So there are a few things that culminated in my lack of ability to strut my way towards Machu Picchu today. Firstly, the general fatigue from walking 38,000 steps (according to my phone). Secondly would be the humongous amount of bites that I have primarily on my legs, some are from mosquito and some are from the sand fly. This is causing a cramping in my calf. I have been spraying and praying my insect repellent to no avail, luckily it is the same for Emma and we itch ourselves to sleep.
The thing that was killing me off the most was the activities of the previous night. A meal made all the more interesting by a power cut to the entire town leaving us eating in a strange mixture of candle light, strobe lights and phone lights. We had been promised a fiesta and that is exactly what happened. Happy hour was all night. Four drinks for 20 s/. (£5) meant that mojitos and Cuba libres flowed all round. This was easily manageable until our guide got out a bottle of "inka tequila". I heard rumours that they used snake skin and the minerals held within to held intensify the flavour of the tequila. He insisted on giving everyone shots which then escalated into more shots. This left my stomach feeling slightly queasy for our morning activity. This activity was definitely such that I would have liked to have had a stomach that didn't make me feel like I was on a boat in the Irish sea. This activity was zip-lining. During the queues for the zip-lines to help take us from one side of the valley and back and forth four times we encountered a lot of English people. We potentially spoke and saw more English people today than we had in the entire trip so far. Most were recently graduated students looking to enjoy themselves before a life of hardship and work (there were a couple of medicine students).
The zip-lining was very fun, I have never been afraid of heights thankfully. This was an issue for several people who missed out on the entire activity for this sole reason. After three straightforward trips down the line, being suspended over 100m above the ground it was time for us to try something slightly different. This was to go down the line upside down (just think back to my upset stomach for a moment). I eventually obliged. It was very strange not being able to see where you were going or how long you had left on the journey. All of the zip-lines were a walk in the park compared to our final section of the activity; a walk across a rope bridge with steps separated by about half a metre. Once again, I wasn't afraid of the height or of the rapids streaming along down below. However I had a slight nervousness over how wobbly it was. Any movement from anyone on the bridge and the entire thing would violently shake, seemingly trying to evict you from it's clutches. This was followed by absailing down to ground level from the bridge.
After several hours of the zip lining activity, it was time to put on our walking shoes (which were already on) and hike. Thankfully it was only about 3-4 hours of gentle uphill instead of the mental and physical battle that raged the previous day. This gentle walk was along a train line. We had been informed by one of the guides that there were no trains running due to strikes. This turned out to be slightly false at least when we firstly heard the deep booming horn of the train followed by the sight of the actual train itself. We were very close to the side of the path when the train went past us yet we were still very close to the train. Thankfully we escaped unscathed and continued on, able to marvel at the steep tree covered mountains that surrounded us.
We were shown which bridge we needed to cross to get to Machu Picchu for the next day. Tomorrow is a very early day, waking up at 4am so that we can be up on top of the hill where Machu Picchu sits for sunrise. It's quite strange to think that the last few days will result in this one particular moment and experience. Even if Machu Picchu doesn't live up to the hype (I've no reason to think that it won't), then I can still say that I've thoroughly enjoyed myself during it. From the amazing sights to the adrenaline-filled activities, to the people from different countries that we have met and embraced conversation (odd for me). It's been good and will only be a jump step onto what is coming up to being the second half of our trip.
