Advertisement
Okay so I´ll finally get around to what is the highlight so far on my trip.
First day
This was descrived as the easy day. We woke up super early since we were told that our guides would pick us up between 5.20am and 6.00am. We let the hostel guy know that we´d be up super early and he replied that he works all day, so there´d be no problems right? Well for once in our lives we made it out of bed and got changed and were rearing to go at 5am, we head downstairs and were locked out of the office... this means that we were locked
inside, so even if the guide was there, he wouldn´t be able to get to us. Panic set in for a few short moments as we devised plans to climb through a window and escape our hostel, but before it got to that, we knocked, loudly, and the manager came shortly after that. While we were milling about twidlling our thumbs, the manager was opening the doors outside. Sure enough parked outside was a taxi with the driver looking completly lost. A couple of seconds later an aussie guy stumbles
in:
"Buenas Noches" he slurred
"Buenos Diás" replied the manager. The aussie looked down at his watch, then at his peruvian "girlfriend", laughed "no shit" and dragged the girl upstairs with him.
Well sure enough our guide arrived bright and early... at 6.05am, just late enough for me to be convinced that we´d missed out while the manager stumbled around opening up the hostel, and we were on our way.
Following the 2 hour bus ride to get to Otombollo (and I know that is spelt so badly) we arrived for breakfast. This was a great time to get to know people who were on the trek with us. So we sat ordering food, I ordered an omlete with chips, thinking they had translation issues and was curious. They didn´t and I got a cheese omlete over some fries. David on the other hand just got his cheese omelete, without fries for the same price! My trip was already made.
Strangely, the whole time we were eating we had this guy trying to sell us walking sticks for the trail. I was like "pffft, as if anyone is going to buy them" and kept telling him no.
He stayed around until all but 3 (me included) bought a stick. A couple of people bought two to compensate this. David bought one that had a compass and a torch. These items were mutually exclusive since if the light didn´t shine on the compass. Also, the light was average and the compass didn´t work (and he broke one in the shop trying it on for size). But I gave it a gimmick factor of 10.
Our group was made up with:
4 aussies (3 girls who have been travelling for 5-6 months and a boyfirend who has joined them recently)
2 Italians
2 Americans
Another 2 Aussies (one of whom is a cricket journalist)
2 Canadians
And lest we forget the two kiwis.
Once aquaintences were met and breakfast was paid for, we made our way to km82. Here, at about 11am, we started our trek. We had been told that this day was pretty easy and we wouldn´t have too much trouble. There is a section in the day where we would climb some steep bits, but on the whole the first day is pretty flat. Picking up my bag, which was probably weighing in at
11 kilos, due to the 3 litres of water I was carrying, I looked around to see that no-one else was carrying a big bag, everyone had these tiny little day packs. I was a little surprised. David, whose bag would have weighed maybe a kilo more than mine but was twice the size, got sympathy from all involved.
We started the trek, and for some reason I found myself at the front. I´ve always considered myself a fast walker, and talking most of the way with one of the American girls, I turned around thinking that we may have left the rest of the group in the dust. But sure enough, they were all there, so the pace continued.
It didn´t talke too long before we stopped for lunch. Food was a surprise here and would continue to be throughout the course of the trek. When we all pulled up for lunch we got clapped by the porters, who left after us, ran past us and setup lunch.
Now although normally I was in awe of the speed that the porters do things, this time we got hepl back somewhat by the guides as the talked
about the two different routes that the Incas could come, the poor mans and the rich mans. These routes still remain today, the hike or the train. (Although hiking does seem like the poor mans way, it actually is more expensive. Would still fork out again without hesitation).
I´m going to have to break from the story slightly here since I´ve mentioned porters and lunch. I´d done a fair amount of research as to what was going to be provided on this tour, and still came unstuck when I saw the quality of service that we were provided. I thought the porters, for me since I didn´t hire a personal porter, would simply carry the tents, food and cooking equipment. And sure enough that was true, but I hadn´t really thought about it fully. When I say food I´m sure they picked some up on the way, but there were a lot of mouths to feed: 14 trekkers, about 23 porters a cook and 3 guides. But the cooking equipment was certainly a lot more than I was expecting there to be when comparing with my baked bean fryups when I go camping. They had to carry:
• A table
to eat off.
• All of the pots and pans to cook the food (if you see the dishes we got, you´ll get a fair understanding.
• A tent to eat in (this also doubled as the porters sleeping quarters).
• Tubs to hold the water to drink.
• Tubs to hold the water to wash our hands.
• Massive pots to boil the water.
• Stools to sit on.
• A kerosene lamp for the nighttime.
I guess I just thought that we´d simply be sitting on the ground and eating with hands somewhat, but we were eating in style. I still feel for the young kid who had to carry the gas tank the whole way, the tank itself was heavy enough, but filled with gas would have been super heavy. The stools were stacked, but they would have had an uncomfortable load on the back. I was quite proud to have gone with the slightly more expensive company which gave the porters backpacks and went with the regulations of the porters. These porters only carried 18-20 kilos each, which itself is a lot - but I´m sure that on seeing some of the porters who were only 5´5" tall carrying in a "bedsheet" something
that was 1 sq meter in size while wearing unglorified roman sandals can´t live in the most luxury. Compare this to back home where someone who breaks their back for the benefit of tourists is likely to be pretty well off. But I digress.
