Tuesday, November 07, 2006

The Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu

Another amazing week! Jeremy and I returned from a 5-day/4-night Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu that lasted from Thursday 11/2 until Monday 11/6. It was fantastic. Then this morning, we caught a plane to the jungle city of Puerto Maldonado near the Bolivian border.

This blog entry is another long one (actually the longest yet) with lots and lots of pictures, so prepare yourself! In fact, we´ll give you a couple of weeks to look it over before writing another entry... More on that later.


SALKANTAY TREK - DAY ONE

Our Salkantay trip began when our alarm rang to wake us up at 4:00am on Thursday morning. The day before we had packed up our apartment, but we didn´t leave it until the morning. Now, we are officially apartment-less. Anyway, our travel agency arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 4:30am near our apartment.

Then we drove to meet our fellow trekkers (James & Steve) and our guide (Hugo). James is a 28-year-old guy from London who is traveling through Peru and Bolivia at a breakneck pace for a month. In the 8 days before we met him, he had already seen most of the major tourist sites in Peru (and certainly more than we have yet)! He has just finished his qualifications to become an accountant and is on a month-long break between school and starting his new career. Steve is a 31-year-old guy from Arizona who is on a long-term world-traveling jaunt following the winters for snowboarding. Soon, he plans to become a certified scuba diving instructor so he can follow the summers around the world as well. Both guys were very well-traveled and it was incredibly interesting hearing their travel stories! Our guide, Hugo, is a 21-year-old guide who has 2 years of guiding experience and a university education in that area. He does a number of different types of tours (trekking, mountain biking, jungle tours, etc.) We really enjoyed learning more about Peru from him. After his career as a guide, he eventually wants to take over his family´s cheese-producing business. We also had an incredible cook (Faustino) and a horseman who loaded up our horses and led them through the trek to carry our supplies. It was a small group, but a great group. As some of you may have noticed, I was the only woman on the trip!



After gathering everyone, we took a 3-hour taxi ride to a town called Mollepata to have breakfast and begin our trek. The first day included 6 hours of hiking before arriving at our camp. We saw the Salkantay mountain range from a distance, followed the Salkantay river rapids, and had a candlelight dinner with Red Hot Chili Peppers from a cell phone as background music in an adobe shelter covered by a rain tarp. It was a good thing it was covered by the tarp because it started to rain while we were in there. Another somewhat bizzare highlight was a brand-new fully-functioning toilet that was outside with a view of Salkantay under the almost-full moon. Beautiful! As we had been warned, that first night was extremely cold. Here´s a photo of the first camp.




SALKANTAY TREK - DAY TWO

The second day we "slept-in" until 5am. Instead of an alarm waking us up, it was our horseman knocking on our tent and bringing us cups of hot tea. What a nice way to start the day!

Just before we left, two of our horses escaped from the camp and the horseman and cook went chasing them. After they found them and tied them up again, one of them got loose AGAIN. This time, Jeremy decided to retrieve the horse.



Day 2 was the most difficult day of the trek. Not only was it technically the most difficult, but also at the highest altitude and the most hours hiking. In addition, that day the rain POURED most of the day! That day we hiked from 7:00am until 6:00pm with some breaks to add up to about 10 hours of hiking. During the first 4 hours we climbed uphill through switchbacks in the clouds, surrounded by grazing horses and cows. The goal was to arrive at an overlook of Salkantay that was supposed to be breathtaking. Unfortunately, the weather didn´t cooperate. When we reached the top, the view of Salkantay was a white background just beyond the ground underneath our feet due to the clouds, but it was still an incredible experience. At the top, our group constructed a pile of rocks (as many others have done before us) to pay homage to the mountain for letting us pass through. But unlike the others, who mostly just piled a couple rocks on top of each other, our group spent a lot of time on this project and got quite creative. When looking at the photos, pay special attention to the horseshoe at the top. We found that on our path. After our project, we decended for 6 hours through farmland, shallow rocky streams, and cloud forest. By the end of the day we were soaked through and through, sore, and MUDDY. We felt good though because we had completed the most difficult day!



SALKANTAY TREK - DAY THREE

Day 3 was a "lazy day" with only 4 hours of hiking. The highlight of the day was the hot springs we visited in the morning. Right along a river, the pool for the hot springs was scenic, warm, and extremely refreshing. It was a welcome way to start our day.



