For anyone who has ever climbed a mountain, or the Andes, you know what a physical challenge the hours of endless uphill trekking, downhill descends and sleepless painful nights with little to no “comforts” feels like. I anticipated the challeneges ahead and my travel compadre Kiersten and I anticipated, Peru was not going to be a “vacation” by any means. We came for a purpose to assist with a major issue in the community of Cuzco, providing scholarships to girls pursuing further education to break the cycle of poverty. We also had the goal of making the 48 kilometer trek through the Andes learning of Inca culture, visiting Ancient Ruins of a civilization with an incredible and almost unimaginable knowledge of agriculture, engineering, construction, philosophy and understanding of the Earth and its relation to the Universe. I could go on for pages of Archaelogical and cultural facts of the Inca people but that would bore you and its much more interesting in the black journal I started prior to this trip. As much as my handwriting looks like crap I love my old fashioned journal scribbles and sketches.
We succeeding in our goal of surviving the Inca Trail thanks to Clif Bars, good jams on the ipods, amazing guides and each other’s awesome motivational powers and positive energy. For four days we hiked uphill through rainforests, through “Dead Woman’s Pass,” over rickets bridges over powerful streams and down slippery, uneves stone stairs that went on for miles. We slept on hard cold ground in tents, at very simple and sometimes indigestible meals with our group of Argentinians, a Mexican, an Australian, two Swedes and our amazing Peruvian guides Juana and Pepe. We woke up before the sun, carried what little we brought with us on our backs and took dozens of stops to take pictures, meditate or just to concentrate on our Spanish speaking skills or to catch our breath with the incredibly high altitude.
We did not expect however to experience the same uphill battles and and steep scary descends emotionally. A member of our travel posse for the past 6 days was a very challenging person to handle at such high doses and it was a lesson to us that not only should you chose your travel companions VERY wisely but even on the side of a mountain standing among ruins of some of the most positively charged structures and temples we were still facing the challenges of dealing with people you can’t escape.
We realized after a day of walking on egg shells and still experiencing the wrath of someone we couldn’t understand or get through to did we realize the true challenge of the pilgrimage. You will always get handed the challenges you need most when you least expect it.
From here on out the trip will be much different now that we have parted ways and celebrated our liberation from this aggrivator last with drinks and salsa dancing lessons with our guides Pepe and Juana who we had grown close to. Today we even went to Juana’s favorite spa for some sauna and salt and honey body scrubs with her and did lunch and some shopping in the markets of Cusco. It was a great start to the next chapter of our trip.
Tomorrow we leave for another 3 day trek to the jungle of Bilkabamba, the last refuge of the Incan people, where Daniel, our amazing host/guide in Cusco is from. We will be spending the Summer Solstice, December 22nd on this trip and know Daniel will have so much knowledge to share with us and I am really looking forward to a real spiritual awakening here in the mountains of Peru.
