El Camino del Inka

Back in July or August when I was still in Chicago and my plans for my South American adventure were just taking shape, my friend Robin came to me and said that she wanted to see Machu Picchu and walk the Inca Trail.  At that time, I thought I would be studying in Peru and I said, "sounds perfect!"  We share the same birthday, so originally thought we should arrive in Machu Picchu on 23 October.  But that didn't work out.  After lots of conversations, emails, and phone calls, we decided to plan a trip for the beginning of November and Robin was able to get us a great discount on our trek thanks to her job.

Robin and I both arrived in Cuzco on 5 November and were definitely on the sick side of altitude sickness: exhausted, headaches, heavy limbs, etc.  We explored the city and some of the surrounding ruins and with each day, the altitude sickness became less severe and we started to feel like ourselves.  

Cuzco is an amazing city, full of history, colors, and filled to the rim with poverty.  It had been a long time since "things" were shoved in my face for me to buy.  With looks of sadness and attempts at bargaining, they surrounded the tourists begging for us to buy their goods.  Many of their goods were wonderfully made.  The colors, the quality, the craftsmanship-- all fantastic.  I just don't like things shoved in my face and people hovering over me.  And I really hate bargaining.  I am certainly my father's daughter.  But I loved Cuzco.   The children running through the square, the pride of their history and their mark in the world, the food (praise God for the food-- I'm so tired of Buenos Aires food), the sky... it was all great.  I did get tired of walking up and down hills, but that only prepared me for the 4 day trek.

Early saturday morning, we were picked up in a bus and began our journey.  They took the 8 of us who were on the trek and the porters and our guide about 90 minutes outside of Cuzco so we can start at KM 82.  And over the next four days we would walk a total of 46 KM, about 28.5 miles.  At the start of the trail, we watched our porters divvy up the massive amount of things that they were carrying on their backs.  They each carried 50 KG, which is approximately 110 lbs.  These guys are strong and steadfast and completely awe inspiring.

Our trek was incredible.  Truly indescribable and worth every penny, every drop of sweat, and every smile along the way.  KM 82 is at 2800 meters above sea level and it only goes up and down from there on out.  We walked for hours, but the scenery was spectacular, and the people were friendly and jovial and Robin and I had a great time.  We arrived at our lunch spot and our porters and our cook had set up tents with chairs and had prepared delicious food.  All our fruits and vegetables were fresh.  They carried eggs, lots of grains, a ton of vegetables, snacks, drinks... it was some of the best food I have ever had.  It was truly incredible.  They prepared it for us, and then when we were done, they cleaned it up and sped ahead of us on the trail.  I am in complete awe of these guys.

Day 2 began at 6 am and after a huge breakfast, we started our hardest day of the trail.  It was slated for about 8 hours and we had to climb 1100 meters that morning  to the top of the pass called "Dead Woman's Pass" because there is a supine woman in the mountains.  This was certainly a difficult climb as we did this in 4 or 5 hours and there were thousands upon thousands of steps to make it to 4250 meters.  All the while, Robin had become ill with some sort of stomach bug, so she was not feeling great and was low on energy.  But she was a trooper and we made it to the top and the views were worth every step up.  Plus, we got a great butt work out for like 5 hours straight.  :-) After resting at the top and taking in the views, we started to go down.  This was the hardest part of the trail for me.  I felt like my entire body was shaking for 2 or 3 hours as we walked another 600 meters down.  My right foot isn't exactly strong since I have a destroyed ligament, so I would land on it and it would twist and be very painful.  But my boot was tied tightly and there was only minimal swelling when I arrived at camp.  

Day 3 was more down hill for 8 hours.  But before we could down hill, we had 2 more passes to go.  So another 700 meters up, and then down and then up and then down again.  Robin hadn't eaten in 2 days, her energy was low, and her body was revolting, so this morning was the hardest for her. I finally convinced her that this was a stomach bug and gave her one round of my antibiotics that I had in case I got the bug.  This slowly started working to kill whatever was lurking in her stomach and intestines and she started feeling better by the middle of the 3rd day.  Poor thing.  She was absolutely amazing throughout the ordeal.  Towards the middle of the 3rd day, 4 of us from our group went ahead of our guide and the other 4 trekkers and we were told to wait for them at one of the ruins along the way.  We arrived there and waiting for 30 minutes without them arriving, but it was getting dark, so we managed to find our way to the big campsite, but we didn't know what number campsite we had, so we went around asking everyone if they knew where our group was.  We finally found them.  This campsite had showers, and real tables, and a bar, and people were drinking and dancing and celebrating the long journey they had just finished.  We had a feast of celebration that night with some of the best food of the journey-- even a glass of wine!  

