Just a smile away from happiness

Salkantay trek – the back road to Machu Picchu

07 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment

by jemelikova in Stories from the world and me Tags: Aguas Calientes, hail storm, hidroelectrica, Inka trail, Machu Picchu, Peru, Salkantay trek, Santa Teresa, Veronika Jemelikova, ziplining

Since I was little I dreamt about going to Peru and seeing Machu Picchu, whose images were fascinating me. And here I was. After 9 hour bus ride from Copacabana, Bolivia through Puno, Peru I arrived to Cuzco, the closest city and starting point of most of the trips to Machu Picchu. The bus arrived around 5 am and then I was discovering the city, searching for hostel, with the first rayos del sol. Gorgeous Plaza de Armas deserted and still maintaining the coolness of the night underpinned the quiet beauty of Cathedral and beautiful old buildings surrounding it.

I decided to choose Salkantay as an alternative to Inka trail, which has to be booked many months ahead. Salkantay is available all year around and requires five days of intense trekking to get to Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu.

Day 1.

My alarm clock rings at 4 am. I feel I already got used to waking up so early and I am so excited to start the trek so I almost don’t feel  tired when I’m putting on my backpack and walking out of my hostel. The little bus of tourist agency fills up quickly with all sorts of people from all over the world, US, Spain, Argentina, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark and even Greenland. Three-hour bus ride takes us to tiny village called Molepata at 2800 meters of altitude where we have breakfast of always present bread buns, butter and jam with coca leaf tea to help us with the altitude. We have some 8 hours of walking in front of us to reach the campsite which will be at 3800 meters.

First couple hours lead us through amazing landscape, climbing up beautiful green hills with the most amazing vistas over striking hilltops and valleys. We have lunch in open air and the cook who walks with us leading mules with all the supplies is a real magician when he out of nowhere prepares delicious chicken stakes and even fresh fries made from actual potatoes.

We enjoy the food and sun drying our sweaty t-shirts and then we hit the road again. We couldn’t walk more than 2 hours when out of nowhere it started raining and in couple of minutes hails started massaging our heads. There was nowhere to hide; we just had to keep going. And no matter what producers of soft-shell jackets say about how many millimeters of water the material will survive…. One hail storm is enough to wash all of the commercials away and leave you soaked to your bones.

We have to keep going for two another hour, freezing and wet before we reached our campsite at 3800 m. It was still pouring rain. Luckily the guides managed to set up a shelter and put our tents under, so we weren’t camping in direct rain. I was soaked and cold, so I just changed and crawled in my sleeping bag trembling trying to get warmer. I had cold couple of previous days and this really didn’t make me feel better. But I figured my body under such extreme condition will just mobilize all the energy to survive.  After it stopped raining I went out to see surroundings of the camp and incredible view of snow covered mountain and horses in the fields under it took my breath away.

Day 2.

I thought I would freeze the whole night. But when we finally heard the guides calling us for breakfast and they gave us hot coca tea at 5:30, I suddenly felt much better. Of course none of my clothes dried overnight, so I had to improvise. From now on I understand why hikers always look funny. Trying to protect myself from the morning chills I just put all my dry clothes on.

We had 4 hours of climb up to the elevation of 4600 m where we reach the highest point on this trek. We pass gorgeous river and keep climbing up reaching the altitude where everything is covered in snow. The view is just incredible. After climbing a little more we get under the Salkantay Mountain, which is almost 7000 m. They call it a wild mountain because nobody ever managed to reach its summit, because of its dramatic incline and avalanches. Our guide tells us about ritual local people do because in old days mountains were gods to the Inka people. These were the ones they prayed to and made sacrifices. Our entire group does the ritual of sacrificing three coca leafs to the mountain, while we are saying our wishes.

After this we start to descend. From snow covered peaks we are slowly getting to green fields and jungle vegetation on lower altitude. Finally we reach our campsite sometime after 5pm. There is a little store where they sell soda and even beer, so everybody gets their treat after hard day.

Day 3.

