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Published: January 1st 2008
Coffee in Cusco
Before the salt incident...¡Hola chicos! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Hope you all had a splendid new year. Our second blog...the Inca Trail.
We arrived into Cusco on an early flight from Arequipa and spent the afternoon exploring the city. It’s a nice place with lots of European influence with the architecture. It’s also a bustling tourist town as this is the launch pad for the Inca Trail, and more recently the jungle. There are also other Inca Ruins close to the City but do not have as much notoriety as Machu Picchu, the most famed and visited site in all of South America.
Wandering around the narrow cobbled streets of Cusco was relaxing and could never become mundane, we visited different stores and made a few purchases whilst having fun haggling on price. After a while you can perfect this to an art form. Every town in Peru has a ’Plaza da Armas’, a main square in the centre with more affluent shops, restaurants and cafes. This name was derrived from their former use, as the squares were the meeting place for the call to arms for battle. We had a coffee in the square which is good spot for people watching, and
Chicha Beer
Sarah going back for seconds to just let the world roll on by without you. The coffee wasn’t all that special after I managed to add two teaspoons of salt rather than sugar, the salt granules are quite large here and it was an easy mistake to make so don’t go making any rash judgements! In the evening we went to a trendy café called Jacks for dinner. There are plenty of good quality restaurants in Cusco as you can imagine for a tourist mecca like this. The food was great, as good as you can get really, our tour leaders Peruvian boyfriend joined us and his english was pretty good, so he helped us out with some Spanish and we added some english slang to his vocabulary, a good trade off. We ended up at your token Irish Pub for a few drinks afterwards, quite a mellow evening as we had an early start in the morning and wanted to be in good form for the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
We caught a bus to the Sacred Valley which was part of our ‘mini tour’ & trek to Machu Picchu. We had a local guide called Rivalino who was a young charismatic
Inca Trek
Starting off full of beans guy, a descendent of the Incas and passionate about his job. Our first stop was a small village where G.A.P (our tour company) sponsors a program to bring back a lot of traditional working methods to the community. We bought some Alpaca garments which helped contribute to their economy. The next stop was a local bar where we tried some Chicha, a corn brewed beer which wasn’t that bad although not a regular comfort drink, surprisingly Sarah liked it. They did a kind of strawberry flavoured batch which tasted quite sweet, probably the first and last time Sarah would willingly drink and enjoy beer. They had a traditional game at this bar, can’t remember exactly what it was called, Frog something, it envolved a wooden table with various holes equating to different points scored, bit like a dart board but with two sides, the top score was a golden frog in the middle with its mouth slightly open. You had 12 gold coins to pitch at the table from about 8 feet, highest score wins, simple. The rule is that the winner doesn’t buy his drinks, with the association with alcohol the game would only get more difficult and interesting
Trekking
A view of the river and the glacier in the distance to play. We played a few rounds, i naturally expected to win of course but came near last, Sarah beat me. Figured that my game plan was all about getting it in the frogs mouth, which if successful had it’s rewards but was too difficult to achieve, when the coins would just bounce off the frog onto the ground without even scoring any points. You see, everyone else played it safe and lobbed it on the deck to score some small but progressive totals... Admittedly I did have the most potential of becoming a frog something champion in this local bar, I probably could have become a local hero if we stayed here but was just a 1 hour visit, might swing back some day.
We next arrived at a town called Ollantaytamba where we were to spend the night. Again, a pretty town similar to Cusco but on a much smaller scale. We toured an impressive Inca ruin here set in the foothills of the town. From a viewpoint across the valley the ruin appears to be in the shape of a Llama, the Incas sacred animal, and the town next to it as a cob of corn,
Porters
Our porters and us... which supplíes beer and food (a male ruled civilisation), and represents mother earth, or pachamama. This site was not completed but was set to be a very important city which could be recognised by the intricate details of the stonework in some of the temples. Quite impressive even for modern age construction. The site was not completed due to civil wars, and soon the Spanish were to invade and destroy most cities. From this site you can also view some carvings in the rocks on the mountains that formed some interesting faces, very impressive.
The next morning we bused it about 20kms to the start of the Inca Trek. We were joined by our 20 strong team comprising our tour guide, chef and assístant chef along with 17 porters to carry all of our gear. All we had to carry were our day packs, these guys carried up to 25kg each! It used to be 40-50kg before regulations were introduced, apparently some porters had died on the trek from heart attacks and exhaustion.
