Everyone woke up this morning complaining of various ailments. Most had some kind of stomach bug or another. Apparently, you can't leave Peru without at least one incident of wobbly belly. But even those with stomachs of steel were enfeebled elsewhere - sore thighs, sore calves, or just fatigue.
"Guys, we have two options today," Marco told us. "We can either climb Llactapata, another mountain from which we can get our first view of Machu Picchu, or we could take the easy way out and camp near some hot springs and just have a slightly more relaxing day. What do you think?"
Without hesitation and in unison, the entire group said "hot springs!"
And so started our relatively "easy" day.
"It's flat today," Marco told us cheerfully, "Nothing like the climbing we did the past two days."
But as we learnt, when they say 'flat', they refer to the Peruvian flat. It consists of a series of constant ups and downs, which even out into an average flat altitude by the end of the day. But until that end, it's a lot of hard work. Up and down. Up and down.
On the other hand, the entire way, the path followed the edge of a valley, overlooking a river. Now how could you fault that.
"Guys, we have two options today," Marco told us. "We can either climb Llactapata, another mountain from which we can get our first view of Machu Picchu, or we could take the easy way out and camp near some hot springs and just have a slightly more relaxing day. What do you think?"
Without hesitation and in unison, the entire group said "hot springs!"
And so started our relatively "easy" day.
"It's flat today," Marco told us cheerfully, "Nothing like the climbing we did the past two days."
But as we learnt, when they say 'flat', they refer to the Peruvian flat. It consists of a series of constant ups and downs, which even out into an average flat altitude by the end of the day. But until that end, it's a lot of hard work. Up and down. Up and down.
On the other hand, the entire way, the path followed the edge of a valley, overlooking a river. Now how could you fault that.
That evening when we finally arrived at the hot springs, the only possible feeling I could compare it to was reaching heaven. It was the first time we could bathe in days, and water had never felt so welcoming on the skin.
But no sooner had a slipped into my swimsuit, when I felt a sudden sharp nip at my ankle.
Ow!
I glanced down, and saw a little red dot. I'd been bitten by something! And then suddenly, again. Ow! This one on my elbow. And another one. And another one.
I looked about - Bobbis, Ilajna and Delta were all being attacked too. And then we noticed it. The air was filled with swarms of tiny, tiny, flies. Vicious, biting flies. Without a moment to loose, we all fled for the cover of water, and dove into the pools. The hot springs, of course, were fantastic. But more than slightly overshadowed by our panic of the biting flies outside.
"I'm going to spend the night in here, with only my eyeballs popping out of the water!" Delta gasped.
Only after we got back home to New York did we learn that we had been attacked by chiggers. I researched them, and what was the first thing I read?
"Probably no creature on earth can cause as much torment for its size than the tiny chigger."
That, my friends, is the creature that bit us. En masse. All over. Torment like no other creature on earth.
That's the karma you get, I suppose, for opting to spend a lazy evening at the hot springs when you could be climbing yet another mountain.
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