Cusco, Salkantay, and Machu Picchu!

We reached the top of the pass!  15,000-ish feet

Arriving in Cusco after a 21 hour lux bus was not as tiring as we thought it would be.  Cusco is a bustling city filled with colonial architecture, plazas, churches, pizzarias, and TOURISTS.  There´s no kidding why though...Cusco is Perú´s biggest cash cow because of it´s proximity to Machu Picchu.  Dave and I were excited to organize our own trek into the Machu Picchu area and decided to do something different from the Inca Trail for a few reasons:

1.  We would have had to book our Inca trek at least 2 months in advance (something that were are incapacle of planning for)
2.  Prices have skyrocketed in recent years due to the cut on people entering the Inca Trail (around $500 for 4 days)
3.  You get the pleasure of hiking alongside 500 people everyday

Granted that it IS the Inca trail and you get to pass neat ruins all along the way, it´s tough to fathom that amount of money to be next to so many people.  When I did the Inca trail 5 years ago, I was with only two friends of mine and we were a small trekking group.  We were able to squeeze into smaller campsites and allieviate ourselves from the hoards of crowds.  With no guarantee that we could be in a small group, I wasn´t going to risk a group of 16-20 including some mid-age Europeans or something. 

We chose to do the Salkantay Trail because it seemed the easiest to walk self-supported and it dumps you right out at the base of Machu Picchu, in the town of Aguas Calientes.  We scrambled around the day before we left for our trek to get Machu Picchu tickets, train ride back to Cusco, maps of the trail, all our food/water, and misc transportation logistics.  We wanted to make sure that we had our tickets in advance to be able to do the Huyana Picchu, as it often sells out.  The Salkantay Trek would be 4 days and 3 nights of hiking...averaging between about 12 and 15 miles per day on the trail.

Day 1:  Early wake up call at 4:15 am to quickly gather our things and be at the collectivo stop at 4:45 am.  A collectivo is basically a van that sits at the curb until it fills full of people so that it can go.  Our collectivo filled up by 5:15 am and we were off on a 2-ish hour ride to the remote mountain village of Mollepata.  From there, we started a long 7-8 hour slog uphill along a road.  Luckily, the scenery was MUCH better at the end of the day, but it was definitely tough going at the beginning.  At one point, a truck of trekkers whizzed by us in a cattle car.  We wondered why they weren´t hiking this first part, but soon stopped wondering after around mile 3 or 4.  The road turned into a beautiful spot to be walking about half way through when we were afforded beautiful mountain views.  It´s hard to walk along a road...something mentally just doesn´t jive.  A few mule teams passed us carrying impressive tanks of propane, backpacks, tents, and water jugs.  Dave and I were our own mule team of two.  As much as we were jealous at times of these fanny packs or small day packs that people had, we were feeling quite satisfied to carry our own weight.  

Our final destination that day was a huge BEAUTIFUL valley with tall snowcapped mountains surrounding us on all sides.  We could see Nevado Salkantay sticking up out of the thick clouds and knew that we would be heading in that direction for tomorrow...over the pass at around 15,000 ft.  Soon thereafter, we pitched the tent and took a nap until about 5:00 pm.  It became eerily foggy around dinner time and a bit windy, but we were glad to be done with our hike. We fell asleep almost immediately after a hearty vegetarian and buttery dinner of chicken flavored noodle soup.  There are literally no meat options to take along the trail, especially because I don´t eat tuna--and we weren´t feeling up for canned vienna sausage, sardines, or SPAM imitation. 

Day 2:  Another early wake up call at 4:00 am to tear down camp, make breakfast, and set out on the trail.  We knew that we would have a slightly longer day than the other trekkers because of our bag size, so we set off early and got passed by a few groups later on.  This day started off in a stunning valley heading up toward Nevado Salkantay along the Rio Blanco.  Passing green meadows with huge boulders, we needed to remind ourselves to look back from time to time and appreciate the scenery! 

We finally reached a huge meadow before the trail started to creep steeply upward with zillions of switchbacks.  Slowly and steadily, we crept uphill for around 3 hours and reached the pass.  From the top of the pass, the fog cleared a bit and we could see most of the mountains around us!  Sounds of ice and rockfall echoed in the 360 degrees of mountain ampitheater that surrounded us and we felt like at any time, we could just get obliterated by either of the two (it was far away----HIGHLY unlikely...just loud!)  After some pictures and hang out time at the top, we started our way down...down...down...down... and a little bit further DOWN the trail.  My body does way better with uphill than downhill, especially my knees---but we were flying!  We reached a foggy valley on the other side of the pass where we could see a group stopped and gathered, so we proceded to do the same.  At that time, it was precisely 1:50 pm and we were shocked with how quickly we accomplished Day 2.




Tent Pitched.  Mid-Afternoon Nap.  Wake Up.  Nobody is there.  Nobody is in the entire valley.  Valley is completely foggy.  Take out topo map.  Cannot locate ourselves. 

