Day Four: The Early Bird Catches The Walk

What I had hoped would be a sound sleep was rudely interrupted by the Mother’s Day celebrations that were in full swing well into the night. And at 1am, with the MC still blaring out in between off-tune traditional music, my 4am rise only got closer and closer.

Needless to say, when we were finally woken hours later, I felt like I had barely slept and my legs were still aching from the climb the day before. But climbing Machu Picchu is not really the sort of thing that you can just reschedule for another day – it was the culmination of my South American trip - so there was no turning back, or sleeping in. Plus, if we were to claim one of the 400-only spots for the adjacent climb up to Wayna Picchu, we had to get to the top before the gates opened at 6am.

Throwing on some clothes to stave off the cold, we left our hostel to meet everyone amidst the smashed glass in the plaza – obviously Mother’s Day had been a good one. Once there, we headed out of town in the pitch black and I am glad that at least some of us had torches to avoid the rocks and pebbles along the road. Not really sure where we were going - and with our new tour guide still back in town, collecting the one person we forgot - we just aimed for the other flash lights ahead.

After about half an hour of walking along the bottom, passed the train tracks, we finally saw the sign that signalled the start of the stairs up. Again, I thanked God that there was someone behind me lighting the way with their head-torch, else the unsteady path below me would have tripped me several times and added another layer to my scabbed knee. And I thanked God for the full bright moon, which had peaked just the day before.

But being able to see my way was only one blessing, and one that could not save me from the affect of the steep climb. After just over 10 minutes, I was out of breathe with everyone else, clutching to the side of the path, sweat pouring out of everywhere, despite the time and the chill in the air. The path was an unrelenting stairway to hell, with each new step up, a new stair.

Finally, though, it levelled out and each step became much longer, allowing one step of ‘rest’ in between. Oh, the small things. And eventually, after an hour of trudging through the darkness, the sky started to lighten and we knew we were near the top. As expected, our speedy group were among the first arrivals at the gate, and so we made it about halfway down the line. Still not yet 6am, we waited to enter, scoffing down some of the breakfast and lunch supplies we had brought with us.

It was the usual confusion as the staff attempted to get a crowd of a few hundred people into a single file line, but with the sunrise blushing the clouds with its sepia tones, I was pretty happy to have just arrived at my destination, and to know that my climbing was almost over.

Day Three: Optional Extras

Having taken another “options” vote over dinner the night before, it was not such an early rise on our third morning, with another bus set to speed us through our first leg for the day. I am not sure if this was the reason why we ended up at Santa Theresa’s only club, drinking surprisingly good, but strong, cocktails until the early hours, or if it was the two for one cuba libres (rum and coke) at the restaurant before that egged us on, but I had to admit that my gashed knee and ripped pants enjoyed the momentary rest.

Heading , we got out to follow the train tracks all the way to Aguas Calientes, at the foot of Machu Picchu. Again it was an easy flat stroll through the selpa, and we arrived well ahead of schedule. Not much more than a final destination/resting point for hikers and tourists alike, Aguas Calientes is a reasonably charming town, with its chalet-style restaurants and hotels and train running through the middle. Unfortunately though, it is also filled with expensive food and drink and an inordinate amount of framed dead insects (butterflies and tarantulas).

Again, I blame the “options” voting system here, when I say that either wisely or unwisely, I forwent a siesta and instead followed some of the boys up Putucusi mountain for an early side-view of Machu Picchu. Eder had already warned us that it might not be such a good idea – not only after last night’s festivities, but also after a patch of rain came through during lunch to wet the many wooden log ladders on the climb. But stupidly, none of us were deterred from the 1900 or so stairs (so the Israeli guy ahead of us counted), which came in the form of an extremely slippery, seriously rotting, 25m-at-its-longest stair – conveniently missing several rungs along the way.

