Machu Picchu - Nature Girl - Day 2!

Jaime woke Natasha and I up by coming to our tent with his standard wake up call - "buenos dias señoritas - are you naked?" It didn´t matter if we were or not, he and Martin were bringing us our morning drink. We had our choice of coffe, tea or hot coco. I chose an Inca Mocha! I needed the caffine. I didn´t sleep very well that night. My feet were cold and I had a breathing panic attack during the night. I don´t know what happened, all of a sudden, I woke up and I couldn´t breathe. I had to concentrate on every breath and kept telling myself "it´s fine, just breath" - I had to talk myself off the ledge there for second. I did not like it, at all! I can´t imagine what someone with asthma must feel. Come to find out, Michaela had the same thing that night. She woke up in the middle of the night, freaked out about not being able to breathe. I guess it´s quite common at that altitude when you are not used to it.

We had breakfast and were off trekking 8 a.m. Day 2 was not going to be as hard as day one and we would be treking through the cloud forest. We were heading down with some inclines thrown in for good measure, but were going to be finished trekking by 2 p.m. or so. It was raining most of the day so our ponchos were out. It was muddy and you had to be really careful walking because it was really easy to slip in the mud. Lewis showed off his sliding in the mud style once. After I saw that, I was really careful, watching every step! I had a few near slides myself - gives a new meaning to slip and slide! This was the worst weather day we would see. Cold, wet, muddy and slippery.

We are getting good at "harmonizing" with nature. This is our expression for you know...being at one with nature and squatting to do you business. "Jaime, I need to harmonize, where should I go?"

We reached our campsite around lunch time. Our campsite was on Julian´s property and talk about beautiful views! We ate lunch and then walked down to a natural hot spring where we soaked in the hot thermal water...ahhh! We were surrounded by the gorgeous Andes mountains and the sound of the river below. It was great.

We hiked back up to our campsite and had dinner. At dinner, Jaime told us the story of the magic man or Chupa Cabra. Apparently, he had been seen in this area. We don´t know if he´s alive or dead but he wanders the mountains. There was a graveyard right next to the location that our tents were pitched. Jaime told us that the dead had woken campers up in the middle of the night. The dead would scratch their backs from under the ground. Halloween is almost here...eeeeooowwww!

Julian´s property is basically a farm with pigs, mules, guinea pigs (i think they eat them...cuy!), and one loud ass rooster that doesn´t know that it´s supposed to be quiet when it´s dark out!

Nature girl is gettin it done!