I know I’ve already talked about South America once tonight, but I’m uploading photos (finally. I’ve only been back for… more than five months) as I work, and I’ve got some things on my mind.
So, I bring you a pictureless post (because I didn’t take photos of these things!) about the things I wish I’d taken a photo of in South America but did not.
1. The dust on the leaves in Nasca.
Nasca is quite possibly the dustiest place on Earth. It gets in your ears, up your nose, and in places that dust should never, ever go, such as on the leaves of the trees. Seriously – the trees were coated in a thick, red dirt. It was mad. Thankfully, with the afternoon breeze, the dust cleared. Funny story: when we arrived at our hotel, it was so dusty that we had no idea there were mountains right behind it. The next morning, we woke up to a beautiful mountainous landscape!
2. A stone spiral staircase on the (second?) last day of the Inca trail.
I honestly felt like hurling myself off the cliff by this stage. I had already taken 300+ photos, I couldn’t feel my knees anymore (actually, that is a lie: they hurt so badly that I couldn’t feel anything else anymore), and I was in a generally shitty mood after having not been able to use a real toilet for three days. If you’ve never done it, let me tell you this: peeing in a squat toilet makes you feel like you’ve been violated. Just putting it out there. Anyway, we got to this beautiful moss-covered staircase, and it was breathtaking and amazing, and I just walked on by, storing it in the memory bank but not actually taking a photo. Silly girl.
3. The blisters on my feet at the end of the trek.
Because I am possibly slightly retarded, I didn’t take hiking boots with me to South America to wear on the trek. This might also be the result of having been told that good walking shoes would be fine. Accordingly, I ended up buying a pair of shoes the day before the trek started. By the end of the four days, at least three of my toes were completely covered in blisters – yup, even under my toenails. It was truly awesome (if not very painful).
4. The mozzie bites that covered my legs by the end of the trip.
The only time I’ve ever had more mozzies was in Ios in Greece, where I was bitten so badly one night that I gave up counting when I got to 100 the next morning (and that was only on my arm). The mozzies at Machu Picchu were brutal: tiny little things that didn’t hurt at the time, but which woke up me in pain for weeks to come. I’ve still got the scars to show for legs covered in bites. The lesson to be learned here is to douse yourself in repellent, even if it makes you cough and sneeze and gag. You will thank me for it.
