In 2018, I studied abroad in Viña del Mar, Chile for five months. I wanted to practice my Spanish, be close to the coast and the mountains, and not be in a giant city. While in Chile, I traveled throughout the country, but also to Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador. Three weeks after arriving in Chile, I traveled to Peru with my friend Verena, who was a friend from college that was enrolled in the same program as me.

Looking back on this trip, I am consistently surprised at how underprepared and over-ambitious we were to embark on this trip. And it’s miraculous that it went as smoothly as it did.

The trip’s origins can be traced back to me stumbling upon some cheap flights from Santiago to Cusco and then finding the Salkantay trek online. After doing some research on the airline deal that had appeared, I realized that it was a scam, but the seed had been planted. I wanted to go to Machu Picchu by backpacking the Salkantay trek but without a guide. The Salkantay trek is similar to the Inca Trail in that it gets you from Cusco to Machu Picchu. You have to hire a guide for the Inca trail and it can take years for your reservation to be approved.

It had been my first time researching backpacking trips outside of the US, and it seemed ridiculous to me to pay for a guide on a popular, well-marked trail that you could easily just do yourself. I’m still impressed and kind of proud that we didn’t hire a guide, but I have wizened up a little since this trip. Using local guide services is beneficial for so many reasons—there are different rules and trail etiquette and private property signage in different countries that guides can educate you. They know about local flora, fauna, and history. They are part of the landscape and culture just as much as the mountains and villages that you come across. Most of the time, the money that local guide companies make goes back into the pockets of your guide and enriches local education, conservation, and outdoor recreation programs. It’s easier to enforce Leave No Trace principles. Guides teach you about local environmental issues. In the US, it’s kind of rare to hire a guide for trips that aren’t super technical, logistically confusing, or regulated. Expanding guiding services for backpacking in the US could create the same benefits that many other countries see. It just hadn’t been something that I was previously exposed to, and I hadn’t fully grown out of my stage of fierce independence.

When I told Verena about my harebrained idea, she was stoked, so we were pretty set on going, even though the tickets we ended up buying were not a great deal. We had brought our backpacking packs, sleeping bags, and pads for our study abroad experience, but we didn’t have a tent, water filter, stove, or cooking materials. We were able to borrow and buy all these items, but that maybe should have been a telltale sign that this trip was a bit over our heads LOL. It took us a couple of weeks to track down everything we needed, except it was nearly impossible to find a backpacking stove. I went on a wild goose chase with my host family, but because it was late fall, none of the stores were carrying any. After 5 or 6 stores, I was finally able to locate a cocinilla, along with a great set of pots and pans I still use, but I was so grateful for my host family’s perseverance and support to help me retrieve the necessary equipment. The f*cking cocinilla saga had begun.

I had been backpacking plenty of times, but mostly with my family. And never on a four-day trip hiking over 60 miles up to 15,000 feet and through the Peruvian jungle. But I was convinced it was a completely rational plan, with just a little spice of wild and adventure.

I packed my bag several different times during the week leading up to the trip. And as the trip went on, I swear I couldn’t find a single f*cking thing in that pack. Every time I needed something, I would have to take pretty much everything out. Thank God for Verena’s patience. I did a ton of research leading up to the trip and felt pretty confident about the route and the logistics. Without all of my research, this trip could have easily been a failure. We were close enough to that as it was.

We left Viña del Mar before sunrise to take a bus to Santiago. Our flight to Lima was uneventful, but we had a nine-hour layover in Lima that was just excruciatingly boooring. It’s kind of expensive and far to get into Lima and we aren’t huge city people, so we decided against it. Although we did talk about going into the city several times during the layover because we got so bored. But we had agreed to do this trip as cheaply as possible, which I have also learned from since. They wouldn’t let us into the gate until 2 hours before and there were no comfortable places to sit anywhere. The airport didn’t offer free wifi and it was expensive to purchase. We ended up sitting in the corner of the Starbucks a few times to connect. We kept moving around hoping for more comfortable places, but there was nothing. We were so goddamn relieved to get to Cusco.

