Day 2: Hikin'

I was definitely nervous about the physical demands of this trek. I’d heard the trek on average described as “doable but difficult”. I did a trek in the northern Andes back in July. It was just two weeks after I’d run a marathon and the 2 hike was very hard. I was worried because I hadn’t done any real physical activity since that hike in July. Mono took a toll on my body. Even at the end of November I could still feel the sickness effecting me. The lack of exercise plus left over mono plus the altitude was a big enough threat to make me start running up and down stairs two weeks before the hike. I thought it might be too late to get in shape, but at least I could shock my legs and get the initial soreness out of the way.

It seemed to work because I didn’t have too hard a time with the incredibly steep, never ending mountains. Day two, our first day of real hiking. The hiking part was definitely challenging, but we took so may breaks at first it was manageable. It seemed like every half an hour we resting. And not just taking quick breathers, we were literally taking a load off. The locals have built a whole system around where the gringos take breaks on their treks. There where hammocks and women selling refreshments every mile.

We had a guide named Luis who led us up the right paths and told us when to take a break. I think their rule as guides is to take it easy on the gringos unless specifically asked other wise. All of the boys were complaining after the first few stops that they didn’t like resting so much. Steph was the only one who admitted she liked all the down time. As far as she was concerned, she worked her butt off all year in an office and only gets two precious weeks off which she was using in in Peru. Since all she does is work, work, work, she wasn’t thrilled that her vacation was strenuous. All the Lucchessi brothers wanted to do was hike harder, drink harder, do everything and sleep as little as possible. All Steph wanted to do was relax, do nothing and sleep 14 hours a day.

The boys raced ahead and Steph took her time with Luis in the back. Luis’ English was okay, but not great. Steph took 3 years of high school Spanish and wasn’t afraid to use it, so they actually had a great time hiking and practicing their language skills. It was really entertaining to her some of the stuff that came out of this girls mouth in an attempt to communicate. I have to love her for trying though. That is the way to learn a language, not to be afraid of making mistakes and just dive in and talk. It was actually noticeable the amount of Spanish she picked up just from two weeks of traveling. Steph is the kind of person I believe could pick up a language in a relatively short amount of time if fully emerged. Luis, our guide, had an English level that passable but relied on the Spanish speakers in the group to help translate. I wonder if they gave us a guide who was still working on his English because they new we had 4 bilingual people in the group. We actually had more Spanish speakers than non Spanish speakers. There was so much double language going on that sometimes I forgot to translate for the non Spanish speakers.

With the boys way ahead and Steph bringing up the rear, I found myself somewhere in-between. For a lot of the hiking I was on my own. I didn’t mind. We were with the group 24 hours a day, a little me time was nice. Especially since given the altitude it made breathing let alone a making conversation very difficult while hiking.