For those of you keeping track, we are now officially at the halfway mark of the trip. In the last edition, we were stuck in La Paz after an unfortunate encounter with a local canine. We ended up being in La Paz for 5 days, and I got jabbed 4 times. The Travel Doc says that should be about 2 more than I needed, but better safe than sorry I guess.
In the meantime, Snr. Cohen managed to contract a nasty stomach bug which laid him low for a day or so. This made our prospective 4-day trek to Machu Picchu along the Inca Trail a bit tricky for two reasons:
1. We weren't sure if David would be up to the task physically, and
2. We were supposed to be in Cuzco, Peru, two days before, and the best we were going to be able to do was arriving at about 8pm the evening before.
We gave the tour company a call to see what our options were. Changing the date wasn't going to happen, but he said it should be fine if we could pay the night before and then meet the group the next morning at about 6am.
The day before our trek started we headed to the bus station for an 8:30am departure. David was feeling much better by this point, which was most welcome. We had been promised a good bathroom and comfortable seats for the 12 hour trip. Both items turned out to be somewhat underwhelming. For example, here is a checklist of basic features expected for an on-board bathroom:
1. A seat. Present.
2. The ability to flush. Missing.
3. Water to wash hands. Missing.
4. Soap. Missing.
5. A door that closes. Present.
6. A door that locks. Missing.
Two out six is pretty low actually - most will get at least 3 or 4. Very rarely do you get all 6 points.
Anyway, other than the driver nearly leaving about 10 people, including David and myself, at a police check point near the Bolivia/Peru border, the bus journey completed successfully and we arrived in Cuzco at about 8pm. The next task was securing our tour for the next morning.
We had collected about 6 phone numbers for the the company, but all of them failed to connect for various reasons, except for one for a hotel which had a loose connection to the company. They said they could help us get in touch with the company, so we headed in that direction. While we were looking for the hotel, we came across the tour company office, which was still open. Yay! We sorted out the details, found some food (I had alpaca, not bad, and has zero cholesterol) and hit the sack.
Day 1: The Easy Part
The next morning we got up before dawn and headed to the meeting point. At first we thought we might be in a group of 18 people, but thankfully it turned out to be a group of 9 - ourselves, two Kiwis (including the girl we met on the bus from Uyuni a few weeks earlier, and then again on Isla del Sol a little later), two other Aussies, a British couple, and a guy from Ireland. It turned out to be a great group and we all got along really well for the whole trip.
The first day was a light one. We caught a 2-hour bus ride to 'Kilometre 83', checked in with park officials (and got a nice stamp in our passports), and started hiking. Five minutes in, the only sign of civilization is the train line which tracks down the valley towards Machu Picchu. After about an hour, we encountered our first major Inca ruins. It served as an administration point between two valleys, one which leads directly to Machu Picchu (the easy way), the other which leads to the 'spiritual' (a.k.a. much harder) Inca trail to Machu Picchu. After admiring the site from a distance for a few minutes, we continued down the 'spiritual' trail.
Lunch (along with all of our meals on this trek) turned out to be very impressive. Tents had been set up (which was handy, since it started raining just as we got there), and we were served a 3-course meal, along with some local mint tea. After lunch we walked for another 2 hours or so and reached our campsite for the night. I attempted to play soccer with some of the porters, but got in too late and barely touched the ball. No dogs in sight this time, thankfully.
Day 2: The Hard Part
The next day is the hardest of the four. We start at an elevation of 3,000m and peak at 4,200m, then descend another 600m to the campsite. But we took it fairly slowly, and everyone in the group made it without too many problems, other than a couple of altitude headaches.
The first section of the day is through rain forest conditions. There were trees everywhere, lots of greenery and pretty bubbling creeks. This helped to take the mind off the fact that we were going uphill the entire way, often with steps of varying height to navigate. We reached our lunch location, which was at about 3,750m and had a nice long break. One of the highlights for me was the drink they served, which was made from black corn, water and a fair bit of sugar. Very tasty.
After lunch, the environment changed again, to a more stark landscape. We were simply climbing upwards on a fairly sparsely vegetated mountainside.
The highest point is called 'Dead Woman's Pass', allegedly because from a distance it looks somewhat like the face and chest of a woman lying down. The pass itself is the 'throat' of the woman, and right next to it is one of the 'nipples', as David called it. And of course, David had to climb to the top of it.
There was a path leading upwards which apparently took about 10 minutes to traverse, and the guide gave us the go-ahead, so five of us set out. The closer we got to the top, the steeper it was getting. We got to a tighter corner with not much grass to hang on to, and one of the five decided to bail. The rest of us continued on and got to the top, at which point David revealed he is terrified of heights, and might take a while getting down.