Cusco was amazing-- thousands of houses with clay roof tiles at 11,000 feet in a hilly mountain range with amazing food and kind people and bright textiles and friendly stray dogs everywhere. It was my first experience in a youth hostel, and I remember just being shocked at all the hot laidback people, the fun activities, the friendliness of everyone there, the party scene. It was a blast. When we told people about our plans, they were like, “You girls are batshit crazy. We’ll let your families know if you die.” Verena and I laughed it off. We were Colorado mountain girls! We could handle anything. We would be fine.

We bought all our backpacking food in Cusco. Verena is gluten-free, so it was hard to find options that would be nutritious enough. We ate at the local market with our sexy new Italian friend and paid $2 each for giant plates of food. Our sexy Italian friend was also black with tiny dyed blonde dreadlocks, and when we mentioned that we were trying to find weed, he was like, “I got you. Everybody here calls me Jamaica-mon.” We laughed, but it was true. As we were walking home, several people called out to Claudio. We ended up talking to a man on the street (mostly Claudio did) and we were brought upstairs to a restaurant. This was honestly probably really sketchy. The guy was sketchy. We didn’t understand the conversation going back and forth, as Claudio’s Spanish was better than ours. The Peruvian man was yelling at the waitress to not come up. Definitely wasn’t my smartest decision. Anyway, we ended up having to buy a ton of weed, which we didn’t want or need, but that was the deal. It was pretty cheap, so we rolled up our stupid amount of weed into a paper towel, paid the sketchy man, and got back to our hostel. We tried to give some to Claudio. He was like, “Nah, I’m good. I don’t smoke.” I still can’t believe he was willing to do this deal for us just to help us out.

As I was re-packing my bag the night before leaving, I couldn’t find the water filter. I unpacked and re-packed everything two or three times. It simply wasn’t there. I was panicked. I had a LifeStraw but that was it. I told Verena and she was like, “Well, we’ll just use the straw and boil everything. It’s not ideal, but it’ll be fine.” I was so relieved she wasn’t angry (or at least wasn’t letting me know that she was angry), but I was nervous. That was not how I wanted to start the trip. Plus, we borrowed the filter from a friend. I didn’t want to break the news to her and hoped it just somehow never made it into my bag (which is what happened—it had fallen behind my bed while packing my bag at home and never even made it out of Chile. Whoops. I was so relieved to find it when I got home, but it sure would have reduced our stress levels having it during the trip). My guess is that our packs were around 40 pounds, mine being a little heavier because I brought a book, my journal, and a day pack so that we could have something smaller to use once we got to Aguas Calientes.

We took a taxi before sunrise to the trailhead the next morning and started out. It was beautiful. We began in some green hills before the Salkantay Valley opened up before us, with 20,000-foot glacial peaks staring down at us. Our packs were heavy, and I was surprised at the elevation gain and how hard it was. I kept telling myself, “It’s the first day. Your body just needs to adjust.” I’m pretty sure that first day was the easiest, and if I had known, I might have not followed through. We passed farms and villages and crops and people selling water bottles and snacks along the trail, which ended up being our lifesaver for not having a water filter. We bought lots of bottled water from the sherpas and tiendas in the villages. My LifeStraw saved us as well, and by the end of the trip, we would take turns sucking through the filter for almost 5 minutes before any water would come out. That thing was on its last legs after filtering so much Peruvian tap and river water. And we never got sick! (This is not a paid advertisement haha!)

When we got to the village where our first camp was supposed to be, we saw our first guided group tour. There were around 30 people sleeping underneath giant hay roofs in their tents right in the village. They had sherpas and llamas and were cooking a group meal from a giant pot on a campground-like campfire. Verena and I swaggered past with our giant packs. “I’m so glad we’re not doing a guided tour,” I said. “We get to camp in the wild without hearing anybody snoring or farting. Plus, I feel so strong and badass that we’re carrying our own packs.”

Thank goodness for my white girl uber confidence.

After we passed the group, we realized there was a problem. We actually had no idea where we were supposed to camp. We didn’t see any campsites before or after the village. We ended up just camping a little bit off the trail near a stream in a big field near a barbed fence, but I’m positive now that we weren’t supposed to camp there. Especially because we were camped closer to the water than we should have been. Everywhere else we camped, we stayed in designated sites near all of the guided tours. Somehow, I had missed this knowledge about campsites while doing my research (which is ironically an issue I still have today).