The first day trekking was quite easy, about 3.5 hours of walking up and down, no major hills. We stopped for an undeserving 2 course
Breakfast
Pancakes! lunch on the way, all of this luring us into a false sense of comfort about what was to come. Our porters were impressive to see at work, they would wait for us to finísh our meals, we would then start hiking, then they would pack all of our gear and leave shortly after moving at a fast walking pace which often broke in to a moderate jog, they’d pass us on the trail to get ahead and set up dinner and camp site before we arrived, brilliant! We ate like kings on this trip. We started with a solid breakfast before leaving and being given our snack packs for the morning, lunch would always be 2 courses, afternoon tea was another meal itself around 5pm which was swifty followed by a 2 course dinner… you had to eat it all otherwise the guilt would set in that this food was being carried here for you through blood, sweat and tears.
The first night at camp we were introduced to all of our porters, they were ranking from mid teens to our oldest porter at 55, not a bad effort on his part! The next day we were woken
Glacier
The view from our first campsite at 5am with coca tea at our tents and a bucket of hot water for a quick wash, we then set out to battle the hardest day of the climb. We were straight into it with a constant, unrelentless, climb for hours and hours to reach ‘dead womens pass’ at over 4200m. We were battling well for the first half of the climb reaching a checkpoint where you could see, on a clear day, why they call it dead womens pass, however it was clouded over for us. We continued on, again, into a unforgiving climb, no descents or even flat sections, just up and up, loads of stairs and steep inclines… the higher we got the more difficult the climb was, the air was thin and became drastically thinner towards the top… by the near end, we were almost wanting out, we would be walking 5-10 metres before needing a rest to regain our breath. We needed to push ourselves past the point of exhaustion time and time again, we were fighting for each breath… it was without a doubt, one of the toughest physical challenges we have had. Without the altitude factor the hike would be difficult, but
Dead Womans Pass
We made it!! Resting at the top, recovering from the horror... the altitude made it much, much worse, impossible for some. But we made it to the top and celebrated with a 20 minute sit down and a snickers.. well deserved. We then thoroughly enjoyed the 1 hour descent to the camp site below and were well received by the porters clapping and cheering us. Surprisingly we made it in good time, one of the first into camp. Others followed 2 hours later. The Peruvians celebrate their Xmas on the 24th so that evening we gave some small gifts to the porters, mostly chocolate, which they seemed to enjoy… but enjoyed even more so kissing the girls afterwards to thank them. I even got some bear hugs.
The next day we set out on the longest day trekking, expected 8-9 hours, greeted early again with coca tea and hot water to bathe ourselves. This climb was up and down, some steep sections but not near as gruelling as the previous day. To finísh the day we descended over 2000 steps to camp, which was tough on the knees. There was some beautiful scenery coming down with some Inca ruins and rugged mountains jotting out everywhere covered with dense jungle. Sarah
Second Camp Site
After dead womans pass...hooray! and I were first to camp, owing mostly to the fact that Sarah was grumpy with exhaustion and really needed to pee, we practically ran down the last section with me having to apologise to everyone that we passed as Sarah exploded thru without basic pleasantries or even a grunt.
The rewards were grande at this 3rd and last camp as we arrived to hot showers, flushing toilets, a bar with beer and only 5 kms reamaining on the trek to Machu Picchu. Needless to say that we were in high spirits and enjoyed a few drinks, and exchanged our secret santa presents. Regrettably, the next morning the wake up was set for 4am to arrive at the checkpoint by 5.30am. This checkpoint was put in place to bring in some order for the descent to Machu Picchu as overzealous trekkers would start far too early in the dark and race to the site to hold the glory of being the first, in the excitement people were pushed off the mountain. Not very nice.
Our first site of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate was very impressive, all our hard efforts finally coming to a realisation. The site
Christmas lunch
We had condor napkins! is famous, after being discovered early in the 20th century, as it is the only known Inca site not to have been destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores, as they never found it. We took loads of photos from different viewpoints before having a guided tour of the ruin and some free time to expolore. It was an amazing place.
Enjoyably, we bused it down the mountain from the site. We had a young boy race the bus down to the bottom on foot, it kept us entertained and he was rewarded with a bus load of tips. We met our tour leader in a nearby town called Aguas Calientes before training it back to Cusco. We had some very odd entertainment onboard with a guy dressed in a freaky outfit carring a toy llama and dancing for us, followed by a fashion show put together by the stewards. Different and strange.
We were incredibly happy to arrive back to Cusco and rest up before we embarked on our jungle adventure the next day.
Hasta luego chicos!
Ben & Sarah
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Beverley Reid
non-member comment
Happy New Year!
Hi Guys, Thanks for the fantastic update again! Sounds like you are having an amazing time with some unforgettable experiences! Just a quick one to wish you both a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Wishing you happiness and prosperity for the new year ahead. Look forward to the next installment! Your very jealous (ex)housemates, Bev & Rob