Two treks

Uopn arrival at Cusco airport on March 4 we were picked up by a nice chap with Mel´s name (well, Melani Wassylk) on a piece of cardboard. On the way to the hotel he made a startling comment: Machu Picchu would be open on March 15, and would we like to go there? But, we heard it was closed until April 1! Yes, that is the official date, but the Minister of something or other has said it might open earlier, depending upon numerous variables known only to him. Our minds raced: we could go to Arequipa for a few days and return to Cusco to go to MP. Some internet research revealed the truth: Machu Picchu would open on April 1 for sure, and possibly earlier, but more like March 28. I fashioned a voodoo doll of the airport pick up guy from yucca and applied hot pokers to the crotch.

However, the tour company we had previously booked the Inca Trail with assured us that the Lares Valley was extremely beautiful as well, and if we took a three day hike there we could enjoy some other ruins on the fourth day as well. Sold! The party that departed Cusco at 5:30 am on 7/3/2010 was as follows:

The author

The author´s novia de prometido (Melanie)

Jacob and Kay ("My name´s Kay, just like the letter"), Yale graduate students in business and psychology, respectively (cue conversations about the utility of the Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis and the use of symbolism in language [e.g. "he gave me a cold stare" and how that phrase relates to our literal interpretation of feeling cold, as in temperature-wise])

Flavio, enthusiastic and fit guide

Cirilo, heroic cook (see below)

Nine porters (that´s 2.25 each), named Julio, Cesar, Felipe, and I forget the others, except Wilbur whose name stood out for obvious reasons

It was immediately clear that this hike was of the luxurious kind: on the first day after a morning stroll up a gently sloping valley we dined on trout and rice and vegetables several ways, followed by coffee and tea, all consumed at a table next to a bubbling stream while the many staff boiled and cooled water for our afternoon leg. After this we strolled on to a town called Cancha-Cancha, which was actually a small collection of mud brick houses surrounded by meagre hillside crops ("the Incas would laugh at this" said Flavio, pointing out the lack of terracing) and a well maintained football field. The porters played football with the author running around flailing clumsily in an attempt to compete. My lungs burst into flame after the first five yard sprint and I suddenly remembered we were at about 3800m above sea level.

It was on this first evening that Kay revealed her Yale thongs (as in the footwear kind; the differing American and Australian interpretations of this word became acutely and hilariously apparent when Mel said to Kay "you´re kidding aren´t you, you have Yale thongs"!?), to match Jacob´s Yale jacket and visor. I prominently wore my Monash Blues beanie the next three days regardless of temperature (this detail was ignored by Kay and Jacob, or perhaps they have never heard of Monash University or the campus football team; inconceivable!). Dinner was another superb several course feast and we headed to our tents bloated, listening to Kay exclaim wildly at the brightly starlit night. The next day was my birthday, and when entering the small dining room we saw that our hosts had hung streamers and balloons that they presumably always carry just in case, because we only told them it was my birthday the night before. Before we ate breakfast they produced an extraordinarily large cake, superbly iced with my name and "Feliz cumpleaños", that had apparently been baked without the use of an oven (kudos Cirilo!). They sang (non-English speakers mumbled) Happy Birthday and I successfully blew out the candle, which was a match ("I´m very sorry Sam, we forgot the candles" said Flavio sincerely).

That wonderful formality out of the way we continued walking. The scenery was the star this day. There had been a storm during the night, and the ice-capped peaks above the valley rims were noticeably snowier than on the previous afternoon. The morning walk was harder than the previous day, up the valley slope towards a high pass at 4800m. The valley walls were verdant but steep, covered in (low-yielding, one expects) crops, along with alpacas, llamas, and sheep occupying unlikely and precarious positions. Paths cut across the valley walls everywhere, walked by the farm animals and dogs and people, the locals as always effortlessly overtaking us carrying huge loads and driving mobs of livestock. Chilly little streams cascaded down the sides from the glaciers, coming together to create the busy stream on the valley floor. Other valleys appeared and folded into ours, providing beautiful views back down to...mud brick villages and little streams and unusual livestock and glacial peaks. Close to the pass were three lakes on separate plateaus, and from the highest point we farewelled them as we "won" a whole new valley to explore. From there we descended to the magnificent lunch spot near another serene lake. This was to be the hardest part of the trek.

At lunch Flavio disclosed that he had been in the Peruvian army and had been injured by a grenade blast while fighting the Sendero Luminoso terrorists in the 1990´s. Already enjoying his company and respecting his fitness and knowledge we all went a bit quiet, slapped in the face by our ridiculous good fortune to be born in our respective countries.


The rest of the walk proceeded as above; hard in parts but only for fairly brief periods, and mainly just spectacular and beautiful and satisfying and punctuated by our awe at what Cirilo and his buddies presented for meals each day. On the afternoon on the second day we reached the final leg, the Lares valley, where we were promised soothing hot springs. At the cross roads (actually where two valleys met, the cross-valleys?) we stopped near a chicha (corn beer) bar, designated by an long stick protruding from the roof of the building with a red plastic bag attached. Many locals sat around in a festive atmosphere. We were accosted by Alejandro, an eight-year-old (the only personal data our limited Spanish could extract from him) who brazenly stared at us without distraction from about four feet away. His courage was underlined by the sight of two other small children peeking at us from the bar doorway and repeatedly recoiling back into the gloom when we looked over.

