This week was mainly spent exploring inca ruins and hiking the famous inca trail. Some of you know that I was meant to do this with two dear friends some time ago so this was an emotional journey for me.
It all started on Wednesday night when we had to arrive at KM82, the inca trail starting point, at nightfall to avoid Peruvian road strike action. We camped overnight and Thursday dawned a beautiful morning and we were ready and raring to go. My group seemed to think of the Inca trail as a race, and so sprinted off, while I merrily sauntered along enjoying the scenery, occasionally being asked to walk faster by our gruff but knowledgeable guide, Wilbert. Wilbert and I got to know each other very well as I walked at the back and arrived at camp at least 2 hours after everyone else, every day. I walked most of the trail on my own because after dreaming of this place for so long, I wanted to really see everything and savour every moment. I think Wilbert appreciated this sentiment but also wanted his dinner, so we had to compromise.
Second day, Dead Woman´s Pass, was more challenging, but I kept my snail pace going and used the time to do McGuire contacts, which I thought was excellent multitasking and probably has never been done before. Using lots of deliberate dysfluency, I chatted to over 100 people on the trail and time passed quite quickly. The pass is a series of stone steps, varying in height, and was quite hard work, especially when the sun got higher in the sky and was ridiculously warm.
We were camping every night and I´m not sure that some of the girls in my group knew how thin canvas is, because they spent a lot of time saying unkind things about me, namely about how I speak. This week I have been quite mechanical, not disimilar to how I was when I first joined the McGuire programme, because I have been quite unwell and my speech tends to suffer so I thought it best to take it back to basics. There were numerous impressions of me and mimicry which I thought was needless and unkind but to be honest, if they have hiked through stunning scenery and beautiful wildlife and I am the most interesting thing they have to talk about, then maybe they should ask for a refund. It also made me remember all the lovely emails, cards and phone calls I received from family, friends and work colleagues and the support you all gave me when I first joined the programme. Your kindness really kept me going and remembering these things made me not worry too much about these girls.
The rest of the trail was amazing and climbing the sun gate for sun rise yesterday morning, then racing down to watch the first ray of sun break over Waynu Picchu was an experience I´ll never forget. I also did lots more contacts at Machu Picchu and really enjoyed talking to other visitors and hearing their experiences about the trail.
Next stop, Nazca