Today we only have to hike some 4 hours to until lunch. When we started hiking out of the campsite at around 6:30 we kept meeting little kids with school bags walking in opposite direction. It turned out the ten families living in the area had to send all their kids to school, which was 2 hour-walk far. So while we were all enjoying beautiful hike, climbing up hills and slipping down through mud, these kids were actually hiking every day for two hours there and two back to get to school and learn.  Only couple of them will make it to high school, because the families have to send their children to bigger city to study and pay for their living expenses and tuition there, so only some families can afford to do that. The reality of this beautiful place, where tourists come to get away from their busy worlds, hit me with all the force. I wondered about some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Usually they are either deserted places who are affected by human presence and tourism and being destroyed by people wanting to see it, or they are amazing places where some people already live, but the beauty of them remains in it’s the remoteness to the outside world, while this remoteness at the same time affects people living there and limits them in developing of their potentials. And you never know what the right thing to do is.  Because development of these places will necessarily lead to partial loss of their unique character and beauty, but would empower people living there. Or places that are being destroyed could be preserved and tourism could be banned there, but this also poses a question about importance of preserving places which nobody is allowed to see. It is hard to tell whether development is the inevitable future and whether it always has to come hand in hand with negative aspects such as pollution, traffic and ugly commercial posters or there is alternative way, which is actually feasible…..

We managed to reach our destination and got an amazing lunch. Then we took the scariest bus drive ever! Not only was the road not wide enough, but the whole area is extremely prone to landslides, so looking out of those little windows of the bus we felt like flying above a river canyon without anything under the wheels. We even had to cross a waterfall. Everybody was excited to survive the ride and get out in our campsite. Tiny town of Santa Teresa was gorgeous. Small plaza surrounded by couple local stores and a restaurant. Little shop was selling bananas for 1 sol per kilo (20 cents) and it felt great to walk on a paved road again, eating my banana.

Our guide kept us telling that this tiny little town has a great nightlife, but it was hard to believe. But after he took us to an actual CLUB, with actual music and people dancing, I couldn’t believe my eyes . Rarely enough there was a dancing pole in the middle of dance floor and all the males decided to try their pole dancing skills. I don’t think I have ever seen anything as funny and disturbing as my Peruvian tour guide spinning around a pole and hanging on it!

Day 4.

We had two options today, four hour hike in the morning and another four hours after lunch or zip lining in the morning and hiking after lunch. I’ve never done zip lining before so I was excited for this option. And even more when a driver took us to this gorgeous valley and we saw the ziplines above our heads crossing from one hill to another. After 20 minute hike up I saw the first line, it was 400m long and some 300m high above the valley. I was more than nervous when the guide hook me up and was about to send me flying. And it was incredible. And with the following lines it was even better. I really think humans were meant to fly. We just lost our wings temporarily and technology and crazy people brought them back to us.

After more than 2 hours of zipping around we had to go back on trek. We drove to Hydroelectrica and started walking along train treks to Aguas Calientes. It felt great walking on flat surface for a while. The moment I walked into the town I knew there is only one thing I want. Hot springs!! Had I known you have to climb trillion of stairs to get to them I might have reevaluated that wish, but it was too late to give up. But soaking my soared feet it hot water was more than rewarding. And after four days I was able to sleep in actual bed and no matter how bad it was it felt like heaven.

Day 5.

Machu Picchu!

There are some rules you have to know before going. There is another mountain apart from Machu Picchu and it’s called Wayana Picchu (this is the mountain you see on every postcard behind the actual Machu Picchu town). There are only 400 people allowed to climb that mountain every day. So if you want to climb up you have to get to the entrance to Machu Picchu as soon as possible, even before it actually opens at 6am because there are people queuing. The first buses from Aguas Calientes are leaving at 5:30, so you want to be there before these arrive as well. So the best and fastest way {but definitely not the easiest) is to hike out Aguas Calientes. In order to be. So here I was, waking up at 3:30 am and leaving hostel at 4 am, for real, no joking involved. Surprisingly there were already people in the streets. Our first met was the bridge to Machu Picchu reserve, which opens every day at 4:50, so we put our headlamps on and hiked out to the darkness. We were meeting other people and some of them were even running! I got to the bridge around 4:30 and I was not even among the first ones and a queue was already forming.  Group of Brazilian tourists chose another approach and pay the guards to let them in early, which did not happen unnoticed and irritated every one of the early birds.  The gate opened after a while and the now it was the stairs. To get to Machu Picchu we had to climb probably hundreds of them. From outside you would see a line of lights making its way up criss-crossing in the darkness of the mountain. The determination did not allow me to slow down, even though I was running out of breath. I got up at 5:30 together with couple of crazy hikers. It was only a little bit after six when I finally got my entrance ticket stamped, which authorized me to climb another hundreds of stairs to Wayana Picchu.

Finally we all entered the town. The sky was still dark and we could only imagine the sun behind the horizon. Machu Picchu was surrounded by clouds and you could feel the mystic air penetrating your skin. After dreaming about it for such a long time, I was there, in the city that once was center of Inka empire. It was perfect. And there were llamas.