A Life Trek

Finding Machu Picchu – Peru – Day 1                                                                 8^th April 2019

I first booked this trek last April 2018 while in backpacking in Cambodia on a strong recommendation of instant ‘friends’ I met in Brisbane Australia in February 2018 of To Travel Too travel website (Jane & Duncan). At that point I had no idea what I was in for. Firstly, my eldest son Scott, had this trek as a #1 must do in his life so without hesitation I made this for him also. He is so connected with the universe and with ancient civilisations so how can I not bring him along. Can you ever think of a better way to share a #1 Life Trek?

Through booking & paying well in advance to Inca Trail Reservations I built my South American journey around the trek along with using the advice of bloggers & Jane & Duncan’s recommendations. Please check out their unbelievable website.

Day 1 of the trek was booked for 8^th April 2019 so with the unknown level of risk to us in regards to High Altitude Sickness it was recommended for at least 4 -7 days prior to acclimatise to this. High Altitude Sickness can affect anyone, any age & any fitness level. With all the variances of my son’s work commitments, Easter break, etc I organised the departure date of leaving Brisbane on 28^th March 2019.

On checking my favourite site Skyscanner for best flights I agreed to the best & cheapest option (I stopped working March 2018, so no income at all since) of a stopover in Auckland NZ & then the 11hr direct flight to Santiago Chile (main Sth American entry point) with a stopover prior to landing in Lima Peru. With the International Dateline situation; we left Brisbane 28^th March & arrived in Lima 28^th March. A 22.5hrs journey of some 5,000klms plus with variances of sleep, 3 or 4 movies, etc. There are more details on this journey in one of my previous blogs.

With our lead-time acclimatisation completed (please refer to my previous blogs) it was a somewhat excited sleepless night with my brain reiterating if all required items and must do’s have been allowed for and completed. We are leaving our larger backpacks within our hotel until our return. We are taking the essentials we were advised upon in our daypacks but trying to keep it below, say 6 kilograms at the most. With my backpack I think I got closer to 7 kilos. Ouch!!! For some reason (camera, etc mostly), my pack was much heavier than Scott’s. Our trek briefing the week prior went for only 10mins and this added to the anxiety of course and continual rethinks of packing, etc.

Finally, the morning had come & we were picked up from our hotel at 5.15am for the van trip to Piscacucho (2,729mts – 8,953ft) at Gate KM82 (82klms from Cusco) via our beloved Ollantaytambo. Thank God we stopped at Olly, as our dinner last night had to be paid in cash which robbed me of precious cash Peruvian Soles (sollees) for incidentals, porters, etc. Luckily, I knew where the atm’s were. Funny, I was not the only one with cash issues.

The company van pulled up right in front of Gate KM82 in a flat area where we were given a quick rundown of the immediate requirements by our Guide, Ronny. Next to our area, our porters were quickly organising their packs of food, tents, tables/ chairs for our journey. They are now monitored to a limit not exceeding 25klgs (including their personal items). OMG!!! That’s heavy & the packs looked so bulky they must weigh even more. We have 9 porters & 1 chef & 3 guides for our group of 11 trekkers. Believe it or not, there are some companies that have female porters however, ours were all males. Our eldest one was 61yrs old so that is a monumental achievement.

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I had pre-paid the hire of our sleeping bags as advised, but now Ronny informs me we must now carry our sleeping bags plus the rubber support mats with our backpacks. We were struggling to even secure our sleeping bags (re-rolled them tighter to fit the strap lengths on our backpacks). Another 2kgs too!! One of the Porters offered to take our mats for 50 Soles so I offered him through Ronny 100 Soles to be fair and both Scott & I will carry our sleeping bags for the first day only while the trek is a little lighter in terrain, so I’m told. This shows to seek all the details and ask questions prior at the company orientation first until they answer them correctly. This added burden was a huge addition for our carrying weight.

There was no time for introductions as this will come later, probably at our first camp. We must organise ourselves, take a group photo & start trekking to match the day timeframes and 12klms kilometres travel to our camp at Wayllabamba (3,000mtrs-9,842ft).

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After the photo our first obstacle was the suspension bridge (some 45mtrs long) over the rapidly flowing Urubamba River. Unbeknown this would be the most enjoyable ‘ride’ we will get for the next 4 days.

Now that we had been in the van for about 1.5hrs and starting to walk across the level suspension bridge some of us could feel the thin air and our breathing became harder. This was the usual shock factor so with proper management for the next 15mins the breathing somewhat normalised. At least until we came to our first decent incline. Out of the group a mature woman, Sue, still much younger than me suffered the same High-Altitude pressures as I, however she was doing longer incline stanzas than me. David, her husband was about a year younger than me and a seasoned trekker, so he was with Sue with the motivational support. The next 4 days he instilled in both of us “One step more is one step closer”. From our briefing the week prior they informed us to wear our thermal underwear due to the coldness and the chances of the weather changing quite often. I soon found out I was intensely hot from the direct sun and thermals made it harder to negotiate the steps involved. Only one other person had thermals on however he had shorts on whereas I had trek long pants. When it came to the end of the day I could not wait to get these thermals off! It was so hot!

