Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2007
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
The valley we were riding inSo I had finally made it out of Bolivia and into my next country Peru....the home of the Incas. My first stop was straight to Cusco, which is the home of the Incas, and where you leave to get to Machu Picchu - the Lost Inca City. I spent the first few days trying to recover from a hectic month in Bolivia and then decided that I would get to Machu Picchu on a four day trek which included one day mountain biking, 2 days hiking in the jungle and then the final day at Machu Picchu. My other options included more cold nights out in the mountains and I decided that I just wasn´t up for it and the benefit of heading to the jungle was that it included warmer weather. So the night before heading off was spent tossing and turning and cracking the shites as a chick in my dorm proceeded to snore like a real man! Very consistent and never failing to stop for the whole damned night! Not even my MP3 player could drown her out and nothing could stop her and nothing could put me to sleep. As usual I was so wound up by
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
The caos of the bus station where we started our trek it that I wasn´t going to be able to sleep either way.....at about 4.30am in the morning after possibly only 1 hour sleep on and off I cracked the shits and walked out of the room (being as noisy as possible) and went into the common area to try to get the last 2 hours of sleep. Why does this always happen when you have to get up early and have energy the next day? Any other night would not have been a problem...I decided that I should drink a few drinks every night to avoid this problem again...until this night that is what I had done and had no problems!
So after waking up grumpy I was soon to realise that the chick that had been snoring was actually on my tour with her friends...they knew I was not happy so to break the ice I told her she could snore like a trouper! She then told me that when l left the room it was actually someone else that was snoring in the room, which I knew, but she seemed to think that she did not snore as loud as him. This was of course bollocks and
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
The steep and winding road we take to get to the start of the bike trek...best not to look out the window much! I told her that contarary to what she thought she could snore pretty damned well - how the hell does she know when she is asleep? With that out the way we grabbed our equipment for the biking and were shoved into two taxis and told that a lady named Julia would meet us at the local bus station. Once we arrived at the bus station there was no sign of this mysterious Julia and we were wondering if we had been completely ripped off. The taxi driver was asking for money,but this Julia was meant to pay, but after 10 minutes we decided to pay the driver so he could go. So there we were standing around waiting to see if we had been taken for a ride.....our suspicions rose when we made a phone call and the operator told us the number didn´t exist. Luckily the guy who rang had actually rung the wrong number. Finally after speaking with the company Julia decided to come and show her face, it wasn´t like we blended into the crowd and I wandered why it had taken Julia so long to find us. After an hour had passed and we had
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
Some of the kids that I shared the back seat with...as usual they are fascinated with digital cameras met our guide and bus tickets were organised, we were put on a local bus and we started our tour towards Machu Picchu.
The road that we took climbed higher and higher and got scarier and scarier. As it wound up the mountains and in typical Sth American form, I did hold my breath for a number of times as the cliffs just seem to drop away. This is just a normal road in Sth America as some how they have to be able to get up the mountains. Along the way I got friendly with the two young girls that were sitting next to me...as usual they were fascinated with the digital camera. At the top of the mountain we stopped for a toilet stop...thank god I thought as I was busting as usual. Ahead there was a small building and what I thought might be the toilet, but on getting off the bus I realised that we were in the middle of no where and that it was not a toilet. Along with being in the middle of no where, we were also in one of the most barren places in Peru...hence no bushes or trees or
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
One of the toilets that I had the pleasure of using...give me a tree any day! anything that resembles something to hide behind to pee. As me and snorer looked around to see the local girls holding up blankets so their friends could pee behind them, we realised that was our only option. Back to the bus and off again for another hour before we hit a small village and we are all shuffled off the bus....our guide who will later prove to be a wanker not telling us a thing about what is going on.
Some of the boys are handed the bikes and told to walk down the road...the rest of us are told to follow the guide up this path...still not knowing what the hell is happening. As it turns out there had been a landslide which had damaged the road and there was no way of passing with a vehicle. So we had to walk over the hill to get to the other side where buses where dropping off and meeting people. I was huffing and puffing as I walked up this hill but I could not complain when I saw the local people walking past carrying massive bundles of a mixture of things - chickens, clothes, food etc. No one
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
Due to some land slides we had to take a detour on foot up and over a hill. Some of the locals were carrying all sorts of things ever complains...they just do what they have to do because they realise that this is just the way it is. I hardly believe that us westerners would put up with something like this so easily.
