We started our adventure at a really old church where we had "breakfast," which consisted of a piece of bread and coffee; not the best thing before a hike.
As we began our hike I learned that this path is an Incan Trail, what a nice surprise! The Incan Trails allowed the indigenous people to transport goods from people to people or to markets. Once the Spanish came, they destroyed most of the trails in order to separate the indigenous people. This trail is one of the few that remain; all that I know of is this one, one in La Paz, Bolivia, and one in Cusco, Peru. This trail was created around 1470, of course there has been maintenance to keep the trail alive, but it is cool to be walking on something so old.
Luckily the walk was mostly down hill, we started the hike at around 12,000ft, so I could definitely feel the altitude. The trail was a little hard to traverse, since it was made up of rocks, I had to always be looking at my feet to make sure I didn't break an ankle. I took the walk down slow, I just relaxed, enjoyed the view and took in the silence. All but two people from the group were in front of me. Two older people were behind me, which made it so I could take my time. Whenever we would stop and wait on the older couple, some of the girls would talk about the altitude and how hard it was to breathe... If its hard to breathe then don't be quickly walking at the front of the line... I thought these things were common sense?! Regardless, I enjoyed the peace and quiet I had on my own. I feel I was able to absorb much more of the history and my surrounds in this silence.
Once we got down to the bottom, we all piled back into the van and headed to some farms to see how the locals live in Marawa. We got to see an old Bolivian lady making clothing. It was amazing to see this. A piece of fabric that is about 1ft by 1ft would take here about three months to do. Careful precision and too much patients, all while squatting!
(She is already a month into this one)
After we visited with this lady, we made our way to a "waterfall" to have lunch. It was much of a waterfall, more like a fire hose of water, but it was a tranquil place to feast!
After lunch, we walked down to see the Devil's Throat, which is a cave formation that looks like a scary mouth; many adult locals are scared of this and wont come down here. I tried, but I couldn't see this scary mouth that they pictured, it just looked like a cool cave!
We then made our way back to the van for a way too long of a bumpy dusty drive back! Once we got back to our hostel, we enjoyed a complementary mojito. Quite the elixir to a long dry day.
I spent the last little time of sun light exploring the town. I picked up some street for a little later before I returned for dinner. Once I got back, I was dead tired and called it an early night.
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