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Published: October 2nd 2007
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Mollepata
This is where our trek started from. We´ve just got back from our Salkantay trek, and it was amazing! Jamie and I agree that it was the best thing we´ve done so far on this holiday, an incredible 5 days. So here´s the rundown...
Day 1. We woke up at 4.30 to catch a bus to Mollepata. There was a bit of drama when some guys came up to us and said they would take us to our guide, but didn´t know our names or those of our guides (or the company). We kept asking them in Spanish, and they kept saying "Si, si!" but not actually answering any questions. Eventually after about 15 minutes of us refusing to get into their car, we were able to sort things out and (embarrassingly) they did turn out to be from our guiding company and they only spoke Quechuan. The bus drive to Mollepata took about 2 1/2 hours, and we had time to have a dodgy breakfast of stale bread and dirty butter and a quick look around the market while our guide organised mules and food.
The walk to our first camp was really interesting. It was quite hot and dry, but the views of the
valley were amazing! We stopped for lunch after about 4 or 5 hours walking and our cook made us the most amazing lunch - vegetable soup and bread for starters and then spaghetti bolognaise! Not bad for camp food! After lunch we were greeted with our first sight of glaciers - they were awesome, and also the site of our first camp.
Our camp was pretty basic, but had the most stunning views of glaciers on mountains and also of Salkantay, which was partly hidden in the valley. It was so cold, but after a siesta, we had our dinner...soup (as always) followed by the most delicious chicken, rice and chips...followed by chocolate pudding for desert!
Day 2. We woke up at 5am, and the sunrise was beautiful...the glaciers went a lovely pink colour. Porridge for breakfast, followed by pancakes and bread. We walked up through the valley until we reached Soray Pampa. And that´s when the hard work started. The hike up to the pass is HARD. The altitude is 4800m (one of our group brought along his GPS) and the altitude really affected me. It was so hard to breathe, and walking up through this steep
pass felt like walking through cement. In Mollepata we bought coca leaves, and our guide recommended we take them before we started up through the pass. We weren´t too sure about the taste, but we were assured it would help. Basically you take a wad of these leaves and you put them in your cheek and you ´drink´the juice. There seems to be lots of ways to take coca and some people recommend chewing them with baking soda (to activate the coca) but our guide assured us that it would be enough to keep them in our cheek. We also had coca sweets and lots of mate de coca (overkill maybe??).
Geting to the top of the pass was the best feeling! It was so cold, but we had amazing views of Salkantay, and we felt so fantastic to have made it. We then descended down the other side of the pass. After walking for hours and hours, we finally made it to our lunch site, and after lunch we descended into our first cloud forest!
We camped on Day 2 in a little community nestled in the mountains, which were covered in mist...it was amazing! We all
slept SO well, mostly because it was slightly warmer and we were at a much lower altitude.
Day 3 was all cloud forest. It had rained through the night so everything was very wet, and we had lots of rivers to cross, either by dodgy bridges, or by walking straight through them. We arrived in La Playa at lunch time, and then caught the bus to our next camp at Santa Teresa.
The bus ride was such an interesting experience. Tiny narrow winding roads, quickly descending into the valley. The bus was a mini van with 15 seats (including the driver) but somehow he managed to get 22 people on there. The road was only wide enough for one vehicle so when we met a car or truck coming the other way there would be a bit of a ´mexican standoff´before someone would start reversing on this windy narrow track. I just held on to Jay and closed my eyes. We arrived safely at Santa Teresa, and quickly made our way to the hot springs. We had been walking for 3 days, we were dirty and tired and achey, and hot water was EXACTLY what we needed! We
Camp 1
We camped right in front of Salkantay...it was an amazing view in the morning! also found a small section of the hot springs where you could wash! Luckily Martin had brought shampoo...I´ve never been so happy!
Day 4 we walked from Santa Teresa to the hydroelectric plant. We had to cross a river by ´cable car´, which is basically a little wooden box that can fit two people in it. There´s a cable crossing the river, and you have to pull yourself across. It was so much fun! I almost wished that I could do it again! We had a nice rest at the train station, put all of our packs on the train to Aguas Calientes and then followed the train tracks into town. It was about 9km along the tracks, with fantastic views up to Machu Picchu. Occasionally a train would come by and we would move off to the side, but you could hear trains coming for quite a while so it didn´t seem that dangerous. The views were amazing. You couldnt´see much of the actual city, but you could get an idea of how impressive it was as a fortress...such steep high cliffs!
We arrived in Aguas Calientes late afternoon. Everyone says Aguas Calientes is ugly and boring,
Dinner at camp 1
Dinner was amazing...chicken noodle soup, followed by fried chicken with rice and chips, followed by chocolate pudding!!! but we really didn´t mind it! Maybe because we had a bed and a hot shower, but it really wasn´t that bad! It´s totally nestled in the most spectacular mountains. We had a nice dinner, had a quick look around town and then it was off to bed...we were getting up at 4.30 to get to Machu Picchu for sunrise!!
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