trekking the andes to machu picchu

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dear friends and family,

last night we returned from our andes adventure. i should mention that i´m on very little sleep and left my travel book in the room, so spelling of cities and such will be suspect, also cuzco, as i was spelling it previously, will be now spelled as cusco. it seems to switch back and forth -- like my brother, teehee.

we took a train from aguas caliente to ollytambambo and then a taxi to cusco, dropped our bags and head out (late!) to see the virgenes de cameron festival and hook up with two of our team members/friends from the trek, neal and finlay from scottland, for proper beers and cider.

so let´s back up. this will be hard to describe and may take a few posts. maybe even a little bit of stream of conciousness and hyperbole is in order.

immense, spectacular, challenging, painful, cold, hot, epic...

our team:

neal and finlayfrom scottland, jeremy from philly, amanda from san diego (also a manager at the tour company, apus peru), sara from new joisey, and telina and jasper, both from china by way of toronto. we really bonded with neal, finlay, jeremy and amanda. great folks.

our guide extraordinaire, erick farfand of cusco was fantastic. deeply intelligent, educational, funny, inspiring and just an all around cool dude.

we also had three cooks, a backup guide (freddy), several porters, a group of horses and charlie the dog.

day 1:

we began with an 8 hour van trip (we were told it´d be 4-5) to villacambamba. fatigued and tired, we then did around two hours of trekking to our first ruins site. we then got to camp, had dinner (just about every meal was fantastic as other reviewers and bloggers will attest), got our plans for the following day and then listened to erick explain the constellations as we stared at a most amazing view of the milky way. we then went to sleep in what turned out to be a near freezing and difficult night.

day 2:

we were woken up at 6a.m. with coca tea. a note about coca tea; coca is what the locals use to deal with the altitude (this and their superior hemogloban count!), as well as circulation, osteoperosis, and other ailments. we bought coca leaves (with the lime stone to put in the mixture) and coca candies for the trip. so anyway, we drank our tea. i, of course spilled mine in the tent. got dressed, which was a drag in the icey cold weather, got up, wrapped our sleeping gear, and had breakfeast.

then we head out for a difficult day of steep climbs, but were constantly rewarded with views of the nearby glaciers, condors, cattle, lakes, snowy hillsides, vastly beautiful surroundings and a lot of laughter and gasping for air.

we reached our lunch site (somehow the porters always arrived at every location long before us), and immediately dipped our aching feet into the river, then spawling out under the sun. we had lunch and rested, while a small mountain village girl came and hid under a tree, observing our group. she was invited to eat, but sneekily fed the dog instead. a bit too much rest allowed our bodies to stiffen and our minds to get lazy, so the next round of climbs was far more difficult than the morning´s trek. but again, you can´t get away from the stunning views at all times, which carried us all through the fatigue, as did our encouraging leader, now known as (james) Bond, and who also liked to hum the white stripes´ "seven nation army" -- who couldn´t love this chap?

eventually, we made it to camp 2, and repeated the cycle of setting up our sleeping gear, attempting to wash up (dorota´s a genius for bringing baby wipes), setting up our clothing for the cold evening, and having another delicious dinner, complete with heaps of laughter and stories.

day 3:

after another freezing night (we were slightly more prepared this time, but i lost a glove while getting up to pee and shivering during the process), we were woken up at 5:30a.m., cleaned up, wrapped up, had breakfeast, and were off on what is known as the longest day of the trip.

everyone was sore and tired from little sleep and we immediately started on a long and steep (and far more loose terrain) incline. was i actually doing this?? did i choose this?? my God, i´m in the andes, i can´t believe i´m here, did the lakers really just get steve nash? there´s no way i´m getting on the freakin´rescue horse, i´m the oldest guy here, i HAVE to make it, AND be in front, were some of the many, chaotic thoughts running through my head.

we got to our first rest point to wait for the other three, who trailed the entire week, in fact one of them, who was only 24, spent most of the trip on the horse, still complaining. but the rest of us consistantly charged each hill. i got off track, so the first rest spot... neal had his iPod and played "she´s a maniac" which became one of the many running jokes along the trek and jame´s brown´s "sex machine". we were pumped up, dancing and ready to move on. hilarious.

