Day 66: Thursday, December 6th

Day 1 of Machu Picchu Jungle Trek

Dear Obiwan,

OBI the day has finally come! Today was day 1 of my 4 day journey to Machu Picchu. The nice Russian girl, Natasha, from my hostel in Cuzco I was telling you about in my last entry decided to join me on this trek! I was so excited to not do this journey completely alone. If you remember Obi, I am doing the JUNGLE TREK, which is a 4 day a 3 night adventure packed journey to Machu Picchu.

The Jungle Trek is an alternative option for those seeking thrilling adventures and also for those who don’t want to hike endlessly. The trip is 4 days and 3 nights, the first day is downhill mountain biking and white water rafting! The second day is a 21 km (or 68, 897 feet or 13 miles) HIKE. Then day 3 is zip-lining! And lastly day 4 is MACHU PICCHU.

Side note, I found out during the trip there was a 3 day and 2 night version of this that is CHEAPER and just CUTS OUT THE HIKE. I don’t understand why I would ever choose this.

Anyways Obiwan, the day began with a horrible nights sleep and then a pretty gross breakfast at the hostel. After this we left most of our stuff at the hostel and the van was punctual and we were off!…To a 3 hour van ride that we did not know about.

The van was taking us to the top of a mountain, but on the road. There were only 5 of us and our tour guide David. It was me, Natasha, this super nice Argentinian couple, and this amazing woman Carolina from Colombia.

The mountain biking began by us having to first put on our ‘gear.’ The gear included knee and shin guards, a top that velcro’s across you that has shoulder pads and elbow pads, and massive helmets. I somehow was the last to put gear on and every piece of gear was too big. The guide just super tightly wrapped everything and told me I was fine. This was oh so comforting. The helmet made me the most anxious for as it was too big, but, alas, what was I going to do? I had to do the biking!

Oh also Obi, I FORGOT TO MENTION, that the weather was atrocious. It was COLD, RAINING, and so cloudy at the top of this mountain!

So the ride was supposed to be about 2.5 hours. The whole ride was downhill so the most important thing was that your BREAKS WORKED. We began and the visibility was so poor that you could only see about 10 feet ahead of you! That meant that you’re flying down this mountain, on the main road, and all of a sudden you see head lights, 10 feet away BLASTING it’s horn at you. It was sometimes really fun Obi but the cold, the rain, and the terror made it…just not that great. Also there were so many just open vistas that I knew must be AMAZING to look at but all you could see was WHITENESS, white clouds forever.

There were only a few times where I slid and it was in the beginning when I was nervous about this windy-ass road down A MOUNTAIN with trucks appearing out of thin air. But I quickly learned that it is best to just let your bike fly and on the tight curves just lightly break a little before. Also there were many points where the road was near some forest and the road was SLIGHTLY FLOODED so you just hope that you don’t slide and slip during these lovely parts. At one point Natasha break-ed and almost fell and I was behind her and went to stop but then David and the Argentinians were right behind me so I almost caused a crash and just had to keep going. ALSO, Obi it was a steep mountain with this road slapped on the side of it, so there were cliffs everywhere. David told us to stick to the right, since the cliff was on the left, BUT HALFWAY THROUGH THE CLIFF WAS ON RIGHT. So if you stayed on the right and then made tight turns it was terrifying, I ignored David’s instructions at this point and stayed in the middle left.

About 20 minutes later David was leading and had us all pull over at this random shop. He took off his helmet and referenced with his body how he was soaking wet and freezing and told us, “we’re going to stop here, I didn’t know the weather was going to be this bad, it’s too wet and cold!” Everyone was at this stop EXCEPT FOR NATASHA. A few minutes after I arrived we saw Natasha flying down the mountain and David and all of us screamed and waved her down, GOOD THING SHE HEARD US, what would of happened if she didn’t?

Well Natasha joins us and looked very shaken up. She tells us that she ALMOST FELL OFF THE CLIFF. It was of course when the cliff switched to the right side, she said that she skidded and flew over her hand bars onto the ground and slid and stopped JUST BEFORE THE CLIFF. She almost died! After about 10 minutes of warming up at this stop our van arrived, but right before we left I looked down at some tattered clothing on Natasha, and suddenly I noticed that her pants WERE IN SHREDS. She just bought these pants for 70 soles (about $20 USD)! She was wearing legging under and just ripped the pants one more time and they fell off her body. She was pretty bruised up and her elbow was killing her. She asked our guide if her arm was okay and his excellent medical abilities he poked it twice and a said, “not broken.”

After this we had a ride to WHITE-WATER RAFTING! We were told to join a different group of people, that was going to be ‘our new group’ (which we did not understand), and Carolina and the Argentinian couple didn’t go rafting.

Finally we were off white-water rafting, and Obi it was SO MUCH FUN. I’ve been lucky and got to go rafting at sleep over camp (Capital Camps shout out!) every summer for 8 summers. But I haven’t been in a while and as always, loved it so much! I think the rapids were level 2 and 3? I think it goes up to 4 or 5, so right in the middle.

At one point they said if we wanted to we could jump off a rock into a calmer part of the river. As I was climbing the large rocks up to the jumping place the same feeling I felt 5 years ago when Alana and I jumped off a waterfall in Semuc Chempey, Guatemala and I got vertigo, cried, and almost couldn’t do it, but I did in the end- I felt that same feeling. Just imminent death. And the directions were “jump far, if you don’t jump far enough you will land on those rocks”…and obviously DIE.

I watched everyone go and just felt in my GUT- NO, CARLY, YOU CAN’T JUMP, and Obi you know me, I can’t jump if my life depended on it, and I just, and now I feel 100% okay turning around and walking down, which is what I did. I felt a little shameful walking back but then it faded and I didn’t feel shame or regret. I know some people might think ‘you’ll regret it if you don’t!’ And I can confidently say, I don’t regret it. And I learned something about me, I am not a jumper. I hate it. I hated it in Guatemala but that was higher than this jump! I feel like, I’ve done it, and I am fine never jumping off a cliff or rock or whatever EVER AGAIN. Unless you can just free fall and not have to depend on your jumping and aiming abilities.

The rest of rafting was amazing. We watched a few people fall off one raft but our raft was amazing! At one point we saw a bridge and there was CAROLINA! She took pictures look:

After our amazing day we headed back to our hostel. And here is when things changed, kinda for the worst but not really. So, we get back to this beautiful hostel and David tells us, “oh, uh, this isn’t your hostel…I’ll take you to yours,” Natasha and I ask questions and David just is stuttering and DOESN’T ANSWER.

He walks us up the road to this horrible hostel that looked like a motel in middle America where you get MURDERED. We ask him feeling upset and confused, “WHAT’S HAPPENING,” then he DUMPS us Obi, David tells us that “this is your new group and new guide, so uh, you will be with them from now on.”

Me, “What? David! We like you! And we like our group! We had a traumatizing bike ride with them we are attached! Why?”

David, “uh, because, uh, you speak English, and they speak Spanish,” this was just a lie, half our group spoke Spanish and our new tour guide just spoke both languages.

He then dumped us, and left. We look in our room and find 2 cockroaches and the shower was ice cold. Things were LOOKING UP.

After this we met our new group, a lot of Americans, some English and Aussies, then a bunch of Spanish speakers. Mostly everyone seemed nice. After dinner we went to sleep with our two cockroach roommates.

Goodnight my Jedi,

Love tu Madre,

Carly

P.S.- Since I didn’t take any photos today (Carlonia did!) here is one of you, I miss you so much!