So yet another night bus, this time with the warning to bring any sleeping bags and blankets that you had with you...and it was worth it..
Another night spent passing over 4,000m on high Andean altiplano. We awoke to a brilliantly blue sky, and not a cloud in the sky. We passed Lake Titicaca and the blue of the lake stretched as far as we could see, only to be met by the huge expanse of the blue sky. Blue, not blue like blueberry blue, but blue like deep water diving blue, forever blue, pierced only by the looming jagged peaks of the Cordillera Real in Bolivia. Giant snow capped mountains, choked in glaciers seemed so small and miniscule when sandwiched between blue sky and blue lake patties.
Border crossing was somewhat painless, although there was some walking involved and more form filling out.... Justine, has come down with a cold in combination with her aching knee, so as a result patience is at a minimum in the form filling out department (just also spent two hours trying to send another package via mail to Canada...)
La Paz is an unreal site. You cross more high Andean altiplano with nothin but scrub grass, searing sun and snowcapped mountains, and gradually the bus begins to weave through dirt streets and joven pueblos (shanty towns). Suddenly the shanty towns tumble down a step cliff and the deep gorge of La Paz is revealed. La Paz is the world´s highest capital city (3660m) and is built into a giant canyon ( nearly 5km from rim to rim), built into it yes, but more like a giant carpet that fills the entire ravine, climbs all sides and then covers the rim. Hovering high over the city is the giant mountain of Illimani (6402m), choked in snow and visible clearly through towering buildings and rambshackle houses.
The streets are busy and full of life; markets spread all over the city and anything you want can be found on the sidewalk, from empanadas (stuff dough with potatoes, meat and cheese), stretch cord, knee braces, toothpaste, nail clippers, TP, typewriters, armadillos (stuffed), dried llamas fetuses etc. We are staying near the witches market, which although it is smack beside tourist markets, seems to also cater to locals. Llama fetuses, fur pelts, frogs, herbs, and also miniture models of houses, Gods and other idols can be bought in order to heal yourself or to pray to the Pachimama.
We have spent the last couple of days wandering the streets, grazing on all the kinds of food you can get. We enjoyed a wonderful fruit shake for breakfast, made fresh for .25CAD and tossed back a few empanadas with spicy sauce.
We have booked a flight with a military airline to Rurrenabaque. Rurre is only about a 45 min flight, but it is a 19 hour bus ride which can sometimes double in the rainy season. Coupled with that, you must also take the ¨World´s Most Danerous Highway¨if you are going by bus. So we decided to drop the 100CAD for a flight to Rurre. Only thing is, if it is raining in Rurre the flight will not go because it is only a dirt airfield. Our flight should leave on Friday... here´s hoping..
Tomorrow will be another chill day, possibly with a visit to the zoo and the Valle de la Luna (erroded valley of canyons and pinnacles about 10km from La Paz).
Once you get used to the bustle of life here it is really quite enjoyable. Pushing your way through crowds, eating when and where you want and finding anything your heart desires all in the open, sunny air; once you emerse yourself into all of this, life in the World´s Highest Capital can be alright.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Inka Trail to Machu Picchu: Doin' the Inka Trail Hip Hop with the rest of the RAT RACE
So we made it, although some would say, barely. We hobbled and we hopped, we walked and we ran, we bullied and we almost pushed our way through the trail, past the clouded-in Sun Gate and to the mystical lost city of Machu Picchu.
We booked the cheapest tour we could find in Cusco, so we were kind of wondering exactly what we would be getting as we left Cusco at 6am with 7 other gringos, 4 porters, a cook and two guides. We took a mini van to Ollantaytambo, weaving through misty rolling mountains and stopping to buy walking sticks and breakfast. We decided to splurge on walking sticks (bambo sticks with a woven top cover and strap for your hand), which worked out to be a good idea (more on that later). From there it was a dirt road weaving across train tracks and farmland to the trailhead at KM82.
