We spent New Years day relaxing mostly, drinking fresh juice concoctions, and preparing for our 4-day trek to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. We woke up around 7 the next morning and got in a little tourist bus with a big bike rack on top and drove for a few hours.
Eventually they let us out and we had some lunch. The vegetarian lunch consisted of a banana, a fiber cookie, some chocolate, a Sunny Delight type fruit drink, and a ham sandwich on dry white bread with a measly processed cheese slice. After ¨lunch¨ we boarded our rickety bikes of questionable quality and ill-fitting helmets in the misty drizzle and headed down the mountain. We rode for several hours on combinations of paved road and dirt roads, dodging pot holes along the way. We rode through small villages and past fruit trees and several nice vistas. There were several places where the road was a momentary river due to the overflow of water coming off the mountain and running across the road. I developed a method of riding across these rivers very slowly and with my feet nearly on top of the handlebars in order to maintain dry feet. Mike did not request my secret to crossing the rivers until nearly the end, thus, he had wet feet and I did not. 60km (that`s 37 miles!)and many hours later we arrived at our destination. The hostel we arrived at didn`t look very nice and there ended up being too many people to fit in all the rooms. Since we had inquired earlier about a private room we were taken to a second hostel that was much much nicer than the first, had a small garden area with palm trees, and a ceiling in the bedroom at was open to the fresh air. Our vegetarian dinners of french fries, steamed vegetables and rice, were luckily more edible than our breakfasts...especially supplemented by our mangos bought from a little lady with a stand in the street.
We began hiking in the morning and over the next 48 hours trekked around 40km (24 miles) including a portion of the inca trail. The hike varied in difficulty and it was definitely challenging at times. I was very thankful for the mountain life I had in Ecuador and know that I would have been in rough shape had I not had the conditioning from living there. I was very impressed with Mike because he hiked the whole thing carrying the larger backpack with both of our stuff in it mearly the entire way, and he didn`t complain. I had a smalled messenger bag on that held water, my cameras, and our emergency food supply of very expensive granola-type stuff, corn nuts, and peanuts and raisins, and lots and lots of grapes. I got severly bitten on my legs by these tiny little bugs. The caused different reactions in different people. Some of the bites pussed and blistered, mine caused some sort of swelling and inflamation in my legs that caused fire to shoot up to my knees every time I stood or moved after resting for a moment. I was worried about my ability to hike to the ruins in the morning so I went to the pharmacy at Mike`s urging, and got some topical something rather which I am not sure helped at all or not.
The final morning we woke up at about 4:30am and began the final hike to the ruins so that we could arrive at the gates at 6am, just around sunrise when the park opened. To get to the top of the mountain the ruins were built upon it involved climbing up several hundred awkwardly sized stairs some 600 or 800 meters until the top. We made the climb nearly running and completed it in about an hour. It was quite chilly at the top and we could see snow-capped mountains in the distance. The clouds rolled up the mountain for a few moments but then cleared and made way for the sun.
The ruins, though mostly reconstructed, were impressive and the stonework on the Incas is unlike any I have seen at any other ancient site. The cuts and fit of the rocks were incredibly precise. We spent some time visiting the different areas of the city and learning about aspects of Incan life from our guide, but I was so tired I found it hard to concentrate most of the time. We rested for a bit and then decided that we hadn`t put our bodies through enough rigor in the past few days and that we would regret it if we didn´t also climb Wayna Picchu (the big towering rock the dominates the background of most pictures of the ancient city). The climb was a very steep 360 meters above Machu Picchu. Some of the stairs were so narrow that I literally climbed them like a ladder using my hands because giant feet like mine did not exist in the time of the Incas. Our bodies were unhappy with us, but we heard the view from the top was spectacular and we knew we would regret it if we didn`t make it to the top.
Eventually, we slowly and painfully made our way all the way back down the tiny tiny steep steps of Wayna Picchu and all the way back through the ancient city of Macchu Picchu, and all the way back down the big awkward steps of the mountain, and all the way back to the town to Aguas Caliente and ultimately caught the train back to Cusco.
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