Jungle trek to Machu Picchu

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The drive from Cusco into the Sacred Valley is as stunning as ever. After a brief stop at Ollantaytambo, a small town with an impressive ruined Incan fortress looming above, the road climbs ever higher as we head up the mountain Abra Malaga. Our heads are now truly in the clouds. The landscape is stark but beautiful and it is freezing cold. We start the descent and it quickly gets warmer and greener. At around 3500 mtrs, our Conde Travel vehicle drops off 4 of us bikers with lunchpacks, gloves, helmets and bikes, and before he speeds off, our driver explains that the following vehicle from another tour company, which drops off another 4 bikers and our guide Jorge will be our support vehicle. Told simply to follow the road straight down for about 4 hrs until we reach Santa Maria and we´re off.

It´s great fun...the road is really steep so no peddling, only brakes required, which happily are working well. After an hour or so we have a few uphill bits where we find we don´t have gears so the going gets a bit tougher and the bumpy unpaved road starts to take it´s toll on my gradually blistering hands. But the scenery more than makes up for the discomfort...we´re heading into the jungle, it´s getting hotter by the minute and is so lush and green.

The ride is much tougher than expected and at a water break almost 3hrs in I ask some senoras how much further to Santa Maria...when told less than half an hour we head off with renewed energy and I lose sight of Ritch as he ¨woohoos¨off round the corner ahead of me. As I round the bend seconds later I´m greeted with a sorry sight...Ritch is spreadeagled in the road in a dust cloud, his bike in a ditch. As soon as I get to him I know it´s serious; he is in real pain and can´t move his left arm. I flag down a passing flat bed truck and the two hombres are great...one helps me throw the bikes in the back and they help us in and drive us the final stretch into town, where we wait for the support vehicle and our guide who is behind with the slow riders.

When the whole group is in, I explain to Jorge the guide that we think Ritch´s shoulder could be broken and that we need a hospital. He seems suitably concerned, but it soon becomes clear that he´s only concerned about his timetable. I demand that the support vehicle does it´s job and takes us to the nearest hospital and he just mumbles that it needs to take the bikes back to Cusco immediately. Instead they take us to the local clinic where a nurse does her best...cleaning Ritch up, bandaging his shoulder and giving him a painkilling injection in his butt. If I wasn´t so worried at this point the look on his face when she told him to drop his shorts would´ve been comedy gold.

As we pay our medical bill, with minimal help from Jorge and the ¨support¨vehicle driver we managed to ascertain that the next big town Quillabamba, 1.5 hrs away, has a proper hospital. I tell them they have to take us there now but the pair of them totally fob me off...apparently they don´t work for the company we booked with and their car has to leave for Cusco immediately. They say we can either go back to Cusco in it now, or they can call our tour company Conde who´s vehicle is a few hours away and can take us in the morning. It´s getting dark by now and the painkilling jab has kicked in so we decide to stay put and go to Quillabamba the next morning.

We wake at dawn and the rest of the group prepare for their all day hike. It´s instantly obvious that no vehicle is here, and that Jorge is clearly still leaving with the group in half an hour to continue the trek!

I make sure that I´m understanding what he´s saying clearly:
- that he in fact made no phone call last night
- Conde Travel knowing nothing of our plight are sending no support vehicle
- we are not his customers
- that he is leaving us behind to deal with it ourselves
- and that he doubted that there would be a refund.

And I lose my temper. So does Ritch. It doesn´t change anything. So we do the only thing we can...get all the details of where the bus goes from, and the hostels the group are going to be at and that we have already paid for.

Ritch has woken in some pain and still can´t move it freely, but decides that if he can have assurance from the hospital that his shoulder isn´t broken, get a proper sling and something stronger that our ibuprofen, then he wants to meet up with the group for day 3 and 4. So Jorge leaves us behind. He´ll never make the SAS.

We head off, find a collectivo (small minivan bus service) that´s going our way and sit and wait for them to squeeze just a few more in before we´re off. We´d put about 10 people in one of these at home but at one point we count 25! It´s a hell of a drive...following the Rio Urubamba deeper into the jungle...Quillabamba is the last big town before you hit the Amazon basin. We´re being bitten by 95% Deet resistant mozzies, it´s not the happiest of circumstances, but we´re still both blown away by the view out the window we´re sqeezed up against.

We are told at the surprisingly good hospital that Ritch´s shoulder is not fractured and would take about 2 weeks to heal. It takes a bit of a leap of our language skills and faith, but fully slung, prescribed and reassured, Ritch The Hero is ready to head to the day 2 hostal in Santa Teresa.

The collectivo in that direction is filled with only 18 people as it hurtles along one of the scariest cliff roads I´ve ever been on (sorry Mum & Dad x). We´re high up the Sacred Valley now and the river is far below us; I wonder what happens if a vehicle comes the other way, happily we don´t find out.

We arrive at Santa Teresa in time for a late lunch feeling quite pleased with ourselves as we think about Jorge and co hiking through the jungle. He said they´d be at the hot springs by 3-4pm so we decide to head down there to surprise them. After a long soak and still no sign of them, we head back to the hostel and it´s after nightfall that they turn up: the ´8 hr trek´ having taken 12, we feel even happier!

We get a chance to get to know our group better that night over dinner and a couple of pretty good caipirinhas with Adam & Charlotte, from England, Floor from Holland and Fabien from France. We get on really well and me and Ritch are pleased to have such a cool group to spend the next couple of days with. Although from here on in we have little communication with an embarassed Jorge.

Day 3, and our first bit of proper hiking on this trip, is a scorcher. Ritch does really well as we follow the river through the valley with Machu Picchu in our sights. On this route you´re literally approaching Machu Picchu through the back door and end up following the railway tracks for a couple more hours until you arrive in Aguas Calientes. It´s far more scenic than it sounds...we pass waterfalls and are constantly surrounded by jungle covered, cloud topped peaks and hundreds of butterflies and parakeets fills the air, whilst following the tracks makes you feel like you´re in Stand by Me.

We arrive in Aguas Calientes after 7 hrs and find the water in our bathroom is indeed hot 😊 We´re both totally knackered and Ritch´s shoulder is hurting again now the painkillers are wearing off for the day, so we crash early ready for the 4am alarm.

And it´s all worth it.

When you´re going somewhere as iconic as Machu Picchu, there´s the worry that it´ll be an anti climax. It isn´t.

Breathlessly climbing the steps up the mountain before dawn is worth it. And watching the sunrise it feels like you´be earned being there more than the minibus riding latecomers, and you can triple that for Ritch.

It really is a spectacular place, probably the most beautiful site I´ve ever seen. The location is totally stunning and the ruins are suitably mysterious, although we have a really good, passionate guide who easily brings it to life for us and I leave feeling tired, but completely uplifted.

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