The Inkredible Machu Picchu

For my first day in Cuzco I decided to hit the streets and check out the mercado. Cuzco is a very cute city with cobbled streets and lots of open markets selling all of their “handmade” sweaters, bags, hats, gloves, socks, etc. (fact: the exact same patterns and styles are sold at every tent in both Peru and Bolivia – they lie. But they are still fun and unique to the area.) Although it is a tourist town, it still has a lot of character to it. I headed off to meet Melissa’s friend, Kathleen, who was already in Cuzco too. On my way to meet her, I suddenly started feeling sick. The timing of this is crucial, because once we met up, Kathleen and I went out to lunch and proceeded to eat guinea pig (“cuy”) and alpaca. When in Rome! The guinea pig was served whole like a mini roast pig and tasted like tough chicken. There’s not much meat to it and the skin is very leathery, but it wasn’t actually too bad. The alpaca we accidentally ordered Carpaccio (raw) instead of cooked, but it was surprisingly tasty. Those were not the things that made sick though since I was sick before I ate them (but they probably didn’t help my already weak stomach). Unfortunately, I have to blame the 30 cent egg sandwich that I got from the market in the morning, even though I enjoyed it and hate to hold a grudge against it.

 

Kathleen and I went to Saqsaywaman (pronounced: sexy woman), Inca ruins just a few minutes from the center of Cuzco. The rocks are unbelievably huge and perfectly fit together. It’s amazing how the Incans constructed it all without heavy machinery.

 

Kathleen was studying in Cuzco and living with a host family. It was their grandson’s birthday, so I got to join in on the Peruvian celebration. There were snacks, a piñata, and dancing involved, however, my sickness got the best of me and I had to retreat to bed. I woke up feeling much better and headed off for a tour of the Sacred Valley. It is maybe the most peaceful, beautiful, magical place I have ever been before. Everything is bright green and there is as white mist hovering around. We stopped at several pretty and interesting ruins, but for me just the vibe and scenery of the valley was the best part. They also took us to a place where locals taught us how they cleaned wool, dyed it, and wove it which was very interesting.

 

The next day Melissa arrived in Cuzco! We went around the tents selling all of the woven, colorful products and I introduced her to the deliciously fresh juice at the market (we steered clear of the egg sandwiches). We took a tour of more Incan ruins around the city in the afternoon. My knowledge of Incan history is quite strong now, but after about the 5^th site, I was a little ruined out and didn’t appreciate them as much. One of the highlights of the tour was when some women dressed in traditional Peruvian attire threw, literally threw, a baby llama into my arms so that I would catch it and take a picture with them (and tip them). Cuzco was festively decorated for Christmas, complete with Santa and his llamas.

 

Bright and early the next day, we set off for our 4-day/3-night trek on the Inka trail. There were a total of 8 people in our group plus our guide, Ruben. There were also 15 “porters” who carried our food, water, and camping gear. The porters were absolutely amazing. These guys were 5 feet tall and carrying backpacks that weighed 50 pounds (some of the porters from other groups were even wearing sandals and only had makeshift backpacks to lug all of their baggage – very sad to see but they were troopers. Our tour company luckily seemed to provide the porters with better equipment.). I liked to call our team the “Inkredibles” (because our porters all wore red and because we are awesome…and on the Inka trail), but Ruben liked to call us the “Spicy Girls.” (The raincoat that I conveniently found in the hostel trash can served perfectly as a backpack protector and also matched the porters perfectly.)

 

Day 1 was the easiest day, though it wasn’t just a walk in the park. We passed by several Incan ruins and Ruben explained what little information was known about each one. We watched the train pass by us carrying tourists to Machu Picchu who would arrive in just 1 hour and 45 minutes. By lunchtime, we were all pretty hungry. Unbeknownst to us, we were in for a gourmet, 3-course meal. The respect that we had for the porters already increased immensely when we saw what was in store. They had powered ahead of us and set up a whole station for us. There was a tent with tables and chairs waiting and bowls of water for us to wash up with. As Melissa pointed out, even the napkins were folded into artsy designs…this was by no means my regular version of camping. They first brought us a beautifully arranged little salad followed by a big bowl of delicious soup. After that they brought platters full of about 4 different main dishes. We stuffed ourselves on this amazing feast before heading back to the trail for a few more hours of hiking. The porters proceeded to pack up after us, power ahead of us on the trail, and set up our camp for the night all before we got there. We got to our nice little camp nestled between the mountains and had teatime and snacks. Before you know it, it was dinnertime and they had another multi-course meal prepared for us. Again it was absolutely delicious and over the top. By the time we finished dinner we were all immediately ready for bed.