There was a short hike to a lake that we had bypassed a mile before, deciding we would set up camp first and go back to Humantay Lake for sunset. We figured our tent and belongings would be fine while we were gone for an hour or so. This was probably the most beautiful place I’ve camped, but it was f*cking cold. We set up our tent and layered up to cook dinner, but it was too windy. We found a cave on the other side of the trail and huddled around the stove while it was cooking and ate in that protected space. We cleaned up and dropped everything off at the tent before backtracking for Humantay Lake. We had originally planned to jump in, but we were at 14,000 feet at sunset in the fall and the wind was howling and we were freezing. No way in hell. The sunset wasn’t spectacular but the lake was beautiful.

We got back to the tent to heat up some tea when I couldn’t find the stove. We walked over to the cave. Wasn’t there. Took everything out of the tent. Wasn’t there. Took everything out of our bags. Wasn’t there. Clearly, someone had stolen it, which was weird because they didn’t take anything else. Thank goodness for that. But now we were down our cocinilla and our water filter. Yikes.

It’s funny because I don’t ever remember having the thought, “Ugh, I guess we should turn around.” Even without some of the most important equipment and the ragged, haggard next day we had going up the Seven Serpents Pass, this trip was just what we were doing. There wasn’t really an alternative that we ever thought about. If something had gone really wrong, we would have turned back. Things were just mostly wrong, and we never thought about quitting. I always tell myself that my summit fever is going to kill me one day (hopefully not), but I don’t really think this was a case of that. We never felt like we were fighting for survival. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and it was epic and stunning and now, a pretty damn good story.

Well, we were definitely a little freaked out after that. What were we going to do? We told ourselves we would be able to borrow other people’s stoves or just eat cold food. We had plenty of cold food to eat. People would probably be willing to help us or let us borrow some of their gas. Luckily, they were. I think it’s likely our stove was stolen by a local villager who was pissed we were camping somewhere we weren’t supposed to be. And instead of totally f*cking us, they took something that would be truly useful for them and really hard to find (as I had already proven). I was pisssssed, though. All of that trouble to get a cocinilla that we only got to use ONCE. Dammit.

That night was cold. We were asleep by 8:30. I was feeling a little sick and was hoping that I would feel better by morning. We both knew tomorrow was the hardest day.

It was. It f*cking sucked. I think I had a little altitude sickness because this day killed me. It’s called the Seven Serpents Pass because there are seven switchbacks leading up to 15,000 feet, the top of Salkantay Pass. We had camped at 14,000 feet the night before, so it’s not surprising I didn’t feel great. Our alarms were set early because Day 2 involved more mileage than the previous one. The tour group we saw the night before passed us around 6:10 as we frigidly disassembled our tent. I remember my hands just being frozen. I am not a morning person. It was a rough morning. I also remember waking up to the sound of the lighter in the tent. I sleepily looked toward Verena. There she was, lighting up at 5:30 in the morning. “What the f*ck are you doing?” I asked.

“Well, wake and bake. It’s not going to smoke itself,” she said, a little defensive. I groaned and laughed at the same time. That wild child.

I ended up having to transfer the food bag over to Verena’s backpack halfway up the pass. We had to stop to rest a lot. I remember not being able to get my layers right and taking the pack on and off, on and off. Thanks again to Verena’s patience and strength. That girl is a mule—she set the pace the whole time and I was trudging grumpily to keep up. There was one point when a sherpa leading a llama passed us and asked if I was going to be alright. That was a turning point. No goddamn llama was going to carry my backpack. We finally made it to the top of the pass and celebrated, starstruck at the incredible views, but we still had several miles to go. We dropped down several thousand feet into a different valley, the rocks and glaciers turning to green unfolding hills before us. We passed several tour groups that day, along with the one we had seen last night and this morning. We had begun to see some familiar faces that we would continue to see along the way. My guess is that around 90% of people hire a guide to do the Salkantay trek.

That night, we met some of the other independent backpackers and tried to make friends. We needed to because we didn’t have a way to cook food. I remember hesitantly asking two or three groups if we could borrow their stove and we were turned down. “We need the gas.” I nodded, understanding completely, and feeling embarrassed about our situation and telling the story of what happened in broken Spanish. We ended up camping next to a group of three German girls our age who were so nice. They let us use their stove and, in the morning, gave us the rest of their oatmeal, as they were almost packed up, and we were just groggily waking up. I’m not sure if Germans make oatmeal differently, because that was the best oatmeal I’ve ever had. Our tent was on the edge of a hill and overlooked the pass we had come down, a mix of tall, jagged peaks, and green valley hills. It was beautiful.

