Andes to Amazon - the Salkantay trek!
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2007
1
12
16
Trip End
Oct 15, 2007
Machu Picchu,
Peru
Monday, August 27, 2007
Welocme to the story of my Salkantay trek. I apologise in adavance for the poor spelling and perhaps wrong place names, I may need to get the Tshirt I bought with the map of my route on to help! Anyway the gist of this story is that as part of my elective I got a trek around the sacred valley and to Machu Picchu included. It was 5 days and 4 nights long, and we had a guide called Armando (I called him Hernando most of the time by mistake and he called me either Clara or sometime Clerk, but he was lovely anyway!), horses and porters and 2 chefs so it wasnt exactly roughing it all the way!
Day 1 - We left the hosue at 6am. There were 5 of us, me and Rich, 2 other medicsaway students called Chris and Laura who are in our house and a Cardiologist from USA called Ricky who was really nice and just happened to have booked the trek at the same time. We got on a minibus and drove for 2 hours along a nice paved road, then an hour along a dirt track dotted with random boulders and rivers and stuff. Eventually we arrived in a village called Molepata I think where we had breakfast. (and used a flsuh toilet for the last time in a while!) We then piled back on the bus for another hour along this dirt track) it was going up a mountain ratehr close to the edge at times! We then arrived at this random little collection of houses and drinks stands and started the walk. We were given excessive volumes of food the whole time but my favourite we were given as a snack here it was a fruit called granadilla that you crack open like an egg then suck out the goo and seeds. It look revolting and is related to a passionfruit but tastes wonderful. They are grown everywhere near where we were and I bought quite a few along the way at 1sol (17p) for 8 or 9! We set of about 11pm and walked for 3 hours along a rather decent path on the fairly flat. We had bought walking sticks (wood poles with fabric grips and handles) and had great fun playing star wars with them! it was really hot and we stopped regularly to refresh at streams and to cool outr water bottles in them. they were from glaciers so were ice cold, lovely! We were headed towards a mountain called umantay (god head in Quechua) which was snow capped and you could see along the path. Ill add photos soon! We stopped for lunch and to let the horses rest, and Felix our chef cooked us the most amazing spinach soup (sounds revolting but was the best soup ever except mums home made of course) garlic bread and chicken with yucca root (rather like potato when cooked). Lovely food. We kept walking and eventually after another 3 or 4 hours having passed Umantay (its looked so far away when we started) and arrived basically at the foot of Salkatay mountain which was even more impressive and covered in glaciers and snow. We saw humming birds during the days as it was warm and kind of jungly but ended up much higher (4200m) and it was freezing cold. It was really windy as were were camping in a valley beneath massive mountains and i put all my warm clothes on and was still freezing (i bought a thermal jumper and a hot water bottle in preparation, with wind chill it must have been -10degC or lower. As soon as the porets put up our tents we ran in to sheleter from the wind emerging only for more food (soup and fried trout yummy!) and to use the toilet tent (literally a small hole in the ground surround by what appeared to be a plastic zip up wardrobe, when youve squatted in one of those in freezing temperatures nothing fazes you any more!) Our tents were quite warm in the end we had very good roll mats and sleeping bags plus lots of clothes hot water bottles and my alpaca blanket!
#at this point the computer crashed and i cant remember what i wrote so forgive me if i repeat or miss out interesting points!#
Day 2 - today we were woken at 630am with a cup of tea in our tent, lovely! Loads of food for breakfast, not that id expect any less given how much wed had til now...we knew that today would be the hardest day, we could see that from the f###ing mountain that the path started up! Also we could see that the flowing river had frozen in places, thats how cold it was...Oh well we were promised that the campsite was in the jungle and would be warm and there would be beer there so that helped us focus! We started by walking up another 400m to the top of the mountain (it might have been umantay im not sure) the path wasnt great and i got exhausted after a few meters due to the fact that it was walking up a mountain and there was no oxygen at that altitude. We walked really slowly but it took us 21/2 hours to get to the top! the view at the top was amazing so it was worth it but it was hard work. it was customary to build a small pile of rocks at the top to celebrate i dont know what so i did. We then began the laborious task of walking down again the otehr way. Oh my god im sorry if i go on but it was awful!!! The path was very steep, you had to climb in places, and slippery coz it was made of thick loose dust and rocks so every few steps you skidded. without my stick i would have died many times im sure. It took ages to reach the lunch breakpoint, which was on grassy plains, quite a transition from snowy mountains! We kept walking down into the jungle which was in the valley below the mountain we had climbed that morning. It was hard going all the way, and bless him if armando didnt get the timings wrong and tell us the campsite was only 20 mins away at one point (when we were all nearly dying of exhaustion) when it was in fact 11/2 hours. We were rather dispiritied when we eventually arrived but a cold beer and food soon helped! The campsite was kind of a tiny village really with lots of other campers. It was in the outskirts of the jungle and was much warmer and greener. We were all asleep by 9pm it was rather amusing but we had walked 17.5km up and down mountains so we were rather tired...
