do with ourselves in the remaining hours until our 5:00 train. We wandered around Aguas Calientes in sort of a daze—Bri and Heather were feeling pretty shell-shocked; I was less so. (I told them they should have had a few emotional breakdowns on the trail, as that seemed to be helping me with the transition back into society.) Finally, we just decided to go back and sit at the restaurant with the Golden Oldies.

Pretty soon, the rest of the group joined us, and a drama unfolded when Robert, Helene, and Chris, who had sent their laundry off to be done while we waited for the train, couldn’t find their things in the bundles of clean laundry that had been delivered. As Chris (who was Chilean and spoke better Spanish than anyone else in our group) argued with the laundry guy, the rest of us just sort of sat around uselessly, positing theories among ourselves as to what could have happened. Well, except for Jim, who began yelling at the Peru Treks guy (who, rudely, had been listening to his iPod during the whole ordeal) when he insisted that the Canadians board the train without their things. Reluctantly, they did, and no sooner had we taken our seats than the mystery was solved—Sandra discovered that she’d accidentally packed their clothes into her bags.

Relieved that the Canadian Laundry Crisis was over, Bri, Heather, and I settled in for the ride back to Ollantallytambo. The other person in our cluster of four seats was a stoner hippie dude from Colorado who regaled us with tales of his solo trek down the Salcantay trail (an alternative route to Machu Picchu that’s much less crowded and which you don’t have to be part of a group to hike), recounting how his hiking boots had been stolen and he’d had to do most of the hike in some flip-flops he’d bummed from a passing Australian, and how he’d subsisted only on fruit he picked along the way and the few Clif Bars he’d brought with him, drinking water out of whatever taps he could find. As we listened to this tale, I felt alternately guilty about the relative comfort of our trek, yet also devoid of sympathy for someone who willingly struck out into the Andean wilderness with so little preparation.

Once we reached the station at Ollantaytambo, we disembarked into a veritable madhouse. Thousands of backpackers were flooding out of the train toward buses, hemmed in on every side by food vendors and other hawkers yelling from brightly lit stalls. Somehow, we managed to stay with the group and not get ourselves killed (although Bri and Suz did nearly get hit by a wayward bus in the chaotic parking lot). A woman selling giant ears of corn got onto the bus with us, and we all bought one. As we gnawed on corn kernels that were each easily the size of a tooth, a random little kid began singing a Quechua folk song at the front of the bus as we pulled out of the parking lot. The combination of events was so surreal that Rusty, who was sitting behind me, looked around and said, “Is this really happening?” Once he’d finished his song, the boy walked up and down the aisles to collect change (I gave him a sole), then the bus driver let him off on a street corner just before we cruised out of Ollantaytambo.

Things calmed down after that, and I dozed on and off for most of the ride back to Cusco. At around 10, the bus dropped us all off in a plaza near our hotel, so once we’d collected our luggage and bid a hasty good-bye to everyone, Bri, Heather, and I rushed up the street where the promise of a hot shower awaited. Not wanting to delay my own shower-taking or anyone else’s, I volunteered to use the public showers down the hall rather than the private one in our room. Although I could never quite get the water temperature to even out, it might have been the best shower I’ve ever had. In fact, it’s a real toss-up as to what was the best moment of the day—my first glimpse of Machu Picchu that morning, or the shower that night. (OK, fine. It was Machu Picchu. But only by a little bit.) When I returned to our room, I noticed that it smelled overwhelmingly like dirty feet, but I was so exhausted, and so glad to be lying in an actual bed, that nothing could keep me from falling into a deep sleep.

Continue to Day 10: Cusco

Friday, 9.26: Pacamayo to Winay Wayna
The third day of the trail, which had been billed to us as the most beautiful, started out on a decidedly ugly note when we spotted human feces on the edge of the trail. Why someone chose to defecate on the trail was perplexing enough, but the fact that we were only a few hundred yards away from camp (and the bathrooms) at that point made it even more confounding. However, the nastiness was soon forgotten as we hiked past Inca ruins that got more and more impressive as we went.

Once we crested the second mountain pass (which seemed like a piece of cake after the Dead Woman’s Pass the day before), we stopped for a break, and the guides told us we could scramble up some rocks to a higher point if we wanted a better view. I was still feeling pretty energetic at that time, so I decided to go for it, and was rewarded with a view down to a placid pond below. The rock I’d scrambled up was home to some stone towers that other hikers had left as offerings to the Inca gods, but I hadn’t collected any rocks along the way to add my own.

After a few more stops to view ruins, it was time for lunch, at which I stuffed myself with pasta, chicken salad, and rice. Loading up on carbs proved to be an unwise decision, as I felt sick to my stomach for the first part of the afternoon hike. Fortunately, though, the trail had evened out to what our guides called “Inca flat”—a gradually sloping stone path. However, even on this relatively easier trail, there were still hazards (or at least there were for a klutz like me)—at one point, I ran smack into a low-hanging tree branch that I didn’t notice because I had my safari hat on to block the sun. Um, oops.

Eventually, we reached the third and final mountain pass, from which we could see Machu Picchu Mountain, the peak that rises behind the village (not to be confused with Huyana Picchu, the mountain in front of it). The mountain completely blocked any glimpses of the ancient city itself, though, so our first view of the iconic sight would have to wait until the Sun Gate the next morning. As we all sat on a giant rock, contemplating the majestic sun-dappled mountains around us, Mountain Man turned to me and asked, “So, was it all worth it?” “Absolutely,” I replied.

