Captain Carlito's Way

no further word out of peru from agent willie or uncle ben since their last update detailing the perils of chasing llama herders. a little concerned about this, and so we decided to send in a special ops team lead by the wiley veteran, Captain Carlito.

here is the Captain's first report from the field:

Been here for about a week and figured it was time to drop bojon headquarters a line ... no sign of agent willie or uncle ben. have spoken to a few locals, but nobody has seen anything. am totally digging peru, though: a most excellent assignment.





Machu Pichu was incredible. We bussed to the Urubamba river then trained down stream to the town of Aguascalientes, which sits alongside the roaring rapids and almost completely fills the very narrow valley. Shrouded in clouds nearly 4000 vertical ft above the train tracks is Machu Pichu and another 1200 ft (heights are my estimates) is the peak of Huana Pichu.

Maria and I roused ourselves at 4:30 to get an early start in an effort to beat the crowds, headlamps on, hoofed it up the step trail, made almost exclusively of stone steps which crossed the switchbacking road that a few hours later would be bringing tourists by the busload to the ruins. On the way up we passed only three other early birds and after a sweaty and exhausting hour+ we arrived at the gates and on through to the ruins. The Inca trail group camps are a good two and half hour hike from the ruins, and so we were able to enjoy breakfast with a breathtaking view before any other trekkers arrived.




tomorrow am off on a 5 day high altitude trek around a Massif called Ausangate. Next week are Pervian Independence Day celebrations, they seem to be gearing up for some serious display of military might judging by the parade practices we found ourselves in today.




Not sure if any of this is related to agent willie or uncle ben. will continue to scour the scene. maria and i may have to befriend a few locals to get a better fix on the sitch......




more to follow.....

Saludos

keep up the good work, Captain!!!

Posted by bojon at July 23, 2003 08:34 AM