Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004
Subject: hellooo

hey, im writing from aguas calientes, this little town at the base of
machupiccu, to say that all is well!! I had SO MUCH FUN on the Inca
trail.  well i dont know if you heard anything about this, but we are
actually stranded here, the kids not doing the hike didnt even get to
come to machupiccu at all because there was a landslide that blocked the
train tracks wednesday night.  so we have no way out of here because the
train is how we were supposed to leave. There are like 4000 people
wanting to come here but stuck in cusco, and then theres us, who want to
be in cusco but are stuck here.  So they were talking about
helicoptering us out, and we got reeeeeeeeeeal excited about that, but
now instead we have to trek 10k along the railroad tracks to the place
where its blocked, and get on after that point, and we will meet back up
with everyone in cusco.  its funny because we only have our wet and
dirty stuff from the hike because none of our luggage got to meet up
with us from cusco.  all the non hikers were big time disappointed, but
we had an AWESOME time, i am sure you can imagine.  I will send a mass
email later, but the trail was so great. It was SO hard, i think the
second hardest thing i have ever done besides the marathon, and i am
reaaaaaaaaally sore right now, but you know i thrive on that, it was
great.  its really pretty, it reminded me a lot of jurassic park, plus
these beautiful snowcapped mountains in the background when it wasnt
cloudy.  dad, i forgot my yellow coat is water RESISTANT.  oooooooops. 
we had a whole town of porters, i think there were 60 plus 4 cooks, all
of who i LOVE, they worked sooooooo hard and are amazing. and when we
said goodbye to them yesterday, we tried to tell them thank you and
started crying.  and you know how we do the trail in 3 days of 8 hour
hiking, well one of my guides has done it all in 4 hours and 15 minutes.
if you knew how tough some of it is, you would be real impressed right
now.  machupiccu itself was really really cool, and i took tons of
pictures dont worry, and the Incas are really interesting.  i wanted to
play around in it because its like a bunch of forts to pretend you are
an inca, but my legs were so sore that it took like half an hour to go
up a flight of stairs.  i got sick last night, dont know from what,
maybe the water or something, but today i feel great.  well we have
until monday here in peru, and then its back to buenos aires.  but i
wanted to let you know that a)there was a landslide that blocked the
tracks so we are stuck here and b) i am ok and c) i had an amazing
time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok love you, talk to you soon!!!