Advertisement
Published: August 12th 2013
Trail to Salkantay
The Andes were stunning all the way up to the pass at Mt. Salkantay.One can hardly go to Perú without visiting Machu Picchu and I decided to start my trip out with the cherry on top. Dessert first, right?
The traditional Inca Trail is a four day trek, which most people book months in advance, because the trail is restricted to five hundred people a day. That still sounds like a crowd to me and I wasn’t excited about being on such a populated trail. With that in mind, my first day in Cusco I visited several different guiding service offices and most of them had a four or five day trip over the pass of Mt. Salkantay. It goes up to a higher elevation than the traditional Inca Trail, but only about a hundred people a day go over the Salkantay pass. This seemed better to me.
The first morning was mostly a bus trip from Cusco out to the mountains where we could start our hike. Pack mules carried tents, sleeping bags, food and up to 5 kilos per person of other gear. I didn’t have much else, so my daypack was fairly light. Water wasn’t really an issue because the camps were developed enough to have some permanent tents,
Mt. Salkantay
One of the many unsummited peaks of the Peruvian Andes. outhouses and running water in the cooking areas. I added purifying tablets to the “tap” water that was diverted from nearby streams. It was all clear, cold snowmelt.
After a short hike we made it to the first camp and had time for an afternoon walk up to a lake above the camp. We were camped at 3,900 meters (12,795 ft) and the lake was a steep hike above that. I was going fairly slow, stopping often to catch my breath. The lake was another 300 or so meters higher: almost 1400 ft. I was by far the slowest getting up there, and the guide, Hermo, wondered how I would do carrying a pack up to the pass at 4600 meters the next day. I replied that as long as I went slow I would enjoy it, but that if I tried to go fast it wouldn’t be much fun.
Our first group dinner was by candlelight in a long, permanent tent that also housed the tents we were sleeping in. As soon as the sun went down a bitterly cold wind rushed down the mountains and blasted the camp. Hermo warned that it would get much colder
The Pass of Salkantay
Hermo and I are flashing the llama sign at the top of the pass. That is by far the highest altitude I've hiked up to and it felt so good to be up there. around 2am and that we should sleep with as many clothes on as possible inside our sleeping bags. We went to bed before 8, immediately after dinner, to try to stay warm and prepare for getting up at 6. Hermo explained that we had to make it to the pass before noon the next day because the weather usually turned in the afternoon and it could get cloudy and rainy.
The group I hiked with made the trip so much fun. We had a family from Quebec, two women who just finished university in Calgary, a young couple from Atlanta, a woman from Italy and another from Germany who were traveling together, a guy from Quebec who was traveling alone, and me. I was assigned the Quebec guy as a tentmate and he offered to roll me and my sleeping bag in his alpaca poncho, since he had a much warmer sleeping bag than I did. I was wrapped like a burrito inside a soft carpet. The father from Quebec was a very experienced mountaineer and recommended that I sleep propped up on my backpack, in a reclined position to help with my breathing and oxygen intake. I slept
The Pass of Salkantay
The pass on the right is what we crossed over. Immediately the landscape became greener. like a rock and didn’t notice the temperature plummet between 2 and 3 am. The next thing I knew was Hermo bringing me a cup of coca leaf tea at 6am.
We had the tents and our packs ready for the mules by 6:30, ate a hot breakfast and were on the trail before 7. It was really cold, but the sun was coming down the valley to us and as soon as we started to hike I warmed up considerably. With coca leaf tea in my system and almost ten hours of sleep behind me, I felt pretty good as we started up the trail. There were a couple other groups on the trail as well, but it didn’t feel crowded and I couldn’t imagine hiking with 500 other people. Sharing the trail with fifty people was enough.