The following morning, we woke up at 4 am so our porters could make it to a train back to Cuzco by 6 am.  We watched the sun rise over the Andes and despite being tired, we were once again energized by our surroundings.  After another great breakfast, we were on our way to the final destination: Machu Picchu.  It was only a 2 or 3 hour walk at most.  Robin was feeling a hundred percent and we bounced our way toward the Sacred City and we arrived at the Sun Gate about 630 am.  This is the final pass before Machu Picchu and it looks down onto the city.  It is called the Sun Gate because from the city you see the Sun rise over that mountain top.  The fog cleared as we sat at the Sun Gate and we had a perfect view of Machu Picchu below.  It was breathtaking.  There was this huge city below us basking in the early morning sun that had been standing there for past 800 years.  We were standing where thousands of people of all cultures had stood and it was truly "a  moment."  We practically ran the remaining part of the trail and arrived at the top part of the city.

We greeted llamas who were grazing and started to see the city in its fullest. You could see that there were many mountains to Machu Picchu that you could climb (most people who did the trail did not choose to climb again, but those who had been bused in were more eager to climb straight up for another hour).  You could see its separations-- agriculture, urban, the natural borders.  Everything was so logical.  We toured the city and learned that it was one of the Sacred Cities of the Incan Empire.  It had a school for boys.  It had a virgin house for the prettiest girls from the Empire.  It had agricultural areas, living areas, and of course, religious areas.  These were all made out of huge rocks, but it was astonishing.  In the religious areas, the walls were completely smooth and perfect.  There wasn't a stone that had a gap between it, or was unpolished.  It was utterly perfect-- done to perfection to please their gods. The juxtaposition of two walls side by side, one being a wall to the priest's house and the other a wall to a "normal" house was astonishing.  We saw their sundial, which legend says,  holds good energy and if you put your hands over it, you will receive some of the energy from the earth or the gods, or something.  There were too many people for us to try at that moment.

After 4 hard, but glorious days trekking through all the ecosystems you could imagine: the desert, the rainforest, the cloud forest, the mountains, towns, lakes, etc, we were on our way back to Cuzco.  Robin and I decided to "splurge" that night and booked a fancy hotel for 100 USD and even got massages that night.  We relaxed to hot showers, deep tissue massages, and Oceans 12 on TV.  We were happy campers. 

The trail was truly a once in a lifetime event.  I am so grateful, blessed, and lucky to have done it.  I saw dozens of types of orchids, birds, medicinal plants, I walked through caves, and saw ruins from the empire, and met people who still live in towns along the trail.  However, my experience with the trail leaves me a little unsettled.  I was (and still am) in complete awe of the guides, but mostly the porters who make this trip.  Our guide, Ivan, leads tours about 3 or 4 times a month and has been leading them for 8 years.  He is 36, married with two little kids and he says it gets harder each time he climbs because the trail is hard on your body.  Your knees hurt a little more, your back is a little more sore, the cold is a little colder... But I cannot imagine what it is to be a porter carrying 110 lbs on your back for the "rich white person."  It is a difficult trek, and they basically run the whole thing because they have to be the last ones to leave camp and they have to have it set up before we arrive.  The social injustice stared me in the face for four days.  They have very little future; the trail does not equip you with a set of skills to apply later in life.  It is hard work for relatively little pay.  You're gone from your family for 4 days at a time and you climb 3 or 4 times a month.  One of our porters was 35 and had been a porter for 10 years.  This is all they knew how to do.  They can start as young as 12 or 13, climbing during school breaks.  And some tours have age limits up to 50.  And when their bodies finally give out, they have nothing.  This is the way it is for most of the people in Cuzco.  It is a poor town whose main source of income is tourism and Machu Picchu.  If you don't speak English, it's hard to work as a waiter or in some hotels/hostels.  It's hard to be poor in any city or country.

I felt guilty the entire trek.  These guys were literally destroying their bodies so I could have one of the greatest adventures of my life.  I know I was grateful and was able to express that to them in word and in monetary thanks, but they will never know how grateful I am.  They will never know how guilty I feel.  I wish the world could be a more equal place.  I wish poverty didn't exist and these guys had just a few of the opportunities I have taken for granted for most of my life.  I'm on to my third degree and most of these guys don't get one.  I can fly across the world, the country, without a whole lot of sacrifice-- most of them will never leave Cuzco.  If I had the words (in English or in Spanish), I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to the 8 guys who made my trip feasible.  Gratitude does not pay for food or housing or clothes for their families.  But I hope it can express my heart full of angst and hope. 

I have always wanted to save the world.  I have always been mad at the social injustices.  And once again, I'm faced with the rich white folks and the poor dark folks, and I still don't have any answers.  I still can't save the world.  There are no words to alleviate my guilt or my anger.  There don't appear to be any actions, either. Just another reminder that I am blessed beyond measure.  And that I am called and determined to do whatever I can do in whatever capacity I can do it, to save a bit of my world.  I have chosen nursing for many reasons, but one small reason is the continued hope to alleviate suffering and to bind the wounds of the body, soul, and spirit.  And with renewed vision, with renewed anger, and in need of some more hope, I step faithfully and blindly into a new profession and career of saving my world.  

