Happy Birthday Pachamamma!!

My posts for Peru are not in chronological order!!!!! (oh no!)

This is because of our epic four day trek to Machu Pichu... and the 5 days it took me to recover from it!

We went with a company called Peru treks - we booked it way back in March - as they strictly control who gets into the national park now and the permits run out super quick.

I was a bit concerned because not only was it the most expensive thing we were doing on this trip, but we had had to do a huge circle round peru to get to it on time including the afore mentions 20 hours of pukey bus.

We were in a group of sixteen - us, two lovely irish girls who were doing a round the world trip and then a family of twelve from champagne illinois - which made quite a change from the traveller types we had been hanging out with up to then. Luckily everyone got on really well.

The stars of the show were the peru trek staff though. Our two guides, Elistan and Raulito, were really nice, very attentive and so enthusiastic! we felt so looked after right from the start. They even took the edge of the 5am starts by providing 'tent service' - a hot drink of your choice served to you while you still snug in your sleeping bag.

 

And the food! oh my god the food! three course meals for lunch and dinner - with the most amazing attention to detail - they even baked a cake for PJ's birthday! a cake! at 4000 metres above sea level! in a tent! the mind boggles.

So we did three days of walking - the first day was pretty easy - Elistan would stop off every so often to explain a ruin or the inka uses of a particular plant and we ended the day with flambéed bananas so that was lovely.

I had been told that the second day was going to be the hardest - it was basically 8 hours of walking uphill to a mountain pass 4200 meters asl. It was pretty tough - but Elistan had shown us how to chew coca leaves to help with the altitude. They really did help - it was like having a slow release caffeine drip. Dermot skipped up to the top first (then the two irish girls, then me)
In fairness though, the american group had brought double what we had - about 10 kilos each for the guys (the majority of which appeared to be beef jerky). And one girl was really struggling with the altitude. I was really impressed she made it - i dont think i would have.

The second day was also when we all realised how incredible our porters were. There were nineteen porters in the group, and between them they had to carry all our food, tents, tables, cooking equipment etc - and they are literally skipping up the mountain in front of you to set up the next camp! the law now states that they cant carry more than 25kilos each - but the bags are still the size of dermot! Apparently it wasnt so long ago that they were carrying double that. we were introduced to them all formally at lunch time, they ranged from 20 to 47 in age. We had paid extra to go with this specific company, because they were very clear about paying their employees properly. They had also created a kind of trust fund, which goes towards educating the porters children. Although they get a living wage working for Peru treks, its not the kind of job you can do forever and they will need a family which can support them once they have retired. Elistan, who was a porter while he studied his degree, says that he thinks his knees have about 5 years left before he will have to change jobs, and he cant be much older than me.

So we were in bed pretty early that night. Then the third day happened - another 10 hours of walking - my thighs felt they were on fire within the first 10 minutes! Luckily it was also the day with the most beautiful scenery too. And as we entered the amazon cloud forest i was able to indulge my new photographic hobby - moss!

 Plus we were given an extra treat at lunch when a romantic llama couple decided to er...... (see photo) directly in front of our lunch tent, much to the amusement of us and the group of high school students in the campsite next to ours. 

Naturally, we all felt bouyed by the experience, and i think it helped me survive the 'gringo killers' that were to come next. turns out down hill is more difficult than uphill. WTF.

 The fact is that the trek we do is not entirely the real inka trail as much of the 'royal pass' that we follow has been destroyed.  Anyway, the inkas were sensible enough to find flat paths through the mountains. Instead, the peruvian government has designated a route and 'paved' part of it. unfortunately the paving is not there to help you - it works against you - but to preserve the path during the landslides and floodings that inundate this area during the rainy season.

In fact, there are still plenty of inka trails - and inka ruins - still to be discovered in that area. which is a bit crazy, since there are 500 people treking through it every day in high season, and god knows how many archeologists around. In fact, Elistan disappeared for the second half of the third day to follow a new inca trail that had only been discovered last month!

Im currently reading a book on Peruvian archeology called Cochineal red. Its amazing to think that the vast majority of the archealogical disoveries that have been made in this country have happened only in the last 10 years. And that in every direction we looked as we passed into the beginning of the amazon cloud forest there could be a inka or pre-inka city still hiding right under our noses.

The third day also coincided with Pachamammas birthday. Pachamamma is mother earth and is still worshipped amongst many of the indigenous cultures in south america. Albeit many have mixed this beleif with catholicism insome form or other. Elistan lead us in an offering ceremony to pachamamma and Apus the male mountain god. It was difficult to work out on what level theguides followed this religion - but Elistan explained that for him Pachamamma makes sense as it isfrom the earth that we get food and ultimately everything we need. At any rate it seems that pachamamma really likes chocolate as we had clear skies throughout the trip (almost unheard of this close to rainy season) and we saw a condor - which is very rare these days - and a rainbow!. We finished the third day at the most beautiful site of the whole trek - inka farming terraces that look out over the valley. then i collapsed into my sleeping bag.

