I ended my last blog talking about the amazing bus we were on from Trujillo to Lima. We arrived safe and sound to our hostal in Lima. It was this cool, hip sort of place owned by a French guy and his buddy. The entrance into it was covered in pictures and things people had written on the wall of their time in the hostal. Cool! The young owner told us it used to be a place for squatters but him and his buddy bought it and fixed it up. It has huge staircases and like 10 foot ceilings with walls and furniture decorated in a hip sort of way. I was impressed. We slept the night there then got up at 5am to head to the airport for our flight to Cuzco. It was a packed flight but only lasted for about an hour and a half. It was interesting flying over the Andes because the mountains literally show above the clouds. They seemed so close. A very pretty flight. We landed early in the morning and could feel the altitude hit us as soon as we stepped off that plane! Apparently 3400 meters really affects the way you breath. We found our hostal (which is also super cute! We have found some of the cutest little hostals for so cheap here! Actually its more like a hotel here. Free internet, nice beds, our own bathroom with hot water! yay! free pancakes for breakfast, and they give us towels. Sweet deal!) and I decided to nap. The altitude was making me feel tired and my head was pounding. After a quick nap, we decided to take a walk (very slowly since we took 2 steps and would be short of breath) around Cuzco. Its a very pretty little city but we lucked out being here now: in June is their winter solstice and many other things so there has been a festival going on pretty much the entire time we have been here. July is also a very busy month since it marks the 100th anniversary of Machu Picchu being discovered! We found a little british pub to have some lunch in, since we are getting sick of rice and potatoes all the time. It was delicious! We did some more walking and wandering and eventually ended up back at the hostal. It was a pretty laid back day, which we did not mind at all!
The next morning we got up and had the free pancakes (om nom nom!) and then headed out for a horseback ride we had booked the day before. We cabbed out to a site where we got on our horses and started going. The horses here are so tiny! They are basically the size of a donkey, although everything down here seems to be smaller than anything you find in North America. Anik had a bit of a time being comfortable on his but he toughed it out. We did a 2 hour ride around the mountain side, which took us around to see a couple more places with Inca ruins and then on top of a big mountain where we could view all of Cuzco. It was extremely relaxing and so quiet! I really enjoyed it. Afterwards we walked down the road to a big Inca ruin (you could honestly spend almost a month just in Cuzco enjoying the atmosphere and seeing all the ruins around the city!). You had to pay more than we expected to get in but we did it anyway. I can't remember what the first site we visited was called but it was fairly small. We then walked another 20 minutes to the next site called Saqsaywaman (I swear!). We hired a tour guide here who told us about the Inca people and what they believed in. This site is huge! and quite popular I believe. He mentioned the Inca's didn't have a so called religion, but they believe heavily in spirtuality and spent a lot of time meditating facing the sun (since they believed in a Sun God of sorts). Very interesting stuff and I still can't fathom how they built the structures they did. Amazing! We walked around Cuzco a little more in the afternoon and had another bite to eat. We haven't had much local food yet, but mostly because we knew we would eat 5 days worth on our Machu Picchu trek. Another fairly tame night. It gets freeeezing cold here! Like actually! Brrrrr.
On our third day in Cuzco, we decided to get all the things done we needed to before going on the trek. We went to a local market in town to buy some warmer things. I bought a toque, scarf, mitts, and a sweater all made of alpaca. I didn't really think I would need them for the hike but it turns out I did. We bought a few other things and then decided to stop for lunch. In the afternoon we had to sort out how we were getting to Venezuela from Peru. So expensive! Major planning fail on our part. I am glad we aren't going further South because Lima and Cuzco are already pretty cold but flying to Venezuela cost us HALF! of what it cost us to fly down to South America and back! Ugh. We did some more touring and eventually headed to our Machu Picchu tour company's office for a debriefing of the trip. We met our group which consisted of two indians from England and three American girls. Everyone was fairly young so we were pretty pumped about that. We had our debriefing, some pizza, and then back to the hostal for some sleep before our 4 am wake up call!
Okay, finally onto the Machu Picchu trek! It was an amazing, challenging, fun trip that was way different than what I expected. I am not going to lie - the first day was pretty miserable. But every day after that was better than the last and I had a great time.