It’s no wonder, with my relatively petite legs, that I almost didn’t make it up. But with Eder adamant that he would hold my foot as I heaved the extra bit over gaps, there was no turning back. Besides, I didn’t come all this way just to shop for preserved animals. Little by little, we eventually made it up the unrelenting stairs to have our first taste of what we would see tomorrow morning. The impressive, but not-so-ancient remains of the Incan city lay open in front of us, clouded over by the passing storm.

Day Two: On The Up and Up

Our next day came much to soon – not because of the 6am start, but because of the damn rooster who started calling out at 3am. (I thought they were supposed to come up with the sun?) At least there was a hearty breakfast of pancakes, omelettes, paw-paw juice, and the best bread in Bolivia (very croissant-like) to keep me focused on the task ahead. Just to be sure, I filled up on coca tea to keep hopefully induce further alertness.

Our trek started on a flat road that led out of town, taking us past the abandoned train station – covered over like its adjoining village by a landslide almost 10 years ago – towards the river. Following its pleasant route between the mountains, we continued past the bend, taking in the view of the nearby peak with its white iced fringe. But the climb up started soon though, as we near the path of the Incans, and I thanked God in between stifled breaths for our frequent stops - cursing my low blood pressure every other.

Remembering that this was meant to be the “easiest” part of our journey, I was a little fearful when we finally arrived at our first stop and my lungs and legs were stuffed. Sitting down to rehydrate and snack on empanadas and bananas, our cameras were kept busy by the sideshow combination in front of us. Tied to various stakes around the balcony area were a wild pig, a picuro (badger-looking animal) and a monkey, who were all obviously very used to putting on a show for passing traffic. I really wasn’t sure what to make of the whole scene, except that I was pretty sure this wasn’t part of the original Incan pilgrimage.

Neither was the homemade chocolate displayed on the table in front of us, handmade by our hostess, which tasted so bitter and strong without the usual milk and sugar. But with a dot of her organic honey, which she claimed was the secret to her younger looking skin – and, at the 55 years she tells me, I would have to agree she is miles ahead, er, behind, native comparisons – I am treated to a much more pleasant experience.

Buoyed by the sweetness, but still a little worried about the next “harder” part of our climb, I approached Eder for some advice. Thinking about it for a moment, he called for a bottle to be brought over and offered me some alcohol to sniff. Perplexed by this apparent solution, which I had only ever seen used on weightlifters and boxers, I was hardly relieved to be leaving again. But as we set off again, the slow up and down of the next part of the trail turned out to be completely manageable – even without all the breaks.

The walk was so easy in fact, that only an hour and a half later we arrived at our lunch destination, before the group ahead of us had even eaten. Such was our luck, we ended up waiting in hammocks for them to finish, before settling down to our own three courser of guacamole, bread, chilli dip, stracciatella soup, chicken spaghetti bolognese and pineapple jelly. And with only a few more hours of walking left in the day, it was back to the hammocks for an afternoon nap. (Nothing says Inca Trail like a full-bellied siesta).

On the final leg of the day – supposed to take two hours, but taking us just over one – we passed by another group on the chain bridge – the Danish girls I had stayed with on the Isla del Sol – before arriving at the hot springs. But before we got wet, Eder explained that we had a few options to choose. Given the setting sun, if we were to walk to our hostel in the Santa Theresa, we would have to leave in just under half an hour, but if we chose to take a taxi bus there, we could stay until dinnertime. And, with the steam from the 35 and 40 degree waters rising in front of us, our choice was a bit of a no-brainer.

The heat is a welcomed treat for our soon-to-be-sore muscles and is the perfect accompaniment to a few cold beers. (It’s now that I start to understand how easy it was for the English girl I met to have ‘missed’ Machu Picchu – too hungover to make it out of bed on the last day).

Day One: Downward Madness

Picked up early than I expected, I was a little flustered after being shoved immediately onto a waiting bike. Particularly when everything was around the wrong way for my comfort – brakes, gears etc – and the rest of the group, I later realised, had been collected by car or had strolled to our meeting point. It didn’t bode to well for the next four days, I thought, where I would be climbing my way through the selpa (high altitude jungle) with thirteen others.

