The Symptoms

Tomorrow (Sunday) we´re leaving for a 5 day trek to one of the most spectacular trails in the world, the Ausangate. The trail is 16,000 ft from sea level, and in order to prevent altitude sickness i.e. lethargy, difficulty breathing, coma?!?! everyone in our group is taking alitude pills. No one wants to be the one dragged down the mountain on a donkey because they got sick so we gladly obliged, but this stuff makes the tips of your fingers tingle down to the tips of yours toes, and I feel like I´ve been in a dream all day, which might explain why my spanish has been so confused. I kept mixing up chicharones (peruvian pork dish) with chicha (peruvian corn alchohol) and asking weird quetions that didn´t make sense. This morning our trekking guide, Miguel, took us to Cuzco´s black market bazaar; a jumble of stalls and stores 3 blocks wide filled with just about any imaginable thing to buy, from textiles, to knock-offs to nails. There are a lot of thefts and he told us if anyone messes with us to say . ¨Hey! Que chucha tienes!¨(which mean-crudely-¨what´s your problem¨-) The pills were messing with Brad too, because he thought the phrase was ¨Quechua tienes!¨ (¨You have Quechua!¨Quechuans are the Andean natives). Sometimes at the black market the police will close off the streets and let in a team of archaeologists to inspect the merchants wares, often finding priceless Incan artifacts being sold alongside stacks of tablecloths. On hearing this, our friend Mike said ¨There are some great buys here!¨ WHich is true! We stocked up on fleeces, jackets and north ¨fake¨ backpacks without spending more than 30 dollars. The temps on the mountain get icy cold as soon as the sun goes down, and since it´s been raining here in Cuzco, it is surely Snowing! up there! Wish me luck!