PERU

The truth is, there is nothing I can say to illustrate what hiking to Macchu Pichu is like.  The guides were amazing: energetic, informative, resourceful and helpful. 

Upon arriving in Cusco, my partner became deathly ill.  Nothing worse could happen than to become horribly ill right before a difficult 4 day hike through the Amazon.  Nevertheless, we forged on.  Assuming, even though we had no bases for this assumption, that he would miraculously get well while hiking.  He didn't. 

Initially our guides thought he had food poisoning.  They quickly found a pharmacy, prescribed some antibiotics and a diarrheic before we got to the trailhead...  After this did not work -and upon further questioning - we discovered the real illness: altitude sickness.   Yes, we were the silly couple who thought the endless warning about altitude sickness were simply intended for babies and old people.  I was fine and felt little to no affect, he was rendered immobile: vomiting, dizziness, headaches -in a word, horrible.  Half way through the first day we had to rent a thin, shabby working horse to carry him up the rest of the trail.  It was an interesting experience to say the least.  That night followed with him sipping on soup and sleeping... 

I had never seen him this ill before...  In fact, in 4 years I had never seen him ill once.  Our guides assured me that he would be fine the next day.  Honestly, I was not too confident in their medical abilities.  They were guides - not doctors.   But when we woke the next morning, he felt much better.  Doctor Hilbert (our guide) gave him a few more unknown pills and we were off. 

The hike is amazing.  No, I can't describe it well enough to try.  Imagine lush green thick leaves and vibrantly colored flowers.  There is a light grey mist that covers everything so that when you happen upon ruins everyone gasps and you feel the group breath in at once.  It is everything you see in the pictures and nothing does the sites justice. 

The hike was nothing less than amazing...  that night, just as on the night before a first class meal was laid out before us... and just as the night before Nick became terribly ill as we were at a higher elevation and he relapsed.  With Nick moaning in the tent, our guides turned into the attending physicians once more and came into the tent bearing an O2 tank and mask.