We made it to the pass before 11am and I wasn’t even at the back of the line most of the way up. The last half-hour I slowed down and was the last to make it to the pass but ecstatic to have made it. The mountains were incredible and I could hardly believe how good it felt to
The Trail Down
Much of the trail was steep and had loose rocks from the pack horses, so I relished the grassy patches of level ground. be up in the mountains again. I’ve missed mountains a lot the past couple years. We had a rest in the sun, sheltered from the wind behind a boulder and Hermo explained some of the history of the mountains while we broke out our celebratory snacks. The guys from Atlanta had Oreos. I brought Reece’s peanut butter cups.
The Incas revered the mountains as gods and in past history Mt. Salkantay was regarded as a wild and untamable god. In more recent history, a group of Japanese climbers tried to summit Mt. Salkantay but failed: four came down early because of one team-member’s altitude sickness and the other six were swept away in an avalanche. One of those has still not been found. Nobody else has tried to summit it. Perhaps the Incas were right.
After a few celebratory photos we headed back down the other side. Almost immediately the landscape became greener and by lunch we were almost down to the treeline. We had a wonderful cook and pack crew who got on the trail before we did and were over the pass and cooking lunch by the time we made it up to the pass. It
Into the Jungle
Only hours down from the pass we were already in lush jungle completely different from the arid landscape at the same altitude on the other side. was another two or three hours of steep downhill to lunch but by the time we got there a delicious quinoa soup and main course of roast chicken, rice and stir fried veggies was ready. At every meal I was impressed by the food and everybody else in the group commented that they had expected something much more basic. We didn’t linger over the meal because it was so cold. We were still at fairly high altitude and the afternoon wind was picking up.
Back on the trail it was another three or four hours of steep downhill to the next camp. We were soon hiking along a river, though most of the trail was high on the cliff above the river. We didn’t get near it until camp that night. The camp was even more established than the first, with some rustic wooden buildings and outhouses with flush toilets. The tents were already set up and teatime was ready with popcorn. I opted for coca leaf tea, which I credit with not experiencing the usual headaches and nausea of high altitude. That night, after another delicious meal, we stayed up “late” talking until about 9pm. Since it’s winter,
El Ferrocarril
The flatest part of the trail was the railtracks to the town of Aguas Calientes. We had a lot of fun putting coins on the rails for trains to flatten. though still not far off the equator, the sun goes down around 6 and it’s dark almost immediately. Though deprived from much of a sunset, we had the best stargazing I’ve seen in years.
At about 3000 meters (almost 10,000 ft) the sky was crystal clear. We were a very long way from any towns, so light pollution was limited to flashlights. As soon as we turned those off the Milky Way looked close enough to touch. By some incredible stroke of luck a meteor shower came by and we saw over a dozen shooting stars. It was a magical night.
Up early again the next morning, woken by a cup of coca leaf tea brought to the tents, we packed the gear and the pack horses set off while we had breakfast. We hiked all morning along the same river, descending down into increasingly lush jungle. It was hard to believe that this was winter, and the dry season. We came to a few houses with terraced fields around them. Most looked like subsistence farming, but a few also sold treats to the descending backpackers: Gatorade, fruit juices and snacks that were obviously packed up on mules.
Machu Picchu from Below
Looking up the ruins are invisible and even the peaks are hard to pick out. The whole place is well hidden. By lunch we were down to a village that had roads and we had a fabulous lunch there before loading into a van to the town of Santa Teresa. Hermo set up our tents while we had popcorn and tea and after we installed our gear we piled back in the van for a trip to the nearby hotsprings. The water cascaded down a cliff into a large stone pool, which had a lot of people but didn’t feel too crowded. There were a couple other pools lower down, but we stayed in the hottest one, where the water was even hotter close to the cliff.
That night was a shock after the peaceful solitude of the mountains. The campground had a bonfire and another group that was sharing the camping area stayed up fairly late. Since we were in a town there were street lights that ruined stargazing and a nearby bar that played loud music. The hotsprings had felt great, but I’m not sure they were worth spending the night in a loud, developed campground.
