Inka Civilization

Lima - Cusco, 25 hours of bus, leaving Sunday 6th March 4:30, arrive Monday 7th March 5:30, 1100 km, altitude: from 0 to 3400m.

   "Twenty-five hours in a bus ? How awful!"

I already hear this comment coming up, and let me tel you the opposite: I would have totally stayed one week in that bus! Only three seats instead of four, on the lower flour where I was, are only twelve seats and anyway we're only seven. The seats are of extra comfortable leather, I can stretch my legs completely in front of me and when I lower the back of my seat I am almost like in a bed. No cold problem here, we have cover and pillow furnished, no problem of hunger either with dinner and breakfast included (ok just no lunch but we were not supposed to arrive so late, the trip is supposed to be 22h but we had to change a wheel in the middle...).

   Once in Cuzco it is between 10 and 15 degrees, how nice, I finally get some winter weather after 6 difficult months of summer in Brazil and in Lima. I meet a nice couple of Chileans outside the bus , we go together to my hostel. The couple let me understand my awful headache of 8 am in the bus: we were then at 4500 meters above sea level... We are at 3400 meters above sea level now, I have never been that high and I feel it. After a small one hour walk in the city to find a supermarket open, I am as tired as if I had run a few hours. .. So I spend the next few days with a coca leaf infusion constantly in my hand, sleep a lot and everything gets better. The historic center of Cusco is really nice so I spend two days doing just about nothing , between meeting up with some french friends that I had met in Brazil in November and spending a lot of time talking to a nice french girl and an Argentinean guy from my hostel.

   Finally comes the tenth of March, so long waited date, the departure to the "Inca Trail", four days of trekking up to the Machu Picchu. Finally. They come and get me at 5:30 am sharp, daily program: two hours of car, a thirty minutes break in Ollantaytambo, one more hour in the car until the kilometer 82, starting of the trek with the passport check. I am lucky, my group is really nice: only two couples of 20 years olds (which does make me feel kinda old...), germans and danish, and the guide Miguel.

We organize our stuff, attach our mattresses and sleeping bags the best way possible on our backpacks, we pass the control, take a group picture and here we go with only our feet to bear us. The first day is quite calm and easy. We are lucky and start off under the warm sun but after a few hours we do have to cover our bags as the dear rain of March in the Andean mountains finally shows. The first surprise of the trip comes with the first meal. You need to know that on top of our guide we have four porters that run in front of us. They are really impressive: as short as common Peruvians, with up to 25 kg on their backs, run up the mountains and down the irregular and slidy steps of inca's stairs at a great speed that let them arrive at camp enough time before us to get all of our tents and our meal ready for when we arrive. They have a name "chasquis" in quechua, which was the name of the inca's messengers who used to run 22km at a time to pass messages the fastest possible, enabling them to pass a message between Qosqo (Cusco in Quechua) and Lima in only one day. Calling them "porters" is a real lack of respect to them. Our four adorable chasquis were 19, 23, 34 and 57 years old, but unfortunately I only remember the name of the two young ones Fernando and Ismaël because they always asked me how I was with a great smile although it was them doing all of the work and carrying all of the weight... On top of the chasquis we had also a chef, and here come the surprise: first lunch under the rain, we have a big tent awaiting us with a table and a nice table cloth, it is warm inside and we are served like kings: starters with guacamole and garlic bread, soup, main dish really good and full and tea, all this before continuing our day of walk. And it has been that way everyday at every meal.

   The first night is calm, along with the light sound of the river close by, and then the second day can start, with the hardest task on the program: the Dead Woman pass at 4200m above sea level.

Up at 5:30 am, nicely woken up by Ismaël with a tea, start at 7am we are going to walk upward until 1 pm... And it is in fact a hard task. After sleeping at 3000m above sea level, we have to go up more than one kilometer in the morning. The first part of one hour long before the first break is okay. Then it is two hours before break: stairs, only. The idea is to walk up in zigzags to not tire our knees too fast and always find the lowest part of the step to use. I go in front of the group to keep my rhythm and avoid the small and regular breaks that kill my breathing and the talking that really unfocus me. I manage well until the next break, walking as long as I can breath. It is hard but it is ok. And here we go for the last part, it seems easier than the stairs but that also should last two hours. Same here, I go first. Small detail that does make a difference, we are higher and going up is getting harder... I start in my rhythm as for the two other steps, but I figure out quite fast that this time it is not gonna work out. I end up doing more or less like everybody else: Between 30 seconds and one minute walk for one minute break sitting on the first big stone around as I am constantly out of breath. This part is indeed extremely hard and uncomfortable for the body but the landscapes are absolutely breath taking (haha...). I finally reach the top, the hardest part of the trek, the view is fabulous. I wait for the others, we eat something, take some pictures and we are off to go down: 1:20 of steps as high as irregular. Luckily, we have a wonderful lunch awaiting us at the camp as soon as we arrive.

