162. Brodensloucherheimershmidtish

Sunday, 5/19/13

Our tour of Macchu Picchu is tomorrow. But first, we had to drive close enough in order to see the ruins the next day.

At 8:00 a.m. we headed out in a van with 7 other people. It was cramped, especially for 7 hours, but the anticipation for what was to come tomorrow kept our spirits aloft.

No one spoke to each other for a good 2 hours. Awkward. So I offered some party mix chips to the girl at my right. She accepted! Score. We spoke for a good hour throughout the ride. She was Swiss and traveling S. America with her boyfriend. The first thing she asked me was if I liked hockey. “Sure,” I said. “Good,” she said, “because Switzerland just beat the United States 3-0 yesterday.” I liked the conversation starter. Her man was chill and taught me a few words from his primary language, Brodensloucherheimershmidtish (or something like that). It’s the fourth most popular language in Switzerland, but will probably die out.

We arrived at the train station at 4:00 p.m. Oh oh…since we were all cheap, we do not get to ride on the choo choo, so we walked 2 hours to Aguas Calientes. On the way, Chad and I made the most of it. There were three blondies from England that hung around us a bit. To entertain and distract them from their complaints of the long walk, we did stuff. We flattened pennies on the railway, pretended to be Mr. Incredible and stop the train, took the scary way across the bridge with 100 foot falls, and Chad even walked backwards next to a moving train to make it seem as if they were going nowhere.

We arrived at Aguas Calientes at dark. Wow. Gorgeous. We expected a quaint little village. Nope. Straight up ski resort status. The hotel fee was probably close to $200 at some of these places. Ours costed $10. Hehe. But it was fantastic—even had hot showers.

The complementary food was a decent pasta. While the food for all 26 of us was being prepared, a high-quality film of what to expect tomorrow was shown. That was sarcasm. Imagine the worst possible spelling, English, video quality with 4 lines that blocked half the screen. Yet, it was helpful enough and Chad and I were excited to get up at 3 a.m. to be the firsts to summit the “mountain”.

We were starving after the meal and ate 2 pizzas together. We got them each at half price.

**Keep adventurizing!...I know I will!**