Nerd Stories... definitely make Machu Picchu more memorable.

Well, these weren't the gorgeous, blonde haired, muscular surfers that I was kind of expecting all Australians to be, but they definitely met the reputation of being ridiculously fun. After pretty much telling these guys that they were going to adopt me into their little group for the week we we joined at the hip. I feel like I got to know them way too much even. I had recognized them on my plane because of Jake, the youngest of the group who was very accident prone. He was bandaged pretty much from head to toe because of an incident in Cancun with a motobike. Stitches in his skull and all. He was kind of hard to miss. The 4 of them definitely fit together well, each of them playing their parts. For some reason, during the week.. I tried my best to compete with Jake for being horribly accident prone. Yes, more nerd stories will ensue.

Wednesday morning I got up fairly early in order to check out of the hostel and make my way down to the plaza to get some money out of the ATM for the trip up to Machu Picchu.. Not even three steps down this monumental hill that led up to our hostel I tripped down the stairs slightly twisting and bruising my ankle... The security guard and his friend rushed over to me to help but all I could do was laugh.. Seriously.. just my luck to twist my ankle the day before I am supposed to conquer Machu Picchu. The after making sure I could bend my ankle, I look up to see my Australian friends walking up the hill..just in time to see a lot of my pride being taken away. I got up and hopped back into the hostel reception to examine the damage. Nothing serious.. but I definitely got a lot of sympathy from everyone.. It was kind of nice. The sympathy turned in to mockery after awhile though..especially after the second instance.

We took a combie from Cusco to Ollantaytambo to check out the ruins and to kill some time before our train to Aguas Calientes. While walking to the train station to buy our tickets Bob and I were just talking about life, which apparently was so captivating that I forgot to pay attention to my surroundings.. I fell straight into the drainage ditch that ran across the road. I just happened to step in the only spot that was missing a bar tearing my shin apart. So here I am,.. down in pride and up in pain from the ankle incident from just a few hours earlier, bleeding in a drainage ditch in front of a bunch of Australian guys. My life is ridiculously comical.. I'm just glad someone was there to enjoy the hilarity. Something good should come from the fact that I am really accident prone. It would feel like a waste if I fell and no one was around to see me trip and fall... Especially in the snow or ice.. come on who doesn't think Bambi on ice isn't funny. :-)

At this point most of the pain was localized to my shin and away from my ankle, which was good because there was going to be a tremendous amount of walking in the next two days. After lunch at some swanky restaurant right on the river the 7 of us trekked up the ruins in Ollantaytambo. Let me explain what most of the Inca ruins that we saw were.. STAIRS, lots and lots of stairs!! Uneven, steep, and extremely narrow. Not good for a unbalanced and large footed girl with multiple injuries to those extremities that are used to climb stairs. Oo.. did I mention that I had left my inhaler at the hostel??

Somehow though all of these issues I just managed to have an amazing time. I was translating for the guys who knew basically zero Espanol and were quite happy to find someone to help them get around. I can't imagine going to a country and not trying to learn enough of the language to get around, but that's me. I don't want to be the ignorant American that a lot of the world gives us the reputation to be. It's hard being "the American" when you are traveling sometimes. There are so many negative stereotypes against us. I get a lot of "ohhhhh" in a disapproving or even disinterested tones when I tell people that I am from the US. Saying this in Spanish however helps, a lot.. Actually I got a lot more approval from the market vendors who loved talking to foreigners. They really liked hearing about Pacasmayo and about teaching English. I found it was a lot easier to barter after having a conversation with the vendors. It worked in their favor as well though, because I usually wanted to buy something from them if they had patiently had a conversation with me. I got some cheap Spanish lessons that way.

SO about Machu Picchu.. well we woke up at 4am in Aguas Calientes in order to get our entrance tickets as well as the bus tickets up to Machu Picchu.. yeah we were lazy and took the bus.. but two of us were gimps. We got up so early in order to get tickets to Wayna Picchu, which is the bigger of the two mountains in all of the postcard pictures of Machu Picchu. They only allow 400 people up on the mountain everyday so we needed to get onto one of the first buses. Did I mention it was raining when we got up?? The rain eventually passed but the fog stayed for a couple more hours. I guess going up to Machu Picchu in the rainy season is more of a risk than I thought. The traditional fog up in the city in the clouds became rather pretty after awhile. We started walking around in the beginning of the day completely unaware of what was under the fog and little by little things the ruins were uncovered. It was actually pretty amazing. This might be my "positive thinking" kicking in though.

Wayna Picchu was next on our list. We got into the 10 oclock group in hope that most of the fog would clear by then but we only got moments of gorgeous skies. The clouds would come back to blanket the entire city.
Some stats on Wayna Picchu :
Wayna or Huayna Picchu: Young Peak
Altitude: 8,900 ft above sea level
Importance: Apparently the high priest lived up there with a bunch of virgins and it was used for ceremonies. I think the stairs were built to punish the Inca workers. WHY WHY WHY would anyone was to build anything at that altitude!!!???? Wayna Picchu and I had our battle, but eventually I won. Very slowly and carefully I conquered Wayna Picchu!!! After reminding myself that it is stupid to compete with men and that I have asthmatic tendencies, I just took my sweet time climbing to the summit and told the guys I would just meet them at the top. A French or Italian couple who apparently knew I was with the Aussi's told them that I was on the verge of passing out (which was completely untrue) and Bob came to my rescue. It was kind of cute even though I didn't need the rescuing. It was kind of fun having all those guys dote on me all week :-). I guess it was payment for being their translator. I still can't get over the fact that I was the translator.

Machu Picchu was undoubtedly breathtaking because of its beauty and size, but more importantly because it had been preserved and untouched by Spanish invaders who looted and destroyed most of the other Inca ruins. The fog, the rain, the horrible trek up to Wayna Picchu and especially the nerd stories will definitely make Machu Picchu go down in history for me.