Day 1: Rain, New Friends and high mountains

hi everyone!

I am back in Cuzco from our amazing five day trek in the Andes and to Salkantay Mountain. I apoligize in advance because it may take me a few day to get every detail of this amazing trek.

We started at 5 am by being picked up by our guides (Edi and Valentine from SAS travel). There were 16 of us total on the trek; 13 girls and 3 guys (wimps!). We had 4 austrailians, 2 brits, 3 norwegians, 1 swiss, 2 belgians, 1 canadian and we were the only three americans! This was great for us because we gave Americans a good name :)

We drove about 2 hours on a bus outside of cuzco before the sun rose. We stopped in a small town for breakfast and the rain continued to come down in a drizzle. We then got in the back of an open air truck with all our bags and drove 2 hours through an insnaely windy "road" that felt more like a trail. We were bounced around a ton but got to see beautiful green vegitation, cows on the road and orchids and exotic flowers.

We got to the trailhead at about 10 am and put on giant, horrendous rain ponchos that covered our backpacks and our raincoats. We hiked for about 3.5 hours in the mud and dirt through fairly flat areas to our lunch spot. The porters and chef (amazing food!) had beat us there and set up the lunch tent and the food was ready to eat within 10 mins of arrival. We had rice, veggies, chicken curry, carrot soup and fresh stuffed avocados. We also drank as much Coca Tea as we could (made from coca leaves, meant to provide energy and aid in altitiude sickness). Despite being very wet, I was feeling fine!

The next three hours of our hike was much more uphill and the rain gradually let up. We hiked on beautiful cliffs and the clouds and mist slightly covered the green rolling hills. It looked a bit like the marin headlands but much more massive and dramatic (and of course I was breathing way more heavily). I chatted with my trek friends in between gasping for breath and we made it to a gorgeous view point at which we took photos, drank water and layered up to go into the snow. The glaciers of Mt. Salkantay could be seen in the distance and our guides told us we would be camping at the base!

Within an hour we arrived at our campsite. it was surreal. A beautiful little lagoon and creek sat at the base of amazing snow capped glaciers with Mt. Salkantay peak jutting out in the center. We immediatley got into our tents and changed out of our wet clothing and the minute I sat down I felt nauseated. I had been fine all day so I wasnt sure if it was lunch or the 14,000 feet we were at at this point or what. After struggling for a few hours I finally started vomitting, which actually came as relief for me. All i wanted was a cold bathroom floor to lie on but instead I stood over a rock in the pouring rain and with only the light of my headlamp. All and all, it wasn´t the worst thing that could have happened. I slept from about 8pm until 6 am the next morning and woke up to sun and the glaciers practically creeping into our tent. The guides greeted us with chamomile tea in our tents and told us to get ready to go as day two was going to be the most spectacular and the longest and hardest! gulp!