Day three started with another early wake up call and a banging hangover, by 8am we were all bouncing around in the back of a van on our way the the zip lining place. This was the last of our adventure sports and the one I had been least scared for, more fool me! I’m scared of heights, but before you all jump on the ‘well obviously this was a bad idea’ band wagon, I’m normally fine with anything at height that feels secure or that I’m locked into so I thought that this would be fine and honestly for the first few lines I was fine, as fine as you can be being swung through the air hungover on very little sleep. If anything it was slightly anticlimactic we spent most of the time walking up steep hills (also not fun when hungover) only to sit in a harness and slide down again, I was too sleepy to feel the adrenalin. The scariest part of the first half of the experience was that I’d forgotten to put on bug spray and once again my legs got bitten to death!
On the 4th zip line they suggested we swing upside down apparently they had sensed the hungover groups lack of enthusiasm and insisted this would ‘bring up the excitement’ but the only thing it would bring up for me would be my breakfast, so I along with most of the group vetoed it, apart for a few people who had been sensible the night before.
The next obstical however was much less fun for me and this one I wasn’t able to veto, it was a long suspension bridge with wooden slats we had to all make our way across. I volunteered to go first, not out of bravery but because I thought sod being stuck waiting behind other people as we dangle above this valley! I’m going to get across as quickly as possible before some idiot gets the idea to start wobbling the bridge. Thats exactly what I did except quickly is probably too strong a word, but a reasonable pace for somone who seemed to suddenly have jelly for legs. The wooden slats were placed so you could just about reach them with your legs fully extended which was scary enough, but every third or fourth slat had broken and slid down, a reassuring sign about the upkeep of the bridge! So you had to literally hold on the the cables and jump, as if a broken bridge swaying in the wind wasn’t terrifying enough now there were huge jumps involved. Every time I stopped to think about it I started to freeze up in fear, so I tried to not think about it, I just kept repeating ‘you’re safe, you’re fine’ under my breath and matching my steps to it to keep myself going. Untill a German woman behind asked what I was saying, I quickly explained my fear of heights and how this was helping and she informed me of how stupid I was for coming zip lining and how stupid a fear of heights was in the first place. I think she would have found my fear of heights a lot less stupid if she had know it was the only thing stopping her get a kick in the shin at that exact moment. I made it to the other side in one piece, almost kissed the ground in appreciation and thought about how I’d never take solid non-swaying ground for granted again! My nerves were fraid but I was proud of myself that I had faced my fear and not let it get the better of me…apart from nearly assaulting a poor German woman.
Little did I know that was just the warm up for me, next up we got to climb a vertical rock face by the side of a waterfall, at one point it even jutted out and we had to climb under the part that bulged out. I turned to Grace and immediately said ‘nope, no way, not happening, thanks and goodbye’ my legs were still jelly from the bridge and my hang over made me want to puke just looking at the top. Somehow I managed to talk myself into it though, if I could manage the walk yesterday that I was sure I would barely be able to do and if I could mannage the bridge without stopping, I could mannage this. Again I decided speed was the best option, I hauled my self up using the rusted metal pegs in the rock, thankful to have had my tetanus injections! It was hard work at speed with my jelly legs but if I made sure to look down no further than where I was putting my feet I could just about fight back the urge to cry. That was untill I got to the part where the rock jutted out, I could feel myself leaning backwards and was absolutely terrified but I was almost at the top and kept going, hoping no one would notice my watery eyes at the top, as I pushed myself up and grabbed the next metal peg it came loose in my had. I honestly thought that was how I was going to die, with my last words being ‘Ahh s&*!’ Luckily even though my brain was a blubbering mess, my arm and leg that were still in place tensed up and I just ended up swinging into the rock. I just about held it together untill the people below who had seam me smash into the rock shouted up to see if I was okay, my reply of I’m fine just need a moment’ was probably made slightly less convincing by the fact that I was hyperventilating and crying like a baby. Grace was on the set of pegs across from me and went full mum mode to help me calm down and slow my breathing until I felt a bit of an idiot with everyone watching and clambered the rest of the way up to the top where I was greeted by scott and a big bear hug. I felt like a class A prat, until 5 minutes later when another girl in our group did exactly yhe same thing and also had a cry, at least we could be idiots together! The German lady wandered over again to start her ‘I told you so’ piece but after an angry glare from Grace she seemed to think better of it. After a few more zip lines and a hundred more sand fly bites we were done and got to sit down for lunch. More quinoa soup, lucky us!
After lunch we were all ready for a nap, but the rest of the afternoon was dedicated to a long and apparently uninteresting walking along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes, the town right before the final assent to Machu Picchu. Scott suggested the radical idea that instead of walking along the train tracks why not get the train along them, it spread like wildfire amounts the hungover masses. It cost $25US to take the train and payment had to be in US dollars, to the disappointment of a lot of people in our group who didn’t have dollars and now would have to do the journey peasant style. But for us it was $25 well spent, we got to relax in hammocks for the next hour before boarding a plesent train for a journey that only took us 40 minutes instead of several hours. We brought snacks and made friends with a group of old Argentinean ladies who were relentlessly flirting with Scott, who obviously loved it and even shared a rum and coke with them, hair of the dog and all that! But the icing on the cake was that we got to wave to our group as we went past, watching them slog along in the rain while we wizzed past in a warm comfy train was worth the $25 on its own!
We arrived at our hostel an hour before everyone else and even mannaged to get a shower before all the hot water ran out. After dinner we crawled straight into bed, we were still hungover and our final day started at 3am!
I’ll let you know how it went in the next post.
Lots of love,
Alice x