Salkantay or the real meaning of pain

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We sadly bid farewell to Rupal when we came back from Titicaca. I forgot to mention that Rupal has a better sense of direction than me and that I was relying on her to get around Cuzco...

Annu and I wanted to do the Inca trail, but it requires booking months ahead. So we did the alternative Inca trail, Salkantay, which is one of the hardest trek to get to Machu Picchu (we didn't really know this at that point in time!). Salkantay in Quechua means the "savage one", which we didn't know before we set off.

In any case, after Titicaca, we thought that we would have one more day of rest before setting off on the Salkantay trail to Machu Picchu. It was not meant to be. There were some strikes that were planned and instead of having a 4.30 am start the next morning, we had a 10 pm start the same day.

Day 1
Information on where we were going to stay the night was not really forthcoming from our guide. We arrived around 1 am to a small village called Mollepata where we found out that we would have to sleep on the floor of a restaurant with the rest of our hiking party. This was definitely a first for Annu and I, who both like our comfort! One of the best piece of equipment I bought was a sleepsheet, which proved invaluable when sleeping in less than salubrious conditions. It was a very surrreal experience, there was a black disco ball that was lighting the room and there were quite a few posters of Bollywood actors on the well. We set off at around 8 am the next day and walked for about 3 hours to the lunch point and another 3 hours to our camping site. The views were magnificent, although it was hard work because of the altitude and as I am not the fittest person around. Living in London does not prepare you for this.

We quickly found out that our guide was rubbish. He was not very knowledgeable about the habitats we were passing through and he would basically lie (e.g he told me that it was 20 minutes to go to the camping site and it was a full hour).

So the first day's trek took us to 3,800 metres and we camped in -12 celcius. It was really really cold and Annu did not get a good night's sleep. The dinner we got served was rubbish (we asked for the veggie option) and got served egg soup with rice and chips. Yuk.

Day 2
We awoke the next day quite early to climb to 4,600 metres to the Salkantay mountain pass. Beautiful and breathtaking. I took a horse up and Annu bravely hiked up. After the 3-hour climb, we had a two-hour walk down the mountain to get to our lunch place. Another 5-hour walk took us to the next campsite. It was absolutely exhausting and I managed to pull my groin muscle early on, which made walking very painful. I believe we camped in a place called Chaullay, close to the bottom of the mountain. It was definitely less cold here but we had to share our campsite with hens, horses and pigs. The toilet was disgusting and you were better off in "nature". Needless to say that the food was shite again and Walter, our guide, even less helpful than the day before.

Day 3
Another early start. We walked on a narrow trail through the cloud forest and some cultivated land for about 5 hours. We also saw a beautiful waterfall. We had lunch in a place called La Playa, not very nice. We then took the van down to Santa Teresa - it was a bit of a white knuckle ride to drive down the mountain. As I said before, Peruvian drivers are very good (or crazy or both). The campsite again was not very nice but the highlight of the trip was the hot springs. It was our first shower for three days and it was absolute bliss. We stayed there for as long as we could, and treated ourselves to some Cusquena beer. Heaven after all this hard work!

Day 4
We woke up early (spot the trend here) and walked for a couple of hours to a hydroelectric power station which is also a small village and the train station for this part of the trail, where we had lunch. We then hiked to Aguas Calientes, at the bottom of Machu Picchu, on the rail tracks. It was the worst part of the hike for me as I was in quite a bit of pain from my injury and it was pissing down with rain. The beautiful landscape kind of made the pain worthwhile. We arrived in Aguas Calientes and stayed in a hostel. The hostel was ok, although Annu had to argue with Walter again to get a better room. The shower was a bit temperamental but it felt good to be clean, especially as we were all soaked.

Day 5
We woke up really early (3.30 am) to go to Machu Picchu. I took the bus up and Annu hiked up the slippery steps. We tried to go there early to get tickets to climb up Wayna Picchu (they only let 200 people up there everyday). We also found out that our train was not leaving until 10 pm that night, which was very annoying. We managed to change it to an earlier train. Annu would have loved to climb Wayna Picchu, but she fell and grazed her knee early on.

The hike overall was the hardest thing I have ever done but I am very glad I did it. The only thing is that getting to Machu Picchu is no longer about visiting the site, but is more about the journey to get there.

I would strongly recommend this hike (not the tour agency (KB Tour) though) - it does test your mettle and willpower but is so rewarding in many ways. I camped out, I didn't shower for three days, I hiked up the savage one...

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