"Even if I got rid of all my problems, I'd just go out and get new ones..."

I am Inca Trail survivor
12:36 p.m. on 2003-08-29

Or so it says on Sharon�s t-shirt. Mine states, with better grammar, "I survived the Inca Trail." Which is a pretty apt description, since after hyperventilating at least once, and with my knees feeling like they belonged to a 90 year old woman (or an American high school cheerleader), survive it I did.

Four days, three nights, hiking and camping in a tent. Have decided I am more a hostel girl, than a tent girl. My idea of roughing it includes a shower, dry clothes, and a bed. But the food was very nice, the porters very sweet and very shy, and our guide Renee was lovely. And taught me lots of lovely breathing exercises to help me up Dead Woman�s Pass, but that is by the by.

So was it worth it? Well, my opinion is divided. On the one hand, it was a good life experience, in that I now know I don�t do camping, and quite probably need an inhaler. On the other hand, I got very wet, very tired, and very cranky, all on the promise that we would see fabulous views of Machu Picchu and miss the tourists. Unfortunately, after rising in the dark at 4am, we walked to MP in the middle of a cloud, unable to see further than a 2 metre radius. Sat dripping under the outdoor cafe tables drinking overpriced tea until the clouds cleared, by which point all the nice, clean, dry tourists had arrived in their coaches.

So I think I would rather I had taken the train.

Still, I have my t-shirt.

Random thing: seeing the robes of Thomas Aquinas, famous philosopher, in the Santa Domingo church in Cusco. Woo! I am such a geek.

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