Day 76: Inca Jungle Trek, Peru

The second day of our Machu Picchu trek was riddled with nearly as many problems as the first. It began with a long delay in a ziplining office, as the company overstretched themselves and did not have enough harnesses for everyone. For some reason, certain groups seemed to be given preferential treatment, so we were forced to wait over an hour for other groups to return with their harnesses. That being said, the ziplining was a lot of fun, and we got to fly hundreds of meters back and forth across a valley.

After ziplining, we drove to a town where we had lunch that included, of course, rice and fries. We then began our walk along a set of train tracks. 

This flat path was not exactly the scenic trek we had been promised. But we made the most of it and enjoyed the chance to get to know the other members of our group. One of our new friends, we learned, would be taken advantage of her time in Peru to go on a spiritual ayahuasca trip over the weekend. She would be traveling to the Sacred Valley, where a Shaman, or leader, would be guiding the group in the 6 hour hallucinogenic awakening. It was interesting to hear about, and we told her she had to contact us after the experience and let us know how it went. 

Our group walked along the tracks for about three hours. On occasion, we did get some great views of the area.

During the walk, despite our bug spray, we were assaulted by numerous mosquitoes. These little pests only added to the colorful appearance of my Death Road-bruised legs, which looked as battered as my preteen camper days.

It was around 5 o'clock when we made it to Aguas Calientes, the town that sits just below Machu Picchu. By that point, Dan and I had already cemented our belief that the entire trek was a scam. We were given minimal to no explanation every step of the way. On top of that, the itinerary felt like a mishmosh of activities strung together to appease gringos, and lacking both efficiency and practicality. They must want to ride...lets throw them on a bike for an hour! And they definitely want to hike...why not just follow the path of the train? The activities were not actually designed as a step-by-step journey on the road to Machu Picchu, as was advertised. 

Dan and I were thrown into a different, and clearly cheaper, hostel than everyone else. By that point, we saw it as a simple matter of course. We relaxed a little bit before meeting with our guide to ask him about the plan for the following day. We learned we would begin our trek at 4:30am in order to beat all the other tourists to the entrance of Machu Picchu. He talked a bit more about the plan for the day, of which we understood little. One thing that we did pick up on was the fact that we would be taking a 9:30pm train, followed by a bus to get back to Cusco around 1:30am. Wait, what time? As beautiful as Machu Picchu may be, nobody needs to spend over 16 hours there, never mind the fact that we had been told we would be getting back to Cusco much earlier. We told our guide we would be willing to pay a little extra to get on an earlier train, and after sorting out that issue, joined our group for dinner. The meal was accompanied with the omnipresent sides of rice and fries.

After dinner, we went with a few people from our group to get some pisco sours, and then went to bed early to prepare for our pre-sunrise wake up.