Goodbye Urubamba, hello Macchu Picchu

I am in bed, at Yame and Miguel's, it is 7:30am, and I have a throat infection. Melanie, a longstay resident workingn with an NGO in Urubamba, scolded me when I padded downstairs into the kitchen barefoot for a cup of tea. "For the sake of sounding like a mother..." she said, shaking her head. I tiptoed back upstairs and climbed back into bed, where I am now snuggled cosily with my lemon and ginger tea and wondering how I can knock this infection out of me in the shortest time possible. (I made a mental schedule - hot toddy, Paddy´s, Saturday. Instant recovery, to be sure.)

I finish my week at the school and leave feeling incredibly guilty about the paperchain doll massacre incident.

A few days later...It is now almost 5pm, and I am in the Real MccCoy, curled up on the worn brown sofa in the corner of the pub, feet tucked up under me. I like that I can take my shoes off here and just wear my socks, like I am at home. I think that is how they want backpackers to feel, especially those who have been away from home for a long time.

It is warm and cosy inside. There are only a few people, reading and sipping tea.

Travelling is a rollercoster of emotions. You can feel up and down from one minute to the next. Fearful and hopeful. In love one day, a complete skeptic the next. Angry and forgiving. Distant and close.

I reflect on my hike to Macchu Picchu. The journey there made me a feel a number of things: at first, I felt annoyed at the disorganisation (I was with a group and we were hiring bikes to cycle and hike there), and unappreciative. I allowed myself to feel frustration for some time...and then I remembered my Mum´s words, "I love you so much, because you never complain". I thought about that, and I said nothing, but felt guilty, because I felt like I was complaining on the inside, and this is no different to complaining out aloud.

When we got on the bikes though, a sensation of exhiliration took over. Flying down the mountain roads, the fresh air kissing and playfully biting my cheeks, I felt alive and truly happy once again. I felt an amazing rush as I sailed downhill, taking in the incredible mountainous scenery around me. I loved the swallows, I loved the dragonflies that dipped and dived in the clear blue sky, and it was so quiet that you could have heard the beating wings of a hummingbird. I listened for every small noise in nature that is possible for humans to hear. The sun shone. Our faces shone.

After lunch, we embarked on a dirt path that was extremely rocky. Until now, we had been on a paved road. So this was a little difficult. It began to rain, gently first, then heavily. We had a guide, Willy, driving behind us in a jeep and he suggested that the boys go ahead on the bikes, and the girls get into the back of the car.

Well. Nobody puts Beani in the back. I politely informed Willy that I would be going ahead with the boys. And off I went.

With a fresh dose of determination, thanks to Willy´s comment, I crawled at snail´s pace along the rocky path, cursing the suspension on my bike and wondering, with the boys so far ahead of me, whether girls really are the weaker sex after all (nothing that was going to stop me, of course, but it did infuriate me slightly). I stayed on the right-hand side of the road, so that jeeps and buses could pass, with Willy driving right behind me, on my tail. The bumpiness of the road shook me around until I felt like my insides had turned into a milkshake. My vision was blurry. Completely soaked from the rain, I gripped the brakes until my hands hurt, because I was still on a decline and I feared that if I went any faster, my brain and eyeballs would liquify. The road curved through the lush jungle.

Before, on the paved road, Brooke and I had sailed past waterfalls with air rushing through our lungs, screaming at the top of our voices, feeling the natural high that downhill biking in the Andes gives you without failure. Just a few hours later, I was tired, soaked through, hands hurting from all the braking, and feeling inferior to the boys. Instead of feeling resigned though, I told myself that it would be bad to wear down the brakes, so I turned and signalled to Willy that I was done, with a big thumbs up sign, and settled myself back into the jeep.

The next day, we started the hiking. I will fill this space in with facts and statistics later. But what I can say now is that hiking to Macchu Picchu is both amazing and hair-raising. A narrow - and I mean narrow - path wound around the mountainside, the drop below so steep and far that I experienced vertigo in a few places and my legs simply refused to move.

Falling, falling, falling. Why did I feel like I was falling, when I had my two feet firmly on the ground? Was part of me actually falling? Was part of my soul unable to resisit taking the plunge, an air spirit diving and catching the wind, souring through the canyons below, watching the mountainside stream away, an upwards blur towards the heavens? The free spirit part of me perhaps? There was definitely a part of me that felt like I was tumbling into the valleys far below. Every time a rock crumbled and fell, that rock was me, or the essence of me. My stomach would lift, as though the falling rock was that essence of myself, leaving my body behind. A sensation I have felt before but never been able to explain, something deep and mystical.

For quite a while, I felt as though the mountain could wake from a deep sleep, and heave and shake it´s body to free itself from all the tiny people that crawled along it´s belly.

(to continue...)