Day 1 - Cock-a-doodle-do at 3:30am! What a rough time of day to wake up. We got all packed up, checked out of the hostal and waited for our pickup. We picked up the rest of the group and we were on our way! It was a 2 hour van ride to our first stop in a small town (Mollepata) for breakfast. We ate and picked up some last minute items before continuing on (5 soles for a walking stick - less than $2 - was the best investment I ever made, although I didn't know it yet!). Another 2 hour bus ride before getting to where we would start hiking, called Soray Pampa. We were already at 3800m in altitude and definitely felt it as we started the trail. We were facing the mountain called Salkantay (the mountain the trek is named after) and our guide told us that they locals sort of pray to this mountain. Salkantay means wild mountain and it was named that because there is always a swirl of clouds around the peak. Its peak reaches 6264m, which was mostly always covered in clouds while we hiked. We started our trek up and soon realised that we needed to walk at a snails pace in order not to burn ourselves out. Our guide had told us we should buy some coca leaves to help with energy and altitude sickness so we soon found ourselves chewing on them. They are actually the leaves used in part for cocain! As we hiked further up, we eventually found a bit of a hail/snow storm. It was quite quick but we were thinking we could tell everyone we trekked through hail! Little did we know a few minutes later we would be in a full out blizzard. Not even kidding! It was a mix of hail/snow because it wasn't as soft as snow but not as big as I would say hail usually is. It was cold enough that it stayed on the ground and we all had to bundle up with as much clothing as we had. Thank god I did buy the toque, mitts, and alpaca sweater but I was still freezing. I'm using my summer vacation for more winter - am I nuts?! It was especially miserable because the altitude and climb up the mountain was rough enough but the snow really made it difficult. We stopped at about 4400m at a place called Soyrococha for lunch after about 4 hours of trekking. We all crowded into the tent around a little 4 person table. The cooks had passed us a while back and had already boiled hot water for us so we were so happy to have some hot coca while the storm outside was going full force! The cooks prepared a delicious lunch for us but my body cooled down a lot while sitting inside the tent. I even braved going out in the storm once it died down for a bathroom break. Truly at nature! haha. We headed back out into the storm to continue up to the mountain. We FINALLY hit the highest point on the trek, 4600m. We were all overjoyed! It was downhill form here pretty much for the next couple days. Shortly after reaching the peak, the storm broke and the sun came out. The change in attitude in the group was unbelieveable - everyone literally started singing! Crazy! We looked back at how far we had come and it had completely cleared up. WTF! We just treked through that for it to clear up completely. Oh well. The views were astonishing though. We were always surrounded by mountains the entire hike, some white capped and covered in snow while others were green with some shrubbery. After another 3 hours of hiking we reached our base camp in a valley between the mountains called Huayracmachay. It was actually a little village and we were camped near the outer edge of it. The bathroom was the sketchiest thing I'd ever seen, quite literally a hut built out of... I'm not sure what. It was apparently fairly nasty inside so we all found huge boulders to use as a bathroom. Worked well enough except it was freezing. We were all still quite cold so we napped/actually just layed in our sleeping bags shivering until supper. Another delish meal but we were all still cold so we went to bed shortly after supper. It had been a long day. It was a really really cold night so unfortunately most of us only got an hour or two of sleep. Like I said - this day was the most miserable!
Day 2 - We got to sleep in (if you can call it that since we all really hadn't slept) until about 7:00. The cooks brought hot water with tea or coca leaves to us outside our tent. What a nice way to wake up when you're freezing your buns off! We had a great breakfast of amazing porridge and pancakes then headed off on our way. One of the nice things was that the cooks/mule drivers set up and took down our tents for us and packed everything up on the mules so we just had to be ready to go on time. It was a chilly morning so we dressed warmly and then headed back down the mountain. We got to trek for a while on flat land and then the rest of the day was mostly along the side of one mountain on the valley going downhill. It was quite hard on the knees and feet since it was mainly rocks you had to be careful steeping over but again the views were amazing and it was better than the day before. The sun even came out every once in a while so we didn't have to wear such heavy clothing all day. We reached our second camping location around 1:30pm, Colcapampa. Another small town where we camp near the outskirts. We had another amazing lunch and then had free time in the afternoon. The sun was out so we didn't have to wear heavy clothing but were by no means warm enough for shorts and t-shirts as I expected we could be. We had a table inside a shack to sit in and even a bathroom with real brick walls and a toilet that flushed, although it was a little nasty. We played cards for a while and then eventually came to the conclusion that the best games we knew were drinking games! We went to a close store and bought some alcohol but it only came in like 2.5 shot bottles so we had to buy lots! We had dinner and continued to play games. Eventually a group of 20 people showed up to camp in our same location, and we were angry (not really but you know what I mean!). We had only seen one group so far on the trail so we liked the peace and quiet. We were concerned they would be loud and rowdy with so many of them, but that turned out to be us! We played some card games and some other drinking games, sociables, and ended with I've Never. One of the guys from the big group came up to us and reminded us that there were a lot of people camping, we were revealing pretty private information about ourselves, and they could all hear us. But we didn't care seeing as how it was dark, we didn't know them and they couldn't tell who was drinking to what. Plus, a few of the group were quite a few deep and we had moved past a bottle of Pisco (popular alcohol here) and onto big bottles of beer. Although we had been playing and being loud for quite a while, it wasn't even late. I think everyone had packed it in by 10:30pm! What a great day it had been.
