Off-course in Ollantaytambo

I hit ¨publish¨on my last post and then went straight to bed for what would prove to be the worst night of my life since the night I swore off teen burgers 3 years ago. I spent the entire night curled up in the fetal position, simultaneously sweating and shivering, wondering whether I should sleep in the bathroom and which end I should point at the toilet, with a pounding headache too boot. The headache I´m sure was curteousy the altitude, several others in our group said they had the same thing their first day in Cuzco or La Paz or wherever else they had been previously, and swore it would clear up in a day or two. The rest was possibly due to something I ate, too much sun, or just the misfortune of catching a nasty flu bug. Not sure, just know it was very unpleasant.

Everytime I managed to drift to sleep, I´d awake a few minutes later with a big gasp for air. Apparently my body didn´t think I was getting enough oxygen or something. I´m surprised I had that rough a time as I´ve been higher than Cuzco before with no problems. The inability to sleep gave me lots of time to think about what I would have to do in this condition. Do I try to push through? Do I stay in Cuzco? Do I try to get medical attention? A few moments were bad enough that I even considered whether I´d just have to head to back to Lima and fly home.

In the end I decided my best option was to hope this was just altitude sickness and catch the bus down 1000 feet to Ollantaytambo with my gap group in the morning and see if it cleared up. A few pills and some coca candies and I managed to make it that far feeling not too terribly.

We made a couple stops along the way, for the first time getting off the beaten path and getting a real feel of south america. One was at a community that Gap is sponsoring as part of their Planaterra program, where we watched the local women turning raw sheep and llama wool into spun threads, and knit into all kinds of handmade textiles. Even had a national geographic moment watching a llama get mounted (yes I have it in HD video), so one could say we literally saw the entire end-to-end process of wool making! :)

The next place was Pisca where we toured our first Incan ruins. As impressive as it was, I was more drawn to the small town we passed through. Unlike modern Lima and touristy Cuzco, this was authentic Peru, albeit with a local trinket market and a few tourist necessities like hostels and ATMs. But motorcycle rickshaws, cattle grazing in backyards, and school children playing in the run down and obviously poor streets and buildings were incredible to behold.

After a couple hours driving around, I finally realized the fields here have a very distinct difference with those from Canada. There´s no straight lines running up and down through the crops. It´s all hand sown. And hand harvested. There are thousands and thousands, if not millions, of acres of farm land all along the river valley, and the amount of manual labor involved in that undertaking, twice a year, is mind-boggling.

The tour of the Pisca ruins included a hike up about 100 stone steps that left me seriously questioning whether I was going to be able to pull off the hike still or not, and inspite of a good lunch that managed to sit well, I was in pretty rough shape again by the time we arrived in Ollantaytambo. While the rest of the group went to the local ruins and out for dinner, I wandered to main square on my own hoping to find something that would appeal to my non-existant appetite. Leaving the hotel courtyard and stepping into a dark and abandoned street by myself at night was a bit of a scary feeling, to say the least, but I figured our guide would have mentioned something if I shouldn´t be going out on my own so off I went anyway, strolling with the stray dogs and trying to stay very aware of anyone walking too close by. There´s very little light pollution in these small and simple towns, so the stars were out in full force and I got to see the southern cross again, which was a real treat.

Anywho, I sweated through the night again and decided that the only thing worse than being sick in a foreign country was camping and hiking while sick in a foreign country, so I got up for breakfast with the group and told the guide I wasn´t going to be able to keep going. He gave me a 5 minute speil on where things were in Ollantaytambo, including the train station in case I decided to try and go to Machu Picchu on my own, gave me my ticket to the ruins the group had toured the day before and the phone number to Gap´s local customer service, then bid me adieu. It was a strange feeling watching the bus pull off and realizing I was completely on my own for the next 4 days. But honestly, there are far worse things in life than being stranded in the heartland of the Peruvian Andes.

I went back to bed for 5 or 6 hours, then got up to go exploring. I found the tourist information center in the main square and got an idea of how to go about getting to Machu Picchu, then found a cool little restaurant called Heart´s Cafe which is run by a NGO and all the profits go to education and nutrition programs in the poorest highland communities. I then crossed the river and spent a couple hours exploring the local ruins. Hundreds of steps up, dozens of planted terraces, and many different buildings, none of which I had any idea what they were but was none-the-less enthralled by. It would be difficult to over-state the beauty of this place. Picture Banff, but smaller and poorer, filled with peruvians, stray dogs, and history, cobble stone streets and just enough tourist amenities to get by, and surrounded by mountains that are just as large and impressive but covered head to toe with grass instead of rocks. I could stay here for days and not get bored. But alas, I won´t be.

I made the 15 minute walk to the train station and purchased a ticket to Machu Picchu for 7:30ish tomorrow. I´m told once I get there, there will be bus companies I can buy tickets from to get up to the actual site, which I hope is true cause I don´t know if I could make it up by foot in my present condition. I also paid for a ticket back so tomorrow is all covered in terms of what I´m doing with myself. After that I have to figure out how to get back to Cuzco on my own where I´ll rejoin the group on Friday. I´m hoping I´ll be able to get there early on Thursday and try to arrange a day trip to Colca Canyon to watch the Condors. It was something I´ve heard is an absolute highlight of Peru but I couldn´t fit it in with the Inca Trail Hike before, so now that I´ve got some extra time I´ll see if I can make it work.

In short, despite getting sick, today has been the best day of the trip thus far. Hanging out on my own and trying to find my own way without being the slightest bit prepared to do it has been a lot of fun, and quite frankly, probably a better experience than the hike would have been. At least I´ll keep telling myself that until I hear all the stories about what I missed on Friday. But I´m looking forward to continuing the adventure solo for now, hoping I stay out of trouble, and enjoying every minute in this place. For example, even now as I sit in this Internet cafe, a little girl has wondered in and started going around talking to people in what I assume is Quecha since I don´t recognize a stitch of it (I´ve picked up enough Spanish words to get by in the meantime) and even just came over to smile and talk to me for a bit. Having been here a few days now, my comfort level is increasing and it feels safe enough that I think I´m really going to enjoy this.

Ciao for now,
Greg

PS. One of the best moments today was surfing over to tsn and finding out Chicago is 1 game away from pulling off one of the biggest comebacks and upsets in NHL history. Couldn´t happen to a better team :)

PPS. If this had happened in Europe I´d be contacting my mortgage broker to figure out how to finance this detour, but everything is so cheap here I think I might actually be making money. Well, not quite, but close. The very nice hotel is only $20 a night. The meals are around $5 or $6 each. Even the expensive stuff like train tickets is only $64USD one way for a two hour trip, and that´s for first class. I could have gone for half that price, but figured it was worth upgrading for brunch, audio information, leather seats, and panoramic windows.