Walking uphill at 13k ft isn't easy

Woke up fresh at 730 (slept through the 630 alarm) happy my head was feeling better. We slowly got up and put afterbite all over our legs. River flys got to us in Mindo and they just now started to itch. Andy looks like a leper on his legs. We headed down to breakfast in the hostal and had some runny peanut butter stuff and coca leave tea. We needed to find the Gravity Road of Death office since we planned to ride tomorrow and we wanted to check out the city in daylight. We headed out walking through the markets. Although there’s still trash on the ground, they did a pretty good job cleaning up the mess that was the night before. I couldn’t even smell all the urine from the dudes peeing anywhere they wanted to. We headed down to the main road (I believe the river runs under it) and could not find the office. Tired of looking, we headed for an outlook. It was hard as hell to walk up the hills, scared of what Machu Picchu would be like. The outlook was closed so we went to a nearby park for some pics. We got a few in before the guard to us it was closed too. It appears they are putting up Christmas trees- I guess they celebrate it in winter as well?

We decided to check out the rest of the city. We walked to a nice area of town which happened to be up a lot of stairs. Feeling like our hearts were going to pound out of our chests, we slowed down and took it easy. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out and it wasn’t cold. We found the outlook, took some pics of the side of the mountain with houses and a very tall mountain in the distance with a glacier on top. This city is really amazing.

Walking back, we stopped at a barber so Andy could get his long-mohawkish hair cut to be respectable. After minimal communication with the barber, showing him a couple inches on the top and no on the sides, he started working. The first thing he did was cut the sides shorter. I looked at Andy and just laughed, thinking what his hair could possibly look like when it was done. He didn’t cut it enough on the top at first so we went back over it. He also trimmed Andy’s beard and shaved his neck with a straight razor. When he was done he put straight up rubbing alcohol on his neck. Andy’s face turned so red from pain! The pain was worth it because it looked great.

We walked back through the markets getting two oranges for less than $1, white raisins, and roasted peanuts. I was tired so we headed back to the hostal and relaxed. For dinner we headed to a restaurant for some coca Mojitos Bolivianos (very good) and huge portions of soup, brie/apple croquettes, and Andy had the largest meatball with mashed potatoes. We were stuffed and tired from walking all day so we headed home. Along the way I bought some winter socks and gloves made of Llama fur for $6- bargain! We have a really busy day tomorrow biking the road of death, swimming, and ziplining.