Day 41
Today we have to hike 18 miles and it’s going to be the longest day. And some of the crew is in their worst shape they could be in. I was mind blown when I saw Markus and Luca along with the other people that were throwing up last night. Everyone in camp was struggling though. We ate the weakest breakfast we’ve had yet which just just straight up fruit. No protein is starting to really hurt me. We got the group together and turned up the mountain as soon as we left the campsite. Everyone was pretty beat on the hike and there wasn’t much talking. Julian busted out a speaker and played some music along most of the way. Most of the morning was a blur. We stopped for a break at a viewpoint with a swing on a mountain.After that we kept moving and found a viewpoint of a few mountains that were covered by clouds but we did get to see Machu Picchu from afar.
We continued on the hike and finally had a nice break in the sun again on a mountainside with some ruins behind us. I took a little bit of a nap which felt so good. Then we had a long long descent. We maybe went down 2000-3000′ in elevation for the next two hours. Some of the group was moving hella slow enjoying their time and I could tell Aurelio was getting annoyed because we were behind schedule. At one point he jumped in front of the slow people and started running and I got right on his ass. We ran all the way down to the river, crossed a bridge and met a few guys from our group that were ahead of us. I said I wish I would go for a swim in that river and he said you can if I walk up about three minutes but we had to be quick so the group wouldn’t have to wait for us once they caught up. Me and the other guys took off running and found the spot we thought he was talking about. We jumped in and my god was it such a good feeling. I washed my socks and shirt in the river and they smelled pretty bad. We hung out in the cold water for about 10 minutes until the slower people caught up and then we continued on the hike.
We made it into Hydroelectrica which was the name of the town. We had a big lunch there. I had two meals and we rested for a bit after. Most of the people were falling asleep at the table waiting for our food to come out which wasn’t great at all. We had about another 3 hours to go. We had to walk along train tracks to get to the last town called Agua Calientes. It was a nice walk, it rained a bit, we stopped for some snacks along the way and followed the other hundreds of people walking along the train tracks for hours. There were lots of bugs and we even threw a few Peruvian Soles on the tracks to have some flattened coins as souvenirs. It worked for a few of us. We made it into the town in the rain covered in filth and sweat but shit were we happy to be there. We checked into our rooms and the 5 of us guys went out for food and beer. I just got a burger and went back to the hotel room to shower when our duffle bags arrived. Everything in the bags were wet and stinky though so it wasn’t great. We went downstairs at 7:30 for dinner and a briefing for tomorrow. A bunch of people ended up drinking for a while late into the night because why not right? That was our night.
