Repaired Roger Ready to Rumble

I left santiago 6 weeks ago and flew to lima where i was staying with Ulrike, the german teacher I met on the boat travelling to patagonia in February,... i was warmly welcomed and stayed a week in Lima, relaxing, and waiting for the arrival of Daniel, a friend i studied with He was going to be the sencond human experiment as in how long it takes until you get sick and tired travelling with Roger, Manfred usually lasted about 3-4 weeks until he needed a Roger-break :) The plan was to travel through Peru and Bolivia back to Santiago de Chile.... Once he arrived, I dragged him straigth to a party so he could not even think of getting jet-lagged... after about 3 hrs of sleep we had to get up at 4 in the morning to catch our flight to Cusco and start the travels... yeehaaw!
Once there, we had a few days of relaxing in Cusco (drinking lots and lots of mate de coca, tea made of the coca leave, primarily used for cocaine production, but in countries like Peru and Bolivia the most drinken tea, supposed to help against altitude sickness).


The (in)famous Mate de Coca Tea, most leafs are used for cocaine production worldwide, but still a healthy amount avoids the processing with hydrocloric acid (outch!), kerosene (are you kidding me??) and acetone (I am not making this up!!) and ends up as a great tasting tea that is a great remedy for so many illnesses, inculding altitude sickness.....


After the deserved rest and acclimatization to about 10'000 feet elevatoin (hitting 13'000 a few days later), we left for a four day trek. The famous Inka Trail eventually led us to the ancient site of Machu Picchu, the forgotten city of the Incas, which was abandoned hundreds of years ago (due to probably some desease they could not eradicate, so they abandoned the amazing buildings in the mountains) and fortunately was not discovered by the looting spaniards. In fact it was not discovered until early this century, and is now the greatest site of Inka arcitecture in the world.
The four day trek was very impressive, with cobblestone paths and incredibly sophisticated architecture of ascending paths through the mountains, up passes at 13'000 feet and higher. All that we did together with 12 other travellers and a herd of porters and guides!!


Roger along one of the amazingly (100s of years ago!) crafted inca stonewall

These guys were working day and night for us, carrying up to 35 kg of baggage, tents, food, even chairs and a table! Crazy.... The days flew by and Dani and I were by far the fastest trekkers, so we had plenty of time enjoying the views and waiting for our fellow travellers....


Eery early morning shot of an ancient temple...

Night three one of the israeli girls got really stomach sick, first I though someone was having a bit too much fun in the tent (hey, some have urges even in 0 Farenheit and 12'000 feet elevation) but then thought someone was getting robbed... got up in the pouring rain and pitch dark to find the girl had such stomach cramps she could barely move.... the got a bit better but we spent all day accompanying her up to the top of the pass, crutching her along the way.. Promptly in the early afternoon I all of a sudden felt a sting in my stomach... then some uncofortable feeling, and so forth (yes, I will spare you the details)...... So i spend day 3 and 4 throwing up and with bad stomach cramps, so by the time we finally reached the inka site (Dani was carrying my backpack), I needed to lay down in the office of machu picchu incorporated and sleep, while Dani explored the area with our newly made friend Lucas, a Doctor from Buenos Aires, who first helped the Israeli girl, then me with some antibiotics I gladly took. By the time the weather got better I was up and able to explore the area, and see again how incredibly advanced their knowledge of architecture and astronomy was, really an amazing experiene for me. Its nice to find that even after such a long time of travelling and seeing so many things i still get very enthusiastic about what i see, and hope this will continue to the end of my travels..


Top: Macchu Picchu in the mist and fog.... Bottom: nothing for flatlanders.... dont look (or jump) down... Dani pointing down hundreds of meters to macchu picchu...