DE-lux
Trip Start
Jan 17, 2005
1
35
56
Trip End
Oct 10, 2005
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Machu Picchu, Peru
Friday, July 1, 2005
I met Maureen from Ecuador, her brother (Marty) and sister-in-law (Dina) who were on a brief tour of Ecuador and Peru for the hike. In another of the endless small world experiences I've had here, Marty and Dina went to college with one of my good friends from Portland. This is starting to keep me up at night. Why do all of these coincidences keep happening while travelling? Are they always there, just below the surface, unrecognized? Or is some other force working here? Does the following make perfect sense: on my bus trip to Cuzco from Arequipa, primarily filled with Austrailian youths on a tour, they squeeze on last person on the bus. His previous bus arrived just moments before our bus left, and the only open seat is next to me. This person, Luke, is from North Minneapolis. Back in the day, he spent an evening or two partying in SLP with the hockey team??? He is approximately the same age as my sister and brother in-law (former SLP hockey player)??? I checked on both ends - no name recognition, but still... they had to have crossed paths? So perhaps it is just that when riding on a cramped bus between Arequipa and Cuzco that this seems like such a fantastic coincidence. If I ran into this person in Minneapolis, it wouldn't register?
Oh yes, the Inca Trail.
This was my first experience with a guided hike during my trip (my life?). I wasn't quite sure what I was in for, but when I learned there were 24 porters for our group of 16, I had some indication. There was to be no 40 lb pack (gringos only need carry a day pack with essentials - porters handle the rest). There was to be no pasta a la onion soup (the lowlight of my culinary creations in Patagonia). For three meals a day we had both obscene quality and quantities of food. Plus occasional snack breaks in-between meals. Not going to shed any pounds on this trek!!! And of course, each meal was served to us as we arrived at each designated spot in a large dining tent. All of this meant that the porters were basically sprinting up the trail ahead of the soft gringos getting this whole apparatus assembled (and disassembled post-meal). Serious props to the porters. The typical porter was 5-feet tall or so, wore leather sandals, and carried a 50 lb load in a blanket wrapped around the front of his shoulders. Suddenly the slight sole-delamination problem with my boots didn't seem so significant.
The 4 day hike itself traversed through some amazing terrain covering a wide spectrum of climate zones. The hike starts along the Urubamba River at an elevation of about 2,500 m. The folliage here is scrubby and semi-arid, as the trail follows the river in its steep gorge, with snow-capped 6,000 m peaks visible here and there. The trail slowly climbs to its high point at 'Dead Woman's Pass', at about 4,200 m where only bushy grass grows. After some time between 3,600 and 4,000 m, another pass is crossed and everything becomes overgrown with lush green trees and vines as the moist air coming from the Amazon basin valleys becomes more predominant. The final stretch of the trail drops down to Machu Picchu (2,400 m) through cloud forest which is as close to jungle as I've ever been. And the steepness of the terrain is hard to describe... Its really steep.
Throughout the hike are numerous Inca sites, which become so commonplace that the guide doesn't even explain some of the lesser ones. Our guide... Virgilio. A very nice guy, great sense of humor... but... his descriptions of the meanings behind certain things, who lived there, why, etc., were a bit cryptic. He sort of spoke in riddles. So you kind of understood what each site's purpose was. But you kind of didn't. I thought it was appropriately ambiguous and added to the mystery of it all.
The grand finale of the trek is walking into Machu Picchu as the sun rises. It is truly a spectacular sight. This emmense ruin sits on a ridge that drops off near vertically to the river valley below. It almost looks like Yosemite, except everything is covered lush green. The numbers of buildings and the fitted stonework is stunning as well. From an engineer's perspective, I was trying to figure out how they could assemble this place... my best explaination was lots of slaves. Virgilio said the final polishing and fitting of these stones was done by hand. As in, rubbing the rock smooth with their hands... An example of a head-scratching explaination. If this is true, I'm thinking they went through a lot of hands to get those stones down to size. Imagine being a Incan-laborer being faced with that daily task...
My only complaint with the trip (ignoring the asthetics of camping in an area with 300 other people) was not enough time at Machu Picchu itself, which I didn't really realize until I spent some time on my own at other sites in the Sacred Valley. In retrospect, I could have spent an entire day wandering about the place instead of the couple hours we did. Perhaps the shorter visit adds to the mystery as well. Can't get to analytical with it...
Comments
More time in MP
I know exactly what you mean, I actually spend 2-- half days there, and for me- it wasn't enough. I wish I would have spent more time in Aquas Calientes too.
Read 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho. It may give you sme insight into all the reasons why things happen the way they do-AND why you meet the people you do.
De Donde la Ventana?
MP was pretty amazing. We had a pretty good guide within the ruins and thought that 1 day was enough. Its a pretty busy place. When you get back you can borrow my copy of the Guide to Machu Picchu published by ASCE. A true engineer's presepctive.
A town you really should have stopped in and spent some time would have been Ollantaytambo. A quite village outside of AC with some cool ruins. Much more your speed that AC.
Have fun in Puno!