CHOQUEQUIRAO

On the third day of hiking we were descending into the valley. The day before we had visited Choquequirao, the ruins of an ancient Incan city high in the Andes mountains. I was hiking along in a good rhythm of descent, we were approaching the loud river at the bottom of the valley. Due to the roar of the river and the fact i was singing Aladin"s "A Whole New World" to myself I did not hear the large rocks crashing down the mountainside towards me, but i did hear the guide running down the trail yelling at me "corre! corre!" (run! run!). I was naturally obedient and began running, at this point i did hear the crashes of rocks. "A la pared!" (to the wall!), the guide yelled, so i threw myself against the side of the mountain bordering the trail (the idea here being that the rocks would pass over you if you were against the wall the rocks would pass over you), in doing this i sliced my hand on the rocks. It was a close call, but other than my hand the guide and I were fine. Jordon had been farther ahead on the trail and witnessed the whole thing and had to things to say. First that a very large rock had come very close to hitting me and that it had crashed down the hill where I had been and second that I looked really funny when I ran (given that i was running for my life I thought this was a strange observation). My hand was also taken care of very well and it was really a minor injury. There were two Spanish medical school students hiking with us who gave it the best care I have ever received for a cut.

In all the 4 day hike was challenging (given the altitude and constant steep hill up or down) but extremely interesting. The ruins we visited were very impressive (we were not able to go to Macchu PIchu because of the flooding last month), this ruins had unique things and experiences that Macchu PIcchu wouldn"t have given us. For example these ruins can only be reached by hiking whereas Macchu Pichu has a train running to it, for this reason they are also much less crowded. These ruins are 5 times bigger but only one third of the ruins are uncovered. The ruins were very interesting with incredible terraces. The hike was also breathtaking and very enjoyable but challenging.

Tomorrow we begin our trip to Buenos Aires where we will begin international student orientation at La Universidad del Salvador.