 

Day 2 was the hardest day. It was also the day of sickness. We woke up to the porters delivering coco tea to our tents. They then had a big breakfast prepared and boiled water for us to stock up on. We started with 4 hours of steady uphill to “Dead Woman’s Pass” (4200m above sea level), followed by 2 hours of slippery downhill, followed by another 2 hours of uphill. Two group members woke up feeling sick and were struggling from the get-go. As the day progressed, more and more people started dropping. By dinnertime, I was feeling very smug with myself because I was the only one besides Ruben who wasn’t feeling sick. I was thinking I had gotten all of my sickness out of my system back in Cuzco and that my stomach was stronger than the rest of the group’s now. But even through the sickness and struggles, the group was in very good spirits. We hit it off very well and were a little too comfortable talking to each other about everything. We called it an early night again after dinner…not quite party animals.

 

Day 3 was a shorter day and mostly downhill. My cockiness was quickly diminished when I woke up feeling less than stellar. The whole day I battled with queasiness, but nothing came out of me, so I was hoping I just had a milder case than the others. We visited more ruins along the way and had gorgeous views of snow capped mountains, misty canyons, and lush jungles. Downhill is much tougher than uphill, especially when it is slippery and you’re carrying a big backpack. My legs were shot by the end of the day. We made frequent stops for the sickies along the side of the trail because, unfortunately for all, bathrooms were few and far between. But the worst part about being sick was that we couldn’t eat all of the delicious meals they were cooking for us. The porters continued to impress us and even made an oven-less cake.

 

Just 5 minutes from our campsite, there was an Inca ruin, Wiñay Wayna. This was an awesome terraced site with a view of the whole valley below. We were practically alone in the whole place making it feel even more special because it wasn’t flooded with tourists. Ruben gave us a powerful talk about how we need to appreciate everything in life and really put things into perspective. We stayed at the site until it was dark and took in the entirety of the sacred place.

 

Day 4 was just a short 2-hour hike before our arrival to the Sun Gate, the first view of Machu Picchu. We woke up at 3:30am to stake our spot in line so that we would be the first to pass on to the trail. This day, all the other groups on the trail were traveling right along with us. This day, my sickness finally hit me hard. Everyone else was pretty much recovered by this time, so I was suffering alone. To my luck, there was no privacy since we were all traveling in this pack. But, when you gotta go, you gotta go. All shame was out the window on this trip. Unfortunately I was wearing neon pants, making me very easy to recognize...not my proudest moment. When everyone else reached the Sun Gate, they were filled with excitement and had finally reached the glory destination. We even witnessed a proposal. When I reached the Sun Gate, I was filled with an overwhelming urge to relieve myself. The peak of my condition had very opportune timing. We continued on a short way and finally reached our final destination: Machu Picchu.

 

Upon arrival, I felt amazingly better. We started taking pictures from a viewpoint when all of a sudden a man runs by and shoves our photographer out of the way. We were confused until we saw what he was running for (hence people looking to the side in the picture). At that very moment a guy from our neighboring group of hikers had fallen off a 20-foot ledge and cracked his head open on a rock. Sam, one of the guys in our group, was a paramedic and had trekked the whole way with an extensive first aid kid (and extensive pharmacy which all of us sicklings used up rapidly). He went running to the rescue before the official medics came. It was a scary and dramatic ordeal but the guy hopefully turned out alright.

 

We proceeded in through the main entrance and Ruben guided us around. Luckily the weather cleared up perfectly for our arrival with blue skies and no more rain. The fog rolled in and out, giving the place a different look every few seconds. It is an impressive place to say the least. It is a little misleading because a lot of it has been reconstructed and it has a very groomed look to it, but it was spectacular nonetheless.

We didn’t hike up Wayna Picchu (the big mountain behind Machu Picchu in all of the pictures). After all of our hiking, my downhill walking was “special” and our bodies were quite fatigued. We had plenty of other good views and I don’t feel like we really missed out.

Just as we had finished walking around all the areas, the clouds came back and it started to rain. We were all exhausted anyway so it seemed like a good time to leave. After all the hiking to get there, we took a short train/bus route back to Cuzco. But before we left, we decided to spend some time in the hot springs in the town below Machu Picchu. Aguas Calientes could be an amazing town with its prime location in the valley of green mountains, but it is completely ruined by tourism. We showed up at the “hot springs” which ended up being a series of dirty looking swimming pools, some of which were hot, some of which were not. The water was murky and felt like a bacterial cesspool. Very fowl, especially compared to the hot springs I went to in Bolivia. We didn’t linger long and opted instead to find showers before getting on the train.

Overall, it’s a tough hike, but none of us had trained or anything beforehand, so it’s not super extreme. The porters lightening our load made all the difference. It was 45km (~28 miles) with over 3 miles of vertical elevation change upward and 5 miles elevation change downward. Apparently the porters have a race of the trail and the record completion time is 3 hours and 45 minutes…makes our 4 days seem a little unimpressive. But for us, the whole journey was absolutely unforgettable and we had an incredible time (despite the fact that by the end our motto was “sh*t happens”).