 

   The third day is a bit easier but we are all tired and the two hours upward to start with were not so nice. But the rest is easy, with a lot of downhill. Unfortunately the rain comes along this afternoon. Arriving at the camp site we have a tea waiting for us under the main tent, with toast with dulce de leche, passion fruit tart and pop-corn! We stay there and play cards until dinner time and we let Miguel explain us the tradition of the end of the trip that we will have after dinner. One last surprise for us at the end of the meal, the chef made us a big and delicious cake, all under the tent !!! We are only six so we decide to share the cake with the chasquis and the chef. They are a bit shy but accept. After dinner we collect the tips to give to the chasquis and start the little ceremony under the tent. Each chasquis introduce himself, some are very shy, then we introduce ourselves, I translate for the people of the group who don't speak any Spanish (and I make it !), and Miguel takes up for the translation between quechua and english when needed (most of the chasquis live in the mountains and have quechua for mother tongue). Then we give them the tips and go to bed. It is getting late and Ismaël will wake us up at 3 next morning...

Actually, I forgot about two small details to bring up some tension for the night: we camp on some terraces constructions on the side of the mountain, and talking with Miguel earlier he tells me that this camp isn't the most full because it is the most dangerous one. Dangerous ? Ok, after explanations, he tells us that he wanted to tell us about it only the next day but we insist so: in 2010, the region was victim of very violent rainfalls, the Machu Picchu had to be evacuated by helicopter and on this camp, some turists died, including his colleague, because of mudslides.

Ah. It's raining. I am going to sleep really well. Oh, second detail ? After so much tea, I need to pee around 10pm. I take my lamp, get out without closing the tent because it almost doesn't rain anymore. But coming back, this get a bit more complicated: my lamp lights up a nice and small (huuuuuuuge) spider on my tent door, this type that you think you only find in the rain forest... Panic, I wake up the danish couple, Christian goes to get my sleeping bag to host me in their tent for the night. He was half believing me but coming back he agrees that he had never seen such a spider (and they were in Costa Rica before...). So I slept about two hours that night but at least, at three in one tent, it was warm! It's Ismaël who must have been surprised when he brought us the tea!

   Last day, Machu Picchu. As said before, we have to wake up at 3am because the chasquis have their train at 5am and they carry our tents. If they miss it they loose a full day of work. So once awake, the idea is to get out of the tent as fast as possible with all our stuff on our backs and to run (in the dark) down the camp site to get some of the sitting spaces under the covered area to wait for the track to the Machu Picchu to open at 5:30 (knowing that we are about 250 and that the covered area is not that big). We, super team, arrive second and can get shelter from the rain and sit for the next 2 hours, with the company of Peach, the dog that followed us for two days, and has slept almost in the tent of the germans on the second night and gives me a big one hour hug under the shelter.

5:30, let's go. We arrive on the track, the light is very low, we have to walk fast because the track is narrow and all the groups are starting at the same time, and at the same time we have to be extra careful not to trip on the stones and with the mist we can't even see the bottom...

It's going a lot up for the two hours, until the final stairs, extremely steep, that I go up on all four, to arrive at the Sun Gate. Ok, we are really not lucky: today no sun and even less a view... Instead of the amazing view that we should have of the Machu Picchu, we see... blanc ! But blanc is beautiful ! Ok, we go down the 20 minutes of steps and finally arrive at the Machu Picchu!

Miguel gives us a tour with great informations for 1:30, then I go on my own up the Huayna Picchu, the mountain that is a bit higher than MP, on the side. My legs are so painful that I decide to run the 50 minutes of steps that go up the mountain to forget them. Good, it works ! Ok, still no luck for me, once up it is still as cloudy. Whatever, I won't see the PM from above. It is raining, I am soaked to the bone, and go down the mountain running because it is quite funny. The steps are completely irregular and slidy but there are loads of cords on the sides to help out so it is really easy!

I go back to the MP to see two parts that I didn't have time to see before. The lamas are finally out but won't give me a nice pic. I then go to take the bus down to Aguas Caliente, the town under the MP mountain, that bears this name because of its source of thermal waters. We meet Miguel in a restaurant for him to give us our train tickets back to Cusco. We have lunch, Miguel goes for his train and we stay there the whole afternoon playing cards in the warmth of the restaurant while it is still raining outside.

The day ends smoothly: we all sleep during the two hours of train to Ollantaytambo and during the two hours of bus to Cusco. The hot shower at the hostel after four days cleaning myself with baby wipes, finally being able to take care of my feet that got quite hurt on the way and go inside the big cover in my bed will never have felt so good! Finally, it would have been better if I hadn't got sick with all this, but well, you can't always get what you want !