Of course it was the usual false start, and almost an hour before our minivan finally starting moving out of the city, retracing most of yesterday’s steps back to Ollantaytambo. Here we stopped to go to the toilet and get some snacks, and I armed myself with some more essential supplies of moisturiser (the altitude robs your skin of everything). We then got back on the road to climb up into the mountains and and zig-zag our way to our biking spot.

Again, it was not long before the journey left me nauseous - particularly because the driver specialised in speeding up around the corners – and I felt like I was on a slip-shot propulsion ride at the Royal Show. I really couldn’t see the logic in it all, unless he was trying to send us over one of the precipitous edges and force an early retirement.

After much head-bowing and closed-eyed concentration, we got to our starting point for the bike ride and dismounted to be given our wheels (I say that in the most literal of senses because most of our frames were being held together by hose-pipe and gaffer tape). Unlike my previous efficient encounter with the Death Road, we were left to pick an upturned bike and hope that the gloves and helmets fit. I don’t think any of us really got a perfect match – least of all the other Australian girl in our pack, who lucked out on getting something to protect her hands.

Similarly, our descent was started with no real instructions and I was glad to have already conquered Bolivia. I feared though, for the other members of my group, knowing that many of Peru’s roads are rumoured to be worse. And the path we were on was certainly a forerunner with its u-turn bends and snaking blind corners. Add in some speeding cars, trucks and other cyclists, and faulty brakes, gears and handlebars, and you might imagine some of the peril.

Luckily the first part was a bitumen road, in moderate condition, and those of us who either didn’t have brakes or didn’t use them, cruised down easily from 4300m. A few stops later, each one calling for more and more mechanical assistance (I think the idea of maintenance hasn’t reached Peru yet, and so quick fixes are the norm) and we were seated with our packed lunch of cheese rolls, fruit and various sweet and savoury biscuits.

But as soon as we were back on our bikes, the menacing gravel appeared, threatening to send each of us skidding into the watery roadside trench. Again, there were no instructions, and no real guide either, after he (Eder) was forced to swap bikes with Dutch guy Eric, whose brakes and gears had both given up. Needless to say there were a few minor mishaps, some preliminary baths if you like, but we were definitely more fortunate than the other group who had a more serious broken-in-half mishap.

Our ride finished quite early in the afternoon, not taking the five hours we were originally told, and we piled into the minivan, unsure what would fill the rest of the day and night. But like much of the rest of our individual travels throughout South America, it is beer and conversation that warms us up after our freezing cold showers, sending us to bed in anticipation of our first day of hiking.

Sightseeing in the Sacred Valley

It seems I can’t escape my confusion with money and I had to race off first thing in the morning to get more out to pay for the hidden entrance fees on my tour. Apparently all I have paid for is the bus and guide - the agent I bought my ticket from obviously forgot to mention the other 70 Bolivianos (AUD$35) I must produce to get into the National Park areas.

I eventually get back onto our cozy tourist bus, and we pick up various people around town, almost filling all of the velvet blue velour seats. The street sellers are already clustered around the main square, Plaza de Armas, and its lesser sister-square, trying to convince anyone who looks remotely like a foreigner to buy their jumpers, scarves, batteries and massages. People complain about the aggressiveness of their tactics, but I have been to Bali: I have seen much worse.

Our first sight is Sacsayhuaman (pronounced “sexy woman”) - the Incan walled complex – which, at only a few kilometres out of town, we pass by without stopping. Our tour guide takes this marker though, as an opportunity to begin a short history on the Incans. We are told that over 8 million of them existed at their peak, but that contrary to popular belief, most of them were not killed in battle with the conquering Spanish, rather, forty per cent actually died in the sixteenth century from syphilis (although various other web sources say it was a combination of smallpox, typhus and influenza).

We are also told how gold was not seen as important to the Incans (only used for decoration of tombs, temples and ceremonies), but that it was a different story for the Spanish, who immediately used the Incans as slave labour to extract it for trade and wealth. We then start our descent into the Sacred Valley where maize covers the fields of almost all available space, providing ample fodder for local beer production, and company for the many scattered cacti.

