(Heading into the mountains. Nate is the hiker in the back)
We begAn this day with a 3 hour twisty dirt road drive. I felt carsick which was quite discouraging for a while there. Nathan kept trying to help, but what can you really do? Then a song came in the radio about 1/2 hour from our destination. It was a song I have used in class before called Esposa Mia. The song is by a Christian artist talking about his unconditional love for his wife. I translated for Nate and found I could rest enough to calm my stomach. Soooo thankful.
We are a team of 7 Trekkers with 7 support staff. Most of the team is in their 20s. I am the slowest member of the group. Coming to terms with that was humbling but healthy. The life lesson there is you can't walk faster than your heart can hAndle. I guess we each can apply that in our own ways.
(Nate is in the blue jacket giving candy to the little boy)
So... The climb is really hard. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. In the first ten minutes, I though I had made a real mistake. But this evening we are in a little villAge and got to give gifts to the kids, we learned aboutant kinds of mediconal plants and local anal identification in our many 10 minute seminars by our guide Jose. We even saw a mummy that was discovered only months ago. The archeologists will arrive in the next month or so.
I don't know if it is the altitude, the exhaustion or my small device but I am making tons of errors here.
Too tired to write more or fix them. Tomorrow we hope to hit our summit. This would also ( I think) bring us to the top of our Everest challenge. I hope I can do it in the time allotted
Slowest trekker on team Jaguar... Signing off.
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Day 2. My glasses were found on the ground outside the tent this morning by one of the team with ice on them. It is actually 6:30 AM on day 3. Exhaustion describes why I could not blog before bed.
I have to be up soon to start hiking again soon, so I will jot down a few memories while I am fresh and then put my pack back on.
We made it over the mountain, Condor Pass. Physically it is the most demanding thing that I have ever done. My legs were hardly strained because I could not go ver fast. My breathing was very labored and I was unable to speak well. Nathan was amazing, never leaving my side unless another team member was suffering. He would send me ahead and stay behind as an encourager. My spirits remained good throughout and when I asked god to send me help, as the unending climbing revealed one peak after another, it began to rain and snow. It doesn't sound like much of a help, but it was incredible! The moisture in the air somehow opened my lungs more and I began to be able to keep a slow pace behind the lead group. What a team. The 20 something's would set a goal for all of us about 20 feet ahead. I could not speak at all really, but I could smile and nod. We went this pace for the lAst hour from the top (15,300ft).
Jose had put our 13 year old horse driver as our guide for this time. He was always visible ahead of us in his traditional red poncho and sandals. Jose kept the horse behind to help our team member who suffered the most. I was impressed with how discreet Jose was with his aid. We would never have known that our team mate was given oxygen and carried to within feet of the pass on the horse, if he had not eventually told us himself.
This was an amazing and difficult day. God is good and I am glad we were all here In this remote valley surrounded by trees and the occasional horse or cow wandering. It's time to get moving down the mountain today.
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Day 3- today we descended 3,000 feet. That is like hiking down blue mountain 5 times. It took about 4 hours. Today's lectures were on courtship (what flowers to pick to win the girl). And the history of the Quechua people, tragic yet amazing when being taught by a Quechua in the Andes mountains.
The trip was not nearly as hard as yesterday, but the exhaustion was hanging on so when we finally arrived in the town of Ollantaytambo I put in a request to get a room for an hour or so. The nap helped me to rejuvenate while the others shopped.
Now we are on a bus traveling to the town of Aguascalientes and tomorrow we will get up early to take the bus to Mach Picchu. I had to laugh as we moved from our restaurant to the train station. If we had been a regular tour group instead of a trekking group we probably would have taken a taxi. But there we were with our backpacks and duffels trekking the 1/2 mile or more through dark streets.
A note about the makeup of our team:
There are seven of us, 4 Canadians and 3 Americans. Three of us are teachers, one is a pharmacist, one is a lawyer, another is a dietician and Nate is a builder. There are 4 women and 3 men. Most of the team is in their early to mid 20's, the lawyer is in his 30s and that makes Nate and I the oldest on the team.
Time to just relax on this evening train ride...
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