Misadventures

Just to preface, we are both alive and well and back in Cusco, waiting for our bus to Arequipa.  Well, we are "well-ish"  both a little sore.  As it happens, Ollantaytambo is slightly more than 15 miles from Aguas Calientes. 
We started out, like good hikers, with lots of water, bananas, cookies, some stretching.  Our friends in Cusco said it was an 8 hour walk, difficult but doable and very pretty.  It was a nice walk through countryside with corn plantations (in every stage of development, Tom noted- no growing season here) fields of gladiolas, cows, snow capped mountains.  We walked along the Urubamba river following the train tracks- easy enough, pretty flat and slightly downhill.  We weren´t making terrible time, even though we got passed by an abuela or two. We stopped for a coke and another bottle of water at a shack along the tracks, where we met up with the peruvians who motored past us a few kilometers before. We kindly asked the shack owner how much further to Aguas Calientes, he responded "igual". At this point it was nearing 4 in the afternoon, meaning two more hours of daylight


ooops . . .

So with 4hours left to go, a few ibuprofens and some caffeine, we picked up our pace.  The sun was lower, it was cooler and easier to walk, we turned a bend and entered really beautiful cloud forest.  The kilometers were streaming behind us.  But not fast enough.  Darkness came slowly.  Just a couple more kilometers, we kept thinking, even as we had to resort to the screen of the digital camera to guide us. 
10 hours after leaving we stumble into Aguas Calientes- so exhausted and achy we can barely take off our boots- only to find out, nope its not 15 miles.  Closer to 26, in fact.

TWENTY SIX MILES.  I have never walked that far in my life.  Actually, techinically I still haven´t-  I got a piggy back ride part of the way (shhh).  But 26 miles!  i know marathon runners might think lightly of this, but you all should be congratulating us, especially for not getting eaten by jaguars in the jungle at night.

Oh, and Machu Picchu was beautiful. We have lots of pretty pictures, and it really is the most impressive thing we´ve seen.  I don´t think there was ever a city with better views- stunning green mountains- improbably steep, swooping blue swallows, stone work whose joints you couldn´t fit a pin into.  But we are almost as excited to sleep for a long long time on our luxury bus rides down to Arequipa, Arica and on to Jujuy.  I just hope we are moving less like grannys and more akin to the spry young people we once were by the time we arrive at the farm.