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Published: December 4th 2007
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Pisac at dawn
We woke up together, the Incas and I Amazing few weeks.
To begin: A night in the Inca ruins at Pisac in the Sacred Valley with three great people, and a sky that danced with us to fend of the cold. A couple days before leaving for the trek two French guys, and Swedish woman, and I took a bus to Pisac and hiked up to the ruins at dusk after the guards retired. There we spent the night walking among the Tolkienesque structures in the moonlight and used body heat for warmth on a sort of lookout platform above the ruins. We stayed up until dawn, feeling sufficiently small under the incredible southern hemisphere stars and the Voie Lactée (the French word makes ¨Milky Way¨ sound like something you buy at a Dairy Queen). I do not think I have ever been a place with more clarity. I loved being there with those three but wish I could have been there with you at home. Not all at one time of course…might diminish the magic a bit, but individually it would be amazing.
A few days later four of us left for a trek from the town of Cachora to
Choquequirao and then Machu Picchu. There is too much to say so I will try not to say most of it. There were four of us: Vanessa from Quebec, Maria from Sweden (also went to Pisac), and Adeline from France. We hired an ariero named Gilbert with two horses to help with the food weight for about 20 dollars a day, split between 4 of us. It could have been done solo with packs but 10 days of market food and the ultralight Peruvian rental gear made this a much more pleasant option on the steep passes. The trail began relatively arid overlooking steep green valleys dropping thousands of feet to glacial river beds. As we neared Choquequirao on the second day the ecosystem changed to deep green jungle with a wide range of birds and flowers. We set up camp thirty minutes below and I headed up a little before the others. While the city/temple itself is not as impressive as Machu Picchu, in the context of the 3800m altitude, the surrounding mountains, and the complete absence of tourists…there are not really words. I sat writing in an alcove in the upper complex until it was too dark to
see, watching the clouds curve over the top of the saddle below, and thanked them for showing me the shape of the wind.
The next two days were short because there a couple of us got sick from some bad water (note to self: UV light sanitizers may be more technologically pleasing than functional…). In Maizel, a town of two huts and buttloads of walking/flying food, we weathered a storm in a hut and ate rubber chicken soup to an extraterrestrial symphony of cuy (guinea pigs), which milled around at our feet or curled up by the fire. The next day brought more jungle with its colorful montage of birds followed by a 4200m alpine pass, which over looked the town of Yanama. I literally started giggling walking through Yanama, it was almost too perfect to be true, but the people who lived there did not know anything else. We climbed halfway up the next pass that night and camped in pastoral lands around 4200 meters. All the land in the area belongs to a collective made up of Yanama and surrounding villages. The horses, cows, and sheep are also shared equally
and have free rain over the land.
That night we had a tea warm milk and an herb called Salbia (sp?) picked from the fields by Gilbert while the sun set and fog took its place.
The next morning the fog lifted just as we reached the 4700m pass and we were greeted with the 6000m+ mountains of the Cordillera Salcantay. From there we sent the ariero back as it was all down to our next camp at some hot springs at 2700m. There were no stars that night but the wall of jungle hosted a sea of fireflies for the first hour of darkness, generally the only part of the night we saw before crashing in our tiny ¨4 man¨ tent.
Four easy morning hours later we hoped an open topped delivery truck at the town of Playa to Santa Theresa and then a combi to some railroad tracks that lead to Aguas Calientes, the jump off point to Machu Picchu. After 10k on the tracks we passed out early at the campground to get
The first day on the trail
The third ridgeline in the distance is Choqueqirao up at 0345 for the hike up. In the morning we were among the first 10 at the entrance where we caught the first glimpse of the ¨Machu Picchu vacationer;¨ quite the interesting breed.
Inside the gates at 6am… An incredible city, almost perfectly preserved because the Incas burned the roofs and destroyed one of the main trails so the Spanish would not destroy it. The fog was perfect… I´ll let the pictures speak.
The rest was pretty rough, with 28k out on railroad tracks carrying packs full of wet gear and staring at the ground in order to keep with the uneven ties. Two combis and a bus later we were home at the Estrellita (man I love this hostel). All in all it was about 150K, 7400m up, 7000m down, two buses, two combis, one truck, six hundred fifty two sandfly bites, and a full serving of self satifisfaction.
Tonight I´m heading to Copacabana Bolivia on lake Titicaca for a few days on the beach and then off to La Paz to catch a
flight out to Indonesia for Christmas with the family…all this traveling is making me tired so I need a vacation. I´m in the process of buying a bike in La Paz and when I get back from ¨Christmas Break¨ I´m continuing on by bicycle, hopefully to make it to Tierra Del Fuego by late April when I have to be in Ecuador…but, vamos a ver.
So much for brevity. Love you guys and would love to hear from any and all of you. Be happy. Andy
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