From that point, we were not going to pack up and leave, but we proceeded to wonder for the next few hours how much longer is was until the next camp.  We figured that we were either about 30 minutes or 3 hours.  Hoping that we were only about 30 minutes to the next camp, we ate another gut bomb dinner of pesto mac ´n cheese and fell asleep by about 7:30/8 pm.

Day 3:  Early morning wake up call again of 4:30 am.  We wanted to make sure that we left ourselves PLENTY of time to hike because we had around 8 hours (3 hours to get to the real campsite of day 2, and 5 more to get to day 3´s site.  The morning sunrise was absolutely BREATHTAKING and the fog had cleared so we were once again surrounded with high peaks.  One PRO of camping in the wrong spot :)  We started hiking and found ourselves once again going down...down...down on the trail.  We descended into the "cloud forest" which was not so cloudy at the time, but the foliage continued to change.  We followed the river valley for 4 hours until we reached day 2´s campsite.  Woops!  We were definitely a bit behind schedule.

With short breaks included, we hiked 11 hours that day up and down beautiful river valleys and through lush jungle.  Something weird starting happening on my right achilles which I´d never felt before.  I think that my boot was creating a sore spot on my ankle and the pain was unbearable.  Luckily, it didn´t feel like I had strained or sprained my achilles, but I was limping for the hours 10 and 11 of that day.  As soon as I took my boots off, I could walk around fine.  It must have been the combination of walking and the rubbing of my boot.  Dave was tired too.  When I focused and looked over at him, he was taking small staggering steps.  We were a mess and got totally WORKED by the trail that day. 

We rolled into the small town of La Playa and needed to make a decision...to camp here or not?  I wasn´t sure how much more hiking my achilles could handle the next morning and we knew that it was going to be a steep 6 hour ascent/descent.  We opted for taking a collectivo out of town so that we could still get to Machu Picchu on time...just from a different direction.  We were so lucky that we got out of La Playa that night.  It started raining about 2 hours after we left (@ 4 pm and continued DUMPING well into the late morning the next day).  So...the camping part of our trek was cut by one night, but we were lucky that not all of our posessions were soaked!

Day 4: The next morning was like torture putting the boots back on.  My achilles were killing me and there´s no way that I would have been able to do the hike for 6 hours up and down.  The most spectacular part of that day hike is the view of Machu Picchu from a different angle at the top.  With the pouring rain and fog, I think that the slog would have been somewhat forgettable and we wouldn´t have had views.  We justified our decision to get on another collectivo to the train station and head into Aguas Calientes.

Aguas Calientes is the town below Machu Picchu and is only reachable by foot (walking the railroad tracks) or by train.  We took the train into Aguas Calientes and arrived at our hotel, dumped our stuff, and I headed out to buy a pair of flip flops so that I could ditch my boots.  Found a pair of flip flops for 5 soles ($1.75) and didn´t take them off for the next several days.  Made a little backstrap of duct tape and I walked around Aguas Calientes, hiked up to Machu Picchu, Huayana Picchu, and back down in those things.  They literally saved me and I didn´t have any problems with my achilles the whole time!  Now, the only thing that would have been a problem would have been if it was rainy when we visited Machu Picchu.  SLIPPERY!

Day 5: Machu Picchu!  Dave and I woke up early again at 4:00 am feeling like crap from the gross pizza that we ate the night before and started the hike to Machu Picchu at 5:00 am after a quick bland breakfast and some strong antibiotics.  The hike to Machu Picchu takes about an hour of walking steps that traverse the road of the busses.  We were SO lucky to arrive on a beautiful sunny day.  We had warm weather, clear skies, and great views.  Yeah, the park started to get much more crowded as the morning progressed, but I felt like we had the place to ourselves when we got there at 6 am.   We purchased a small guide book in Cusco and meandered our way through the ruins, reading as we went.  Around 10, we started our hike to Huyana Picchu, the mountain behind the ruins.  We had great views from the top.  The hike is steep and it´s pretty much a sheer drop off from any given point on the mountain.  Dave was kind of getting the heeby geebies from being up there so we didn´t hang out for as long as I thought that we would.

Hike back down Machu Picchu steps.  Shower in Aguas Calientes.  Train to Cusco.  Taxi to hostel.  Soup. 11:00 pm sleep.  Man were we tired the next day...mostly from just being constantly on the move.  We slept in, took care of some errands, went out to a fabulous dinner, and drank some pisco.  Dave and I both had alpaca meat that night and it was fantastic!  Sounds mean, huh...but alpacas are so common down here and their meat is a huge staple in the Andean diet in Perú. 

Having a great time and hoping that my heel is only a minor problem and gets better quickly!  Next morning...off to Lake Titicaca!

Beautiful weather before the crowds arrived at Machu Picchu

  Postcard Panoramic

 This is Dave´s "let me tell you a little bit about these ruins" sleezy tour guide pose.  

Top of Huyana Picchu with Machu Picchu in the bottom left

 Crazy Incas and their stonework

 Trusty walking shoes!

 Trapezoidal doorways and impeccably placed stones

The view from our hostal´s terrace in Cusco

 

Cusco´s Plaza de Armas on Halloween.  Peruvians do it up on Halloween!