Day 3 - We got to sleep in again until around 7:00 and were woken up by the cooks with hot tea again. We had all slept much much better since it wasn't so cold and with help from the alcohol. We were considerably slower to get moving but we knew the day of hiking wasn't hard again today. We set off and spent the day walking down a road the whole time. Easy walking so that was a nice change. There is a path you can walk along but its apparently up and down a lot and a lot more difficult. We had the chance to all talk more amongst ourselves since we weren't gasping for breath while walking or focusing so much on where to step. We arrived at a our campsite for lunch in decent time. Another step up from the night before! A clean bathroom that actually looks like a bathroom [the one the night before had a piece of sheet metal for a door with some wood attached to keep it from bending]. There was even a sink outside the bathroom for washing our hands. Omg! Running water! I can't tell you how nice it felt to wash my hands after only using hand sanitizer for 3 days! After a relaxed lunch, we all got changed and hopped into a dodgey little van heading for the hot springs! It was an interesting ride, we even witnessed an small accident in the town St. Theresa that we passed through. We arrived and were more than excited to get in, but of course there were tonnes of people there. I guess most hikes have the tourists go here [although there were a lot of locals as well] but it was nice, even with so many people. Apparently there used to be a big building with lockers, and showers, and everything and they charged admission to get into the hot springs but there was a huuuuuge landslide [which we could easily see] last year so the buildings are gone but it seems they dug out the hot springs. It felt sooooo nice on our aching muscles! We spent a couple hours enjoying the warm bath before heading back to camp. If I thought the ride to the hot springs was interesting, the ride back was..... more interesting I guess.. haha I have a terrible vocabulary. Anyways, it was dark already and the roads that wind around the mountain can mostly only fit one vehicle, with the one edge of the road leading straight off the side of the mountain most of the time! We eventually met a huge dumptruck on the road going the opposite way of us and there was no way for it to get past. Our driver, who I'm not sure had a license, started to reverse down the road but ended up angling towards the edge of the road near the mountain cliff! We were freaking out but luckily our guide that was with us stopped him. He then cranks his wheel and heads the opposite direction across the road into the bush, once again stopped by our guide. We are thinking by this point this guy doesn't know how to drive and is going to send us over the mountain! The dumptruck driver turns off his truck, jumps out, and comes to steer our van while walking along beside it. We reverse down the road a little ways with the driver doing this for us until we come to a wider part in the road. We stop, he runs back up to this truck, squeezes past us and off we go again. After this exchange I was extremely nervous about the rest of the ride back! But we made it. Supper and then off to bed right away since our wake up call the next morning was at 4am!
