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Published: December 21st 2009
Summit
Snickers bars as our rewards to ourselves for getting to the top - finally some proper chocolate, if a little frozen! Instead of doing the standard Inka Trek to Machu Picchu (primarily because I hadn´t booked it 6 months ago as is neccessary but also because of the vast cost) I decided I wanted to do the Salkantay trek. A Canadian friend I made at the start of my trip in Peru had done it and recommended it, and Jess, one of the Welsh girls, was keen to come with me. The other two and Ben chose to do the Inka Jungle trek, another alternative to the traditional Inka trek, but including river rafting and mountain biking.
Jess and I set off on the Salkantay at 5am, having not slept a wink due to opting for the cheapest room in the hostel - right next to the bar! We had also decided we needed energy food the night before and eaten a family size bag of pasta with tuna and tomato, so couldn´t really move.
The famous Salkantay Trek has been named among the 25 best treks in the world by the National Geographic Adventure Travel Magazine, and is open to everybody, with no limitation on spaces or permits (unlike the Inka trek). Also, as this is the low season,
Mt Salkantay
Rising from the mist although you see more rain you also see hardly any other trekkers, whereas even now the Inka trek is very very busy.
We started the trek in the town of Mollepata where we started out on an ancient and remote footpath located in the same region as the Inca Trail, taking us to the base camp for Mount Salkantay. Jess and I had been concerned the food would be bad and bought plenty of snacks, but lunch was soup, followed by spaghetti bolognese, fresh fruit juice and garlic bread, and this was the small meal of the day!
The first night we camped at about 3800 metres at Salkantaycocha camp, the base camp for Mount Salkantay. You could see huge snow capped mountains rising up around us out of the mist - very picturesque!
Day two was the hardest, with a climb up to the summit at 4800metres. Jess and I led the pack the whole way, along iwth a Canadian guy called Mikey. Our guide struggled to keep up, and everyone kept commenting on how very fit the Welsh are - if only they could have seen how very drunk the Welsh were just two days
Day two
After the steep climb ago they may have been even more impressed!! :P
Following a four huor climb up to the summit we descended for about 5 hours to our second campsite, this time in a tiny little jungle village where we shared the front garden of a house with two children, a couple of pigs, some hens and our pack mules. We managed to buy some beer from the family and had a very relaxed evening, glad that our hardest day was done and blisters were still at a minimum.
Day three was a really nice, if hot, walk through a cloud forest and into the jungle. We picked passion fruit from trees to eat along the way and arrived in La Playa (2050m) in perfect time to get the local bus to the hot springs in Santa Maria. Unfortunately though the local bus didn´t arrive, so our guide blagged us a lift in an open back truck, which was (and yes, I know I keep saying this...) probably scary enough to go in above mototaxis and single engine aircraft as the most frightening and amazing journey of my life.
The hot springs were really nice, a real treat after
Camp two
The cook house our long walk. Also we met Leanne, Rhian and Ben there, and some Irish guys I had met in Lima. We finished the night back at our camp which turned out to actually be our tents put up in an abandoned discotheque with 80´s disco ball and all, very surreal! We have a bonfire and a couple of drinks before bed.
At this point I do have to say we were very fortunate to have our new Canadian friend Mikey with us. Our tour guide, Edwin, had taken quite a fancy to Jess and was persuing her all evening, eventually trying to convince us to let him sleep in our tent. Mikey is a very good guy and stepped in, sorted out the guide and sent him packing and keeping a close eye on us for the rest of the night!
Day four was very long and quite dull in comparison to the earlier part of the trek - mainly involving a long dry and dusty walk along a road to the hydroelectric plant and then a two hour hike down a railway track. It bought back memories of walking down the railway at home (sorry mum and
Death road?
Truck journey to camp three dad, I know I wasn´t meant to!) and anyone who has walked along a railway for any period of time will know the slats are never equal distances apart so you have to look down the whole way.
Finally we reached our destination - Aguas Calientes! This is the town at the base of Machu Picchu and as a result it experiences hundreds of tourists every day and is very much geared towards extracting as much money out of them as possible. However, that said we all met up again and had a really good time, although touristy on the high street the town does have a certain character as its surrounded by cloud forest, jungle and majestic mountain peaks.
So, an early night as we are to be up at 3.45am - we want to get to Machu Picchu among the first group, in order to get one of the limited tickets to climb Huanu Picchu and also to beat the tour bus groups.
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