Having experienced Dave attempting to descend from heights before (In San Pedro, for those keeping track), I decided to go first. The tight corner proved to be a little tricky, and a little damp, but I took my time and made it fairly easily. Theo, the guy right behind me made it down too, but in the meantime it had become apparent to our guide that Snr. Cohen would be needing some assistance. As Theo and I cleared the tricky part, our guide and two porters ran up the mountain past us to help David. Soon, one had each leg, and the guide had somehow gotten around behind them and had his upper body. In a few minutes they had him down safely, but not before he managed to attach a large amount of mud to the seat of his pants. The other porters had enjoyed the entertainment thoroughly, and we got some very amusing photos of the whole affair.
With everyone back on track, we started the 600m descent to our campsite for the night. Another good meal later, we hit the sack early for another 5:40am wake up.
Day 3: Inca Sites
This was the last major trekking day of the trip. It was also one of the more interesting with regards to Inca sites. After about an hour of walking we arrived at our first site. It was a circular building with an internal wall and three rooms. They believe it was a rest house for the 'Chasquis', or messengers of the Incas. From this point on, we would also be travelling on the original Inca trail. Much of the old trail had been destroyed, both by the Incas themselves when the Spanish were invading, and by the environment.
The next site was an actual town, perched on a jutting outcrop of a mountain. Much to David's interest, they had build an aqueduct from a lake a few kilometres away, and had channels running throughout the town, with access points in various parts of the town.
Just as we finished at this site, it started raining. We had been extremely fortunate with the weather up to this point, since we were in the middle of the rainy season. Now, however, it decided to bucket. Ponchos, rain coats and any other protective materials that could be found were donned, and we legged it for the lunch site. Soon enough, the rain cleared again, and we were treated to views of mist rising through the mountains as we continued on our way to the next site.
The next location was another town, which sprawled down a steep mountain side. And it was at this point that we got our first view of Machu Picchu mountain. When we arrived, the whole valley was filled with fog. A few minutes later, it suddenly cleared, and down below us was the back side of Machu Picchu. We couldn't see the city itself from here, but we could see a large set of terraces on the neighbouring mountain.
The terraces turned out to be much larger than they looked from our previous vantage point. Another couple of hours walk brought us to them, and the walls of each level turned out to be about 2 metres tall. So far, they have uncovered about 200 terraces at this location, and many more are still hidden by the surrounding jungle. They were only discovered in 1985, when a bush fire ran through the area and revealed the Inca walls hidden beneath.
From here it was a pretty short walk downhill to our camp site, where our guide had one more surprise for us - one last location, about 5 minutes walk from our tents. Again, it had terraces, but also several buildings and a temple. Most of us wondered around for about 15 minutes. Snr. Cohen stayed for about an hour and a half, which again prompted a search party from the guides once it got dark. He had a ball however, and made it back safely yet again.
In the mean time, I had started feeling some ill effects from lunch. By the time dinner was being served, I was feeling pretty lousy. Some heavy-hitting medication and a couple of interesting bathroom trips later, I was feeling a bit better, but we were all wondering how I would go the next day.
Day 4: Machu Picchu
After a surprisingly restful night´s sleep, we all woke up at about 4am to make the last dash to Machu Picchu. The goal was to get to the ´Sun Gate´ before sunrise. I was feeling about 200% better, and by 5am we were lined up at the entrance to the last leg of the trek. We managed to get 3rd place in line, and about half-an-hour later the gates opened.
David has been waiting to get to Machu Picchu for about 19 years. As such, he and the Kiwi girl we met way back decided to race to the gate. They took off at a run. The rest of us set a good pace behind them and were overtaking people most of the way. After about 40 minutes, we finally arrived at a long, steep stairway. We scrambled to the top, only to discover that this was not the sun gate. It did, however, provide our first glimpse of the sun over the mountains to the east. Continuing on for another 5 minutes, we finally made it to the real sun gate. And with it, our first view of Machu Picchu.
Machu Picchu is a pretty impressive site, even from the distance we were still at. We had another 15 minutes to kill before the sun actually got high enough to illuminate the city itself, so we took some time to catch our breath and enjoy the view. Behind Machu Picchu (which means, literally, Old Mountain) was Waynapicchu (which means Young Mountain). Only 400 people are allowed to climb it every day, but we unfortunately missed out on tickets. Instead, we spend the day exploring. Our guide took us around some of the main sites, and then at about 10:30, we went our separate ways. Some were returning to Cuzco the same day via the train, others staying overnight in the nearby town of Aguascalientes. We stayed until about 4:30 and covered a large chunk of the site, including the main temple, several tombs and a crazy bridge the Incas built against a 500m high cliff.
We made it back to Cuzco that night. Since then, we visited several other Inca and pre-Inca ruins, returned to Puno on Lake Titikaca and visited the floating islands (made entirely of reeds) and finally arrived here in Arequipa, en route to Nazca and Lima in the next couple of days. All were interesting in their own right, but this edition has already gone way over time, so we will leave it there for now, for which I´m sure you are all grateful.
So until next time, hasta luego,
Los Davides
