High Peaks and Low Forests

Wow, we made it! I think we figured it out to be about 45 miles, and it was beautiful! We hiked through the high Andes mountains, rainforests and everything in between. The highest pass we did was at 4600 meters (or for you fellow Americans who, like me, don´t know what this means it was about 15, 091 feet). This is the highest point I have been so far... The altitude was a little breath taking but fortunately we had horses to carry most of our stuff, fantastic!

Our favorite part of the trip was the first 2 days which were in the high alpine regions and absolutely beautiful. The nights were freezing cold and the mornings were brutally crisp. The rainforests were hot, humid and amazing as well. We got eaten alive by the sand flies (those buggers take skin chunks with every bite and they itch like mad; our legs now look like some sort of diseased, chicken pocked mess). We soaked in some hot springs on the 3rd day, also fantastic! Oh yeah, we ended up in Augas Calientes (aka, town below Machu Picchu).

Our group was "a little roudy" but great none the less. It consisted of two guys from England, a couple from Ireland (living in Bermuda), one lady from Wisconsin and Ray from SLC (crazy eh?) and us. Our guide was great, Jason. He grew up in a small (tiny) Peruvian village in the Amazon. He studied tourism in college and wants to open his own tour company in a few years. Oh ya, he also speaks English, Spanish, Quechuan, and Italian.

A food update: I am officially sick of oregano (or whatever spice the Peruvians put in every stinking dish here). I did good though, on the trek. I ate strickly peruvian food for 5 days (minus the Gatorade or snickers that we had packed ourselves). This included among other things, trout lasagna, yucca, coca tea, and soup at every meal (which all tasted like oregano) and some sort of chicken pattie. The food, surprisingly, was pretty good the whole time but toward the end, I was ready for some pasta.