On our descent to the campsite, we could see more Inca ruins off in the distance, including a particularly impressive series of terraces. Eventually, we came to a fork in the path, where Augusto, our assistant guide, was waiting for us. He told us we could either go straight to camp, or we could take the long way and view some of the ruins we’d glimpsed from afar. By that point, we’d discovered that the ruins were way more impressive from the aerial view, so we chose to book it for camp. Although we knew there would be showers at this campground, we hadn’t brought towels or any other supplies to take one, but we’d heard from someone else in our group that towels could be rented. As we dragged our dirty selves to the campground, the idea of a shower started to sound more and more appealing to Heather and me, although Bri was determined to hold out. (If you’re already this dirty, what’s one more day, she reasoned.) Ultimately, though, once we arrived, Heather and I came around to her point of view, opting for a celebratory beer (another perk of the last campground before Machu Picchu) and some popcorn with the rest of the group instead. Olya was the only person in our group who succumbed to the lure of the shower, and took plenty of crap for it from everyone else. (She seemed not to care, though, saying she felt like a completely new person.)

Shortly after snack time, we gathered back in the dining tent for dinner. Because it was our last dinner, the cooks really outdid themselves with the spread (most of which I barely touched, since I’d ruined my appetite with the popcorn earlier, and was truthfully starting to tire of Peruvian food), finishing it off with a gorgeous, perfectly decorated layer cake. Yes, that’s right—these amazing guys created a bakery-worthy cake at altitude, without an oven. No one in the group could believe it—we kept asking Marcelo and Augusto if one of the porters had secretly snuck down to Aguas Calientes to pick it up at a local bakery, but they swore they hadn’t. Naturally, my appetite returned once the cake came out.

After dinner, we had to figure out how to tip the porters, since this was the last time we’d see them. Our trek briefing documents had briefly alluded to this porter-tipping ritual, saying that each group generally elected one person to collect the money and give it to the porters. Unfortunately, somehow in our group, that person ended up being Aaron, who made the whole thing much more complicated than it had to be. Around the time that he started arguing with someone about the current exchange rate so he could convert some dollars into soles (like, who really cares whether the exchange rate is 2.87 or 2.92? It’s not going to make that much difference, so just round it up to 3 and be done with it!), I completely tuned out of the proceedings as Mark and The Golden Oldies continued to argue with him. I suspect that Bri and Heather, who were rolling their eyes on either side of me, stopped caring long before I did. Once the money had been properly divided via an accounting system more complicated than an audit of Enron, there was an argument about what to do with it. Most of the group seemed to favor giving it to the head porter and letting him dole it out among the other porters, but Aaron was violently opposed to this for some reason, and so all of the porters filed into the tent as he made a big uncomfortable show of handing them their tips. (As we were dissecting this situation later while brushing our teeth, Bri and I decided that what made us most uncomfortable about this set-up was that it forced the porters to be gracious and appreciative of the tips when, for all we knew, they really wanted to be like, “This is it?! I hauled these stupid Americans’ crap up and down mountains for three days, and this is all I have to show for it?”)

Anyway. With all that madness over, we headed for bed. Unfortunately, that’s when we discovered that we had again picked a campsite on a slight slope, only this time we were sliding horizontally instead of vertically. Since I had unwisely spread out my sleeping bag at the bottom of the slope, this meant that everyone was sliding into me. It had also started to rain, and I had visions that the combination of the uneven weight distribution and the weakened soil would cause our tent stakes to come loose and send us rolling down the edge of the terrace, which suddenly seemed uncomfortably close. In addition, I was worried that the rain wouldn’t let up before sunrise at Machu Picchu, which was the entire reason we’d paid nearly $500 to murder our legs, sleep on the hard ground, and forego showering for four days in the first place. Suffice it to say that I did not get a very good night’s sleep. It was impossible to get comfortable smushed into the edge of the tent—at one point, Heather pushed back the edge of her sleeping bag and it landed on my face, and, already feeling a bit claustrophobic, I started freaking out that it was going to smother me. I tried turning around so that my head was by her feet, but that was only marginally better, as it involved breathing in the horrible foot stench common after three days of hiking. Finally, somewhere amidst all of my fervent prayers that the rain would stop, I managed to fall asleep.

Continue to Day 9: Winay Wayna to Machu Picchu to Cusco

Thursday, 9.25: Wayllabamba to Pacamayo (Inca Trail, Day 2)
We woke up at 5 again the next morning and crowded into the dining tent for a quick breakfast as Marcelo briefed us on that day’s hike: an unyielding 4,000-foot ascent to the highest point on the trail, Dead Woman’s Pass, followed by a 2,000-foot descent to the next campsite. Except for an extended snack break halfway up to the Dead Woman’s Pass, we’d be pushing through to make it to the campsite by around 2:30 that afternoon, at which point we’d have lunch.

As soon as we left the campsite, we started walking uphill and never really stopped. After a while, the dirt trail gave way to the stone Inca steps that would comprise the rest of the way to Machu Picchu. Bri, Heather, and I dug our iPods out of our bags and put on our best cheesy pop music (Britney Spears for Bri and me, of course) to stay motivated throughout the climb. Before setting out that morning, Marcelo had given us a couple of pieces of advice. First, although we would need to stop and catch our breath regularly, he told us not to sit down for these short breaks, as it would be too difficult to motivate ourselves to get back up. Second, rather than climbing straight up the steps like you would a normal staircase, he advised walking in sort of a zig-zag motion to give your legs a momentary break between steps. Putting these tips to use, we were able to make it to the snack-break area in one piece, and were rewarded with hot chocolate and popcorn. Peering down into the valley, I was shocked to see that the farm where we’d stayed the previous night was now just a tiny dot. During the snack break, we learned that both Jim (one of the Golden Oldies) and Chris (one of the Canadians) were violently ill, yet both were still attempting to make the climb.