The next day was supposed to be one of our easier days, but it was still really damn hard. It was up and down side-hilling a ravine above a river. Every time we got down to the river, I was like, “Great. Don’t have to go up again.” But there we were, going up again. And again. The views were still gorgeous, and we passed more houses and villages this day, which was cool to see. It was lush and green with beautiful views of the valley before us and cascading waterfalls and streams trickling around us. We were surprised at how much trash there was along the trail and in the rivers, though. I made a promise to myself that if I came back, I would do it with a guide so I could spend my efforts collecting trash along the way. We kept dropping elevation and eventually ended up in a slightly bigger village. I had read in other people’s blogs that there were hot springs nearby that we could taxi to and camp at, so we asked around, and our wishes came true. I remember the hot springs actually saving my aching body. It was beautiful, pristine. We camped just next to the springs and slept hard and happy. The hosts of the campground and hot springs lived in a little hut near our tent site. I meekly walked over to ask if we could use their stove to cook our dinner, explaining the story yet again. I paid her a few Peruvian sols to use her kitchen and boom-- we had successfully eaten hot meals for all our dinners during the trip without our stupid cocinilla!

We caught a taxi early the next morning to get back to the Salkantay trail. At this point, Verena and I were running off fumes a little bit. I finally gave in to the wake and bake, and I was so glad I did. There are no other words to describe Day 4 other than magical and serene. We climbed up again, this time into the true jungle, the vegetation rich and layered, the air humid and earthy. As we climbed, we became submerged in some low-lying clouds, which hugged the valley we had ascended from, kissing the river, mountain summits, and treetops around us. As we reached the top of the pass, a man was selling coffee in a tiny, beautiful hut. We stopped to drink a cup, as we knew that a lot of Peruvian coffee beans are grown in this area. The coffee was delicious, and he explained there was a swing above the hut that would give you views out over the hilltop. It was like swinging in the clouds. Swinging on that swing was a truly special moment-- feeling grateful for the journey and the selfless beauty the Peruvian Andes had given us. As we journeyed on, there were a few ruins similar to Machu Picchu where we ate lunch while looking across the valley at the actual Machu Picchu. We were close! What a morning!

We dropped down from the pass and could feel the taste of success on our lips. Our adventure wasn’t quite over, though. We had to walk along the train tracks that most tourists take to get to Aguas Calientes. We figured it would only be a little farther, but it wasn’t. A lot of other tourists, mostly Peruvians, were also walking along the train tracks, so our mostly peaceful and quiet journey was now jarred with yelling children and the loud whistling of trains passing us every 30 minutes or so. We passed tons of restaurants and towns. Half the time I walked next to the tracks, and the other half I was on top of the tracks as the train went through tunnels or over rivers. I kept thinking I would for sure break my ankle if I got my footing wrong and was feeling delirious stepping on each wooden beam underneath the metal track. Those four miles haunt my nightmares sometimes.

And then, it started to pour. We had been extremely lucky on our trip weatherwise, but our luck had run out. After the first hour, we thought the storm had to be over soon. We stopped to eat at one of the restaurants and to get some shelter from the rain, but we couldn’t delay any longer and had to keep walking, soaked with everyone else. I remember feeling exhausted and dejected. I was beyond ready to be done. It had been a good 3 hours of walking on the tracks in the rain.

We finally got to Aguas Calientes but weren’t quite sure where our hostel was. We argued over taking a taxi or walking through the hilly village. I think we got directions from a taxi driver but were able to find the hostel on foot. We were so excited for soft beds, a warm shower, and a roof over our heads, but the hostel was not that nice. We were pretty disappointed but were elated that we had made it! We completed the Salkantay Trek! We went out for a nicer dinner in Aguas Calientes, deciding against ordering guinea pig. I don’t remember our food being very good. We were not huge fans of Aguas Calientes. It was surrounded by beautiful, striking mountains, but that meant the town didn’t get much sunlight. It was touristy and expensive, but the shops and streets were kind of grubby and the people were not quite as friendly. I felt kind of trapped and in a simulation here after being in the wilderness the last three nights.