My only complaint about the trek was the state of the toilets. Oh. My. I thought we had seen the worst in Cuba, but these were ridonkulous. This unfortunatly resulted in many people choosing to use the 'inka toilet' (the great outdoors) with disasterous results.

On the last day we were up at 4am to allow the porters to pack up and run for their train. (the company is owned by a gringo who only lets them catch the 5:15 train - all the others are kept for tourists).

We then had to wait about in the dark to be allowed to enter the actual machu pichu site. unfortunately the coca leaves had meant niether me nor dermot had had very good sleep over the past couple of nights. so when dermot discovered that he had unfortunately put his bag in someone's inka toilet, neither of us were in a particularly good mental state to deal with it. Nevertheless - no way were we going to let some bastards unsanitary habits prevent me from seeing machu pichu hit by the first rays of light - so we doused the bag in hand sanitiser and practically ran the hour walk to the mirador. It was stunning, although i do worry that for dermot the edge had been taken of the experience.

We then marched on the machu pichu itself for cheesy photos and a guided tour by elistan. Although the tour was brilliant, i have to admit that i dont think it was the best way to see machu pichu itself. We were exhausted and dirty and all i could think about was having a shower. So after the tour we took the bus down to agua caliente to experience the natural hot springs.

ah........... it was lovely. Especially when we realised that if you waved your arms in the air a man dressed as a native (north) american would come and serve you cocktails in the pool!

Sangria, hot tub, mountain view and dark side of the moon playing over the sound system. mmmmmmm.

We are extreme.

I woke up this morning to the sound of military music. I was drifting in and out to the sounds of marching bands, national anthems and loudspeakers for quite a while before I started to focus on what was being said... All I could pick out were the words "war" "Ecuador" "patriotism" and "brother".     Suddenly I was wide awake... Oh god they've started another war with Ecuador. 

I got out of bed to look out of the window, half expecting to see a tank roll past. There was a man in army combats with a backpack fitted with a loudspeaker. At first I just thought he was just a nut case but it turns out he was selling DVDs of the various wars that Peru has had with its neighbours and with itself. Very much a relief but still a strange way to start the day. 

We're currently in huaraz, a very ugly city in a very beautiful place. High in the cordillera blanch mountain range, we are here to do a bit of trekking And mountain biking and soaking up our last bit of Peruvian culture. Its probably not very fair to complain about the architecture as Huaraz was flattened by an earthquake in the seventies, and probably several times before that since the conquistadores turned up. I do find it strange that the more tectonically unstable the place, the flimsier the architecture becomes. the Inkas would not have approved.

 The mountain biking was a great success - although my hands ceased up after using the brakes so much - turns out downhill is actually harder the uphill. We had a great guide called Julio who spoke perfect English. Dermot took to it like a fish to water and our guide was able to take us down some amazing single tracks. Probably a bit adventurous for me as I've only been on an adult bike about five times but it was really fun. Especially as our track was blocked every so often by the occasional cow, donkey or pig. And we were regularly chased down the road by dogs - Julios advice was to kick them to death if they came too close - A: thats a bit strong; theyre only defending thier territory and B: highly unlikely as I was having enough trouble balancing as it was.

We managed to avoid the dogs but dermot turned into a all you can eat buffet for the mozies so we are deeting it up tomorrow for the trek.

We are also going to visit one of the tiny farming communities in the hills. We have both been a bit wary of these kind of tourist ventures, as I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or a bad thing for the communities themselves. But I feel like I should go and see for myself instead of dismissing it outright. 

 

Before huaraz we were in Trujillo, a city in the coastal desert. We had heard that you can do sandboarding in Peru - usually in NASCA which we aren't able to get to, so we decided to have a go while we were still in the desert. I had heard things about quads driving you up the mountain - and the picture on the flyer had a guy with full boots and bindings - ha! 

We got into a taxi with our tutor - who turned out to be a porter at the hotel. They took us out of town and through the sugar plantations to a farm. We paid the farmer two soles to walk through his lands to the dunes where we were presented with two chipboard planks with some cloth straps bolted on and told to walk up the huge dune in fronts of us! Luckily our guide was nice and the scenery was fantastic so we didn't mind too much. From the top you could really appreciate the wonders of irrigation - a lush valley surrounded by dunes. The sandboarding was essentially sledging while standing up - good fun really - although we got sand EVERYWHERE and I spent most of the time on my bum.

After about five goes I point blank refused to walk back up the dune, so we went back. Our tutor suddenly started climbing up a tree and came back with what looked like a giant bean pod which turned out to be guava. I don't know what I thought guava looked like but it wasn't that! Tasty though.