Our first stop is at the pueblo C’orao – which in Chechuan means grass, and was the original Incan place for llama sacrifice. But all we find here is a typical souvenir market, set out in eight identical rows, and a scruffy looking man selling photos with his glazed llamas (who is a bit too quick to remind me that I have to pay for the privilege of each shot). A sign behind him announces the opening times as Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, and I suddenly realise why these are the only days that tours are available too.

I get back on the bus with another pair of colourful llama legwarmers - who can resist their fluffy warmth? – and we pass through more villages that have been hit by successive earthquakes (1350, 1650 and 1950), strangely consistent in their devastation. Eucalyptus trees spread themselves once again across the unfamiliar landscape and our tour guide informs us that they were planted in nineteenth century to stop the effect of erosion, during their six month-long rainy season (October to March). We are also told that people chew the leaves too, for its medicinal properties, but I can’t help but smile when I think of all the koalas that do the same, and drop out of trees completely high.

As we drove on, I looked out at the mud-brick adobe gateway leading to nowhere, at the steppes climbing their way to the top of monstrous deep-wrinkled mountains that frame the sides of the valley, and breathe it all in. We stop at Mirador Taray to get the best view of the Sacred Valley, which, at more than 200km long, was so named because the Incans believed it to have the most fertile soil. The Urubamba River twists and turns its way throughout the panorama, all the way to foot of Machu Picchu.

Next we arrive at the town of Pisac – 32 kms from Cusco – self-proclaimed on an entering wall mural as the artisanal capital of Peru. But it’s really just another larger winding market, and so the only thing I buy is food. I taste my first wholemeal empanada which is definitely the worst I have had yet, and take a further punt on an alfajore-look-a-like that tastes more like a hammy Tartaric acid than dulce de leche. I guess the fertile soil hasn’t really been put to such good use after all.

Fortunately there is choclo (literally “corn”, but a savoury version of our sweet vegetable) and fried cheese (much like haloumi) at the next archaeological site of the Incans and where are told that the terraces carved here formerly produced a range of hot (fruits, coca leaves) and cold (potatoes, barley and wheat) goods at the bottom and top levels respectively. But the relentless snaking path starts to hurt my head and tummy soon and I can’t help but curse the intelligence of the Incans for not realising the beauty of tunnels. Add to this the inane repetition of Blondie’s “Call Me”, which is apparently the only song the driver has, and I am well and truly ready for our ‘typical’ Peruvian lunch.

That is until I saw the garish orange-clad Pocahontas-esque girl waving us down at our destination. Now I am not sure if it was the clip-on black plaits that she wore, or the looks that she copped from traditionally dressed locals that put me off, but I was not really in the mood to pay 35 soles (AUD$18) for an all-you-can-eat banquet being served to pan flute renditions of the Beatles and Phil Collins. The restaurant next door, with its 8 soles (AUD$4) three course menu was, in my book, much more authentic.

From here we head to our final two destinations – Ollantaytambo, the incomplete gatekeeper town of Machu Picchu and Chinchero, a former Incan town - believed to be the birthplace of the rainbow - transformed by the Spanish when an adobe colonial church was built on its former ruins. I can’t resist bargaining for some carved wooden kitchen tools before scoffing down another choclo and cheese combo, and a meat stick and heading back to the bus. It will be an early start tomorrow, and a few heavy days of walking, with the start with the Inca Jungle Trail and my pilgrimage to Machu Picchu.

Inca 101

Arriving way too early in the morning to check-in, Andy and I are left doing the only thing that a traveller can at 530am: Facebook. A little while later, I feel ready to brave a shower, which luckily is hot, and I head to conquer the bag room, which is stuffed full of backpacks from those already up at Machu Picchu. Knowing that the clock is definitely against me, I head out straight away to check the local scenery and organise my own tour.

