Cloud walking from Vilcabamba to Machu Picchu with Qente Adventure Trips.
(The whole title would not fit in.)
Here is Qente´s webpage for the walk we did, although our itinerary was a little different. http://www.qente.com/ingles/alternative/vilca_mapi.html
Briefing
The morning before our trek we were to have a briefing. Due to the strikes it was postponed to the evening. As briefings go it was brief. We were able to ask some questions, like "Can we get water along the way?". We also discovered we were the only people on the walk. We had expected a few more people to enjoy the walk with but had to settle for each other.
Day 1
We were picked up at the hostal at 6.30, much better than the 4.30 pick up given on the website. Our first stop was the petrol station to fill up and the second was to repair a flat tyre. So we left a little late. This just made the day a long because we soon found rocks, trees, dirt and scrap metal covering the road. The protesters had blocked the road over the last two days and it was being cleaned up very slowly. The debris created a single lane for traffic. Vehicles weaved their way up and down the road. It slowed us down a lot.
Later on the drive we were clinging to the mountain side road that became a single lane dirt track. The driver sounded the horn before every corner. Every corner was pretty much blind.
There was a police check point as we entered the town where our camp site was to be. The police required a list of passengers and it was our drivers first experience with such a check point. On th eother side of town we arrived at our camp for the night just before dark. We helped set up the tents and went for a quick walk through Huancacalle. The late start and blocked roads meant this was all we could walk on Day 1.
We met our horseman, who had come down to the camp to speak with our guide, Marco.
Day 2
We did actually walk on Day 2. It was a day spent walking passed Vilcabamba´s Inca sites or sights. A local boy, who turned out to be the horseman´s son, lead the way for us. Our first Inca ruins were Vitcos and Rosapatas. The clouds had set in and the dull light made it difficult to take photos. Marco explained a little about the ruins and what they had been used for by the Incas.
Later we passed through farming trasses and carved rocks. There was also an archiologial dig at the White Stone. This could be the burial site of the last Inca (King). There were three foreign archiologists working at the site. The youngest, a Frenchman, was kind enough to talk to us and told us that they were looking for fragments of pottery. They had not found any.
We missed the views of snow covered peaks because the clouds had rolled in and were there to stay.
By now, we also realised that the people employed for the walk to Machu Picchu far out numbered us. For the two of us we had a guide, an assistant guide, a cook and his assistant (partner) and a horseman with four horses or were they mules. Jill was thinking about calling this entry "Jill and Cam´s Employment Project" because we thought it was crazy how many people were there with us and were looking at the positives. There was Marco, Antonio, Jorge and Dealea and Cypriando. Cypriando turned out to be the nephew of the horseman we had met the night before.
Day 3
We are slow at high altitude. Walking that is. Day 3 saw us walk over the highest pass of our walk at around 4800 metres. There were cows grazing up there and some locals collecting long grass for their roofing. Again the clouds blocked any view we may have ben rewarded with when we made it to the high pass. After the pass we continued to walk higher. I had assumed that we would be descending after the pass but we didn´t. This slowed us a little more and it was 2.30 when we arrived at Soyrococha Lagoon for lunch. It was a very quick lunch. We only had half an hour to eat and that´s about all.
After lunch we moved a lot quicker. The ground was less rocky to start with and had a gentle slope that was not too hard on our legs. We made better time and eventually entered the jungle. We were much lower now. It was warmer and easier to breath. We walked into camp just on nightfall and it was soon dark. It felt like drizzle but looking around we were in the clouds again.
Day 4
An early start saw us continue to walk through the jungle, over and then beside a river. We walked next to and then far above the river as it dropped down waterfalls. We spotted hot springs at the bridge we crossed and then little calcium trasses the water had formed. It was a steady down hill walk. Marco and Antonio were worried about our pace.
We arrived at the sandfly infested lunch spot, someones front yard in Yanatile. We were eaten alive as we waited for and then ate lunch. We thanked our horseman and waved as he finally rode one of his horses back up the track. Then it was into a minivan to take us through Santa Teresa and onto the Hidroelectrica de Machu Picchu. Here we were told we were catching the train to Aguas Caliente, below Machu Picchu.
The concerns about our pace were illfounded. We were over two and a half hours early for train. This meant a lot of sitting around. I went to buy our tickets and returned to find our guides were walking and had left us to catch the train. Not a problem but I thought we were catching the train, not just us. We did find some other walkers to chat to and compare walks and companies. Everyone was pretty happy with their adventure, if not the organisation they experienced.
The hotel in Aguas Caliente had very hot showers and supplied shampoo. It was appreciated. We met Marco and Antonio for dinner and then fairwelled Antonio. We didn´t find any supplies on the walk back to the hotel for the next day. We should have looked harder.
Day 5
Day 5 was at Machu Picchu and there is a separate entry for our day there.
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