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Published: October 19th 2008
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"The Salkantay Trek was recently named among the 25 best Treks in the World, by National Geographic Adventure Travel Magazine.
This amazing trek runs beneath the magnificent Salkantay mountain (6.271m/20569ft), one of the highest and most stunning in the Peruvian Andes. The first two days are dominated by the impressive "Apus" of Salkantay and Huamantay, in the high puna landscape. On the third day you descend to the warm cloud forest, to reach Aguas Calientes on the fourth day. The impressive Sacred Inca city of Machupicchu is visited on the last day of the program."
Again this was an early start for us, leaving at 4.30am to travel to Mollepata where we had some breakfast of bread and chicken burgers (!) which we ate out in a garden surronded by some very plucky, hungry, brave chickens who were quite happy to steal as much of our food as possible. The trek started after this. Day one of the trek was a 20km hike, starting at altidude of 2800m walking up to 3900m to the campsite. The first 3 hours were alright, except for when our guide Edwardo yelled "shortcut!" which translated to short bursts of vicious uphill climbs! As
we have known since arriving in South America coca leaves help to reduce altitude sickness and a whole host of other things. However, today we had our first attempt at chewing on them where you take around 10 leaves along with a bit out of a black ball which works as a catalyst for the leaves to make them stronger. According to the guide this would help us fly up the mountain, but to be honest all it did was give us a funny taste in the mouth and a numb tounge!
After first day of treking we set up camp at 3900m and as it started to get cold we spend time joking about how nice it would be to find a jacuzzi to soak our cold tired selves in. As if some kind of mirage there was a jacuzzi there just outside our campsite - unfortunately not available for our use!
The view from our campsite was great - mountains all around, snow capped peaks and a few animals roaming the field. We quickly set up the tents only to discover that ours was the only one with a broken zip. A few saftey pins later
and all was well! Over dinner we shared ghost stories about creatures in the valley (apparently the horsemen think the site we were on is haunted...) and the guys in the tent next door did have an attempt at scaring us by making ghost noises after dark....
The next morning was an early start for the hardest day of the trek. The trek today was 22km and up to the highest altitude of 4900m followed by a decent into the cloud forest. This was a pretty grulling climb but with the most amazing views of the mountains around. We made an offering to the mountain gods at the highest point of the climb, but magnus forgot to make a wish!
By the time we decended to the edge of the cloud forest the skies were darkening and we had to race against the rain to cook and eat before it arrived! (Well it is called the RAINforest). Lunch eaten and ponchos on we continued to the next campsite where we arrived to a well desereved rest. Just as soon as we had sat down at a bench with a drink the skies opened up and there was a
huge torrential storm and lightning - we were glad to have made it back to camp before the rain (unlike some of the others). Luckily enough our saftey pins held and out tent was waterproof, unfortunately the other group at the campsite was not so lucky and there was a comedy moment as they tried to dry out tents/ dig trenches etc all in the pouring rain...
The following day we continued to trek through the jungle (I think another 20k) and then in the evening arrived in Agua callientes for a hot shower and proper bed so we could arrive at macchu picchu all rested.
In the morning we woke before sunrise for the climb up to macchu picchu, it was a pretty tough climb and we were rewarded with the beautiful site of macchu picchu before all the crowds of tourists arrived. The site was spectaular and was better than imagined, such impressive stonework. A brilliant trip with a fab ending
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