Day 3 - an easier day today, no acutal mountains to climb! However it was in the jungle and it was very very hot and humid, it must have been 33degrees or more with near to 100% humidity. after a few hundered meters we were dripping sweat (not pleasant after so much walking and no washing facilities!) Still it was a beautiful walk, we saw lizards, hummingbirds, loads of butterflies, waterfalls, rivers, elderly american hikers...and plenty of mosquitos!! (29/08/07 im covered in bites, they still itch! Apparenly theyu dont have malaria there but rich is unwell with a fever today so if our guide was wrong hes going to sue...)We ended the day on a bit of a high, we got a truck to a village called santa teresa where they had hot springs yay! The truck was an experience...we had to climb in the open back and hang on for dear life to some metal bars. The road was really bumpy so rich enjoyed watching me and lauras chests bouncing away, he even filmed for a bit...dirty git! We passed through lots of coffee and banana plantations which was cool, and there were some amazing views as the truck was milimeters fromthe edge of the road which overlooked a valley....a little scary at times! We eventually arrived at the hot springs and me and laura realised we had left our swimsuits at home as we didnt think ther were any hot springs on this trek! Oh well we stripped to our underwear (less than plesant after 3 days hiking but the boys didnt seem to mind) and climbed in! It was lovely to wash at last, the water was bath temperature and we were covered in dust from head to foot from the paths. We had a lovely time and had some beers afterwards. Lots of mosquiots again, even 50%deet didnt seem to faze them! Sadly we lost our sticks here. Armando said to leave them in the truck coz it would wait, but it didnt. We were gutted! We wanted to ge them home coz they were like pats of us after so muc hiking and they saved our lives. Oh well nothing we could do. We went to the campsite, which had flush toilets, very civilised! After dinner we went into town to party! We spent some time in a bar (a small room in someones house with a pool table and a cd player...) then we went to get photos taken with us at fanny's restaurant (we still find that hysterical, there also a brand of tuna fish and jam called fanny, we had to exaplain to Rik why we were cracking up quite so much...silly americans!) We then went clubbing! It was similar to the bar except there were weird picutres painted on the wall that looked like witches vomiting and it had disco lights. We had a great time, lots of beer and dancing, the locals kept dragging me and laura off to salsa with them, i dont think theyd ever had girls in there before! Anyway it was a great night til laura had her camera knicked, luckily it was found soon after, the locals all helped look but it reminded us to be careful. All in all a great day, especially as our detour to the springs meant that instead of walking up and down a mountain on day 4 we could could have a gentle stroll on a paved road...excellent!