After the snack, we pressed on to the Dead Woman’s Pass. As we climbed higher and higher into the clouds, the air started to get misty, and Heather and Suz (who were just ahead of Bri and me) pulled out their ponchos. They clearly had more steam in them than the two of us, so we fell back as they moved further and further up the hill until they were little more than green and yellow blobs in the distance. When we got closer to the Dead Woman’s Pass, though, we could hear them (along with Rachel and Rusty) cheering us to the top. When we finally reached the somewhat anticlimactic summit (due to the heavy clouds, we couldn’t really see anything), Bri and I collapsed next to them. Since they’d already been waiting for us for about 10 minutes, they were anxious to start the descent (in addition to being damp at the summit, it was also really cold), so we had Rachel take a picture of the three of us by the Dead Woman’s Pass sign, and Bri and I bid farewell to Heather once again.

We were in desperate need of a rest after the climb, so Bri and I decided to sit for a little while and cheer on the next group. After about 5 or 10 minutes, we saw the Golden Oldies (minus the sick Jim) making their way to the summit. Although we were a little embarrassed that we’d just barely managed to make it to the top before people twice our age, we nevertheless cheered heartily for them. We waited for them to catch their breath as well, and all started the descent together.

Because of the persistent mist at such a high altitude, the stone steps leading down to the campsite were wet and slippery. (Before she left with Rachel and Suz, Olya had told us, “Use your trekking poles; they can save your life!”, like thanks for the tip, but I could have done without the reminder of my potential bloody death.) Needless to say, I was a little bit freaked out by the slick rocks, especially since my legs already felt like they were about to fall off, so we took the descent extremely slowly. For the first mile or so, Bri and I stayed pretty close to the Golden Oldies (we all marveled together at a small deer munching on some grass just a few feet off the trail), but Bri was moving a little faster than me and the Golden Oldies a little slower, so pretty soon, I was entirely by myself, save the occasional porter or two bounding past. The mental challenge of the hike was starting to take its toll by then, too—at one point, I could have sworn I was being stalked by a small animal in the bushes, before realizing an embarrassingly long few minutes later that it was just the sleeve of my waterproof shell brushing up against my side. As I got closer to camp, I also really, really had to pee. I considered popping a squat alongside the trail, as it was pretty deserted, but there was really no tree cover in case someone should happen by. Plus, I was laser-focused on the goal of reaching camp, which I could see lying tantalizingly below me on the trail.

The camp looked much closer than it actually was, and by the time I finally arrived, I was more physically and emotionally exhausted than I’ve probably ever been before. (It didn’t help matters that I had my first and only fall of the day on a slick rock a couple hundred yards from our campsite.) I found Bri and Heather celebrating their arrival in our tent, but I barely said a word to them as I threw my stuff down and took off in search of a bathroom. After a wrong turn and some helpful pointing from another group’s porters, I finally arrived at the bathhouse and saw, like a shining beacon from heaven, a Western-style toilet. I was so happy and relieved that I burst into tears right there in the door of the bathhouse. (Thankfully, I was the only one in it, so no one else witnessed this toilet-induced burst of emotion.)

Back at the tent, Bri and Heather were just getting ready to join the group for lunch, but I couldn’t have been less interested than being happy and social. So while everyone else ate a few feet away, I crawled in my sleeping bag, put the saddest Iron & Wine song I could think of (“The Trapeze Swinger”) on my iPod, and resumed my sobbing. It was exactly the fuel I needed, though (well, that and another Choco Soda)—by the time Bri and Heather returned to the tent, I was in much better spirits.

Unfortunately, that’s when we discovered that we really had nothing to occupy ourselves with for the rest of the evening. Not wanting to add any unnecessary weight to our backpacks, and figuring we wouldn’t have much downtime anyway, we hadn’t brought any books or a deck of cards. The only thing we had in the way of entertainment was our iPods, so we decided to stage an impromptu sing-along. We warmed up with a little Britney before moving onto ‘N Sync. It was then that our antics started to attract the attention of the rest of our group. Just as The Golden Oldies called out a request for Frank Sinatra (I’m sure they couldn’t have guessed that my iPod was actually loaded with a whole arsenal of Frank Sinatra tunes), Mountain Man stopped by to tell us that some of the other camps were complaining, so we reluctantly put an end to the sing-along. By then, it was almost time for dinner. Having skipped lunch, I was starving, and eagerly dug into the food while everyone else moaned about how they weren’t hungry.

Since we were still at a fairly high altitude (almost 12,000 feet), it was pretty chilly, so Bri, Heather, and I revised our sleeping strategy. The night before, we’d each kept our stuff next to us in the tent, but in light of the colder temperatures, we decided instead to put all of the bags on one side of the tent and huddle together for warmth. After opening the tent flap a tiny amount to admit a bit of light without too much cold air (a process that went only slightly more smoothly than it did the night before) and rigging up our anti-boot-theft system, we drifted off to sleep.

Continue to Day 8: Pacamayo to Winay Wayna (Inca Trail, Day 3)

Wednesday, 9.24: Cusco to Wayllabamba (Inca Trail, Day 1)
That 5 a.m. wake-up call came way too fast, at least for me, and so there was much groaning and grumbling as we packed up our stuff and headed down to the lobby to await the Peru Treks pick-up, which was scheduled to arrive between 5:30 and 6. A Belgian couple was also waiting for the Peru Treks bus, so Bri and Heather chatted with them while we waited. (At 5:30 a.m., I was not in a particularly chatty mood.) Finally, a few minutes before 6, the bus showed up. Our late pick-up time at least meant we didn’t have to make any more stops, so we got on the road to our designated breakfast spot in Ollantaytambo. With no food in my stomach, I was starting to get nauseated on the winding mountain roads, and so I had no choice but to break into my stash of trail snacks. (Side note: Why don’t we have chocolate-covered soda crackers in America? They are delish.) Fortunately, after our breakfast in a freezing-cold shack with a dirt floor (perhaps this was a way to get us acclimated to the trail conditions?), I was able to re-stock my Choco Soda stash at a nearby convenience store. Dodging the dozens of walking-stick peddlers yelling, “Steeeck, lady? Steeeeck?”, we got back on the bus to head to Kilometer 82, the official starting point of the Inca Trail.