For lunch we had, what become standard (as it is all accross Perú), a three course meal. We started off with an Avacado salad, followed up with a soup and the main eludes me, I´m pretty sure it was chicken but for once in my life I can´t remember food. Come to think of it, I think I´ll battle to remember much of the food that got eaten during the trip, so this one won´t be much of a food blog. All I can say is that the food was very peruvian and very tasty.
After lunch we undertook what I now call the uphill after-lunch battle. Every single lunch we had on the trip was followed by a steep uphill climb. Pity the digestive soul.
The rest of the day was rather flat, we did come across one steep section, in which being at the head of the pack I tried to
keep up with the guide who wasn´t exerting himself at all. I think I did pretty well for myself since the rest of the group trailed behind somewhat.
Second day
This was descrived as the hardest day. Woke up early around 5.20am to delivered coca tea in our tents. Breakfast was fresh fruit and bread, with a drink of porrige...it worked.
The first couple of hours were pretty much a piece of cake. We were wondering though what could very easily have been taken straight outta NZ bush. Ferns and the like were everywhere, nothing too steep or annoying. The aussie girls were singing and dancing, so I made haste to get away lest have a song stuck in my head...
They said that today would be hard, and they weren´t kidding. Sure enough most of the day felt like it was on a 45 degree angle, but that wasn´t the killer. The problem was, that since we were climbing, the altitude made you short of breath pretty easy.
The next couple of hours were real killers, step after step going up and up. Some steps would be about 60cm high, and a few of
those in a row leaves you pretty breathless. I kept telling myself that I´ll just get to the end of the steps, only to find that my target would keep on twisting and turning into the bush. Taking it slowly was the best option. After leaving the campsite at 7am we made our way to the second breakfast area, where we had climbed about 600m since base camp. The italian guy and myself made it to this place first and immediately we found it cold. We still weren´t in the sun and the sweat really cools you down when you´re not walking.
The second breakfast was simply popcorn and a ham (luncheon) and cheese sandwich. Popcorn went down a treat.
Following this second breakfast we continued the large climb we had remaining. The steps seemed to get bigger and the breaks were happening at a much more regular occurance after lunch. It could have been because of all the gossiping that happened after lunch, or altitude was taking more of a toll. There wasn´t much to look at on this part of the trip, but with gritted determination we made it up. My brother, who had struggled a
bit on the first day (Carrying his pack), had decided to hire a local porter to take the pack on the second day. It was definately worth the money and he made it up to the top of the pass just behind me. In comparrison, the Italian guy who kept up with me for the first part of the day got hit by the altitude quite badly and had to take his time.
As far as other people in the group, the oldest we had in our group was the 62 year old Australian, he was in pretty good shape for 62 and he had no real problems taking it at his own pace to get up the mountain. The Italian was the worst affected by altitude, but a Canadian (60 years old) didn´t eat anything at lunchtime and by lunchtime was feeling quite crook.
I don´t know if I should mention this, but since I´m in another part of the world and am still embarrassed by the poor attempt that our compatriots across the ditch at their attempt at national pride I´ll include it...
There were a bunch of aussie from another tour group encouraging their friends
climb up the last 200m of dead womans pass. They were holding their flag and cheering, of which I had no problem. But when they tried, in true Joe Hachem style, the "Aussie, Oi" chant, I felt so ashamed. I have never heard a weaker chant. And since my accent is confused with them, I actually led the chant for them and I gotta say, it was pretty cool. We had about 30 people on top of the pass doing the chant and making a fair bit of noise.
While the climb up was breath taking (in both sense of the phrase), the climb down was painful. Constantly having to s-bend the whole way down to share the impact on both of my legs. One of the American girls stumbled and fell into a cactus, not something I thought I´d ever write. When we got to camp at about 3.30pm I think we were clapped in by porters(as we were every lunch and campsite) which I was still very embarrassed about. These guys really are athletes! Think we had lunch about 4pm but I could be as far as 1.5 hrs out with this time, we were told that
we were quite a fast group and sometimes they skip lunch because people take so long. I didn´t really believe this, but at about 6.30pm, after dark, we heard clapping coming from one of the other campsites. I can´t imagine they had a good time that day. I went to bed with a sore knee, but nothing I couldn´t walk off.
As far as food goes, I´ve forgotten most, but for Dinner we had what I would consider to be Pasta Pizza. Pastabake that tasted like Pizza, I was impressed and chowed down a good sized piece to say the least. Other plates included my favourite "Potato Cake", a fried chicken dish and a mystery meat dish.
Since I´ve been badgered by my parents for getting photos out, I´m publishing this early, but there are still two days to go... I will update this as I go.
Third day
Final day
Advertisement
Tot: 0.11s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0548s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
marcus
non-member comment
tour name?
mate that is mint!! what's the name of the tour company??