Friday, November 28, 2003

Things never go to plan do they? First we had the dog bite and then Richard came down with a chronic bout of food poisoning, stomach cramps et al...meaning that we`ve just finished our 2 days at Machu Picchu without H & R.

So off we headed at 6am to be greeted by Ruben, our guide, and the rest of our group. This time our group was a great bunch and consisted of:
Paul (or Pablo) a San Franciscan
Kris from Belgium who is about 12 feet tall and weighs about a stone
and sisters Emma and Jacqui from England (siblings not nuns) who are sitting just to my left right now so I can`t write anything bad about them....only joking! They are both lovely, one of them taking a year out the other taking about 3 months out.

Unfortunately as soon as we were together we were apart as we were all on different carriages on the train. We settled down for the 4 hour trip into the sacred valley and beyond, but only a few minutes in I had another seriously misjudged Cornwell moment. You know when train food comes whizzing by on that trolley and your mind flicks back to Philip Larkin and his bad pie, well I chose a bad sandwich and regretted it for the next 6/7 hours, more of that later.

We started our Inca trail at KM104, missing the two really high passes (4,200m, and 3,900m - you do these on the full 4-day trail) but still with 14km to trek in a day. The climb of over 600m wasn`t accurately reported in the agents when we booked and it proved to be a bit of a pain. Ruben started off by telling us his life story and to start with I couldn`t tell if he was just a bit of a nutter who wanted us to feel sorry for him to get a tip. I soon realised, however, that I had misjudged him and he was (and indeed still is...) an exceptionally informative guide, who maybe overenthuses on occasion.

So we started, the first half of our day was all uphill to Winay Wayna - the hostal where the 4-day trekkers and some of the 2-day trekkers stay. It was a hard walk with the sun beating down on us. Halfway up I felt really ill, presumably due to the sandwich, and genuinely thought about stopping and turning round at one point, but Ruben (and Jen) kept me going by persuading me to stop more regularly, and just generally geeing me up. We eventually made it to the hostal, via a cooling waterfall, now knowing we were only about 1 1/2 hours from the Sun Gate, the first time you get to see Machu Picchu . Feeling much better we made short work of the first hour or so and reached the bottom of the climb to the Sun Gate. The climb is 15 minutes of pure uphill via a seemingly endless number of steps. It`s as iff the Inca`s wanted to heighten the tension you are already feeling as you know as you climb the final stair and round the corner you will finally see the sacred site of Machu Picchu. Now I am pretty sure I have written about this before but some things we`ve been to see have lived up to or exceeded our expectations (Angkor, The Great Wall, Uluru, The Moreno Glacier) and others have fallen woefully short (The Floating Markets, and the Colca Canyon to name but 2!), but none have affected me like Machu Picchu did. As I climbed the final stair and rounded the corner there it was in front of me. My emotions got the better of me, and finally viewing this almost unreal city, some 2,500m up in the middle of the jungle, after the hardest day`s walking I`d ever done, after reading about it for so long, after seeing the pictures on TV and on thousands of postcards I shed a tear...a mixture of relief that the trek was over, and joy at one of the most amazing sights I think anyone could ever witness.

Just as we stood there admiring the whole area (we still had an extra half hour climb down to the site itself) it srtaed raining and we got the most beautiful double rainbow. The rainbow was sacred to the Inca`s and was a great sign, and it was so fitting that not one, but two should greet our arrival at their sacred city.

So we took the slippery walk down to the Hut of the Caretake of the Funery Rock, where all the postcard shots are taken from. It was clear that the rain had scared most tourists off as there were only 2 people left that we could see, and a half dozen llamas. Incidentally llamas got their name from when the Spanish arrived and having never seen llama before asked the Quechua speaking Inca`s `Como se llama` (what is the name) and the Inca`s mused `llama, llama` as they didn`t speak Spanish. The Spanish thought thanks very much and named it the `llama`!

We spent half an hour taking tons of pictures before heading to our bus, tired but utterly elated.

When we got back there was just time for tea (average) and internet (slow), before bed (welcome).

Today we were up at sparrow`s fart again (5.30am) and made our way to Machu Picchu for a guided tour of the site by Ruben. He has learned all he knows from numerous books on MP but also from the Quechua people, from whom he is descended. This meant we got alot of info that may or may not be 100% accurate, but it sounded fesable, and certainly added another dimension to the speculation from various anthropologists. In 1533 the Spanish reached the Sacred Valley and it is thought the men from MP left to help the fight but with no food reaching MP from the valley there became a serious food shortage. MP was then abandoned in favour of other sites, Villacobamba (100km NW, and ironically the site Hiram Bingham was searching for when he stumbled upon MP) for one. MP itself was discovered by locals in 1901 and Bingham used their help in re-discovering the overgrown site 10 years later. The complete excavation took some 37 years.

After Ruben left with a generous tip in his pocket (and he deserved every penny) we tried to find shelter from the rain and eventually emerged as the sun shone once again. We took more photos before heading back to Aguas Clientes where I am writing this from.

The choice on how to `do` MP seems a really logical and easy one for me. Do you a) walk 45kms over some stupidly high passes, getting soaked when the tents leak, and possibly if you are very unlucky, altitude sickness, only to arrive at MP at 6am with it covered in cloud...or do you b) walk a tough but demanded 14kms, still see all the scenery preceeding the site itself, enter the site when the cloud has generally lifted and have the site to yourself, and then have a guided tour and the best part of a day to see the area at your leisure. Oh and pay 100 USD less...? For me there`s not really a choice to be made. I think the thing with the trail is that there`s a hell of alot of bravado, last night at the hostal the 4-dayers didn`t speak to us, obviously believing we weren`t worthy, as we hadn`t had to suffer like they had...I always thought they called it using your head. Now finally, and we`re shamed to say it, but as the mist stayed around MP for most of the morning and the 4-dayers saw little or nothing we couldn`t help but feel at least a little smug.

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