After one last bathroom stop (good-bye, Western toilets…sniffle), we had a quick parking-lot powwow so we could meet everyone in our group. The 11 people we would be getting to know very well (some more than we would like) over the next four days were: Susan and Bill from North Carolina and Jim and Sandra from Georgia, a 60-something foursome whom Bri, Heather, and I soon nicknamed The Golden Oldies, plus enough young couples to make this feel like a season of The Amazing Race: Rusty and Rachel from New York City, Mark (who would later become Mountain Man) and Suzanne from New Zealand, Aaron and Olya from San Francisco, and Chris and Helene from Montreal, who were joined by Helene’s dad, Robert. Once we’d learned everyone’s names and origins, we headed to the checkpoint to get our passports stamped, then crossed the Urabamba River and were officially on our way!

The first part of the trail was fairly easy, and I was surprised to find that it was so populated—not just with hikers, but also with locals (and their livestock, who left so many surprises along the route that Bri had christened it the Poopca Trail before we were even two miles in). Until the trail starts getting really mountainous on the second day, there are several houses along the way, and many of the residents have set up side businesses selling water, Gatorade, and snacks to the hikers. A cluster of these houses, up a small hill, was the site of our first short break, and it was there that we discovered that squat toilets were our only bathroom option. Unfortunately, I didn’t fare much better in Peru than I did in Thailand. (We became fast friends with Mountain Man, though, when he happened to overhear me explaining in detail to Bri and Heather why I thought I had such trouble with squat toilets.) Also at the rest stop, I took the opportunity to capture a photo of a guy we’d spotted earlier who was hiking in lavender overalls.

We set back out on the trail, stopping to view a few Inca ruins from afar on our way there. At some point, we passed a guy wearing a Jets cap, and Packer fan Heather could not resist commenting, “Ew, the Jets!” “We got your quarterback!” the guy taunted her as we walked past. We stopped for lunch at a farm along the trail, and engaged in what would become our mealtime ritual: throwing our backpacks in a pile on a tarp, washing our hands in bowls of warm water the porters had set out, then crowding on camp stools around a long table to wait for bowls upon bowls of delicious food to be delivered.

After lunch, it was a fairly short hike to the campsite, although the terrain was starting to get a bit hilly. At the last and steepest hill, Marcelo, our guide, pumped us up by saying it would only take 5 minutes to get to the top of the hill and then we were done climbing for the day. I asked if he was going to tell us the same thing about every hill we came to on the trail, and he just laughed. As we huffed and puffed our way to the top, I began to get a little nervous about the almost 4,000-foot ascent we were due for the next day.

We soon arrived at our campsite for the night, which was at another farm. There were dogs and chickens running around everywhere, which meant even more poop was littering the ground. I quickly realized that the soft-soled slippers I’d brought to wear around the campsite were not going to be practical, so I settled for just slipping my feet into my unlaced boots every time I needed to leave the tent. Despite all the poop, the campsite was gorgeous—tucked away in a little valley, we could just glimpse part of the snow-capped peak of Veronica (one of the only snow-covered peaks visible on the trail).

After a little downtime and a group dinner, we headed up to the bathrooms to get ready for bed. I’d remembered to take my contacts out before it got dark so I didn’t have to do it by flashlight, but I still needed to brush my teeth. Unfortunately, the only sinks were located outside the men’s side of the bathrooms, where the floor was covered with rancid pee. (Why, guys, why? Shouldn’t you have the better odds of correctly aiming at the squat toilets?) Following that somewhat disgusting bathroom ritual, Heather, Bri, and I returned to our tent to get ready for bed.

A discussion ensued about what to do with our hiking boots for the night. Because the tent was already crowded (although Robert turned out to be a great guy, none of us really wanted to volunteer to share a tent with an older Canadian gentleman we’d just met, so we all squeezed into one tent, which gave us just enough room to sleep but not much room for our stuff) and our boots were caked in dirt and likely poop, Bri and I favored leaving them outside the tent. However, Heather was afraid they’d get stolen, so we eventually reached a compromise by leaving them outside, yet tying the laces to a strap inside the tent so a would-be thief couldn’t just pick them up. Then there was the issue of getting some light/ventilation into the tent. It had a small window, yet the awning of the tent was completely covering it, so it wasn’t letting in any light at all. Heather was freaked out by it being so dark in the tent, so I attempted to open the opaque inner flap a bit to let some light through the screened outer flap. But this was easier said than done—every time I’d unzip the inner flap to a certain point, the outer flap would come unzipped, too, and I’d have to zip them both back up and start again. Finally, after about five attempts (and some loud cursing, which received some titters from those in adjacent tents), I was able to unzip the inner flap enough to satisfy Heather’s light requirements. Despite the fact that our tent was on a slight incline and therefore I kept slowly sliding into the bottom of my sleeping bag and would have to wake up periodically to adjust, I was able to get a fairly decent night’s sleep.

Continue to Day 7: Wayllabamba to Pacamayo (Inca Trail, Day 2)

Tuesday, 9.23: Cusco
The next morning, we woke up refreshed from a sleep blissfully interrupted by howling monkeys or squawking jungle birds. Given how rested we were, we figured it was at least mid-morning by the time we rolled out of bed, but a glance at my iPod revealed it was in fact still before 7. Since we had plenty to accomplish that day, we got dressed and headed down to breakfast, where, over a spread that encompassed the entire table, we made a list of everything we needed to get before we left for the trek the next day.

The first order of business: I needed to get my own alpaca hat (besides, the shop was our way to other errands). We stopped by the store Heather and Bri had visited on the Plaza de Armas, where I bought a hat for 18 soles (about $6) and a pair of gloves for 12 soles ($4). We’d seen another artisan’s market while searching for the Peru Treks office the day before, so Bri and Heather wanted to swing by and check that out after we visited a pharmacy on the same street. It was there that I realized I had severely overpaid for my hat and gloves—the ones at this market cost about half as much. There wasn’t much I could do about it, though, so I just chalked it up as a learning experience.