The next day was the weakpoint of the trip, from an organizational point of view. I had signed up for
Machu Picchu
Early in the morning, as the first rays hit the ruins, we had the place to ourselves. zip-lining after being assured that most of the group would do it and that we would be together. It turned out that there are three zipline companies and that I had been signed up with one while the two women from Calgary and the German woman had been signed up with another. Hermo kindly negotiated my switch from Cola de Mono to their rival, since the other three were signed up with that. The rep from Cola de Mono made sure I knew I was missing a great time with his company, then said that as a professional courtesy he would transfer the money I had paid to his competitor so that I could stay with my group. I appreciated both Hermo’s quick intervention and the Cola de Mono rep’s diplomacy.
The zip line the next morning was fun, but it was odd to have the group split up. The four of us were taken from the zip line area by van to the head of the railway where we could either hike along the tracks or wait for the afternoon train. We chose to hike and it was a fun walk along a beautiful valley. We stopped often
The Ruins
The complex was impressive, but the setting is really what makes Machu Picchu an incredible place. to take pictures and I really enjoyed walking on flat ground. The rest of the group had walked the same route in the morning and were already to the hotel hours before we got there. We walked into Aguas Calientes around 3 or 4 in the afternoon and had time to drop our packs at the hotel and wander the markets for a couple hours before dinner. Dinner was good, but not as satisfying as the meals eaten outside after a long day on the trail. It was kind of a letdown to get to choose a meal off a menu rather than be surprised by what the cook had managed to whip up in the basic kitchen tents they used in the mountains.
If the fourth day of the trip felt awkward, the next day was magical enough to make up for any disappointment. Hermo sent us to bed early, warning of an even earlier wakeup than usual. We had to be up by 4 and leave the hotel by 4:30 to get up to Machu Picchu before the sunrise. It was a rough morning, but well worth it.
At 6am the sun hadn’t come through the
Machu Picchu's Duplicate
The Incas believed in duplicity, kind of like doppelgangers in nature. This natural piece of bedrock is high in the ruins of the ceremonial part of the complex. sun gate and the whole Machu Picchu ruins complex was empty and peaceful. A few llamas grazing on the agricultural terraces gave the place some life, but it was otherwise deserted. Hermo led us through many of the archeological highlights and we could listen to his explanations of the cultural significance and architectural wonders in the breathless silence of ruins still gray before the sunrise. We wound through the ruins, taking pictures of the masterpieces of the ceremonial center before other groups got up to the mountain. Just before sunrise Hermo took us up to the top of the ruins to see the sun come through the Sun Gate and hit the top of Huayna Picchu, the smaller but steeper peak that towers above the ruins.
After a couple hours of historical and cultural explanations, Hermo turned us loose to split up and wander the area at our leisure. Another hour or two later the whole place was overrun with hundreds of tourists. I had no idea so many people could be there at once. It was far more than could ever come across from Mt Salkantay or along the Inca Trail. Peru Rail runs a train to Aguas
From the peak of Machu Picchu
Hiking up the peak of Machu Picchu I had a great view down on the ruins and the shorter, but steeper, Huayna Picchu. The train tracks we had walked the day before parallel the river below. Calientes and it’s an easy bus ride up to the entrance of the ruins. Obviously, hundreds of people come up every day without walking before they enter the ruins. As developed tourism goes, I don’t think it’s over done, though I’d be shocked if they don’t soon greatly restrict the number of people who can enter daily. Hermo explained that the ruins are sliding down the mountainside at two to three centimeters per year, which is very fast in geological terms. Some of it is surely natural, though just as surely exacerbated and increased by the daily weight of thousands of tourists pounding up and down the ancient stairways.
I loved Mt. Salkantay and the hike we did as a group and am glad I chose that route over the traditional Inca Trail. However, when I go back to Peru I’ll be tempted to sign up for the Inca Trail, mostly out of desire to see the mountains and my curiosity for the history I would learn from a guide about the Inca Trail itself. I hope to blog that a year from now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0547s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Good to see you blogging again...
was this a trip from Bangladesh or have you moved? Hopefully we will also visit Peru a year from now...was interested in the weather at this time of year...and the number of tourists. Good weather and few tourists...the right combination. Thanks for the details of your walk.