On reaching the other side of the mountain we were given our bikes that were going to take us down the valley that lay ahead of us. Most of us had been sceptical during the morning about the professionalism of this company and our guide and you are always wondering if you are going to get what you are told in the tour office. A lot of the bikes had to be adjusted and have their brakes fixed...but the guide was more worried about getting going than making sure we were alright. Finally after a lot of maintenance we hit the road without a word of advice of how to work the damned bikes. Us chickas stayed at the back and let the males and their egos go first...within the first 5 minutes one of the girls tyres had blown, the mechanic had sped ahead when he was supposed to follow up behind, the guide had chased after him to bring him back and
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
The road that we are going to bike down in the process had ridden into one the guys and both of them had gone flying off their bikes! Yes so now we are all convinced that the guide is shite and that we are not sure what we have gotten ourselves into. We continue along and it is not long before my bike is declared ratshit...everytime you need to peddle the chain skips...so I am given the guides bike which happens to be the best bike. Along the road ahead as we wind down a typical mountain road with steep cliffs on the side, the sort of road where you need to pay attention, we have road works. Yes road works...so not only do we have to watch not to go off the edge but we have to dodge trucks, grators, steam rollers and workmen.....just to add to the experience right! I am just cruising at the back and trying to take in the surrounding scenery, that is why I am there and not really to mountain bike, but the guide is constantly on my back to go faster or do this or do that. Even stopping to take a photo I get told that there is no time
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
The start of the bike trek! and that I have to keep going.....at this point I decided that he needed to pull his head in and if I wanted to stop and take a photo I was going to stop and take a photo. I didn´t like the vibe this guy was giving me and was getting more and more evidence that he might be dodgy. So 4 hours later and endless bumping along a rocky road I officially cracked the shits and decide I was never going to mountain bike again....I really could not see the fun in it and my arse, arms and neck couldn´t either.....and we still had further to go! On the other hand we had decended into a beautiful lush valley and the coldness had disappeared and had been replaced with that tropical smell and green everywhere. As we rode through small villages the kids would run to the side of the road and yell out Hola as we passed....everyone was so friendly...I even got high fives from one group of kids...had to be careful not to fall of the bike for that one! Finally after what felt like an endless afternoon we made it to the small town of Santa
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
Decked out and looking like I am having fun! Maria where we would stay the first night. The first people I saw were two Brazilian guys who had cold beer at hand and after a few minutes everything was alright again. That night it was confirmed that our guide was a dodgy bastard....on showing me to my room which happened to contain 3 beds he thought that he might try his luck by saying to me that because I had more beds he might come back later for a bit of lovin´.....I was completely shocked and laughed off his slime. It was only after dinner when he said to the group that if we wanted to we could go to a bar to have beers...I said I was going to bed and that´s when he came over and said that he wasn´t sure if he was able to come back to my room later......what a cheek I thought and told him that if I wanted him to come back then he would definately know it. So this was the start of what was to become the dodgest tour I had ever been on.