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast on a rooftop patio where we could enjoy the scenery and then headed to the staircase to get from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu. There were shuttle services, but we weren’t going to take a shuttle up to Machu Picchu after all of our hard work so far. It was only a mile or two on the staircase to get up there anyway. I remember tentatively begging Verena if we could take a shuttle, and she was like, “hell no!” I l dug deep inside for the mental fortitude LOL. The stairs weren’t so bad, but there were a loooot of people, and a lot of people struggling. With just the light day pack, we zipped up the stairs. At the entrance, many guided tours were gathering. I read that hiring a tour guide was expensive, so again, we decided against a guide. I really wish we would have done a guided tour. I also read that if you don’t hire a guide, but try to hang around and listen, the guides will do a good job of making sure you don’t get to hear what they have to say by moving around. That was definitely true; we did not have much success mooching wisdom from the guides throughout the site.

We walked around, taking pictures, enjoying the llamas, getting the basic picture that everybody posts. We took a picture of us jumping at that famous spot, and a ranger almost kicked us out of the park. Apparently, “no jumping is allowed,” she said, pointing angrily at the signs on the platform. We heard snippets of how everything was constructed around sunrise and sunset at different times of the year, the ceremonies, the spiritualism that guided the Incas. I was astounded by Machu Picchu. The green moss growing in between the stones, the level of detail in everything that was constructed, the number of structures, the shocking beauty surrounding the citadel. We heard talk of a hike called the Sun Gate and decided to go for it. It was more of a short walk, but folks around us were struggling and complaining.

I cried at the Sun Gate. The experience of Machu Picchu was so rewarding after our effort and our experience walking through the Andes on just our own womanpower to get here. The Sun Gate was where ceremonies for the summer solstice were held, and we sat and meditated and cried and talked and snacked and laughed in the grass, imagining how many people for how many years had sat right where we were, doing the exact same thing.

There was probably so much more we could have learned and explored while at Machu Picchu, but our hearts were full. We returned to the hostel, the only downside of the day being annoying tourists. People who seemed to be there to take that one basic picture, not to appreciate the wisdom and power of the Inca people. After backpacking alone in the Andes, we were enchanted and silenced by the power of Machu Picchu. But it felt like we were suddenly at the zoo, surrounded by loud families with selfie sticks and rain ponchos. Perhaps they did feel the magic and energy of Machu Picchu, and I was just being pretentious and judgmental. I think this can happen frequently for outdoor recreators who seek solitude, to find discontentment with other humans at busier places like national parks and historical sites. I’m working on getting over that. We’re all humans, we’re all tourists, here to see the same damn thing and experience the same phenomena, no matter how we got there.

We had made a friend in our hostel dormitory who asked about our day, and we exclaimed how amazing it was. Later, we heard her crying to a friend over the phone about how she had hiked up a mountain at Machu Picchu but couldn’t even see the view from the top and how hard and underwhelming and disappointing it all was. Verena and I felt bad for her, but we were feeling lucky that our experience hadn’t been anything like that.

We woke up the next morning a little stressed. We had done all the research to figure out how to get to Machu Picchu, but not how to get back to Cusco. LOL. I knew there were buses, but those took all day. The train is expensive. Our last option was to take a taxi.

We were turned down by the first few taxis we asked until finally someone said he would take us. He ended up driving us to his friend who was a different taxi driver, which we had not understood, and we were not stoked. That guy drove like a maniac over a dusty, loose, dirt road, above a 5,000-foot cliff to the next village, where he stopped in front of a bus and told us to get out. We were like, “What? But we paid you to get us to Cusco! You have to take us to Cusco!” And he said, “What you paid me will pay for your bus fare. Now get on the bus.” We tried arguing with him, but it was clear that we had to take the bus. As we heaved our backpacks out of the taxi, a truck with a pop-up camper and California plates passed us, a man waving with a dog panting in the passenger seat. I wish to this day we would have asked him to drive us back to Cusco.

Instead, we loaded into the bus, which was full of Peruvians. We were the only gringas. There were bags of potatoes and fresh produce in the luggage areas, live chickens below people’s feet, and the bus was hot and stinky and dirty. The local passengers were not happy with our presence either. The bus took foreverrrr, especially because the driver stopped at a tienda about halfway through and said it was time for lunch. It was an uproar. “Our money didn’t go to stopping for lunch! We need to get to Cusco! What the hell, man?” (But of course, in fast, angry Spanish). He was not swayed. It was time for his lunch. Verena and I got out, stretched our legs, and bought some snacks and ice cream before loading back in. We honestly weren’t even sure if this would take us back to Cusco. I kept checking my downloaded GPS map to make sure we were headed in the general direction.