Like most of the travellers here, I haven’t booked six months ahead for one of the coveted Inca Trail spots – which only allows 500 people per day a day, including guides - regulated to protect the significance of the ancient path. Instead I must opt for one of the other ‘alternative’ routes that run almost every day of the year. Following on from my recent biking exploits, I am instantly attracted by the four day Inca Jungle Trail that involves a day of mountain biking before two days of hiking, hot springs and a final climb for sunrise over the fallen dynasty.

Figuring I probably need at least a day to sort myself out, I find one such place, which will give me a student discount and keep me safe from the horrors of tenting for only USD$125. I also spy the Sacred Valley tour for the next day, which I think will be a good way to absorb some preliminary Incan history.

I wander further down the hill towards the San Pedro Markets to grab one of their famed juices and trail through the fresh cheese, caviar, chicken soup kitchens and obligatory alpaca goods. Throwing caution to the wind about my baggage allowance, I indulge in some strong coca chocolate - ready for my next role in the States as Aunty Collette – excellent for making fresh hot chocolate.

After here I make my way towards Avenida del Sol to the Cathedral and Convent of Santo Domingo, built on the site of the Incan House of God (Suntar Wasi), their Coricancha Church and the palace of Incan Wiracocha. Here I am amazed at the accuracy of Incan construction – with stones being perfected moulded together in angles, without need for cement or binding. I can fully understand why it took more than 100 years to construct.

Finally it is about time to check-in (the weird booking ‘system’ at Loki’s Hostel means that I basically have to wait for someone to leave before I can get in, despite my reservation), and so I stroll back, stripping down to my t-shirt when the overhead sun starts to burn away the layers of cold I have amassed in the last few weeks. I eventually make it into my room and promptly fall asleep only waking later to confirm my tour in American dollars, and finish my night with a beer and a plate of chips in the Loki’s bar.

Us and Them

(These moments seem to grow in number the longer you are away)

Sitting the next morning on the ferry back to Copacabana I am witness to one of the horrible things about being a visitor in a foreign country. Having almost completed our journey back across, one of the owner’s does the rounds to collect our tickets. But it seems there are a few people aboard who haven’t bought them – a half-Australian, half-American couple and another German couple.

I suddenly remembered pieces of an earlier conversation of theirs where they said they would just try and bluff it back, not having left enough money to pay for the trip. And with no ATMs on the island, and only one that will work today at 230pm in Copacabana, I can’t at least partially understand - we are all out of money. The Danish girls we have been with have been forced to eat tomatoes, cucumber and crackers for three days, with only 10 centavos (5 cents Australian) between them. The English girls have 10 Bolivianos (AUD$5) to last until they get to La Paz tomorrow morning, and I have had to borrow 50 Bolivianos from Andy, just to make it back.

But despite all this, we have all still scrapped enough together to purchase our return tickets (albeit at the doubly-inflated return price of 20 Bolivianos). And now we must listen to the complaints of these others who have chosen to eat well instead of set aside the appropriate cash. So when they started trying to bargain their way back for half the price, I got really annoyed.

You wouldn’t do this back home, I thought, so what makes it any different here? Worst still, I hear one of them exclaim: “It’s only $2, what’s the big deal?” And I can’t help it when my mouth opens to clear the embarrassing air that has settled upon our boat. “It may only be $2 for you, but for him, it’s his livelihood,” I bark back, mustering all the disgust I can in my voice.

And so, despite all my equal moanings about changed prices, dodgy tickets and false information, I somehow knew this was different. It was the attitude of the two couples that really offended me. Clearly they were here just as tourists (talking of renovations plans for when they return, and what holiday they were going to book next), not as travellers. They were exploiting their position as affluent foreigners to make their own rules. They were not accepting the experience as it is – flaws and all. Why did you come here if you are not willing to take it all in? I thought to myself.

Hours later, on the bus again to Puno and I am reading Rolf Potts collection of travel stories - “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There” - struck by the distinction he continually makes between the experiences of the tourist and the traveller. And I realise that even with only eight days to go, I must make a choice to accept whatever this country, and the next, throws at me: stolen credits, wrong information, smelly buses. It is all part of being here, it is all part of being in Bolivia.