The next day we were off to walk through the jungle to the next small
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
Some young girls in one of the small towns we drove through....they were all so friendly yelling hola as we drove by. I tried to be friendly but was too scared to take my hands off the handle bars to wave in fear of going over them! town of Santa Teresa, our second night stop. After breakfast our illustrous leader, not, told us we could leave most of our bags to be taken to the next town by car.......then after everyone had got their belongings ready he told we would have to pay. We all had been told that we would not have to pay for anything once on tour....again this was the start of something. Anyway after telling him he was full of shite we headed off on our hike. The day was beautiful and we passed through many fields of fruit trees where we just helped ourselves to mandarins, oranges and apples. We also passed through many coca fields where the locals farming the leaves. Apparantly 80% of these leaves goes to the illegal drug trade for cocaine and the other 20% is harvested for the use by the locals to chew and drink in tea. The money that they can make of a kilo of coca leaves for the drug trade is so much more that there is really no decision in who they sell their coca leaves to. What also amazed me was that they seemed to choose most awkward places to plant
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
One of the small jungle towns we rode through the leaves and therefore had to work in hard conditions. I had a group of woman walking towards me along a path with a steep hill on the side and when I got close they just walked over the edge and started to work in a field of coca....I was stunned but as usual the local people just do what they have to and what they have done for years. As we approached Santa Teresa we realised that we were on the wrong side of the river.....as you do you think that there will be a bridge to cross. No not here we were going to cross by using a pulley system which ran over what seemed like the raging river quite a few metres below. The carriage that we would use was quite small and when the guide told us that 3 of us would go I then started to get butterflies....I hate chairlifts so much...to my thinking it is not right to be dangling from some cable metres above the ground. So I jumped in with two americans and just decided that it would be a fun experience.....it was all very basic and we were pulled across the
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
A large cross that seems to be dressed up sort of in the small town we stayed in for the first night river by the guide using ropes....yes dodgy but we made it all the same. That day was finished off by soaking in some natural hot springs....just what the body ordered and a good way to clean since there was a significant lack of hot water at the hostels we stayed at. By now the guide wouldn´t dare come near me so no concerns on that front.....he did have his fair share of problems though because one of the girls bags, worth US$275, had been written on with a black marker during the time it had come from the other town......now she had Inca Tours on her specifically hand made bag...she was not happy understandably...and the dodgest tour ever continues!
Day three was started with what we were told would be a bus ride for an hour...again the guide was doing a dodgy on us and didn´t want to walk the distance so told us we had to catch the bus and again pay for it. So we get up to find that our bus/taxi is in fact a small truck which is open on the tray at the back.....obviously this is where we have to sit. Even though we
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
Standing in a field of coca leaves...many of which are used for the illegal drug trade and less are used for use by local people are in the jungle the mornings are fresh and we all freeze our arses off as we head to our next small town for breakfast. There is only a few seats so most of the group have to stand and get the full brunt of the fresh morning air. Meanwhile our lovely guide is warm as toast in the cabin....he is getting less and less popular with the group and seems to be cruising for a bruising. After breakfast we start on our second day of hiking which basically is along the train track that leads us to Agua Calientes, the town at the foot of the mountain to Machu Picchu. We walk around the base of this mountain and get a little look at Machu Picchu itself...none of us can believe that we are so close. The surrounding area is very tropical and lush and full of wild flowers and quite beautiful and I hang back from the group just to take it all in. Along the track we find one of the trains which has been derailed and stuck in that position for some days now, I don´t think they really know how to go about getting it
back on track. We finally make it to Aqua Caliente and have some lunch, for the rest of the group that means tasting some alpaca...thank god I asked for vegetarian. After lunch we are off to hike up what is called Happy Mountain....by the look of it from the base there is not going to be much happiness here. 1900 steps to the top and the reward of being able to see Machu Picchu over the valley and on the next mountain. So along the trail not only do we have way too many steps but this also includes ladders made from trees that are placed at stupid angles and in which we have to climb. Don´t look down I use as a mantra as I climb....the only thing is that as I go up it means the further I have to come down and I hate coming down ladders. Finally after sweating and breathing like a smoker due to low fitness levels and altitude, I make it to the top to find an amazing view of what I had come to see - Machu Picchu! We hang for a while and then realise that night is coming fast and
JUNGLE TREK TO MACHU PICCHU
Women working on the side of the steep hill...they are doing something with the coca growing there that we need to head down....not sure during this part whether is was harder to come up or down but even with jelly legs I make it in one piece to the bottom.
Back in Agua Calientes after a good hot shower and a quick siesta I head down to the restuarant for dinner. I am a little early and find some of my fellow trekkers who are indulging in the ridiculous happy hour of 4 for 1....some how I am dragged into it and one guy has taken it upon himself to make sure everyone has plenty of drinks and that we are all getting pissed....something I want to avoid since I go to Machu Picchu early the next morning. Dinner is done and we have organised with the guide for him to wake us up to make it up the hill for sunrise over the ruins.....he also handed around an envelope at dinner for his tip...cheeky bastard - I gave nothing and so did many people. So off I go much drunker than I wanted to be to bed in anticipation for tomorrow........
Advertisement
Tot: 0.046s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0221s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
