Days 3-7: Hiking the Salkantay Trail

The first day was really rough, the altitude (3400-3800m) sickness hit me a lot harder than I thought. I had a throbbing headache and ended up going to sleep as soon as we made it to camp and skipped dinner! My altitude sickness was bad, but I didn't have to end up riding a horse and was able to walk the whole trail.

The second day, I was feeling slightly better after having some coca tea (it helps with the altitude). The Incas didn't have any horses, so they used to send messages between cities with human runners. These runners would chew dried coca leaves for the energy it would give them. 

We took some horses up to Humantay glacial lake (4200m)!The lake was absolutely incredible, it was so peaceful! After a (relatively) short walk, we arrived at our camp for the evening just as it was starting to rain.

The third day was our most physically challenging, we had a very steep climb to the Salkantay Pass (4600m)! We enjoyed the incredible views before a long descent through the cloud forest! When we got into camp, there were (cold) showers, which everyone greatly appreciated! 😂 What was not appreciated was the appearance of bugs! They were absolutely everywhere so we had to get our bug spray out earlier than planned.

The fourth day, was quite chill with not too much walking. We went along this incredible jungle pathway and were then driven to the Cocalmayo Hot Springs, where the bug spray was all washed off and we got bitten a ton by mosquitoes! We finished off the evening with a demonstration on how to make coffee. When being roasted, the beans have to be stirred continuously for 14 minutes to prevent burning.

On the fifth day, we woke up to a massive rainstorm! We'd all prepared our rain gear, but a lot of it wasn't working properly; my raincoat was completely soaked through! We did what was supposed to be a 3hr ascent in only 1hr40! We just didn't stop and pressed on through the rain. Thankfully it stopped raining around lunchtime so we were able to complete the afternoon walk to Aguas Calientes, the town at the bottom of Machu Picchu!