It was a lesson I had immediate occasion to put to use on our next errand, which was to rent trekking poles from one of the camping-equipment stores lining the street that led from the plaza to our hotel. This time, we shopped around and were able to find poles for just 4 soles (a little over $1) a day. In order to secure the rental, I had to leave my driver’s license at the shop, which made me a little nervous. Since we were planning to return the poles on Sunday morning, when the shop would be closed, we would have to take them back to the place next door instead, and I was a little concerned that my license wouldn’t make the transfer, and we’d have to leave Cusco without it on Monday morning since we were booked on the first flight out. But, as I didn’t really need it to get back to the States and could always procure a new one if necessary once I got home, I handed it over.

We returned to the hotel to drop off our trek equipment, then caught a cab to San Blas, Cusco’s artist’s district, to eat at Granja Heidi, a restaurant we’d read about in the guidebook and also had seen cards for at the Niños front desk. We also figured the afternoon would be a good time to shop for souvenirs in San Blas. Our taxi driver was unable to maneuver down the tiny cobblestoned hill off which Granja Heidi was located, so he dropped us off at the main plaza in San Blas and pointed us in the right direction. On our way down, we ran into one of the ubiquitous traditionally dressed Peruvian women who parade their alpacas into Cusco and then charge tourists a couple soles to get their picture taken with them. Heather, consumed with alpaca love, couldn’t resist stopping and paying for a picture.

Granja Heidi was a welcome respite from the traditional Peruvian cuisine we’d consumed up until then in the rainforest (except for a few notable dishes, I can’t say I was a huge fan of the mostly bland, meat-and-potatoes Peruvian diet), and I thoroughly enjoyed my pumpkin soup, quiche, and salad. Looking around, it was obvious that the restaurant catered solely to tourists, and the friendly owner (an older German guy) milked that for all it was worth, making it a point to stop and chat with every table. When he found out Heather was from Wisconsin, he gave her the special “Wisconsin hello” by joining their hands to make a cow udder, then “milking” it. We had read that the restaurant was famous for its desserts, so we ordered a slice of the Nelson Mandela cake—a decadent, many-layered chocolate cake—to share.

After lunch, we wandered up and down the street, browsing in various stores and stalls. Heather and I purchased some alpaca sweaters (which I later discovered, thanks to some information in the guidebook on how to spot genuine 100-percent alpaca goods, were likely a cheap alpaca-acrylic blend—boo), and Bri spent a good portion of her time browsing in the store of this guy who made really cool jewelry out of bent wire. He had a small TV in the shop that was playing back-to-back Coldplay videos, so I chatted with him a bit about his love of Coldplay. (He said it was good mellow music to have on while working.) After trying on several different rings, Bri ultimately decided they were out of her price range, and we bid him good-bye and moved on. We headed up the street to another shop where Heather wanted to buy some pottery. I decided to wait outside while she and Bri were browsing, and pretty soon, I saw the Coldplay jewelry artist come rushing up the street toward me. He asked where my friend was, so I called inside the store for Bri. She came out, and he told her that one of the rings she had been trying on was missing—basically, he accused her of stealing it. Bewildered, she repeated over and over that she didn’t have it, opening her bags to show him the contents. Finally, he seemed satisfied with her innocence and returned to his shop.

After that excitement, we only went in a few more shops (and I braved a pretty long staircase to take in an excellent view of Cusco—I figured it would be good practice for the upcoming trek) before walking down to the Plaza de Armas and heading to our hotel to drop off another load of packages. We were all pretty pooped from a long day of shopping, but Heather really wanted to go to Sacsayhuaman, a complex of Inca ruins located above Cusco. Bri and I favored taking a nap first, but when we checked the guidebook and saw that the ruins closed at 6 p.m., we realized we’d have to head right back out if we wanted time to look around there, as it was already after 4. So we began walking back down to the Plaza again, hoping to find a taxi. We spotted one about halfway there, and Heather flagged it down. Despite the fact that she had been saying “Sacsayhuaman” non-stop since we arrived in Cusco (the guidebook told us to pronounce it as if we were saying “sexy woman,” which was too good of a catch-phrase opportunity to pass up), when she told the driver where we were going, it came out “Szechuan.” Bri and I immediately burst out laughing, but were somehow able to communicate the correct location to the confused driver in between gales of laughter.

The taxi dropped us off at the entrance to the ruins so we could buy tickets. I had read in the guidebook that in order to visit Sacsayhuaman, you had to buy a “Boleto Turistico,” a comprehensive ticket to several Cusco sites, which is one reason I wasn’t entirely psyched to go—we probably wouldn’t have time to visit the other sites, and the 130 soles (over $40) that the Boleto Turistico would have cost seemed way too steep for just one attraction. However, once we got there, we found that we could buy Sacsayhuaman-specific tickets for 40 soles (about $13), which was much more reasonable. We refused the offer of a guide, opting instead for the much cheaper strategy of bookmarking the entry on Sacsayhuaman in our guidebook and reading it aloud as we walked around.

The ruins were divided into two sections by a large lawn; one complex was made of stacked stones, while the other seemed to be carved into the back of a rock formation abundant with natural rock slides. We headed to the edge of the first structure (which functioned as a fortress) to take in the incredible view of Cusco. After snapping a few pictures, we headed back down to wander through the ruins. On our way back, Heather spotted an alpaca scenically perched on the edge of a terrace in the near distance and began snapping photos of it. I followed suit, only when I zoomed in on the alpaca with my camera, I noticed something strange about the alpaca…namely that it was sort of shiny. I looked a little closer at the image on my screen and realized it wasn’t an alpaca at all, but rather a bunch of trash bags clustered together in a shape that, from a distance, did convincingly resemble an alpaca in profile. “Heather,” I cried, “that’s not an alpaca; it’s just a bunch of trash bags!” We both cracked up over our artfully framed photos of the trash-bag alpaca.