Day 4 - Cock a doodle do! at 4am. Not a happy camper! Actually, Anik and I failed to hear the wake up call and woke up late asking why everyone was being so loud. We rushed to get ready and had a breakfast before heading out around 530am. We left so early so we could make it to a view point before it got too hot. We were definitely grateful for this since it was a hard climb up a mountain for like 3.5 hours. I struggled the most on this day. I´m not sure why but my body just didn´t want to do anything more! My legs were so tired and sore and I had to stop every few steps to catch my breath and give my legs a break. Quite annoying. We could feel the sun coming up and it soon got extremely hot, but luckily most of the climb was in the shade of the trees. The views up the mountain were spectacular, as everyday had been on our trip. We made it to the viewing point and were the first group up there, which was nice. We could see Machu Picchu and Waynapicchu far off in the distance but it was nice to be getting much closer! At this viewpoint, there were also some ruins and our guide told us a little about the Inca´s history and how the spainards invaded. Interesting stuff but even nicer was the opportunity for a long break, a snack, and a sit in the sunshine. By the time we left, there was probably 20 people that had made their way into this little area so we were glad to head down the mountain. It took 2.5 hours of zig zagging downhill to get to the bottom of the mountain. It was fairly steep and quite hard on the legs. Sometimes when we would stop, my legs would just shake! It was getting even hotter and we were all sweating like crazy. Luckily at the bottom we were able to stop along the river that wound its way through the mountains. It was freezing cold but felt wonderful on our aching, sweaty feet! Our guide even jumped right in, even though it was cold as ice water! After the break we continued on to lunch. We all bought a cold drink (first real cold drink in 4 days) and enjoyed the break. After lunch, we had another 3 hour walk to the town of Aguas Calientes, which is the town nearest Machu Picchu. The walk was alright since we just followed a flat trail along train tracks the entire way but it had been a lot of walking that day and it seemed to take a long time before we reached the town. We found our hostel and were all soooo happy to shower! Unfortunately for me, all the hot water was gone by the time I showered, but I actually felt clean! After the shower, we went to a restaurant in the town for a snack before dinner. We were all starved, plus a nice drank didn´t hurt either. At dinner we discussed the next morning, our Machu Picchu day, and Anik and I decided to take the bus up to Machu Picchu rather than walking the hour up the 1000´s of stairs. We had already walked 59km in 4 days, and although we felt we should hike the last 5 km up the mountain to Machu Picchu, we couldn´t do it. I couldn´t do it! We all tucked in right after dinner, excited for our tour the next day!
Day 5 - The last day! Woke up around 4:00am. Ugh these early mornings kill me. We met our guide and the two brits to catch the bus up the mountain. The three american girls had gotten up at 3am and left by 3:30am to make sure they hiked up the mountain in good time. The gate for hiking up the mountain doesn´t open until 4:50am but people start lining up early to rush up to the top to ensure they get to see Huayna Picchu. We went to the bus stop at 4:30am to stand in line since the buses didn´t start running until 5:30am. There was about 100 people there already when we showed up but many many more showed up and lined up behind us.We made it up to Macchu Picchu by shortly after 6am and stood in another line for Huayna Picchu. You don´t have to pay for Huayna Picchu since the entrance is connected to the far side of Machu Picchu but they only allow 400 people a day up the mountain so you have to be some of the first to Machu Picchu to get the stamp for Huayna Picchu. We lucked out with getting stamps and then waited in line to actually get into Machu Picchu. We met up with the americans (who said they hiked up the mountain in 40 minutes but they were much more fit than us!) and then decided what to do. Us and the brits got the 7:00am timeslot for Huayna Picchu but americans got the 10:00am timeslot since our tour was supposed to start right away with our guide. Our guide, Milton, agreed to do the tour twice so we spent time taking pictures of Machu Picchu as we made our way through to the entrance of Huayna Picchu. It was actually great being there so early because there are much much less people that early. It was nice to see the ruins almost empty! We took half an hour to hike up Huayna Picchu (its a long ways! Zig zag up the mountain to the very top where the ruins are) but we were sweating like mad. We had to meet our guide back in Machu Picchu at 9:00am so we didn´t have much time to spend roaming up there. It was more to say we did it than anything else. The climb down went faster but the sun was much hotter, we had to stop several times for people going up to pass us, and some of the spots were tricky to climb down. We met Milton and then waited for the brits, as they had wanted to see more of the ruins so left after us. We spent some time laying in the sun on the terraces. There were a lot more people by this time and tonnes of Japanese! I think they came on a huge tour bus together. Milton took us on the tour and told us about the Incas. I can´t really explain the ruins, its something you have to see for yourself. I can´t imagine what it would have looked like in its day though! Man, how spectacular it must have been. We ended with Milton, said our goodbyes, and then lazed around the ruins for a few more hours. We spent some time with the brits before laying on the terraces for a nap for a couple hours. They keep llamas around so I got close to them and took some pictures as well. By 2:30pm we had caught a bus back down to Aguas Calientes (we had considered walking down to say we had at least walked the stairs but.. we were lazy). We met with our backpacking group for dinner before heading to the train station. We took the train to Ollaytatambo (or something like that) then a van picked us up to take us back to Cuzco. We said our goodbyes to our group but were extremely happy to be back in our hostel with a comfy bed, clean room, and always hot shower! What an awesome 5 days it had been!
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