The first stop was a bit longer than usual, with Ronny making the conversation of introductions. William was a support guide from another company and another silent guide (no English .. but nodded a lot). Our group consisted of 4 (2 sets of couples) based in Utah (Windi/ Eric, Kirsten/ Lynn (husband), 2 English (David & Sue), Eliza & Bryce from Melbourne Australia, Astrid from Norway (late to book this trek) and Scott & I from the Gold Coast, Australia. 11 in all & 5 of the group seasoned trekkers (The Utah group + David). From the introductions Ronny showed us the tiny parasites growing on the cactus adjacent (mentioned previously in my blogs) where he squashed them in his palm to form a red dye (for clothing, etc). Here, he painted an Inca sign on each of our face cheeks to symbolise our new journey. Mine had the sacred 3 Inca steps signalling the 3 classes of animals and agriculture. Snake the low areas, Puma, the middle areas & The Condor, the higher areas.

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With the next surge forward our guide, Ronny, repeatedly stated we have enough time so make an easy pace. I soon found that Sue & I were always the last to re-join the group at each stop. The problem with this was we had the least amount of respite as the group proceeded on within minutes of our arrival.

The inclines were now getting more intense as we slowly made the progress required to our first camp Wayllabamba. So many respite stops … and this was the so called easy part! My thermals were still giving me grief. So hot! Our porters had already passed our group early into the trek. They passed us at speed to ensure they reached the campsite prior to set up the tents, prepare the kitchen and have Happy Hour in play upon our arrival. We were amazed at the ease in which our porters seemed to climb the inclines. It was beyond belief and some had sandals on, hush puppy footwear .. no hiking boots to see at all.

Our first site was the terraced fields of Llaqtapata 2650mtrs – 8,692ft (5 klms; 2hrs from KM82 start). An amazing spectacle; and to see it from such a height overall. An enormous agricultural site and quite worthy of a substantial time to soak this treasured sight in. Finally, it came to getting the backpack on again .. I think it had gained weight while sitting idle. The trail continues upon klms of rocky passes and steps .. the labour involved in laying these rocks and using the natural rocks into pathways is astounding to say the least. It was comforting when you see a rock wall or ledge for leaning back on or even sitting. Such a relief! We used this excuse especially when other porters from other companies come up from behind. The rule was to stay left towards the mountain and ALWAYS let porters pass without hassle and/ or obstruction as a matter of respect also. Our group was very good at respecting this rule however, we noticed some trekkers were not so we made a point of calling out loud “Porters coming”!

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Scott eventually went ahead with the others and left me with Sue, David and the never-ending sheer inclines of rugged steps winding through passes around mountainous slopes. Are you getting the picture now? Lungs working hard and with legs seemingly getting no strength we inch our way “upstairs” to another respite stop, rest a minute or two then heave again. “One step more is one step closer”.

With each programmed respite stop we were informed slightly by Ronny of what laid ahead and how much further in time was involved which mostly gave us the ‘happy ending’ was getting closer to fruition. At each point of rest I looked at Scott and said “at least you could be puffing .. or sweating!” Looks as cool as a cucumber my Scott. After climbing for 4.5hrs/ 12klms to a height of 3,000mtrs we reached our FIRST campsite at Wayllabamba. Believe it or not, we still made good time apparently. The campsite looked so inviting with our coloured tents all in a row and 2 larger tents adjacent. The porters were in full swing, even with a hot cuppa ready for us, washing bowls at the front of each tent plus sleeping bags & mats placed within each tent ready for us to set up and get ready for Happy Hour in 10mins. Scott & I quickly removed our backpacks and laid out our mats and stretched out .. I think we could have napped also within that 10mins. The air was quite chilled and it was not smart to now remove my thermals. I think it was too cold to smell also.

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Happy Hour entailed, hot popcorn and hot tea. Dinner was not long after where we all couldn’t believe the meals made for us. Scott & I were the only vegetarians so the food was different to the others. Such quality food and presented well by the chef. With dinner over it was the consensus, as every proceeding night, it was straight to bed. Too tired to party on! We had our night torches on for the toilets (Banos) some walks away and for teeth brushing when back at the tents .. no street lights out here! The toilets .. well, they’re different .. very basic and some were porcelain foot pads with a hole into the ground below. Some standard toilet bowls were unpleasant and wishing even for the hole in the ground types at times. Whew!!! Some smells were unbelievable but we all survived … somehow.

Despite the rubber mats under our sleeping bags, sleeping was rather difficult with the mats needing to be thicker plus the sleeping bag zippers were broken and this contributed to being very cold through the night. Both, Scott & I slept in our thermal underwear as the best method to stay warm. No choice otherwise, plus there were no showers until night 3 (cold showers anyway). David & Sue were experiencing some muscle soreness before bed, so I offered them some Magnesium supplement tablets I had, as Day 1 was quite strenuous on the joints and muscles. They thanked me even more the next morning and again later. David had knee support sport braces for his knees. His main worry was the descending coming up on Day 2 & Day 4.

Our sleep was very limited; and it seemed only a few hours long when we could hear the porters waking the trekkers with the wakeup cup of tea and “buenos dias” .. “Good Morning”. We now knew we had just 10mins to repack, get dressed and be ready for the sit-down breakfast in the big tent. Toilet was first; if you were fast.

With our 30 seconds of stretching and saying hello to our muscles we strolled to the big tent for breakfast on Day 2 (Hell Day). It was quite filling and surprising. Obviously, we need the strength to keep the momentum going. I personally found later that eating a big breakfast didn’t worked particularly well for me. Other trekkers soon agreed as we proceeded towards lunch with heavy stomachs. Stay tuned for my next Blog on Hell Day!