9

…So then me and Leif got a sandwich and went to the bathroom and headed up the mountain. You have to sign a book in and out. To make sure no one dies. Or at least to keep count of how many people die.
Look at this link. It’s a picture of the peak we climbed:

It’s the one in the center of the photo, the tall one. There is a stairway going all the way to the tippity top of the mountain. I made it up there in 45 minutes. There are some spots where you have to pull yourself up with a rope its so steep. If you look in the picture at the very very top, that’s where I sat for an hour, just looking down at the ruins. I conquered some fears up there, my extreme fear of heights, and my extreme fear of tight spaces. You have to crawl through a cave to get to the top, and some of the time, you could just fall down the mountain. I stumbled a couple times it was pretty scary. At 11000 feet you aren’t really as strong as you think you are. My heart was beating really fast, and my breaths were pretty deep and quick. My lungs felt like 80 years old. And my thighs were BURNING.
It was well worth it though. I took a picture or two of the view. It was awesome.
The trip down was a lot easier, except we got stuck behind some slow guys, which was OK with me, but there was quite a line-up of people behind me and I felt them at my heels, which was nerve-wracking.
We met up with the group and got back on the bus. We had more free time in Aguas Calientes so I had the great idea to go in the hot springs. It was so gross. The water was not hot, but like the temperature of pee.
And it was pee too. the water was greenish yellow and there was no chlorine in there. The only reason I went in is because I was already gross and sweaty from the trip up and down the mountain. After I got done, I went to go shower off, but the showers were nothing but a stream of water coming out of the pool that I was just in. Gross.
My face felt all salty, and my teacher said it was probably urine salt…