Trekking trip & Machu Picchu

  Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, Peru
Sunday, July 27, 2008

taking it easy on top of the world

So yay! I made it to Machu Picchu! A place so few of us actually get to see & so beautiful, awe-inspiring, magnificent, etc. etc.! Check out all the photos & maybe read what I wrote as well. I seem to have actually been avoiding writing this entry about my hiking trip and visit to Machu Picchu. I think perhaps because it is hard to know what to say about hiking through the Andes at 12,000 - 14,000 feet and visiting one of the wonders of the world, but I guess I will just write something, but my guess is the pictures will speak for themselves more than anything I could write!

Machu Picchu

So details first..........July 2- 5 myself & 4 friends did the Lares Trek. The trek is not the official Inca Trail, which is restricted to a certain number of hikers per day & sells out months in advance (of course my brilliant self did not actually get an Inca Trail reservation in advance, but it is all good; we figured the Incas lived everywhere in the Andes so presumably they used the trails we trekked, so it counts).

Lares Trek

The trek consisted of 3 days of hiking, with 2 nights of camping; the 3rd day we actually ended the hike in Ollantaytambo (where I was living) and took the train to Aguas Calientes (the town near Machu Picchu). We spent that night in Aguas Calientes and got up very early to spend the next day at Machu Picchu.

The ´we´ included Lena & Genevieve, friends I met here, and Meghan and Yvonne, who were visiting from DC. We had a great support team of Daniel, our guide, his girlfriend, whose name we didn´t learn for some reason, a great cook, 4 porters (they do the hard work & carry our stuff, tents, food, etc.) and a bunch of horses & mules (also doing the hard work of carrying our stuff).

spreading my wings atop our summit 14,200 ft

The hike started in Lares, a town in the Sacred Valley a couple hours from Cusco. Lares is particularly known for its natural hot springs; so in good backwards logic, we started our trek by soaking ourselves in the hot springs.

hot springs at Lares before we start the trek

If I remember correctly, we probably trekked about 16 hours and 14 miles total over the next 3 days, which really was more like 1 full day and 2 half days --- 4 hours in the afternoon the first day, 8 hours the second day and 4 hours the last day to make it to town to catch our noon train to Aguas Calientes.

The two nights of camping were great. In some ways it was the easiest camping -- the porters set up & took down the whole campsite for us each day & night and the cook prepared all of the meals. In other ways it was the hardest camping -- it definitely was not relax car camping where you bring everything you could ever want in your car, stay at a campground with some facilities & hang out by the fire & drink beers. The bathroom was a hole in the ground, dug by the porter team (& presumably cleaned out or filled in by the porters, rough job), with a tent around it.

our cozy tent home - it iced over by morning!

We had a fire the first night, but fell into bed with no interest in a fire the second night beat from the day´s hike and we woke both mornings to a tent covered with ice & frost from the elevation. No beers and no smores.

[Oh & one other note I almost forgot. I sprained my ankle less than a week before the trek playing outside in the dark with the little boy in my house. Brilliant. So I went to the doctor the next morning with a purple swollen ankle. He said I needed a shot. I thought, obviously, of course I should get a shot in Peru for a sprained ankle. So I got a shot in my bum, which apparently was anti-inflammatory, pain-killer, etc. That night my house mom also wrapped my foot in a cold mixture of eggs & herbs and between the 2 strategies, something worked, because I hiked. Now of course there were multiple moments of pain & swearing quietly inside my head (and fear that I may not get my cute heels on ever again), but all in all, a fine recovery]

Lares Trek

So enough with logistics -- just look at the pictures & imagine it a million times better than it actually looks!! Sadly the picture can only capture a bit & it doesn´t do it justice. It was amazing - really! Yeah, I really just don´t know what to say except -- que magnifico!!

I did make a movie on the trek & at Machu Picchu. I think you should be able to watch them here.

Trek movie

Machu Picchu movie

Clearly they are award-winning (sarcasm), but I hope it helps with getting a sense of it. I am pretty sure I close the Machu Picchu film talking about cookies -- not something important like Inca history or the spirituality of the place. Of course those that know me well, however do know that cookies are serious business regardless of location at any given time.

Well, I can give this suggestion --- for one thing, try to imagine the scenery everywhere you look -- obviously the mountains were not just the direction of the picture, but all around us, just wide open vistas. To add to this, we really saw very few people. We did see children (who made it into our pics quite a bit, almost as striking as the scenery at times), who are used to hikers along the way with gifts (we had brought bread and some toys to give them), but to my surprise, we only saw one other hiking group.

treats for the children along the way

Although, many people hike these various treks when visiting Peru, I guess it just speaks to the vastness of the landscape that we did not really encounter any other groups. Basically just us, the mountains, some kiddies & a few adults, and various animal herds (sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas) that seemed to have the whole world for their grazing.

yay! I´m here! Machu Picchu

Of course I am not sure what I can say about Machu Picchu. It was a amazing. As most visitors do, unless they decide to walk, we took a 30 minute bus ride to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes at about 5:30 am so we could be there to watch the sunrise. Which was of course.......amazing. (I am not sure what other words to actually use, to be honest.) Machu Picchu is on the top of a mountain, but the peaks surrounding it are actually higher, and it is beautiful, peaceful, exciting, to just wait for the sun to come up over the eastern peaks.

awaiting sunrise at Machu Picchu

the road that brought us to MP

We spent the morning hours with our guide from the trek, Daniel, who took us through Machu Picchu, sharing the knowledge, theories, myths about the purpose and history of this Inca village. He also treated us to a sacred ceremony, after which he said our lives would be full of luck and peace (given the ceremony was at Machu Picchu and all, I think I am all set now!). After he left us, we walked through the ruins and up to the sun gate, which is the entrance that you come in from the official Inca Trail, and ultimately just found a nice perch from which to relax and just try to take it all in. It was awesome. Just awesome.

Machu Picchu