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Published: April 7th 2011
Last summer, on a wet evening after work, Kasia and I settled down to watch a documentary on TV. The subject was the Lost City of the Incas, Machupicchu. It looked superb, sitting atop a majestic ridge above the soft white clouds that filled the steep forest clad ravines on either side. We decided then and there that if we made it to South America, we'd make the effort to get to that place and see it for ourselves.
Eight months later we had arrived in Cusco, once the capital city of the Inca empire and now the base for all those wishing to walk the Inca trail, a four day trek to the city of Macchupicchu. We were lucky to have got on the trail at all as tickets to enter the park are strictly limited and we had only decided a month ago that we had the time and money(ish) to make it all the way up to Peru to do the trip. We had booked with SAS travel, a company recomenmded to us by various people we had met throughout our travels, from China to Australia and had arrived as recomended, 48 hours prior to beginning the
walk. Cusco sits at 3310m (10,860ft) above sea level and the treck would climb to over 4200m (13,780ft) so our bodies needed to adjust to the altituide.
Even walking normally there was hard work due to the lack of oxygen and to compound matters the San Blas area in which we were staying was perched on a steep slope overlooking the city and crisscrossed by a with a myriad of seemingly vertical cobbled streets which knocked the air from our lungs and left us wheezing after even the shortest ascent. If we didn't get used to this fast we were going to suffer on the trail!
Having dashed across the earth's crust for so long it was nice to be able to sit in one place for a few days without feeling like we should be somewhere else. The view from the hostel's terrace over the patchwork of clay tiled roofs was superb and we spent our time reading and drinking cup after cup of Coca tea; a drink made with dried coca leaves and favoured by the locals as a remedy for altitude sickness.
Cusco was a very beautiful city, whose polished cobbled roads and elegant
colonial architecture sitting over massive Inca foundations was a suprise to us both. On the night before our trip we went for a briefing at the offices of SAS. We met the 14 other guests with whom we would spend the next four days and listened to a talk about what to bring and what to expect in terms of distances and gradients. Day two sounded like a killer!
We climbed out of bed at 4.00am the next day, the hostel having forgotten our wakeup call, and stumbled to breakfast. A hour later we were walking through the pre dawn rain to the little adobe church in San Blas square where the shapes of four bedraggled figures indicated that some of our colleagues had already made it to the meeting point.
The bus stopped at a cafe at about 7.00am, allowing us a proper breakfast and a final chance to grab plastic bags and ponchos as a defence against the now rather persistant rain.
We were finally dropped at a car park near the start of the trail and collected our bags. Most people had paid extra for an additional porter to carry most of their gear but
we had decided against it. I figured that I'd carted my bag half way around the world so a few extra kilometers wouldn't kill me. Shouldering the pack, with my mattress strapped to the top and both our sleeping bags shoe horned into the main comapartment together with our walking gear and other odds and ends, I began to feel that perhaps that decision had been a little hasty. We stomped off down towards the first checkpoint, granting access into the National Park, and then crossed a rope bridge to begin the trail.
Day 1 was fairly gentle, climbing slowly but steadily to the side of the Urubamba river, past cacti, mules and small farmsteads with the occasional side note from our excellent guides Javier and James regarding Peruvian and Quetuan culture and the lives of the local people.
Just before lunch we reached an escarpment overlooking the river and the first archeological site of the hike, the Inca town of Patallacta. Later we dropped down to our lunch stop where the porters (all 21 of them) had already arrived, set up dining tents, brewed tea and cooked us a hot dinner. Not a bad effort considering they
were all carrying about 90lb slung over their shoulders in little more than hessian sacks. The food was superb and after a little rest we started off again. The day was getting warm and the path began to wind upwards as the afternoon wore on. By 4.00pm we had arrived at the head of a narrow gentle valley. There was only one way to go so, with an hour or so still to walk, we headed straight up the side of the mountain on the first section of the disturbingly titled Dead Woman's Pass. As we cranked our way up the lung busting ascent we were passed, at a swift jog, by the porters who had somehow managed to clear up our lunch stuff, wash the dishes, dismantle the dining tents, tables and chairs, re-pack everything, hoik it onto their backs and then catch us up. Not a bad effort chaps.
The first campstie was on a terrace looking back towards the imposing bulk of the Andean mountains on the far side of the valley. As the sun sank we collected in the dining tents again for another superb meal and more coca tea. We headed off to out
sleeping bags early, all too aware that the next day was going to be a challenge.
At 5.00am there was a knock on our fly sheet and we opened it to see a grinning porter brandishing two steaming cups of tea. By 6.30, after a breakfast so filling we just wanted to lie down again, we were off up the pass. Day 2 had begun and so had our 'trail by steps'.