We walked back through the fortress, stopping every so often to marvel at the way the gigantic stones were stacked together. When the shadows hit it, the edge of Sacsayhuaman is supposed to resemble Puma teeth, and our sunset excursion provided just the right opportunity to glimpse that effect. After Heather took a quick stop at the bathroom (and Bri and I successfully fended off the many souvenir-hawkers in the parking lot), we headed over to the other side of the ruins. Bri and I were unable to resist trying out one of the rock slides, and as we prepared to make our descent, a nearby Peruvian man advised us to spit on our hands so that we could grab on and slow ourselves down when we got close to the bottom.

Satisfied with our exploration of Sacsayhuaman, we grabbed a taxi in the parking lot and rode back to the hotel. After consulting our guidebook for restaurant recommendations, we decided to check out a pizza place called Chez Maggy in San Blas. On our way there, however, we noticed another outpost of Chez Maggy just down the road from our hotel, so we defected to this much-closer option. We were practically the only patrons in the restaurant, and were extremely distracted by the traditional Peruvian music videos playing on TVs scattered throughout the space, but the pizza was yummy and filling, and we were soon ready to turn in for another early night in preparation for our 5 a.m. pre-trek wake-up call the next morning.

Continue to Day 6: Cusco to Wayllabamba (Inca Trail, Day 1)

Monday, 9.22: Amazon River Basin to Cusco
The next morning, we got to sleep in until 6 a.m., which felt like a luxury after our super-early wake-up call the day before…to Heather and me, that is. Bri, meanwhile, was fighting a massive hangover and probably could have used a few more hours of sleep. We met Jorge for our last (semi-awkward) breakfast, then boarded the boat with the rest of the group to head back to the airport. The gaggle of Germans was particularly loud that day, which I’m sure only increased Bri’s hangover pains. I did my best to drown them out with my iPod as we cruised down the river.

At the airport, we checked our luggage, bid an awkward farewell to Jorge, paid the stupid departure tax (at least there wasn’t a huge tax line at the tiny Puerto Maldonado airport!), and got in line to go through security. While Heather jumped out to buy some “jungle nuts” (don’t ask) from a nearby stand, Bri realized that she’d accidentally left her pocket knife in her carry-on bag. Fortunately for her, the X-ray machine was down that day, and the security check amounted to nothing more than the security guy asking whether you had a knife in your bag, then giving a cursory glance inside. Bri feigned ignorance and was able to get her contraband goods through undetected. While we waited for the plane, we chatted with one of the few non-Germans from our rainforest group, an Irish guy from Boston whom I thought of as Rob (I have no idea what his actual name was, but it seemed to fit him). We were having a nice conversation until an older American lady sat down next to us and began blathering on and on about what she was doing in Peru, despite the fact that no one had solicited this information. Fortunately, we boarded the plane soon thereafter and freed ourselves from her.

After a short flight (during which we watched the same blooper show and reminisced about our favorite parts), we landed in Cusco, where the sight of the oxygen tanks at the airport immediately made me nervous. My fears were for naught, though—except for when we were walking uphill, I never had much trouble breathing. In fact, I think the coca tea that I had that morning in the rainforest (at Cusco native Jorge’s entreaty) affected me more than the altitude did—I was feeling jumpy and jittery all day. Anyway, we hailed a cab at the airport to take us to the Niños Hotel, where we’d made reservations for before and after our Inca Trail trek. In my research, I’d read lots of great things about the hotel, and it did not disappoint—all of the cheerfully painted rooms encircled a sunny courtyard with a fountain burbling in the middle. Not to mention, our room had four walls and a hot shower, which seemed beyond luxurious after our rainforest digs.

Bri wanted to do nothing more than sleep off the remaining dregs of her hangover, so Heather and I set off on our own to find something for lunch. A short stroll took us down to the Plaza de Armas in the center of the historic district, and we decided we’d like to eat overlooking it to soak up the Cusco vibe. We managed to find a pizza restaurant (our first encounter with the ubiquitous Italian food in Peru) with a table overlooking the square, and shared a pizza topped with local cheese while dishing about the events of the previous evening.

We needed to pay our balance for our Inca Trail trek before the Peru Treks office closed for the day, so after we finished our late lunch, we headed back to the hotel to pick up Bri. I couldn’t find the map of the office I had printed, but I thought I remembered the address, so we set off. It turns out my memory was a little faulty, so after wandering for a little while, I stopped at an Internet café to look it up. Back on the right path, we located the office without trouble and paid our balance. While looking over our orientation materials, however, we realized there was still a ton of stuff we needed to stock up on before we left, and resolved to dedicate the next morning to getting everything we needed.

Having missed lunch, Bri was getting hungry, but my lack of sleep and hot showers was starting to catch up to me, so I volunteered to schlep all of our trekking materials (sleeping bags and pads, plus the duffel bag for the porter we’d hired) back to the hotel while Heather and Bri searched for something to eat. I was glad to have some time to myself (especially to take as long as I wanted in the shower without feeling guilty about hogging the bathroom), but jealous when Bri and Heather came back to the room with alpaca hats that they’d purchased while walking around. They promised to take me back to the place where they’d bought their hats the next morning while we were running errands, so we all turned in pretty early to get ready for our big day of shopping.

Continue to Day 5: Cusco

Sunday, 9.21: Amazon River Basin
At around 4 a.m., we were awoken by a flashlight shining through the curtain that was our door, accompanied by the sounds of Jorge saying, “Chicas? Hola, chicas!” I sat up in bed and whined blearily, “Are we going, then?” Jorge laughed and said yes, so we all roused ourselves and got dressed in the darkness. Thanks to the rain, the temperature had grown considerably chillier, and I cursed myself for not bringing anything warmer than a thin long-sleeved button-down.