later on, we would celebrate various peaks with "eye of the tiger" and strangely, songs of collin hay of men at work). what a great motivator.

speaking of motivator, by now, we had been using an exaggerated sean connery accent with the scotts on everything with an ssss sound. not to mention mine finlay and neal´s continued music, movie, political and simpson´s converstations, all of which lessened the difficluty.

on we climbed, for hours. saw so many incredible sites that they escape me at the moment. eventually, we made our third pass (peak) and highest at 4500 k.m. and started the long descent toward lunch. going down steep and unstable hills is very taxing and difficult and brutal on everyone´s knees. adding to this was my questionable choice of using worn out, treakless new balance shoes. now, not everyone would tell you this, but i´m an generous, sharing type, so i´ll add that by now i´ve developed a vicious rash in the WORST place you can get a rash in such a situation. as the hike progressed, i could hardly move without being in severe pain, so my descent to the lunch tent was slow and clumsy.

we all made it to lunch, exhausted, by most of us exhilerated. afterwards, on we descended, by streams, farms (growing avacados, peppers and fruit of which i cannot remember the names), qechua homes, cattle, a pig, into jungle terrain, always passing the glaciers. we made it to camp, exhausted, but thrilled at the accomplishment. also keep in mind, most of us having been doing this with some sort of a cold.

we had dinner and a campfire to the delight of everyone involved and slept by the river at a much lower altitude, which was relieving.

day 4:

usual morning routine, and then descending through the jungle. wonderful fauna, animals, views, chatting, and oh that horrible rash. we made it to our pick up van, where we then went to celebrate with a handful of ultra-high, cross mountain runs on zip lines (sorry mom!), which were exhilerating for (nearly) all involved. i think the zip lines in costa rica were safer, but these were great fun as well.

we had lunch, said goodbye to our cooks (we said goodbye to the porters earlier), and head to the train to agues caliente, which is the base town for machu picchu.

we all went to dinner at a lovely restaurant owned by a friend of erick´s, had drinks and moved the self-celebratory merriment to a local bar, where we drank beer and played tense games of jenga, while watching the simpson´s in spanish. great fun.

day 5:

despite slight hangovers and little sleep, we got up at the crach of dawn to take the bus up to the mountain to machu picche and catch the sunrise. at this point, we felt that machu picchu was beside the point after everything we had been through. until, of course, we saw it.

with the sun rays jutting out from behind one of the surround peaks, and the incredible expanse of the ruins, i must admit i was teary-eyed. i had wanted to come here for years and here we were. i could hardly believe it. and we walked here. believe the hype about machu picchu. it is truly breathtaking. we watched the sunrise and then began our climb (that´s right!) up huanyapicchu, the neighboring mountain. this was a super-steap climb, to a rewarding peak, overlooking the ruins. we all took some risky photos and descended down feeling mighty good about ourselves and our aching knees. we then bussed back to town and had our final lunch together.

the rest of the folks got on the train back, but dorota and i stayed on for an additional day in the ruins.

day 6:

a more peaceful day in the ruins, with lots of picture taking, petting llamas, and general awe, and we eventually hit our train back toward cusco, as mentioned at the beginning of this LONG blog.

i´m sure i am leaving out lots of detail and the spelling may be off here and there, so we may add to this later, but...

despite the blog, this was pretty indescribable. an incredible, epic experience, with much self-reflection about mental will power and positive and negative energies effecting one´s actual energy. we saw many different kinds of terrain, and have the collective feeling of "did i just do that?"

this was a particularly difficult path as we were told by erick, our guide, who himself was quite fatigued at the end.

a final word on erick. a wonderful guide, who taught us so much about the inca´s, the spanish conquistadors, pervuvian people and culture, and just his general views on life and the world. man, were we lucky.

i hope this wasn´t too long!

now, were off to the amazon.

love to you all!

a/d

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