We survived! 4 day trek to Machu Picchu

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We've done it! 3 days of hiking and one of biking. Saddle sores from bikes, muscle pains from hikes, insect bites. We marched through rain, landslides, biked over waterfalls and dirt tracks. And every minute was worth it!!

We tried to do our homework by going around to a few agencies on Saturday to try and work out which would be the best one for what we wanted to do. After going to quite a few, we decided to book with the first one. We were told there would be just ourselves plus 6 others on the trip - Irish, Scottish and Argenitian which we were pretty happy with. Incidently, this was to be an "alternative jungle trip" as opposed to the famous (and more expensive) Inca trail where the whole thing is trekking for 4 days and camping.

We were collected at 7.30a.m. on the dot on Monday morning, Paddy's Day in a mini bus which took us to the main square where we had to change onto another bigger bus. This bus then went to another plaza and there we waited, and waited and waited. There were already 8 of us on the bus so we wondered what all the waiting was for and finally the guide quietly fessed up to the fact that the group had now grown. Significantly. To 24. We were pretty annoyed and John let the guide know as much, as we secretly decided to go into the office as soon as we got back on Thursday and say that I'm a famous travel blog writer and that we would slander their name if they didn't give us at least half of our money back.

In the meantime more people arrived and filled up the bus and off we went, about 20 minutes down the road where we stopped again and the guides loaded on our bikes.

The bus ride itself was pretty amazing as we climbed up to an altitude of around 4300m. The roads were pretty windy but at least new which was handy for getting over the landslides! At one point it was a pretty hairy ride over rocks that looked fresh from up on high, leaving a huge skid mark on the side of the mountain in their wake, and we all gasped a collective shocked gasp as we trundled over it and all breathed a collective sigh of relief once we had made it to the other side. We were also so high up we were literally travelling in the clouds, some parts of the road being completely fogged over. We got some spectacular views of snow-capped peaks as we wound around and around, our little bus clinging to the mountainside.

Finally after 4 hours in the bus and a packed lunch we reached our destination. Off came the bikes from the roof and more came in a ute that had followed us. The guides and allen key boys got to work, tightening and twisting, oiling and beating, until the bikes were lined up for us to take one each. Admittedly they weren´t the best bikes in the world, held together by gravity and the wonders of reams of duct tape. The first bike I tried had the left brakes completely gone, leaving the right fairly spongy, and the left pedal on an angle. Swearing and panicking, imagining vertigal drops and having to jump off the bike and cling to a mountain or a tree to save myself, I tried another, the seat of which was too high and would not go down, and the numbers for the gears completely gone. Although dodgy the first actually seemed the lesser of 2 evils and allen key boy got to work and tightened a few things and although the left pedal remained wonky, she was good to go.

With that, one of our guides, Washy, welcomed us to the start of the trip, warned us to take our time and to be careful, to let us know if we had any problems, to have fun and that "it´s not a race". And with that, before I could barely push down on shitbox bike with wonky pedal, he was off, screaming down the mountain, obviously prescribing to the "look mum no hands" school of thought.

The quality of the road was great, nice smooth ashphalt. I barely used wonky pedal at all, hardly needed the use of the pedals actually as we cruised down the mountain, losing altitude all the way. It was such a great buzz and our Japanese travelling companion was obviously also high on the altititude as well as his music, as he coasted down the roads rapping away on his bike and singing to himself. As we coasted down it became warmer, and we could see the Amazon stretched out before us, it was really amazing and quite hard to comprehend.

We sped over waterfalls which cascaded over the road, deep enough to cause an impressive splash as and soak our lower halves. And then, all of a sudden, like waking up from a really great dream and reality setting in, the beautiful, smooth road finished, and ahead of us lay dirt roads. Not just ordinary dirt roads but big truck tyre rutted dirt roads with massive rocks everywhere dirt roads. All of a sudden I had to concentrate a lot more on what I was doing and although I was trying to enjoy the scenery, which had now changed from snow covered mountains to banana and papaya trees, I decided it was more important to try and steer and actually use wonky pedal like she had never been used before. It was now pretty hot as well so there was some manouvering of rain gear, already wet by this stage as well as squinting from the sun.