For mile after mile we levered ourselves up stone step after stone step until our thighs were burning. At least they could keep our lungs company. Out of the treeline we could see where we were headed, straight up to a gap between the peaks high amongst the clouds. Two hours later we had crested the ridge at a height of 4250m (13,940ft). The colours seemed brighter with our lungs struggling to process the thin air and the towering Andes to all sides was vertigo inducing. We cheered the rest of our team up and then, with the rain closing in, began the descent to lunch. Since breakfast we had climbed 900m (2950ft).
The rain really came down as we dropped into the far valley and we
were frozen and worn out by the time we arrived at the dining tents. However, another great meal (and a shot of whiskey) left us feeling sufficiently fortified to complete the days walk. What we'd forgotten however was that we still had another 600m (2000ft) to climb in the next hour and a half.
Just before the second night's campsite we arrived at another Inca town, Sayacmarka, looking out over the mountains from its rocky promentry. The clouds had begun to thin and lift and the sun finally appeared, lighting any remaining whisps from below like fire below white smoke.
Day 3 was a much more relaxed affair., for which my leg muscles were extremely grateful. By early afternoon we had reached our final camp ground. We visited another spectacular Inca ruin after lunch and by dinner the weather looked to be well and truly on the mend. The sun shone and we were confident that we'd have good conditions for reaching Machupicchu the next morning.
At 1.00am we were woken by the rain. It had returned and this time it really meant business. It hammered on the tent relentlessly, its deafening volume making sleep impossible. At
3.00am we were evacuated from the tents. The campsite had started to move, with rocks rolling onto tents and paths becoming streams. This was bad news. We still had two hours of walking left before reaching the Sun Gate, the entrance to Machupicchu, and we knew the path traversed the cliffs through the cloud forest with several hundred feet of vertical rock and soil above and even more below all the way the valley bottom 2000ft down.
Everyone was quiet in the rain soaked darkness as we waited at the final checkpoint before beginning the final leg of our treck. We had heard several distant landslides over the last few days and had been left in no doubt as to their destructive power and Kasia and I tried to remain focussed on the path and remember the saftey briefing we'd had before steeing off that morning; tread carefully, don't stop and stare if you see a landslide (I was fairly sure I could manage this one at least, as I was planning on running away screaming) and don't slip on the dangerous wooden bridges. Great stuff.
It was a terrifying walk. The rumble of a massive landslide somewhere
back the way we had come and the percussive bangs from below as the rail company clearing falled earth and rock from the train line in the darkness of the valley bottom were the only sounds as everyone focussed on not slipping to their deaths.
Finally, after a rediculously steep flight of stone steps, we reached the Sun Gate. Below us sat the Lost City of the Incas, doing its best to hide again among the scudding clouds. By the time we'd trudged to the city's plateau the sky was beginning to clear and as the day wore on the sun came out and it became quite warm.
What an amazing place. The terraces dropped for hundreds of meters into the valleys while narrow stone steps clung to precipitious cliffs. Our guides took us round the city and then we were free to wander at our own pace. Kasia and I climbed the terraces to the rear of the city, sat on the warm grass and contemplated the end of our trip.
It was strange to be in the place that had, for many months, been the ultimate goal of our round the world expedition. We were
tired. We had walked for four days and our gear was soaked, but more than that we had been on the go for five months. We had seen the world and had been through a massive amount together. It hadn't all been easy but we had made it and we had grown so much closer as a result. We had journeyed by bus, train, long tail boat, car, subway, minibus, tuc tuc, canoe, junk, bicycle, moped, ship, speed boat, elephant and a tandem and had made it safely across four continents and 12 countries. Our flights alone will total 28,000 miles (not great for the old carbonara footprint) with at least the same again in land based travel. We had waited in the simmering humidity of a vietnamise midnight while our bus driver tried in vain to fix a puncture, we had got a camper van stuck in a mudslide, we had ridden an elephant and we had run over a kangaroo and we had got to the end in one piece.
All that was left was to return to Cusco on the train. We will stay here for a while before getting one last bus to Lima for
a few days. From Lima it will be home. So this is it, the last blog entry (no cheering please).
Thankyou all for keeping in touch. I hope that this had allowed you to feel like you have, in some small way at least, been on the trip with us. That's certainly how we feel. Thanks guys.
Love and best wishes Tom and Kasia.
x
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James
non-member comment
The end...
Well I am actually sad to hear that this will be the end of your blogs, I look forward to hearing what you have been up to and seeing what stage your ginger beard is at!! :) However, I cant wait to see you guys again and I hope the end of your journey goes well. Your carbonara footprint is probably enough to last most people a lifetime!! Nearly 5000ft in a day, thats nuts. Sounds like a lot of hard work, although I bet it was worth it to sit down at the top and think thank feck for that. Bet it looked a lot easier when you were sat on the sofa talking about it... Bet your looking forward to getting home and not being on the go every 5 minutes. Take care, see you soon!! James