my, did there run many gallons of water through the amazon since the last time i gave you an update. Wi-fi reception seems to be fairly poor above 3000 m. for some reason. So here goes my update for the past 9 days. (I am btw writing this at an internet café, and that countdown clock is freaking me out, so for those who care about more details; you will have to ask for them later.)
September 14th
After one more night at Loki, i was set for hotel prisma and my first meeting with the group. Mr. cool guide Edwin held his first briefing at 5 this afternoon, which contained all the information we needed about the trail, and some more. From the options of renting walking sticks and/or an extra inflatable mattress, i chose to go only for the mattress, as i´ve never understood the point of the sticks. After packing no more than 6 (3,5) kgs into my duffle bag, i went bak to the Loki hostel to see if i could find my camera which apparently went missing somewhere between the ho(s)tels. Was it there? No. It was definately gone/stolen. Now, you guys are left with the low-quality pics from my phone. Too bad.
After one last game of pool and a set of good-byes, i went back to prisma for some sleep. The next days tour to the sacred valley required a 6:30 get-up the next morning, which turned out to be a comfortable sleep-in compared to the forthcoming days.
September 15th
We left Prisma with the most of our luggage and very few hours of sleep to hit the sacred valley. But first and foremost; the market, at which we met the alpacas, the lamas, and the locals who knew how to color their wool naturally and make blankets out of them. Some of us also learned that the effect of showing off their iphones or giving out their candy to the local kids, is not very different from the one you achieve by feeding the pigeons in the park.
After the short tour of this market, i purchased my first bag of coca leaves. They would turn out to have a magnificent (placebo) effect! Well, the lama convention was over. Off to the sacred valley.
Edwins speeches at the first of (very) many inka archeological sites were as always informative. The main plot included terraces with various purposes and the formation of people in the mountains and steps. A lot of steps. You could easily tell that he´d been doing this for five years. The day was concluded at the "pre-inkan" restaurant "the blue puppy", and i had already started to learn some of the names, which had to mean this was a good group.
September 16th - Day 1 of the trek
After waking up at 6, a bus took us to the starting point of the trek. The duffle bags were handed over to our porters, who were going to carry 25 kgs each over 40 kms (as opposed to earlier times, when the same number would be up to 50 kgs.)
After the 1st (out of 4) checkpoint stamp in our passport, we began to walk this popular trail which would take us to the first campsite after about 11 kms. The weather was real good before lunch. During our lunch, however, we were left hoping that the raingods would give in. But nothing could save us from the Grand Poncho premiere, which luckily didn´t last for long. At 4 pm, we arrived at the campsite. 6 red tents were lined up on the upper part, and our dining tent at the lower. That pretty much concludes the day 1 story. We were all trying to prepare for the wrath of day two. The whole in the ground they called toilet with a doghouse built around it was certainly a major motivation factor.
September 17th - day 2 (12 km)
A 5 am wake-up, followed by a ruthless start to day 2; the 1200 meter climb from 3300 m. to 4500 taking us up through the so-called dead-womans pass, started immediately with some killer steps. And the end of this elevation was totally gut-wrenching; once you could spot the end, it wasn´t the end after all, which happened twice before finally reaching the highest point of the inka trail at 4515 meters. After this, we started the 600 meter descent to the 2nd campsite. I was dead. A totally exhausting day. The rest was all about eating, having tea, eating some more, and compose a song to be sang for our porters the next day. Fortunately, our tent was soundproof..
September 18th - day 3 (17 km)
The longest day in terms of distance also started at 5 with the usual coca tea wake-up at 5. At 6:30 we started with a 300 m. elevation, upon which Edwin gave a speech about the dead womans pass, and how we could see her formation in the mountains across the valley. From there, the day 3 was all about our own speeches about "the tree of love" and "the cave of fertility" (don´t ask). And after lunch, for some reason, some of us came to notice a tall, german guy (from this point on only referred to as action man) with shorts, knee-socks, an orange poncho and of course, to tie the image off; the orange raincover for his backpack. While the other, exhausted members of his group were having their snickers bars and gatorades, he was busy running around on the surrounding cliffs, posing for whoever would wanna take a picture.
So, down we went after some laughs of this guy, to complete the day three. Some of us went ahead of the others, knowing that we after a while would reach a "fork" giving us two options; to take the long way and see the nice view in case of good weather, or the short way in case of something else. At this point, we had become fairly accustomed to the fact that the porters could run down the steepest descents without blinking. But after about a ten-minute walk, there was also another guy who wanted to take the running challenge. Who else than ACTION MAN! The discovery of this guy instantly became obsession.
Shortly before arrival at the 3rd and last campsite, we met action man, who replied our appreciation with a humble "i know", before posing with us for a decent photo.
The 3rd campsite was not at all as cold as the 2nd one. the jumper got a well-deserved break from my not so flower-smelling body. This was also the last day with our very nice and helpful porters, and it was time to sing our beautiful piece of art made to the tune of Bon Jovis "Living on a prayer". The performance was well-received, and you could certainly not put a finger on Daniels air-guitar solo.
September 19th - day 4
It was action time. My bell rang at 0350, ten minutes before the wake-up, without coca-tea this time. There was no time for anything but a quick session of agua caliente and breakfast. During the breakfast, we were all of course curious about whether the rain would stop before we started to walk towards the sun gate and Machu Picchu. "Probably not", was all Edwin could say. It actually stopped, however, during our waiting for the last checkpoint. The control guy had overslept, so we were actually quite dry when upon arrival to the sun gate two hours later. But the fog had struck the whole area like a big wet sponge, and our only comfort was that it still remained 5 hours till we had to leave the area. At the end of our guided tour through the city, most of the clouds had left the building with the fog, and our free-time walk to the inka bridge was almost sunny.
Well, there was no battery left in our cameras, so there was nothing else for us to do but to get our last checpoint stamp and catch a most-needed beer or three at the machu picchu bar. On our way home to Cusco we went for lunch at restaurant "Patchamama" (where else).
The last night with the gang was legendary and included a 3-course dinner and a visit to the irish bar, followed by a whole night of dancing (on the bar desk).
Since this, ive had two very nice busrides with a very nice 24-hour visit to Lima in the middle of them. This city certainly proved every bad rumour wrong. The 16th century Franciscan monastry and Dunkin Donuts were some of the highlights. Right now, i am finishing of my daylong visit to Piura; a little but very charming town in the far northwest of Peru. In about an hour, my bus will leave for Guayaquil, Ecuador. Noone knows what will happen next:)
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar