MPC Chapter 6 - Stand by Me

Another night of bug-bite infested sleep and no shower with a carbohydrate infused breakfast and a briefing about this day of trekking to Aguas Calientes, our last stop before Machu Picchu was how our day three began. It was amazing to think that by this time tomorrow, we would be on Machu Picchu, as that day would begin at 4:00am. We were all looking forward to getting to Machu Picchu and mildly dreading what today's trek would entail, but when we heard it the entire 25km was virtually flat we all rejoiced. What I don't think we realized was that this trek would take us along an active, a very active, set of train tracks.
I have never really walked along a train track before, as it not very safe, but things are done very differently around these parts...well, in most every other part of the world besides America and Great Britain quite honestly. I like pushing the envelope...living dangerously...Alex is rolling her eyes as she reads this line of the blog, but it feels good to push myself out of comfort zones and into danger zones...that's me, living life on the edge...being naughty and a bit dangerous and mindless. Ok, so pretty much every toursit of the thousands that trek to Machu Picchu take this exact same path, but I still felt quite cool and that is really all that matters.
We started our hike just along the side of the tracks, but with the constant raining, there were bits that were too muddy to trapse through so we hoped on the tracks and used them like rusty metal balancing beams, wobbling back and forth along the tracks only jumping to the dirt path along the sides as a train fast approaches. What a rush. Naturally, our discussions turned to the movie Stand By Me...a movie I have not actually seen, but I think I blagged that little white lie really well. We tried to capture some pictures that mimicked some scenes from that movie and I thought we did a pretty good job with that task.
Eventually, we made it to a resting point where we came face to face with some of the other trekking groups. We have had little contact with other trekking groups up to this point and that gave it a more authentic feel, which we all liked. Additionally, the times we have had brief moments with other groups, they have been...well...dicks wuite honestly. Maybe there is this unspoken hate, as we got Mick from one of those groups or maybe it was just that they saw how cool we all were and felt ashamed of themselves, but whatever the reason they were always quite rude and stand-offish so we just ignored them and struck up a chat with some hardcore American military cadets who trekked for 5 days on their own sleeping in tents in the jungle for their Spring Break holiday. They all suffered terrible altitude sickness and were fraught with diarrhea and vomitting throughout their 5 day hike, but that didn't stop them...they kind of scared me quite frankly.
Now, I have seen loads of military themed movies with these characters that kind of scare me, but I never thought that was real until I met these military youngsters. They were all "hoo yah and sempre fi" and it was the real deal. They hiked in a straight line carrying these massive packs on their backs in full military garb. Our group left before them...like 30 minutes before them...but while we were trekking, I turned around to take a picture of a passing train and who should I see marching triple time to the rhythum of the passing train, but the militaries. I could not believe my eyes...I ran to our group and we tried to speed up, but they overtook us in moments and then disappeared into the mist ahead.
Eventually, we made it to the bridge that we would wake at 4:00am the following morning and cross to race up the 2,700 Inca-style uneven stairs in a scramble to be one of the first 400 people to the top in order to secure a ticket to climb Huayna Picchu, steep mountain behind the ruins, which takes about an hour to climb and once at the top, offers spectacular views of Machu Picchu from the other side. THey only allow 400 people to climb this mountain per day so it just adds to the stress of having to climb thousands of steps in the pitch black darkness of the pre-sunries morning, but we were all up for the challenge so once we arrived at our hostel for the night, we were all eager to sleep...but not before our first shower in 4 days...a hot one.

Picture Compliments of Fraser Perrie