3-day hike to the Incan ruins at Choquequirou

Yesterday morning we arrived back home after an epic adventure. It still feels strange to call this clinic/house "home," but after a trip like that, this place is a very welcome sight!

Some highlights of the trip:

1. Meeting up with our arriero. (You should type "arriero" into google translate, just for fun.) Claudio accompanied us for most of the hike, clucking, singing and smacking the horse (gently, gently, don't worry animal-lovers) to keep him moving along at a pace much too fast for us to keep up with. We each carried a little backpack, but mercifully the horse took our tent, sleeping bags, cooking gear, extra clothes, and our excessive food supply. 

Note Claudio's jeans and rubber tire sandals. I'm so curious to know what he thinks of us, a walking advertisement for REI with all our specialized outdoor gear.

2. Being able to borrow a pot from the man who ran the campsite where we stayed. Somehow we managed to load up that poor horse with about 50 pounds of stuff but no pot!

Pasta with pre-packaged red sauce with mushrooms and canned salmon. Amazing how good something like that can taste after a difficult hike!

3. When Claudio offered to carry my backpack for the first hour of the hike on Day 2. I hesitated briefly (very briefly!) before saying yes and watched with relief and deep gratitude as he went skipping up the path ahead of us in his jeans and rubber tire sandals. Then my amazing husband carried a backpack for both of us the entire way on Day 3. I am decidedly not one of those I-can-do-it-myself-woman-power types ... at least not when it comes to hiking.

We can't figure out how Claudio could keep motoring along (always ahead of us) hour after hour with no food or water The only time we saw him eat was at the campsites for breakfast and dinner, and we rarely saw him take a drink. Meanwhile, the two of us guzzled water constantly and took full advantage of our snack supply.

4. Jack's Cafe! We were expecting the hike to take four days, but we were able to finish early and get back to Cusco on Saturday night, which meant a sweet night in a real bed at a clean hotel and ... an enormous, beautiful, American-style breakfast at Jack's. We discovered Jack's while traveling with David's parents a few months ago, and we've been craving it ever since. As much as we love the variety and flavors of different ethnic foods, we're convinced no one does breakfast like Americans (or, evidently, Austrailians, which is where the owner of Jack's is from.)

While in Cusco on Sunday we faced our fears and re-visited the little organic restaurant where David had his scary Brazil nut allergy attack a few months ago. The waiter remembered us and was glad to see David was alive. After he brought the food, David jokingly asked if he could try a bite of my salad (which, the waiter had already warned us had a Brazil nut pesto dressing). The waiter heard him and whipped around with a horrified expression. "No!" he shouted, and then saw that we were laughing. Poor him.

5. Oh yeah, can't forget about Choquequirou, which was the whole point of the trip. It was amazing to hike for 2 days to reach these ruins, which haven't been developed into a tourist destination (yet). When you go to Machu Picchu, you're shuttled up on a bus with 50 other tourists and wander around the ruins all day with hundreds of other people. Here, it was just us, one other couple, and 2 maintenance guys. It felt remote and mysterious.

The clouds and mist added to the mystical feel of the place.

It was easy to pretend we were the ones who discovered the ruins.

They are developing these ruins and are still uncovering stuff that the jungle has overtaken. We're not sure but it looks like these terraces continue to the left underneath all the green overgrowth. (Yes, we walked up those stairs on the right. All 420 of them.)

6. Seeing a tarantula the size of David's hand. Yes, it freaked me out. And yes, I screamed. (David said I wasted three switchback's worth of energy on screaming and jumping backwards when I spotted it.) But the creepy thing wasn't near our tent or our food, and in hindsight I think it actually was pretty cool to see.

It's a good thing David was carrying the camera at the time because I'm sure I wouldn't have had the presence of mind in the midst of my freak-out to take a picture.

7. Our UV light water purifier worked! We had never used it before this trip, and I was a bit leery of drinking water from the streams. So you stick this little flashlight looking thing into the water bottle for 90 seconds and somehow magically the water is clean? Yeah, sure. But it worked! ...Well, at least we didn't get Giardiasis. Maybe we'll soon find out that we carried back some little friends who weren't bothered by the UV light.

David had full confidence in the water purifier since "we got it from REI, not K-Mart."

...and some lowlights:
1. The eternal bus rides. Wednesday night we took a 10-hour overnight bus ride to Cusco. We hopped off that bus at 5:30 a.m. Thursday and right onto another bus to go 4 more hours to the tiny town of Cachora, from where we started the hike. And of course we had to do it all again in reverse on the way home.

The bus stopped briefly en route to Cachora so people could use the bathroom and grab a bite to eat. We skipped the mystery meat being fried in a pot but enjoyed choclo con queso (corn and cheese). Not exactly the rest areas you find on I-81, but it sure was nice to get a break from the bus and breathe some fresh air!

2. Going down and up paths like these. Endless switchbacks and paths so steep you could ski down them if only there had been snow.

I have never hiked such steep paths for so long. The first day we hiked down-down-down about 5,000 feet to a river, which took about 3 hours. Then we started up the other side, and went up-up-up for another 2 1/2 hours to our campsite.

3. The rain we hiked through on Day 2. (Actually, we really have nothing to complain about regarding the weather. I just needed something else to put under lowlights.) We took a chance by doing this hike during the rainy season, and we got lucky. We had a nice cloud cover for most of the hike (hot sun would've made the hike brutal!), and the clouds cleared up for a bit while we were at the ruins so we could see the gorgeous views all around us. Even the little bit of rain we did have cooperated for the most part -- it came when the path wasn't too terribly steep, it waited to start in the evenings until after we ate dinner and were snug inside the tent, and it stopped in the mornings in time for us to get breakfast and get packed for the day.

David rigged up a shelter for us to take a food break. (Claudio did not join us. He is a machine and needs no sustenance.)

4. Having to watch a bull defecate at close range. We were afraid to pass him on the cliff side of the path in case he decided he didn't like us, but while we waited for him to move he decided to taunt us by relieving himself in front of us. Gross.

You've heard the expression "pee like a racehorse." It could also be "pee like a big black bull lost on a hiking trail in the Andes mountains." Good grief!

5. The bloody horse legs that greeted us when we got back to Cachora after the 3-day hike. Ugh.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why this horse lost its legs and, more importantly, why the bloody bundle was sitting on the floor next to the table where we were served a post-hike lunch. Maybe it was horse soup we were eating...

Overall it was an incredible trip -- the kind you're glad you did and glad when it's over.

More pictures on facebook.