The jungle trek to Machu Piccu

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Jungle Trek

The original plan for getting to Machu Piccu was to get the train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, stay there one night, and then get up early in the morning to walk up to mountain and get to the gate just before it opened. I'd assumed that this would be fairly cost effective, given it didn't involve hiring guides, using tour agancies, of walking on the ridiculously expensive inca trail. It wasn't. Machu Piccu being so popular means that they get away with charging roughly US100 for the cheapest return train ticket to Aguas calientes, and then you pay accomodation, entry to the ruins, food, etc. Not cheap. So i asked around at a few agencies and found a four day, three night tour through the jungle including meals, accomodation, entry to Machu Piccu, train back to Cusco, etc. for US135.







We left on a miserable, rainy saturday morning for the one day bicycle leg of the trek. The tour group was reasonably large, four young German girls on a gap year after school, a Dutch guy named Jasper, a Dutch girl named Caroline (i've been meeting an inordinate amount of Dutch people in Peru. It isn't a particularly big country and i wonder if maybe it's closed for the winter) a Mexican couple Mopi and Carlos, two Swiss girls, and a French/German couple. Led by an ever enthusiastic guide named Alex. He always wore a strangely dressy brimmed hat, the reason for which became obvious when he took it off on the last day and his bald head and huge ears made him look amusingly extraterrestrial.









The first river crossing came as kind of a surprise and everyone ended up with a litre or so of water dumped into their boots (the waterproofing doesn't work if the water comes down from the ankles). All the rivers thereafter were crossed only after our feet were swung up over the handlebars. Amusing sight. The bike leg actually only lasted all of two hours before the road turned to sludge and we had to hitch a ride on a van to our hostel for the night... which hadn't been booked in advance and so we had to trudge around the town in our soggy outfits to find a hostel with space. Ended up sharing beds. We spent the night hunting for newspapers to stuff into our boots in an attempt to get rid of the water and had no success. The town is so remote that papers only get published monthly. Considered buying sanitary pads but thought better of it.






The next morning brought far less rain, but the humidity was about a thousand percent and we unanimously decided that the things we'd left out to dry had, in fact, become more wet overnight. We set off in wet boots and whatever remaining dry clothes we had into the jungle, heading up a mountain to an inca walkway. The guide got us lost four times. We later discovered he had never actually done this trek before. We visited a place called the 'monkey house' in the jungle for rest and chicha morada (a sweet drink made from purple maize), passed through a couple of abandoned towns with trees growing through the roofs of the houses and roots forcing cracks through the doors and walls. The rain more or less held off, but we all ended up just as wet from sweating. The camino del inca (Inca walkway) was spectacular. A dangerously narrow stone staircase hanging off the side of a mountain over a tropical valley. Alex gave us each a few coca leaves to leave at a place of our choosing as an offering to pachamama. The scenery was stunning enough that nobody spoke for about two hours and we just stumbled around with mouths agape. Arrived at the second town in the late afternoon after a few river crossings using cable cars and ropes.







Third morning. More rain. Relentless this time. The kind of rain that sends filthy streams of sweat and water running off your fingers. It didn't stop for five or six hours. Ponchos don't work in this rain because the humidity and hard hiking turns the plastic into a mobile greenhouse and you sweat so much underneath it that it becomes redundant. This hike led us along a mostly dried-up riverbed, and then up into the forest again to walk along the traintracks (periodically sidestepping passing trains) to Aguas Calientes, at the foot of Machu Piccu. Alex managed not to get lost this time. The twelve of us stunk up the hostel something fierce with our wet clothes and thoroughly used hiking boots, and hit the beds early hoping for good weather.

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Photos

Camino del Inca
Our hopeless guide, Alex

The final leg
Bag-o-wet-clothes