At 4:30, we joined Jorge for a not-so-romantic candlelit breakfast, during which he continued to make fun of me for saying “Are we going?” while he took pictures of Heather and me in the candlelight with Bri’s camera. After breakfast, we hiked back down to the dock and boarded a boat for a short trip down the river. We disembarked and walked a short way through the jungle until we reached Oxbow Lake, home to one of the rarest creatures in the Peruvian rainforest, the giant river otter. (Our guides told us there are only 1,000 of them left, but I’m not sure if that’s in the world, or just in South America.) We boarded a wide platform boat and cruised slowly around the perimeter of the lake, spotting toucans and various other jungle birds. Finally, just as we were about to complete our circle of the lake, the river otters decided to make an appearance, playing in the water just across the lake from our boat. After we’d all gotten a good look through the binoculars, the rain had started to pick up a bit, so we headed back to the dock and took shelter under a random hut with a few bathroom stalls while eating a mid-morning (or what felt like mid-morning; it was probably only around 6 a.m. at that point) snack of bananas. The guides brought out some crude fishing poles and offered to let us fish for piranhas off the edge of the boat, so Bri, Heather, and I headed back out into the drizzle to try our hand at it. We could feel the fish nibbling our lines but weren’t able to actually hook them; fortunately, one of the Germans had better luck, and before releasing his tiny fish, Jorge brought it over so we could check out its razor-sharp teeth.

We hiked back to the river, spotting some giant termite nests on the way, and rode back to the lodge for another mid-morning snack, this time of some delicious cheese-filled breadsticks and some not-so-delicious instant coffee that inexplicably appeared to be piping hot as it came out of the carafe, yet was freezing cold by the first sip. We had a little time before our next activity, so Bri and Heather went to the room to lie down while I took the opportunity to try out one of the hammocks in the main gathering area of the lodge.

We met back up with Jorge a little while later to head to a clay lick where we could spot some parrots. On the way there, Bri and I discussed all of the silly clubs we had formed together in high school, such as the Saved by the Bell Preservation/Appreciation Society and Hamsters Against Drunk Driving. Hearing the word “club,” and clearly not understanding the fine distinction between high-school clubs and dance clubs, Jorge turned around to ask us, “Do they have 2 for 1 drinks?”, which sent us into gales of laughter. We had to cease our carousing when we got to the clay-lick blind, however, so we wouldn’t scare off the parrots. We sat very still inside the blind, and after several minutes, we began to see bright-green parrots fly in and land in the branches around the bare clay. As we traded two pairs of binoculars back and forth to get a better look, more and more parrots flew in and migrated down to eat the clay. By the time we left (after snapping dozens of pictures), about 20 parrots and two spyx’s guans were congregated around the lick.

We then hiked to another clay lick on the other side of the lodge that was frequented by macaws. This time, we didn’t have to wait at all for the birds to appear—there was already another group from the lodge peering at about a dozen macaws from inside the blind, so we quietly traded places with them. It was at this point that Jorge noticed how good the zoom on my camera was, and he promptly took it from me and began snapping so many pictures that I was worried I might never get it back. I did, though, simply because Jorge didn’t want to miss the opportunity to lay some more smooth pick-up lines on Bri. (When a couple of macaws started fighting over the same patch of clay, he leaned over to her and whispered, “I think they’re mating.”)

It was just time for lunch by the time we arrived back at the lodge (amazing how long the day seems when you wake up hours before dawn!), and after we ate, the three of us headed back to our room for a much-needed nap. When we woke up, it was time to meet Jorge again, this time to hike to a giant ceiba tree. On the way there, we got to see thousands of leaf-cutter ants marching across the jungle with their slices of green. We also saw another giant termite’s nest, and Jorge explained to us that if you get lost in the rainforest, termites are the only safe thing you can eat because they provide protein but aren’t poisonous. To demonstrate this claim, he plucked one off the tree and ate it. Bri asked him what it tasted like, and he thought a moment before replying, “Carrots.” We were pretty skeptical of this claim, so Bri decided to investigate by downing one herself, ultimately concluding that just one termite was way too small to have any sort of taste. Heather and I decided not to partake and really hoped we would never find ourselves lost in the rainforest and forced to test the tastes-like-carrots theory. Once we reached the giant ceiba tree, there wasn’t much to do other than marvel at what a big tree it was, so we sat and talked about the various sports we played, which lead to a demonstration by Heather of the mechanics of broomball.

Back at the lodge, we had a bit of time before dinner, but not wanting to nap again, we chose to sit in the common area and play a few rounds of cards before heading over to the bar for a drink. Heather and I again opted for beers, but Bri decided she wanted to sample Peru’s national drink, the pisco sour. I was curious, too, but shied away from it because I’d heard it had a high alcohol content and was still worried about being dehydrated when we arrived in Cusco the next day. In retrospect, with regard to both the actual alcohol content of a pisco sour (which I didn’t find to be noticeably high) and the way things would unfold over the course of the evening, this seems a bit silly. Anyway, apparently the bartender had won some sort of medal for making the best pisco sour, and I can vouch that the sip I had of Bri’s was indeed yummy. As we sipped our drinks, the bartender played Bob Marley on the stereo (our first introduction to Peruvians’ love affair with Bob Marley) and entertained us with card tricks.

