Climbing a Mountain

What a miserable experience. This confirmed that I do not enjoy nature all that much. I am willing to try things, but I guess I don´thave to do them again. Ann and I got tickets and after our tour made our way over to HP to climb it. Mistake 1 was that we didn´t refill our water because it was across the way and we didn´t know if we could make it back in time to get in line. So we each started with a half of bottle of water.

Here is the mountain behind us when we were tired, but still excited...



Everyone said, oh this is so easy. I guess it was easy if you had 1. ever been hiking before and 2. been mountain climbing before. Being that I had more or less done neither of those things I thought it was super hard. It basically consisited of a trail and then climbing rocks and steps that were at times almost complete vertical climbs. My foot hates me right now. I don´t think that climbing a mountain when recovering from tendonitus is a good thing :)

After much stopping and resting on my part, we made it to the top. You could say that it was worth it because it was so peaceful and the views were amazing. I am so proud to say that I did it, but I am an idiot because by the end I was so dehydrated that I almost got sick and I am 90% sure I re-injured my foot, but oh well. When am I ever going to get a chance to do this again...



So lessons learned
1. buy hiking boots - new balance cross country shoes are not the same
2. take a backpack not a messenger bag
3. take alititude pills
4. take water
5. it is ok to let people pass :)
6. make sure you don´t have a fresh manicure

After the mountain we made our way to the entrance where we got water and rested. That is when the afternoon clouds rolled in and we could see the rain coming. Around 3 we made our way back to Aguas Calientes, got our stuff and made it to the train and then back to Cusco. Along with most of our train, we went to McDonalds (I know SO BAD) because they were the only place we could find with food we could get fast. Showering never felt so good.

OK off to explore more of Cusco! If you are reading this - happy birthday to Kate and Joe!!!