Getting closer to the group

As I've mentioned before, we really did have a great group. Somehow, we name ourselves the Pumas and the name stuck for the 4 days and still now! You can see our great sign at the dinner table when we finally arrived at a hostal.

But back to the trek.... on our 2nd night, Aldo stayed up with some of us in the dinner tent and told us Peruvian ghost stories. Many local people believe in these spirits that stay around on Earth and many people have even seen them. Most families have these things on top of their houses to ward away the bad spirits. I personally think that if lost soles are roaming around after they have died, then they are not bad spirits, but good. However, the locals think very differently. This is a house that we saw the next day with the topper to keep away the bad spirits. Almost every house had one - pretty incredible! We learned so much from Aldo!


We saw more great views and this day went mostly downhill, so it was a nice day to bond with our group. We found out that Brett works for Pixar and worked on the new movie Cars! His stories about Pixar were super exciting. We passed more amazing views, as you can see here and even more animals. We found one baby donkey that Aldo sat on and since I didn't catch a picture of him quick enough, Scott took one of me. The poor little thing just wanted to get away, I think, but it was really cute.


We stopped in a town, which was the first time we had seen other Gringos and other tourists since we had started the trek. It was a little weird, but nice to be able to get a beer. We then took the train up to Agua Calientes, which is the town you stay in before going to Macchu Picchu. We had a really fun train ride and Brett and Erica got some surprise pictures on their camera after they went to the bathroom. We all visited another hot springs, which was very relaxing after our trekking.

I finally tried my first Inca Cola, which was very yummy! It was like a combination of cream soda and bubble gum. Completely unhealthy, but also completely perfect!