Jungle Trek Day 3: Zip Lines and Hiking

Jungle Trek Day 3: Zip Lines and Hiking

Aguas Calientes, Peru, South America

I had another excellent day of zip lining and hiking today, along part of the original Inca Trail. We started out with a breakfast back at Mama Coca’s at 7am, and then we took a ride for about 15 minutes to the start of the zip lining place. They seemed to be in a hurry to get us through, so they threw the harnesses on us and then we started our 25 minute hike up the mountain to the first zip line. All five of us did the zip lining tour and we got a quick briefing from one of the guides. There wasn’t much for us to do, so it was pretty easy. We only waited for a couple of minutes and then they were ready for us to go. The first zip line happened so quickly that I don’t think I even realized what was going on. It was over before I realized I had started.

It was an excellent zip lining tour across six zip lines, the last one we were able to turn our harnesses around and go face down as Superman style. It was crazy! We flew over the river in the valley below looking straight down the whole time. It was a bit unnerving coming in to the end so fast with no way to slow yourself down, but the workers there know what they are doing and he stopped me right before I hit the wall.

We hiked back down to the start of the tour and returned our harnesses and then had a half hour drive over to the hydroelectric plant near Santa Teresa. We started our hike by walking up the mountain, only for about ten minutes and then we arrived at the train tracks. This is the train that goes from Cusco to Machu Picchu and then out to the hydroelectric plant. The rest of our day just involved about 4.5 hours of walking by the train tracks to get to Aguascalientes.

We stopped for lunch at a great little place called Casa de Gabrielle and had another phenomenal lunch. This place is pretty new and was built just for the trekkers on their way to Machu Picchu, and it was perfect. We chilled out in the hammocks for a little while after we ate and then headed back on the tracks after the first train of the day went by. It was another three hours after lunch to get to the town, and even though it was an easy walk, I was exhausted by the time we got to Aguascalientes. We checked into Intillaqta Hostel and I got my own room again. We took about an hour to relax and get a nice hot shower.

We got back together at 5pm and headed out to check out the town and get some food for Machu Picchu tomorrow. Wilbert told us that the food at the top is outrageously expensive, so we’re better off bringing some stuff with us. We picked up some fruit from the local market, some water, and some sandwiches. That should do us for the morning anyway.

We didn’t want to go back to the hostel (because it was uphill), so we just went to a bar and had some drinks and waited to meet Wilbert at 7pm. When Wilbert did show up he was dressed to the nines in his nicest suit and black shoes. We don’t know what he’s getting up to tonight, but it looks like he’s definitely ready to party. We’ll see if he actually shows up at 5am when we’re expecting to meet him.

We had another really nice dinner together and had a few drinks to celebrate our last night together. It was a great night, and a really good journey to get all the way here from Cusco. Tomorrow we finally get to see what we’ve all been waiting for. A 4am wake up call is going to bring us up to Machu Picchu for sunrise, and I can’t wait!

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