We communicated our stop in Cusco with the driver, and he slammed on the brakes when we got there 3 hours later, like “Get off my bus! This is your stop!” We struggled to lift our packs and get ourselves down the aisle, while the other passengers started yelling at us. “Hurry up! This is your stop! Get off the damn bus!” I remember Verena responding sassily, “OKKKKK! Jesus!” I was just sweating my face off and couldn’t wait to get off the damn bus, either. At the moment, it was a pretty rough day. Looking back, it’s a hilarious, authentic story.

We had booked a different hostel that night, just to get a new perspective of Cusco. This was true party town. When we returned to Cusco that evening, I decided that I wanted to hike Rainbow Mountain the next morning, a 19,000-foot mountain with rainbow rock colorations that had been exposed due to snowmelt from global warming. It was a 5 am pick-up time so Verena didn’t want to go. We ended up going clubbing until 2 am in our hiking sandals and leggings and having a blast. I woke up still drunk the next morning at 4 am to hike this mountain with a tour group. As I sat waiting for the tour to pick me up, I had to run back into the dormitory several times because I realized I had forgotten something. I couldn’t quite walk straight at that point.

The hike wasn’t too bad, just crowded. Somehow, I was the fastest in the group going up and I kept losing them. I would stop and wait until everyone got ahead of me and then I would catch up. I made friends with a Peruvian family while I waited and posed in their pictures. I marveled at the touristy llamas that people could pay to take a picture with. My true hangover hit me at the top; a severe case of the DADS (day after drinking shits). In the picture I took at the top, there are no whites in my eyes. Just hangover. Well, there was no bathroom. There were no trees or bushes to hide behind. I had to make it to the bottom. Although I was first going up, everything hit me going down. I had a splitting headache, my body was killing me, and I was utterly close to shitting my pants. I was one of the last in the group.

When we got to the bottom, I beelined for the restroom. It ended up being just a tiny, deep hole in the dirt where you really had to aim. With my achy, shaking legs, I squatted down, leaning against the green walls of the stall for support. Luckily, I had some toilet paper in my backpack. When I got up, I was covered in green paint. I was so confused, so tired, so over it. I looked at the stall walls, slightly smudged now, realizing the paint had been fresh and was now all over my hands, buff, and jacket. Nice, Ericka. Really nice. I haven’t complained about an outhouse since.

When I made it back to the hostel, Verena asked me how it went. I was pretty disgruntled and exhausted, muttering a response. “What’d you do today?” I asked.

Verena has a way with men. She’s a thin, beautiful, 5’7”, blonde, stoner, airy sweetheart. She and the hostel manager had connected the night before while dancing. I can’t remember his name, but she goes, “he took me to the spa today and got me a massage.” I was riled. I just pooped in a hole, got covered in green paint, hiked a 19,000-foot mountain still drunk, and this b*tch got a free spa day. My priorities were not straight.

That night, I’m pretty sure we went back out to the clubs, which is insane. I’m sure I napped in between. We hadn’t smoked all our weed, so we left it on the windowsill in the women’s bathroom at the hostel, hoping the next traveler would have some use for it.      

We had another agonizing layover in Lima, although not quite as long, but when we landed in Santiago, there were no more buses heading back to Viña del Mar. We slept on the floor of the Santiago airport, this time at least in our sleeping bags in a quiet spot near baggage claim. I was not able to sleep at all and hated my life. The next morning, we caught the bus back to Viña, I dropped my backpack off at home, changed clothes, and went straight to class. I think I went to bed at around 8 pm the next three days.

Two cheapo college American gringas studying abroad in Chile flew to Peru to solo backpack the Salkantay trek from Cusco to Machu Picchu without a stove or a water filter—and survived. We rode in an authentic Peruvian bus, survived heinous hours at the Santiago and Lima airports, did not get arrested buying weed, did not get any of our friends’ gear lost or stolen, got scammed by a taxi driver, and went to class the morning we got back.

Would I do it again if I could? Probably.

I guess not much has changed.