That day we hiked through the cloud forest, through waterfalls (which cleaned our muddy boots and pants a bit), and over log bridges. Because we had been at such a high altitude the day before, the oxygen from the lush vegetation was invigorating. We took an easy pace that day, stopping to rest with soft drinks and cookies at tiendas (small stores) along the way. At one of the tiendas, there were numerous animals (dogs, cats, chickens, roosters, pigs, horses) there. All of us were astounded at how well they all got along. At times, the cats and dogs were cuddling with each other. If only people from different backgrounds could co-exist in harmony like that! When we arrived at our camp for the evening (in a small village called La Playa), there was a relatively-good foosball table that made for hours of entertainment.




SALKANTAY TREK - DAY FOUR

The fourth day was the 2nd most difficult day, but it was also incredible. We started hiking just after 6am and within a half hour, we arrived at an Inka Trail. This isn´t the same Inka Trail as many trek along, but another one as there are many.

The Inka Trails are historically significant because they provided the means for a messenger system in the Inka times. A boy who worked as "chaski" would carry a rope (that was knotted to in a way to communicate a message), running along the Inka trail until he reached a place where another chaski would carry on the message (similar to a relay race). Just before he reached a place where another chaski would be, he would sound a horn to alert the next chaski of his duty. It was amazing to be walking along this path knowing that was used for such a purpose.

Not only was it historically interesting, but we were walking through a beautifully lush rainforest. Groups of parrots sang as they flew above us. We passed coffee, banana, avocado, and tropical fruit plants and trees. Overall, the hike was quite meditative.

The Inka Trail was also mostly uphill for the first 3 hours until we reached an overlook where we could see Machu Picchu from a distance. We needed to wait a bit for the clouds to part, but we did end up catching our first glimpse of this amazing site with the help of our binoculars. Then, we began our descent taking in 2 more overlooks before descending completely.



After this, we hiked towards a town called Hydro Electrica where there is a hydroelectric plant and had lunch there at a restaurant. Our cook wasn´t able to make it in time due to transportation difficulties.



The hike after lunch was possibly the most uninteresting of the trek. We walked along the railroad tracks from Hydroelectrica to Aguas Calientes. We followed the Urubamba River, but weren´t able to see it because we were so focused on staying on the railroad ties. The most exciting thing that happened on that part of the hike was that a single rail car (not a train) came to switch the tracks when we were on them, so we had to jump off. We were ready to arrive at Aguas Calientes. When we did, we checked into a Hostal and had a real bed and a shower for the first time in days. It was wonderful. We had dinner, then headed to bed because we had a big day the next day!




SALKANTAY TREK - DAY FIVE

The day we had all been waiting for finally arrived on Monday - MACHU PICCHU! We started the grueling hike up the stairs to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes at 4:45am. Our goal was to see the sunrise over the site.

One would think that after 4 days of hiking, an hour and 15 minute hike would seem short, but it didn´t. We were ready to be there. We arrived at Machu Picchu just after it officially opened to the public at 6:00am. At that time, the clouds obstructed our view a bit, but it was still a sight to behold. Because we were distracted looking at the site and walking around, we ended up missing the sunrise, but because of the clouds, it sounds like we didn´t miss much.

Our guided tour of the site began at 6:45am and lasted until about 9:00am. It was interesting and the timing was just right. I won´t go into details about it because I know some of you may visit it in the future. But for now, I´ll say that I really enjoyed learning about more about Incan culture.



The highlight of the visit for both Jeremy and I was the overlook at the top of Waynapicchu. If you have seen some of the photos of Machu Picchu before, Waynapicchu is the tallest mountain in the picture. It took us about 45 minutes to climb to the top of the mountain, then we sat for a couple hours just enjoying the breathtaking view. Pictures really don´t do this justice because you don´t see the whole view at once. We also met our trekking partners (James and Steve) up there. From the top of Waynapicchu, we could trace the last days of our trek in the distance and fully appreciate just how far we had hiked in a short period of time. It was truly an incredible and humbly experience.



Just as we finished our gazing from the top of Waynapicchu, it began to sprinkle. So, we descended and decided that we had satisfactorily completed our trek to Machu Picchu. With that, we took the bus back to Aguas Calientes, ate lunch, took the train to Ollantaytambo, and caught a bus to Cusco.

We stayed in Cusco until this morning (Wednesday) when we caught a 32-minute flight to the jungle city of Puerto Maldonado. We´re here so we can take a boat tomorrow morning (Thursday) to our next destination: Pica Flor Research Center. We´ll be at Pica Flor doing volunteer work for a week or two, then head to Bolivia and Brazil before returning to Peru.

As a result, our next blog entry will likely be in late November or even early December. Pica Flor doesn´t have internet access and we´re not sure how long it will take us to be in an area with internet access afterwards.

If we don´t write before then, we hope everyone has a wonderful THANKSGIVING!

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