After dinner (during which we discovered another of our favorite Peruvian delicacies, yucca fries), Heather, who hadn’t been sleeping very well, decided to call it a night. Bri and I weren’t quite ready to turn in yet, though, so we offered to buy Jorge a beer to say thanks for being such a good tour guide. Of course, as we sat at the bar and chatted with Jorge and the bartender (and listened to more Bob Marley), one beer turned into two, and two beers turned into three… Bri was getting more and more inebriated by the minute (as was I, let’s be honest, although her pisco sour pushed her a little further over the edge). As she tried to explain to us the root of the global economic collapse, she kept touching both my leg and Jorge’s (she was sitting between us), and after we’d moved on to another subject, I glanced over to see that she and Jorge were holding hands. I could see where this was going, so after I’d downed the remains of my beer, I quickly excused myself and giddily raced back to the room, where, in my semi-drunken state, I thought it would be a good idea to wake Heather up with the news that Bri was totally hooking up with Jorge! Heather, on the other hand, did not think this was such a good idea, as she’d finally managed to fall into her first comfortable sleep since we arrived in the rainforest, and was scared senseless by me looming over her and hissing her name. Oops. Chastened, I climbed into bed, too, and promptly fell asleep, only waking up when Bri crept back into the room at around 2 a.m.

Continue to Day 4: Amazon River Basin to Cusco

Saturday, 9.20: Lima to the Amazon River Basin
Landing in Lima around 6 a.m., we were immediately struck by how…not all that different from America it felt. The signs were in both English and Spanish, which has pretty much become the norm in the U.S. now, and the food court was filled with restaurants such as McDonalds and Starbucks (where Bri and I stopped to get coffee in lieu of a Frappuccino and learned just how foreign our names were to Peruvians when we received cups labeled “Brilt” and “Clerk”). After a quick breakfast, we headed for our flight to Puerto Maldonado and had our first experience with the frustratingly inefficient departure-tax queue. For some reason, they don’t build this tax into your plane ticket in Peru, and therefore before you board the plane, you have to stand in yet another line to pay anywhere from $2 to $20 (depending on where you’re flying) before you can leave. Once we’d paid our tax and had made it through security, we stopped to buy a phone card so we could call our parents and let them know we’d landed safely before we headed into the jungle.

After a short flight (during which we were entertained by a blooper show that might not have been quite so hilarious had we not been so travel-weary), we landed at the open-air Puerto Maldonado airport and immediately met up with one of the more memorable characters from our trip, Jorge. Jorge was a guide from Posada Amazonas, the rainforest lodge on the Tambopata River (a tributary of the Amazon) where we’d arranged to stay for two nights. He met the three of us outside baggage claim and immediately claimed us as his group. (The reason why he picked us would become abundantly clear within an hour or two.) We took a short bus ride over to the local office of Posada Amazonas, where we filled our daypacks with just the bare essentials we’d need over the next couple of days, and left the rest behind. It was at this point that Bri discovered that a fancy hair product she’d stuffed into her hiking boots had exploded all over them. She cleaned them up the best she could, but ultimately decided to leave them behind in favor of her tennis shoes.

We boarded the bus again and this time rode an hour or so down a bumpy dirt road, across rickety wooden bridges that looked like they’d barely support a bicycle, much less a bus, until we arrived at the river. While supplies were being loaded onto the boat that would take us to the lodge, Bri and I took the opportunity to spray each other down with super-high-DEET bug spray while Jorge laughed at our ultra-preparedness. We boarded the boat and were given lunch in the form of fried rice wrapped in a banana leaf, which we threw into the river once we were done eating. As we neared the lodge, one of the guides spotted a couple of macaws sitting in a tree, and the boat slowed down so we could all get a good look at them. Bri had her foot propped up on the edge of the boat, and Jorge grabbed it and said, “Bri! Look! Can you see them?” He seemed totally unconcerned as to whether the other members of his group (Heather and I) could see the birds, which was when we first began to realize that our man Jorge had a little crush on Bri.

We soon pulled up to the bank, climbed off the boat, and began the short hike up to the lodge. On the way there, we saw several monkeys jumping around in the trees, plus an agouti (which is like a giant guinea pig) and a hummingbird. After checking in, we hiked a short distance to the canopy tower, which we climbed up for a view over the rainforest canopy. Bri, who has a bit of a fear of heights, wasn’t exactly jazzed about climbing up the slightly rickety tower, which was shifting a little with the weight of all the people on it. (Another group had gone up ahead of us.) We managed to coax her up, though, and once we got to the top, Jorge comforted her by saying that he would hold her if she got scared. (He wasn’t exactly subtle in his flirtation.) We found that the rainforest wasn’t nearly as lush as we had imagined it to be (there were many trees that looked practically bare), and although we saw a few birds (including a spyx’s guan, which is like the rainforest’s version of a wild turkey), we were all ready to climb back down before too long. On the twilight hike back, Jorge pointed out a few frogs that had ventured out into the growing darkness.

Once back at the lodge, we retreated to our room, where I took a long-awaited shower. It was pretty cold (the lodge only gets electricity for a few hours a day, and doesn’t have hot water), but it was still muggy enough outside that I didn’t mind too much. Before dinner, we bellied up to the bar for a beer before joining Jorge for dinner. It was our first experience with Peruvian cuisine, and Heather and I got a little confused—when we saw a pot of noodles sitting next to a pan of meatballs, we just assumed it was the Peruvian version of spaghetti and meatballs, rather than a noodle soup and some (separate) meatballs. (I swear one of the German women in line in front of us did this first! We did not make it up ourselves!) Jorge wasted no time in setting us right, so fortunately this was our first and last Peruvian dining faux pas. For some reason, dinnertime talk turned to a discussion of our various drunken antics, such as Heather’s and my nights at Café Society’s 2-for-1 happy hour when we lived in England. I think Jorge was most charmed, however, by Bri’s story about the time she passed out on a friend’s living-room floor and wiggled her pants off during the night, only to wake up the next morning with all of her friends congregated around her in the living room. (Fortunately, her pantslessness was hidden under a blanket!) There was no such wild partying that night, however—we’d already made a pact not to drink too much until after our Inca Trail trek, as we were already worried about the dehydrating effects of the altitude in Cusco. Plus, we hadn’t had a real night’s sleep in 36 hours (and were looking at a 4 a.m. wake-up call, provided that the rain that had started falling during dinner would let up by then), so we went straight to bed after dinner.

Continue to Day 3: Amazon River Basin