Brisbane to Barcelona: Peru

Monday 16th - Thursday 26th May 2011

After our mad voyage into Cusco, we took it pretty easy on Tuesday and didn't do too much except book the Salkantay trek for the next day, check out the main plaza and play Sapo in the courtyard of our hostel.

On Wednesday we were told we'd be picked up between 5 and 5:30am so in true South American style, it was 6:45 before anyone showed up. We were driven to Mollepata where we had breakfast and started walking. The first day wasn't heaps exciting, we walked along a road through farming country, but it was good training for the next day. The highlight was finding and trying some locally made chicha (like a non-fizzy beer made from corn). We arrived at our campsite around 5pm, had dinner and went to bed early because we were 3800m above sea level and it was freezing! Kitty (despite having a -10 degree sleeping bag) even woke herself up from shivering in the middle of the night because it was so cold.

Our first amazing mountain view - Nevado Umantay

Cow

Walking up the road

Our road and the valley below

Dog with a view

Pretty waterfall on the road

Another pretty waterfall

Kitty, walking stick and Umantay

Pretty flower

Nearly there! River crossing close to camp

The next morning we got up early and started our trek up to the highest point - the pass between Nevado Salkantay and Nevado Umantay. It was an 800m climb from camp to 4,600m where we made an offering to Pachamama with coca leaves and chicha. From this point it was all down hill, getting warmer and lusher the further we went down. We arrived at camp around 4pm and had a relaxed evening of card games and a few drinks.

Morning view of Nevado Salkantay

River next to our camp

Before the big climb

It was so cold icicles formed in the running water

Climbing up to the pass

Highest point of the trek!

Lawrie drinking chicha at the top (Pachamama got some first!)

Umantay in the background

The path down

Lawrie defying gravity

View of our group resting from the top of a big rock that
Lawrie climbed

River and mountains

Day 3 of the trek was pretty easy, we only walked for about 9km, most of which was on a road because the trail had been washed out due to heavy rains earlier in the year. We had lunch at Playa and Lawrie learned a new game that involves throwing a knife at the ground and then caught a bus the last 20km to Santa Maria, where we camped for the night. In the afternoon we went to the local hotsprings. We were pretty lucky because they had only just been reopened - the rains that washed out the trail also flooded the river and washed away the baths and playing fields. We had a bonfire that night and a good nights sleep because the temperature was nice and it didn't rain.

Another nice river

Walking on the road

The water is racing

Incredibly sturdy bridge

Kitty made friends with the pig

and the dog

Lawrie and a waterfall

Crossing the landslide

Knife game

We had a pretty lazy start to the day on Day 4 and caught a bus at around 10:00 to Hídroelectrica where we walked for 3 hours along an old inca trail that now has train tracks on it to Aguas Calientes, where we booked into our hostel and went searching for some food. Aguas Calientes is a nice enough town, it's clean and quaint and has a beautiful river but its only reason for being is to funnel tours to Machu Picchu and for this reason is incredibly expensive. We ordered a small plate of fries and it cost us like $5. Having only been out of Bolivia for a week, this was a shock to the system. We decided to spend the afternoon at the thermal baths in Aguas but they we man made and not very nice so we didn't spend very long there. We had a few drinks and dinner in the evening before heading to bed early because we had to get up at 3:30 the next morning to go to Machu Picchu.

The group in front of a railway bridge

River

We left our hostel at 4:00am on the morning of Day 5 and walked to the bridge that is the entrance to the walking trail up to Machu Picchu and waited until it was opened at 4:50am. Then we walked up what seemed like one million stairs for 45 minutes without stopping until we reached the entrance to Machu Picchu just after 5:30. We then had to wait until the gates opened at 6am to get our ticket stamped to go up Huayna Picchu and get inside the complex.

Machu Picchu is absolutely breathtaking. The location on top of a hill is vertigo inspiring and the quality of the stonework should put modern builders to shame. Everything is level and measured and fits perfectly and was built without the use of modern technology. We spent 1.5 hours going around with our guide and then we wandered around until 10am when we got to climb Huayna Picchu, another 45 minutes of step climbing! Huayna Picchu is another 400m above the main ruins and Kitty really did get vertigo at the top. That said, the view was amazing and we got some great gravity defying shots.

When we first got there

Carved stone used for sacrifices

The lawnmowing service

The main gate into the city

Inside the main gate

Typical street

View down to the temple of the three windows

View down to the schools

View back up to the watchtower

Nearly all the city - Huayna Picchu behind the clouds

Another typical street

Another view to the schools

Terraces

More terraces

Lawrie and the city

Incredible stonework

Amazing joinery

Outside of the temple of the sun

Inside of the temple of the sun - they've built
the building around the native stone and
incorporated it

Huayna Picchu

View from the top of Huayna Picchu

A closer view

Kitty at the top

Lawrie contemplating the world

Stairs built into the terraces

Lawrie and Fabian at the edge of the world

Lawrie at the highest point

After we climbed back down all those stairs, we walked to the Inca Bridge, which is one of the other entrances to Machu Picchu (the others being from Aguas Calientes and the Classic Inca Trail). After Machu Picchu was deserted in the early 1500s, the site and the roads into it disintegrated until it was rediscovered in 1911. The Classic Inca Trail was able to be rebuilt but because those crazy Incas built the Inca Bridge road into a vertical cliff, it is too dangerous to attempt to repair.

The classic view of Machu Picchu, with Huayna Picchu in
the background

Mum and baby

Freaky...

Inca Bridge

Close up

View to trail on the other side

Lawrie on a rock

After about 8 hours at the site, we headed back into Aguas and had lunch in the market, a few beers in the plaza and caught the train back to Cusco.

We took the next day easy and caught up with Mark, who we met on the Salar de Uyuni trip, and had a traditional Peruvian dinner where Lawrie ate cuy (guinea pig), much to Kitty and Mark's disgust.

On Monday we did a city tour where we went to the Qoricancha, Cusco's holy place, and toured around the local ruins. Our first stop was Saqsaywaman (sounds kinds like 'sexy woman', which is a little ironic considering it was basically a monastery), then we went to Q'enqo - a shrine to Pachamama - and Tambo Machay - a shrine with a cool fountain.

Saqsaywaman - the stones are HUGE

Lawrie in picture for scale

Cool post heads

View of Cusco from Saqsaywaman

Main Plaza of Cusco

Kitty at Q'enqo

On Tuesday we went to the Sacred Valley. We stopped at an artisan market where Lawrie bought some playing cards with pre-colombian erotic pottery on them, then went to the ruins at Pisaq, which were beautiful, the ruins at Ollantaytambo and finally Chinchero where we saw a presentation on how the alpaca wool is dyed and turned into textiles and looked at the colonial church, which was built on the foundation of an incan temple much like the Qoricancha.