Here are some pictures of my trip of a lifetime:

International Perspective on the Election

Being in Argentina for the Presidential hoopla has been so fascinating for many reasons.  But the first and foremost is the astonishing realization that US politics are really that important to the rest of the world.  I began to realize that in 2007 when I was in Germany for a Neuroethics conference full of students from Europe.  In March 2007, they were asking me if I thought Hilary or Barack would become the Democratic candidate.  This was 18 months prior to the elections and I was a little surprised by the question then, but I told them I thought it would be Barack.  

I have been asked since arriving here who I was voting for, who I thought would win, and what my general opinions are about US politics.  If I were voting for McCain, I think I would have either lied and said Obama, or kept my intentions to myself.  I have yet to meet a single person while traveling who was decidedly voting for McCain or who wanted McCain to win.  But I think you would have been challenged in not the friendliest of environments about "why the hell" you would vote for McCain.  While I am not a Republican, I do not think Republicans are stupid, idiots, or imbeciles, and every time someone would make such a comment, I would cringe and try to remind them that that is a large, unfair generalization to make.  I can understand (and agree with) the dislike of Bush, but that is not representative of all Republicans nor of the party platform.  It was certainly a challenge to try to remain civil while people slung mud.  I also realized, quite early on, that if the world could vote for our President, there would have been no question about who would win.  The US President really has power and influence unlike any other country's leader.  

I had voted via absentee ballot in October, and that was fun to explain, in Spanish, how absentee voting works.  I also learned that Argentina and Australia have mandatory voting requirements.  (I'm sure there are other countries as well, I just learned about these two.)  In Australia, the fine is about 40 Australian dollars and the fine is not often leveed, so it does not always serve its purpose of being mandatory.  However, in Argentina, when you vote, you get a stamp on your passport.  So if you don't vote, you can't leave the country.  While that may not be an issue for many who do not have the money to leave, that is certainly a way to ensure that many people follow the rules of mandatory voting.  So I began thinking about should voting be mandatory?  I think there are good arguments for it being mandatory-- everyone's voice is counted.  However, I am glad voting is not mandatory for me. It's something I believe in and choose to do every time I get the chance, but I understand that some people are so jaded by the government that they don't think their voice matters. So they choose to remain silent.  That is their choice.  Not one that I think is logical, but nonetheless, their choice.  In the US, we believe in choice and personal freedom and the ability to deviate from tradition and expectations and I'm grateful for those choices.

Back to the election.  I had become very accustomed to people asking me who I was voting for, but I was surprised one day when I stopped a restaurant owner for directions to a place.  He first asked me if I was from the States and then he asked me who I was voting for.  After I responded that I had voted for Obama, he gave me directions.  I looked at him and asked him if I had voted for McCain what he would have done.  He said: I would have given you the wrong directions.  The morning of 4 November, I flew to Lima, Peru.  In the airport, while checking my passport, the airline workers asked me who I voted for.  My taxi driver asked me who I voted for.  The people at the hotel asked me who I voted for.  It's a good thing I voted for Obama, otherwise I would have never made to any of my locations!  I spent that day walking around Lima and spent that night fretting over the results at my hostel.  There were 2 Americans and a room full of "others" all glued to CNN watching the results come in.  It was surreal.  I didn't know half of these people's names and here we were bonded together to watch the results.  After not sleeping for 2 days and jet lag, I was exhausted.  And once I knew that Obama would win, I thankfully went to bed.  Only to be awoken an hour later by the screaming when the official results came in and the party began.

The following morning, en route to Cuzco, I had this strange moment when, in Spanish, I read that Obama had won and the world was celebrating.  The world was celebrating what our country had done.  "Change" posters were everywhere.  Posters about the return of freedom and democracy and choice were plastered on booths in one of the poorest cities I've ever seen.  Our election influences the lives of people from around the world.  I was completely shocked by the reaction of the Peruvians only because I cannot tell you who their president is.  I only learned about the president of Argentina when I arrived here, and they can tell you who our VP nominees are.  It made me realize there's a reason many Americans are so self-centered; it's because the world really does watch us.  What we do, really does affect the rest of the world.

Similarly, I arrived in Cuzco and was whisked into the Andes and enjoyed a week of history and ruins and kind of forgot about the election.  Kind of.  I was shocked at how much I had missed when I sat in the Lima airport 10 days later thumbing through a "Time" magazine and had never seen some of these pictures.  I had not read the commentary, heard the concession or the acceptance speeches, or participated in the post-election hoopla.  I was a little sad.  And then I was comforted by the fact I had just been in Machu Picchu, and I can read and see all those images thanks to the internet.

So for good or for ill, our actions, our choice of President, our laws and bans, are interpreted and embraced or rejected by many more people than just those who live within our boundaries.

So I'm not a blogger....

Ok, so I tried to become a blogger, thinking, what a great way to share my experiences in Buenos Aires and S. America with my friends and family.  And what I have discovered is that I'm not a blogger.  I'm sorry.  I don't love to hear my own thoughts (despite what some of you may think), and I don't want the world knowing all of my thoughts about my time here.  However, there are a couple of experiences I feel like I should share with you all, and I will do so in separate blogs so you can decide to read what you want to read.

Sorry for the disappointing news... this girl will not keep up with any sort of blog ever again (as though you can call this attempt "keeping up").