On and on it went, with a short stop in a tiny roadside shack for water and chocolate with chickens, dogs and pigs running around before continuing. The last part for me was really hard. The road seemed to get worse, so bad at one stage that we were better off on the wrong side of the road because of landslide remains and garbage and parts of trees that had been carried with it. Some parts of the road I felt the bike shaking so badly that I literally felt my brain was rattling around in my skull and it was an effort to try and keep my eyes on the road. Even worse when a car or a truck would come past and kick up a whole pile of dust, making some parts of the road hard to see for a few seconds and leaving a nice cappuccino dusting of filth on us all.

Just as I was getting ready to throw down my bike and have a tantrum and scream "I can't go any further!!!" I came to our look mum no hands guide who was gesturing over to the side of the road in the direction of a petrol station. There I was met with the most beautiful site in the world - people from our tour sitting and having a beer. I virtually threw myself off the bike, de-helmeted and de-gloved, did a victory double thumbs-up into the air and ordered a beer. Even better was the feeling of taking my boots off and even though I was absolutely filthy, I was happy.

We had travelled 54 kms by bike that day. Although most of it was downhill without the need for pedals, some of it had been tough, and my nether regions certainly felt that it had been tough. For the evening we sat around with a few beers and had dinner at a huge table set for 24. We met a couple of Canadian guys who turned out to be from Kamloops, my town of birth! (pop 70-80,000) So that was pretty random but funny.

Accomodation was, ahem, "rustic" but even though the showers were cold and the floor only concrete, and the fact that the bathroom window wasn´t a window at all but a hole through which I could see the moutains, it didn´t matter because at least we had a bed and I was off shitbox bike. (although I shouldn't complain.....we saw heaps of people along the way bent over their bikes, looking puzzled and fiddling with their chains. One Argentinian girl also stacked it and had to go to the doctor for an injection in the bum and painkillers.....and it was her birthday.....but she soldiered on....)

Wakeup call in the morning was 5.00a.m, brekkie at 5.30 and on the road by 6. This was to be the toughest day in terms of the hike. Just as we were all pulling on our backpacks it started pouring with rain, so off came the backpacks and on came all the wet weather gear (jacket, pants, poncho) We were well into the jungle at this stage. We were walking for at least a few hours and the rain kept coming, and not being that cold, the sweat also started to pool underneath our clothes. At the rest stop as we peeled off our clothes we all sat around with the steam literally rising off our backs. Leading up to the rest stop was the start of part of the Inca Trail, and one of the guides picked a kind of a prickly fruit from a tree which was full of a kind of orange berry inside. When he pressed the berry, an orange liquid came out, which he applied to our faces like war paint. The liquid in these berries is used as a kind of Inca sunblock as well as ink for textiles and pens. At the rest stop we were also entertained by a pet monkey and resident Coati, a kind of a rat thing with a long nose.

Once we were ready to leave the rest stop the rain had finally eased so we were ready for the next part which included a dizzying walk across a really narrow path with a pretty sheer drop to the left. John's vertigo was severely compromised as we hugged the mountainside and tried not to look down, although we had to look up fairly frequently because of the instability of the land above. We walked over some more pretty impressive landslides, almost getting stuck in the mud and hopping over stones and trees to save ourselves from sinking (or so it felt.)

Lunch was a little shack where we tried to ignore the cats and guinea pigs in the kitchen (we assumed the guinea pig or ¨cuy¨may have been next weeks lunch - it´s quite a common delicacy here) and were entertained by eighties hits (Billy Ocean!) which seemed really bizarre being in the middle of nowhere. Lunch finished it was back on the track again, the rain seeming to having gone for the day.

A couple of hours later we were at the Hot Springs in Santa Teresa, all soaking our pains and grit away with amazing scenery around us. It was such a great end to the day that most of us decided to forgo the final hour walk uphill to the hostel and get the bus instead. Once we were on the bus I was glad I hadn´t walked as it was so steep and muddy and it was nice to feel clean. Also the fact that we had been told there was only going to be 1 shower for however many of us at the hostel and that they were cold.

