Lo Hicimos

Horses in Salkantay Range

For those of you who haven´t watched Dora the Explorer, Lo Hicimos = we did it (i.e. the most physically demanding part of our trip - our approx. 30 mile Andes trek). I should first note that Peruvians are obsessed with women´s volleyball. I expected to see lots of soccer pride, but the ¨Voley¨ craze was a bit surprising. They currently have 2 teams playing internationally - one for women and one for teenagers. The games are broadcast live (women from a tournament in Miami and girls from one in Thailand) and are on in every shop, restaurant, and business. Apparently Peru is quite good in voley and quite bad in soccer, which explains the craze. On the news they even interview the families of the girls and show where they live. Pretty fun to watch the games!

View from our tent at 1st campsite

We left at 5:30 a.m. on the 5th for our 5 day trek in the Andes. Sonya barely slept the night before because, 1) she was afraid we´d miss our alarm to wake up, and 2) she kept having crazy dreams that Christine and/or Cristina was planting drugs in her pirate board game, which then led her to be arrested by firefighters. Don´t ask me...

We drove about 5 hours out of Cusco, stopping for some supplies along the way. We were accompanied by our guide and our cook. Literally just OUR guide and cook, since we were the only 2 people in the tour group. The drive took us up up up, mostly on a slow dirt road. Sonya amazed me as usual with her sleeping abilities and slept in the van whilst her head bobbed back and forth with the giant potholes. We went to a small town (Mollepata) where Sonya bought a wood walking stick that was custom fit for her (cut to her height). Then we drove a bit more to our starting place.

At our starting point we met our horseman (Gomersindo - a soft spoken 67 year old man who never stopped smiling). He and the horses kindly took our packs so we could walk the 4-ish hours to our first camp. That camp was just at the base of some huge glaciers on Mt. Salkantay, with views of many other large Andes mountains. Sonya took a nap while I hiked up an additional few hundred feet with our cook. He literally ran up the hill of boulders while my lungs were on fire (not apparent in my king of the mountain pic to left). Every foot up there seemed to be less and less air to breathe! There were great views of Salkantay and our campsite from the top, though.

At night it got very very cold. We layered on almost all the clothes we had, including gloves, scarves, and alpaca wool hats, and we were still a bit chilly in our down sleeping bags. See our sleeping wardrobe gettup below. That made for some light sleep, and we were woken up by our cook with ¨wake up tea¨ (coca leaf tea in this case). The top of our tent was covered in a layer of ice when we got out. That next day, we hiked to the highest pass of our trek at 15,345 feet! The air was quite thin, but we felt pretty good and the views were amazing. We were above the clouds and surrounded by glaciers that seemed very close.

We then walked downhill into the rainforest, stripping off layers as we went. Unfortunately, with the more comfortable temperatures came biting bugs. Not the usual mosquitos, but smaller bugs that leave a tiny hole on your skin still bleeding when they finish their meal. Sonya´s 98% strength deet came in handy. To pass the time, we compared holidays with our guide with only a bit of confusion. He kept telling Sonya that they have lots of ¨Spanish Moses¨ around Christmas in Peru, and Sonya was trying to figure how Moses might be Spanish and what he has to do with Christmas. Later our guide pointed out the Spanish moSSes that hang from the trees in the rainforest, which Peruvians dress their houses with.

That night we camped up above the junction of 2 rivers that eventually drain into the Amazon and the Atlantic. We got to see the glacier ice melting into the streams, which then turned into rivers, and it´s crazy to think how far that melted water will travel and all the places it will go before getting to the Atlantic ocean. In the 3rd day we continued downhill through the rainforest with lots of nice flowers and butterflies along the path. We passed some tiny villages and also some ¨Shopping Centers¨ that consisted of tiny shacks along the trail that sell water, gatorade, and snacks.

Sunrise Over Mt. Salkantay

There was a bit of a kink in the plans when we got to our planned campsite. It turned out that the train workers were striking the following day, and we were relying on the train to take us part of our way that day. We decided with our guide to change our route to make it less intense, since in addition to whatever other hiking we did we would now have to walk the train tracks with our pack instead of taking the train. We were able, instead to go to the hot springs of Santa Teresa, though, which were very nice and relaxing.

That night we went out for some drinks with our guide and cook and learned the rules for drinking in Peru (they were very strict). You must clink your glasses before every sip, and no one person can refill their glass from the bottle until everyone has finished their glass. Apparently that´s supposed to make sure that everyone drinks the same amount or something. Sonya kept forgetting and would sip her drink casually, which would cause the guide and cook to force her to clink glasses so we all would drink!

We stayed in a huge congregation of tents with lots of other gringos from other tour groups. That was not the original plan for camping that night and was not ideal, but the strike had forced some changes. The campground also housed a couple pet monkeys that Sonya could take pictures of and try to feed.

The next day was less than spectacular. Walking on the train tracks was a bit annoying, especially with our big pack. We didn´t want to take all our stuff on the trek, so we compiled our two small packs into one medium sized pack. Unfortunately that pack was a bit heavier that we would prefer to carry and the weather on that section was very hot. T-shirts and shorts and we were still sweating - quite the change from Salkantay! We also realized that ¨casi¨ (almost) for our guide means about 1-3 hours. So when we were ¨almost there¨ at any point in our trek, we had learned to expect quite bit more time and exercise. This day had plenty of ¨almosts¨ and somewhat dubious time estimates, so it was a bit tough on the feet and blisters.

We made it to Aguas Calientes, though, where we stayed in a hostal and got a good sleep. We saw Machu Picchu today, so perhaps we can post some pictures from that as well soon. The trains are running again, so we leave Aguas Calientes this evening for Cusco and beyond. The trek was a real challenge, especially at high altitude, but it was fun!

Me hiking the tracks with our pack