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Published: April 26th 2008
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This entry will be very hard to write because it is such a mixture of amazingly good stuff that we did (mostly involving scenery and time spent without our guide) and amazingly awful stuff we did on the way to Machu Picchu (usually involving the name Felix). If you haven't read the previous entry about pre-trek panic then it might help you to understand the following...
We left at 4am on Sunday morning trying our best to give Felix the guide another chance and got picked up slightly late in a taxi with a broken door that didn't shut and one headlight. After a two hour bus journey to Mollepata we met with the other 'staff' who would be making up our group for the 5 days - a cook named Victoriano and a horseman named Adolfo. It was more than slightly embarrassing to have 3 staff (and 3 mules) only for us and the mules would carry our main duffel bag or would be used in case one of us got taken ill or were too weak from altitude to continue. The horseman Adolfo, quite a silver fox at the age of 57 and Victoriano, a 37 year old
single man (as he pointed out during the first lunch!) would run on ahead each morning and afternoon to get to the lunch spot or campsite before us, set up our tent and cook us an amazing meal or afternoon tea (usually popcorn!) and then would get up early to prepare breakfast (different each day but anything from yummy omelettes to panckaes to porridge!). This left us to walk with the guide most of the time with just a light day pack feeling pretty spoilt and like rich gringo tourists. It was also quite awkward to see how they were treated by our guide. The lazy b**tard did nothing all week and would click his fingers to get them to do stuff and even got called 'jefe' (boss) by them (who were both older than him). It was a difficult thing to change because it is such an embedded cultural thing here but we at least tried to persuade the others to eat with us at the table (as opposed to in the cooking hut) and tried to help out as much as we could. The food was incredible and it could have been that alone that we paid the
extra money for. Every meal, whether we were at the top of a mountain or in a campsite was 2 or 3 courses and really tasty!
The route itself was really spectacular - the first day we walked along a path through a huge valley with amazing mountains all around and finished up at the base of Mt Salkantay, the 2nd biggest in the Cusco area. The second day we climbed to 4600m and then descended through cloud forest to a campsite in another green valley. On the third day we had a flat walk alongside a river to a town called La Playa (with no beach) ending up at a campsite in Santa Teresa and then Day 4 we walked to Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu firstly alongside another river and then along a railway line in the jungle. After a night in Aguas Calientes anbd a trip to the medicinal hot springs we would go up to Machu Picchu for day 5 and if we had energy left we would climb up Wayna Picchu to get a great birds-eye view of the ruins before returning to Cusco by train.
During the first couple
Photo 4
Felix having trodden in cow pat mwah ha ha ha ha!! of days, Lara and I took it in turns having brief periods of weakness from the altitude, dodgy stomachs or, in my case, a severe energy low during a snow storm at 4600m (I actually decided to lie on the floor thinking it would pass!). During these Felix was mostly quite helpful. He walked with the emergency mule (which weirdly usually walks on ahead) on Day 2 as Lara woke up feeling dodgy and once offered to carry her bag. When I had my problems on Day 2 he very helpfully walked past me and said 'I'll wait for you at the top!' and then rubbed some weird alcohol on the end of my nose to 'give me more energy' Thanks for that. Maybe we should have realised then that he had taken quite a fancy to Lara! On Day 2 it absolutely poured it down first with the snow storm up at our highest point and then with torrential rain for the entire afternoon so we spent most of the time walking quickly to keep warm and to get to the campsite as early as possible.
By Day 3 we were both feeling a lot better and started
off trekking behind the other group as usual. As they were a bigger group they often set off earlier than us but then we overtook them as they would have to wait for the slower members of their group and we didn't have to. After an hour or so on Day 3 they were stopped off at a point where their guide was explaining something interesting about the route. Felix then obviously felt guilty and so said 'You've probably realised I haven't told you anything for 2 days. Well on Day 1 I was tired and on Day 2 it was raining'. Then he proceded to point out interesting flowers for an hour or so.
During Day 3 we lost Felix on several occasions as he would walk off while we were taking photos and we would then not catch up again until maybe half an hour later when he had decided to take a break. At one point aftrer catching up with him after half an hour he waved us on to go without him and we turned the corner to find some random old man killing a poisonous snake. Glad our guide was so much help.
During the evening on Day 3, Felix decided to get hammered and spent the evening filling jugs of red wine and rum and coke for everyone around the campfire. It was around now that he also started being really sleazy to Lara and she had to keep moving places to avoid him. On Day 4 we got up at the time he had suggested but we'd gone to bed relatively early and left him up drinking so when we went to have breakfast we actually couldn't go in as he was asleep in the dining tent! He then got some breakfast for himself (a cold beer) and tried to persuade us to take a bus as he was too tired (!) to walk that morning. Obviously we refused and so we set off an hour or so later than planned and he walked around the town asking the locals to show him the way to our lunch spot - the hydroelectric plant. (He later insisted that he knew the way but wanted to take a short cut, probably because he was so tired...)
By Day 4 evening, I asked him whether he might actually be able to give us
some context and background to Inca culture before our trip to Machu Picchu the next morning but unfortunately he was too tired to give us any information that night and promised us that we'd have a good tour the next day. When he again refused to give away any information at the start of our tour to Machu Picchu, we both decided we'd have to listen to the various other guides around the place if we were going to learn anything.
All in all, the guy was a complete joke. On the bus back to Cusco, he loaded us into the minibus with 3 other guides and 3 local people and chatted away to them as if we were his performing monkeys that he had just spent the last 5 days with. When I refused to sing to the rest of the minibus I was called a "Chica Mala y aburrida" (An evil and boring girl) which pretty much put an end to his hopes of even a 50p tip. He really took a liking to Lara and I think he honstely believed that he might have a chance when he asked her for a kiss at the end
of the journey!
Anyway i don't think i need to write any more about goo old Felix. We met with the manager of the company yesterday and got over 50% of the cost of the tour back which is a big relief. Luckily as you can see from the photos, the trek was really beautiful and it would have been impossible to ruin it completely! I'll write more about Machu Picchu in my next entry as I realise I've just completely left it out and it definitely deserves an entry without a load of complaining about lazy guides!!
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