Machu Picchu & Mountains

Machu Picchu
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When we planned the route from Santiago to Lima, trekking to Machu Picchu was a top priority for us,, as it was something we had wanted to do for a while. Not really being the trekking kind, until this trip every trek we had done so far we had really enjoyed, so the longer 5 day 4 night Salkantay trek seemed the right choice. The trek involves a pass of 4650m and luckily we had been hanging around 3-4000m for the last few weeks in Bolivia, so well acclimatised. We stocked up on snacks and were picked up at 5 am on the first day.

Machu Picchu
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Day 1: We didn’t realise but there are only 4 companies operating the trek but many agents, so the cost variation payed by the people in our group was huge. We drove to the town of Mollepata (3hrs), we had a light breakfast where we met the other 15 in our group, our guide Carlos and assistant guide Franklin.

We headed out of town via the shop selling coco leaves and walking sticks, the trail was quite steady but the sun was strong, after a couple of hours the trail became steeper where Carlos gave us all a bunch of coco leaves and mineral to chew on. The coco leaves helps with altitude sickness, reduces fatigue and gives you green teeth and a numb tongue after 15 mins or so. We carried on quite quickly until the lunch point on top of a hill, we had 2 cooks and Christian (a young boy helping) and 3 horsemen that had raced ahead to prepare it. After soup, spaghetti, lemonade and coco tea we set off again, the trail was much more undulating but the sun still relentless. After a couple of breaks Gail and I caught a second wind and were first into the town where we would camp that evening in Soraypampa (3900m). We were greeted by Carlos just before the campsite where popcorn, biscuits and tea was being prepared by the cooks. The mountain of Salkantay (6264m) was peaking through the valley we would climb the next day. This was the coldest campsite of the trip and wasn't long before we were all huddled in the dinner tent, the cooks came up trumps again, we were all tired and after a some card games we all went to bed in our two man dome tents.

The group
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Day 2: Frankie and Carlos came round with coco tea at 5am, we could here pleading form the other tents for more time in bed, as soon as the sun rose we were all feeling better apart from a couple of guys that were feeling the altitude, one had been sick the previous night and Nathan was feeling nauseous with a migraine. We had breakfast, packed up our gear ready for the toughest day of the trek (20km), their was a problem with finding enough horses that morning, so Carlos said we should carry our sleeping bags and mats just in case they couldn't find any. The first few hours were very slow going and people in the group were finding it tough, we were in the middle of the pack also finding it quite tough, the climb was steep and the air thin and we had regular stops. Surprisingly after about 3 hrs we reached the top of the pass (4650m) we all celebrated with a bottle of rum that Carlos had brought, Nathan was still feeling rough, we took our photos and Frankie lead the most of us to the lunch point 2.5 hrs downhill, Carlos stayed behind with the people not so well. The clouds were low and getting thicker and by the time we had go to the lunch point even Frankie was asking the way. We all welcomed the food and the rest, poor Nathan just flaked out into a sleeping bag while we had lunch. We had 3 hrs downhill to camp that evening at Colcapampa (2900m), Frankie again led, while carlos gave Nathan some rest, the remaining part of the trek that day wasn’t great the clouds hung around and it wasn’t long before we were being rained on and walking on slippy trails. We made camp late afternoon and after the rain stopped the tents were erected, where we all stayed until dinner time, the cooks were really good and came up with different meals each day, if a little on the small side for some of us greedy boys. We chatted in the dinner tent before going to bed at around 9.30 pm.

Camp day1
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Day3: We had a fairly good nights sleep apart from the dog fight and the cockerel’s dawn chorus, after breakfast were were all ready for the easiest day of the trek, we would only be walking 5 hours or so today, but it was all Peruvian flat (slightly up and down) if we were struggling Carlos kept telling us we could always catch an Inca taxi or bus number 11 (meaning our legs), his sense of humour kept us all going throughout the day. The weather was much clearer today if somewhat humid but we all coped well with regular stops for free fruit along the trail. We arrived at our lunch point in the small town of La Playa where we caught a bus to the town of Santa Teres, while the cooks set up camp we all hired the same bus to take us to the hot springs to soak our weary limbs. We had a beer after the soaking and some more beer during dinner. Carlos bought a huge bottle of rum so we could all have Cuba Libras, before long we were on our 4^th bottle of rum and were being told to be quiet, we all dispersed some carried to their tents.

Our horses at the pass
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Day 4: We somehow had a young cat in our tent the next morning, I had let it out once in the night, but was curled up between us, outside the tent was a pile of sick (gail) but she was not the only one not felling well. David, a 19 year old American guy who was a pretty quite chap until the rum, he had been sick all over himself in the tent during the night, I had to chuckle. The vomit didn’t go to waste though the hens were soon enjoying their breakfast. I (gav) had been hoping to catch the Euro 2008 final that afternoon but would miss it if I walked the full 6 hours that day, 7 of us managed to get into a minivan to Hydro Electrica where we would follow the train tracks to Aguas Callientes. We made it into town with about half an hour to spare, we found a restaurant with a big tv and watched the game over lunch, Spain deserved the win. We met the others at 5.30pm some walking the full day others catching the train at Hydro Electrica, we had dinner at 7.30pm some of us went for desert and went to bed.

Valley views day 3
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Day 5: We woke at 4am, had breakfast at 4.30am and half the group were walking the final hour up the steep climb to Machu Picchu, gail opted for the bus, by the time we got to the top they were waiting for us. We decided to do the 1 hr climb up WaynaPicchu straight away while the site was quite, we puffed our way to the top and watched the clouds clear over Machu Picchu, It was stunning, more the location of the site than the ruins themselves. We hung around on the top of the rocks for an hour before making our way down and to our guided tour at 10.30am. The guided tour was really interesting but we wish we could have been more enthusiastic, we were all so tired, we were nodding off at times, we had just run out of energy. A few of us hung around after the tour and climbed to the guards house for a different view of the complex, we petted some llamas and caught the bus back to Aguas Callientes. We had lunch and caught the train to Ollantaytambo where we caught a bus back to Cusco, a few of us had enough energy to meet Carlos and go to the local disco that night where at 1pm we said our goodbyes and headed for bed.