Day 4 - we were allowed a lay in until 8am today! we couldnt have stayed any laonger, it was so hot in our tents what with still being in jungle areas. We started walkiing but then noticed that we had to cross the rather torrential river. Luckioly there was a kind of cable car slide thing! It was so funny we had to clamber into this little cart that was basically a few planks of wood and some metal bars, suspended on wires aobve the river. Getting rich in was fun, him being freaked out both by heights and water! Armando pushed us out but not hard enough so we stopped part way across which freaked rich out somewhat! We could do nything to move as it had to be pulled from the other side. Luckily some locals turned up and helped and we got across. We then started walking along a nice paved road. It was very hot again but there was no rush so we stopped at little random villagers stalls for cold drinks and played in streams to refresh oursleves! We only had to walk for 3 hours to a hydroelectric plant were we could catch the train up to Aguas Claientes whhich translates to hot springs and is a little town built just to accomodate machu picchu tourists. THe walk wasnt too bad apart from the heat,and also there were alot of brush fires as it is dry season and the locals burn the land to clear it and they get out of control. We made it to the station (a few stalls and some train tracks.) We had lunch then had to wait hours for the train as the conductor didnt turn up! We played cards and chatted to the locals, particularly one little boy of about 2 who we think may have been called steve (!) he just came over and sat on my lap and we played catch with him and gave him some fruit, which he promptly spat all over us! He even dragged over a puppy for us to play with at one point! Anyway eventually we got on the train and got to aguas calientes. We were staying in a hotel which was lovely coz i could have a shower yay!! I really needed it...we had some nice dinner and looked around the market (all massicvely overpriced for us tourists) but we soon went to bed becuase we had to get up at 430am to get to Machu Picchu before the worst of the crowds....god thats early!
Day 5 - Today is the day we go to machu picchu yay! We got up ridiculously ealry and clambered onto the bus to go. Its weird they have this fleet of very moderm coaches that just drive up down machu picchu mountain all day...anyway that took about half an hour to get up there, then we went in. It so cool you get a passport stamp when you get there! Armando gave us a tour around, it was much better without the huge crowds and we could see the sunrise over the mountains. Its a much bigger place than i though, about 5 square km. It was amazing to looka round, and see the difference int eh architcure in the parts for workers and the temples and posh bits that are highly polsihed and carefully constructed. That took a few hours before we went up waynapichhu mountain. They only allow 400 people a day up so armando queued to get us stamps so we could go. he then promptly buggered of ad left usto climb it! it was very difficult, it was quite high and was mostly steep steps. In places they had handrails so you could acutally clamber up. It was difficult but definatly worth it, we had amazing views from the top over machu picchu, we were up in the clouds. we all took the compuslory hanging over the edge picture and even met some of the people we had seen on the trek at the top! It was nearly as hard getting down as the steps were often very small and so steep you had to lean backwards so you didnt fall off! We then had to go back down to aguas claientes to get the train back to Cusco. That was fun, it took much longer than it was supposed to but they had a little fashion show of alpaca clothing you could buy, and a local dancer. I was much more entertained by the rather attractive hungarian magician who was sat near us and did loads of tricks and things to entertain us! We arranged to meet when we got back to cusco for dinner. Not before another shower though, after being so dirty it was nice to be clean again!
Anyway that was my trek! It was summed up rather succinctly, a lot more happended than what i wrote, but i could go on forever and not write everything, from Rik promising to send us some fanny farmer chocolate from USA (yes we are rather obssessed) to Chris looking like a gay (rather pale and ginger) cowboy at the hotsprings in his tight boxes and cowboy hat! It was such an amzing experience, we saw some beautiful scenerey that went from snowy mountain tops to jungle to ruins to towns and villages. We all became closer from it, and i think Rik was rather shocked about the levels of conversations about things called fanny we descended into. Id love to do something like that again, laura did rather worryingly suggest treking up mount kilamunjaro (spelling?) which requires oxygen at times i think...maybe next year!
Just to update on recent events, i didnt go into the hospital on monday as i was too tired after the trek, then i didnt on tuesday either as we went out for dinner and dancing to comiserate laura going home and i got home at 430am and was rather drunk still when i got up...ahem! I did go in today and had a good time and even got some histories from patients in spaish! I got my blood results back and bought some scrubs so when im next in i can go to anaesthetics. Unfortuantlry the hospital is basically shut for 2 days for a national holiday, and then i am going to the jungle at the weekend so i cant go in until wednesday next week..oh well! My jungle trip will be so cool! I am going on Saturday, flying to some little town then staying in alodge for 3 nights and we get to do night walks to see insects and caimans (like little crocodiles) and go on motorboats to see capybara (giant guinea pigs) and go to moneky island and see parrots and god only knows what else! I can wait ive always wanted to do something like that...best start my malaria pills tomorrow...hope rich is feeling better otherwise ill have to go by myself! Anyway ive been on here hours writing this so id best go know, ill update when i get a chance!!
