Lares trek, day 3

Saturday

We woke up this morning to lots of rain and then snow! Not much, but it was cold enough to snow. Brrrrrrrr.

The elevation is 13,000 ft. and I don't feel any problems with altitude anymore. I'm so glad to be acclimated now. It makes such a difference in energy level, etc.

After about an hour of being up and out of the tent there was a small lake forming in front of and underneath my tent. I'm so glad it didn't rain like this last night.

Anyway, it's our last day to hike in the peaceful mountains. Tonight we will be in a town at the base of Machu Picchu called Aguas Calientes.

Our hike today was more downhill thru another little village of people working away - farming, gathering firewood, driving their flocks to graze the hillside and such. We hiked *only* 5 hours and ended our trek in the early afternoon at a place where the cooks prepared lunch for us at a spot alongside a country road. The company's bus picked us up there and took us to a nearby town, called Ollantaytambo, which has a train station where we took the train to Aguas Calientes.

At the end of our lunch we said goodbye to the porters and horsemen. They headed back to Lares, the town we started in 3 days ago and they will be there tonight. Yes, tonight. The locals are really tough and strong and understand what hard work is all about. Oh, and they won't ride the horses back because 1) there aren't enough horses for all of them so they have to keep a human walking pace and 2) they can't ride horses in many sections of the trail since it's so technical .

Ollantaytambo is an old city built by he Incas. All the buildings are made of stone, Inca style. Fernando and Kristen and Nick stayed here last night (K & F were supposed to stay here yesterday too, but stayed in Cusco to be with sick Nick instead). Nick is slightly better - he has enough energy to walk around and be social but he still feels pretty sick and if he were at home he'd still be convalescing and not touring around, poor guy - it really stinks to be sick while on vacation. Anyway it was great to see all of them again even though it was brief. Actually this is where Nick joined the hiking group and took the train with us to Aguas Calientes so we can be close to Machu Picchu in the morning and start our day early. Kristen and Fernando stayed another day in Ollantaytambo and will join us tomorrow night.

Aguas Calientes is a super cute town that is built on the slope of a mountain with stone streets and a clever water drainage system built by the Incas. It's quite a trek to go up to our hotel which is toward the top of the town. There are no cars here, only foot traffic and the locals deliver goods and luggage, etc on wheeled carts. Everyone here gets a good workout wherever they go.

Tomorrow we get to our destination - Machu Picchu, yay!