The hostel proved to be even more rustic than the last but again it was a bed so that´s all most of us seemed concerned about. We got a relative sleep in, not needing to rise until 7a.m. This day proved to be the most boring in terms of the hiking. The most exciting thing was the river crossing by a little flying fox cable car thingy big enough only for 2 and manually pushed by the guides. That and the huge bag of coca leaves that John bought for around $1.50 which made the guide's eyes light up. Once we reached the entry to the national park that surrounds Machu Picchu, we had to walk along a dis-used railway track for what seemed like hours, in the rain, until it made us dizzy. We reached our lunch spot, another shack, where we had been told we could go ¨fishing¨. This basically meant groups of 8 going out to a little pool, in the pouring rain, which was filled with fish and getting a net, and having to catch 5 per group. This translated into me saying "no thanks" and sitting in the shack watching the chickens, turkeys and dogs all fight for the leftover fish guts and the rain coming down. That was my reailty for about 2 hours. We got the fish in the end for our lunch, it was good enough, but it reminded me of the perils of organised tours and how I would have much preferred a sandwich and to be in Aguas Calientes a good few hours earlier.

But at least the rain had stopped by the time we had finished lunch. After that it was again onto the seemingly endless railroad track which felt like being on a treadmill, the same view over and over again.

Finally we got into Aguas Calientes or Machu Picchu Pueblo. Our hostel was probably the best that night out of the whole trip. We were all suddenly hyper in the evening so dinner was a funny affair, with everyone dizzy on the fact that we had finally made it, and my finger puppets proving a great hit at the dinner table.

Finally the day arrived with a wake-up call at 4a.m. By 4.30 we were on the road which for the first 20 minutes was easy, which was good because it was pitch black. After that the fun really started. Machu Picchu is set amongst amazing mountain scenery and naturally that means getting up the mountain. And natually that means that if you are hiking that it's gonna be pretty tough. And it was. Arguably the most difficult part of the 4 days trek was in those 1000 or 2000 odd steps (after so many it seems like millions) up to the place itself. Around 4 buses must have passed us and I resisted the very strong urge to stick out my thumb and fein near death for a free ride.

Was it worth it? Of course!! By the time we had arrived though the buses that had passed us had emptied out and there was already quite a queue at barely 6.30a.m. Once inside the views were magnificent of the surrounding mountains with vertical peaks and clouds drifiting in. We had a wander around and then met our guide who took us through different parts and explained the amazing symmetry, engineering and history of the place. We then had a couple of hours free time to explore, getting some good pic's of different angles and trying to comprehend the magnitude of the place and how it was built in such a remote and high up(!) place!

Legs like jelly and exhausted, we decided to treat ourselves to the bus back down and wobbled to get some food and beer. After that it was a quick collection of bus tickets and scamper to the station before all 24 of us literally collapsed on the train for 1.5 hours. We then got a bus for another 1.5 hours back to Cusco where a woman was waiting for us with a sign saying "John Gerard" (the company had got our names totally confused when we signed up for the trek. John was John Gerard and I was Jean Cafferky, so that was the name the guides were calling me for all the 4 days, even though I tried to explain to them...) It turns out the tour company had organised a cab, just for us, back to our hostel, for free. We were the only ones given this luxury and assumed the guide had called the tour company on the first day to say that we were kicking up a fuss so this was their way to appease us. It worked, we didn´t bother going back in to complain.

So all in all, despite our misgivings about such a huge group, it actually worked out ok, and was a really valuable experience. Even though it wasn't the Inca Trail, we still worked mighty hard to get there, and felt just as rewarded at the end.

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Photos

Inca paint!
Berries used for painting our faces

View from the bath!
Amazing scenery surrounding the hot springs. Great way to finish the day!

Comments

[jennifer]

woohoo!
my god woman, 54km? god bless your strength. i was whining about 30 minutes into riding around the aran islands. lol! i am so so impressed with you and, again, amazing pictures. you should totally be a travel guide in a magazine! xoxx take care and tell john i said hi! cork misses you! jen