The hot springs were superb, the perfect end to our toils. We had a dip before dinner (which was obscenely voluminous) and another after dinner, when Flavio and all the guides joined us. Not Kay and Jacob though, as Kay had washed her hair before dinner, although how this stopped Jacob from swimming again escaped me. The pools were packed with kids, climbing up on each other´s shoulders to wrestle, the duo remaining standing declaring themselves "campeon". Some of the porters couldn´t swim, and senior porter Cesar tried to teach them, placing his hand under their chins to keep them afloat. There was no derision, and everybody seemed to be enjoying everbody else´s company, even when they didn´t seem to know each other. It was a lovely scene.

The final day was spent on buses with visits to Ollantaytambo and Chinchero, towns in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Ollantaytambo in particular was quite spectacular and interesting, with substantial Incan ruins that were not actually all that ruined. It was built of staggeringly large stones, cut precisely and in such a way that no two stones were alike, all of them fitting perfectly together in countless ways with no mortar. This was apparently in part to allow a little movement and prevent collapse in the case of earthquakes. Flavio enthusiastically gave us the history of the place, and the quality of the buildings allowed us to fairly clearly imagine the Incas defending their property against the invading Spaniards coming down the valley, having already sacked Cusco.

We returned to Cusco certain that the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu could not have been any more beautiful or awe-inspiring, and that´s what we´re going to keep telling ourselves. From there we headed to Arequipa, a lovely city (in my opinion, not shared by Mel), whose buildings are made of a nice white stone, called sillar. We toured an interesting monastery and checked out mummies of 14 year old girls sacrificed by the Incas, but we were really there to explore the nearby Colca Canyon, "el cañon mas profundo del mundo" (profundo means deep), one of Peru´s top tourist attractions. We booked in for a two day trek down into the canyon on the eoncouragement of the hostel proprietor, who stated that no one that stayed at his hostel had ever needed to buy a mule for assistance on the hike. Perhaps this could be an ignominious first.

Unfortunately, Colca Canyon, although undeniably profundo, just did not grab us as Lares had. Perhaps it was because:
a) our guide was a limeño (guy from Lima) named Dennis who was a know-all and had an annoying and awkward social style. Example: he hilariously (!?) shook a rickety rope-and-plank bridge we were crossing about one minute after our trekking colleague Louise lost her cool and cried on account of this being the first and hardest (and easiest, although we didn´t point this out) hike she had ever done;
b) as mentioned above, Louise from Denmark was unprepared and required regular rests (every three steps), holding us up very badly and meaning we had to share a dodgy room as a result of being last into camp that evening;
c) it wasn´t clear what made this a canyon and not just another valley. We asked Dennis and he spun a yarn about canyon sides being set at a sharper angle than 70 degress, but was forced to admit that there was no generally accepted canyon definition criteria, and we started to think that canyon had just been chosen because it formed a nice alliterative pair with "Colca". Don´t canyons have vertical sides? Proposed future canyon/valley definiton assessment: Can your average person walk safely down the side of the geographical feature being assessed? a) Yes. b) No. If you answered a, it´s not a canyon. If you answered b, it is.
d) It was dry and barren and just not as beautiful as Lares.
e) We had to get up at 5am on the second day. This acceptable sleep insult was made immense by the drunken fools that lit a fire outside our room at 1:30 am and discussed...nothing frankly, although even from our beds it was obvious that the main theme was the presence of an American girl (who, guess what, had a loud voice) and two English boys who were competing for her affections. While I lay in bed carefully plotting hilarious put-downs based on this situation Dennis (props to Dennis, annoyingness aside) had to ask twice before they shut up.

Anyway, Colca Canyon was redeemed at the Cruz del Condor lookout, where there were many people but also many condors gliding majestically past with their three metre (an estimate) wingspans on awe-inspiring display, close enough so that were you holding a small child you would need to be vigilant to avoid he/she being plucked out of your arms as dinner up in the nest.

The ride back from the canyon was long and the various guides on the bus (several groups shared it) regressed to age eight, hooting as in a haunted house ride when we went through tunnels and giggling inanely. Luckily, the on-bus entertainment was a montage on eighties video clips, and after about an hour of sustained singing along from me everyone else on the bus shut up so we could get some sleep. Well, we except me; how could you sleep with Rick Astley and Van Halen videos on offer?

Note on hazards of blogging: I could add more detail but the girl next to me is talking to her mother on Skype, and the personal data she is disclosing in a voice audible to all in the internet cafe is so astonishing I have to leave. In short, she´s been up to some shenanigans and might have HIV but her biggest concern is her friend who has a Brazilian boyfriend and she is apparently dominating him but this is somehow of great concern (to the speaker´s dad as well apparently) and, oh fuck, goodbye...