Instead of leaving right away, stoves and a table were taken out and we were served spaghetti and soup with tea... looking like saving $200 ea would be alright. We got our tickets, passed our first check point and started out on the trail. The first day started by crossing the River Urubamba and mostly wove through semi/arid terrain and farm land. We passed a few ruins below in the valley, some recently restored, but with some nice examples of Inkan terracing.
Our first night was spent at the campground of Wayllabamba. This is definitely rainy season and the first day was spent navigating through rain patches and sun. Rain at night, although not too much, left the air damp as we started out on the second day.
We lost an older couple, one of which had heart surgery a few years back and they turned around, after finding the first day of some minor uphills a little difficult. The second day included an elevation gain of over 1,000 vertical metres, followed immediately by a descent of that much. All was well for the first couple of hours of the asscent, as it was somewhat tiresome at over 3000m above sea level, but being acclimatised definitely feels good now.... anyway all was well until two rocks planted themselves firmly around Justine's ankle and combined with rain and a freak raincoat accident, Justine was left with a knee that had dislocated then relocated itself in a rather painful manner. Not much more will be said about this incident, except for the fact that walking was a bit of an issue after this point, which is why it was quite fortuitous that we bought walking sticks....
So from here there was still about 500m climb on what was now the old Inka trail of rocks and rock steps. Now don't you worry, the climbing actually turned out to be a hell of a lot easier than descending and Justine was soon hobbling her way past all the others on the trail who were weezing their way to the top of Dead Woman's Pass at 4,250m. Then the fun began as we descending into the misty clouds, down, down, down to our second campsite at Pacaymu. This took forever, and just about all those weezers on the way up flew by us on the way down.. but we damn well made it.
Interlude: Machu Picchu itself was rediscovered in 1911 after being forgotten by most except for a few farmers for hundreds of years. After it was rediscovered it was eventually cleaned up and as the years progressed with its fame it became a HUGE tourist attraction. There are two ways of reaching Machu Picchu, either via the Inka Trail or via the Tourist town of Aguas Calientes and then by bus up the mountain. The Inka Trail became such a meca because not only do you traverse an old Inka road and many old Inkan ruins, but approach the city of Machu Picchu from a the fabled sun gate. Consequently through the 1980's a lot of people were using the trial and it was becoming heavily degraded with people's usual nasty garbage and general disrespect. As a result a few years ago the Peruvian government stepped in and heavily sanctioned the trail. You are no longer able to hike solo the trail, but must go in a guided group. Porters are limited in the weight they can carry and so on and so forth. Now only 500 people (including porters, guides and cooks) can enter the trail each day. That is still a hell of a lot of people per day, imagine what it was like before....(The Inka trail is usually in a state of being fully booked from May-Sept).
Anyway back to the trail...
So now there are washrooms instead of just people doing their thing wherever whenever, and of course our campsite was one of the farthest away from the washrooms (about a 1.5min walk... this took Justine 10mins). The campsite is beautiful, nestled between mountains and overlooking a steep valley down to cloudforest and snowcapped mountains.
After another night of rain most people in our group woke up wet (except us...somehow), although we woke up to clear skies. We were soon on our way trudging upwards, once again Justine making mince meat out of most people on the uphill. We stopped to take in the ruins of Runkuraqay on the way up, then down, down, up, up to the ruins at Sayacmarca, down, down, up, down, down, down, down past the ruins at Puypatamarca and on to the ruins at WinayWayna and our campsite for the third night. The day was spent mostly hiking through jungle like conditions and cloudforest, and once again rain thrown in for good measure. Despite it all, and given our early start times we were always some of the first people at the ruins, and they are beautiful to see sitting high in the mountains surrounded by cloud, mist and tropical forest. It is also fun to watch the different group dynamics as some people are clearly there to check MACHU-PICCHU, MACHU-PICCHU off the list (say it with them, like some half crazed, pumped up, frat football team) as they run the trail in parts, and glaze past ruins.
The last campsite is basically a big party where the porters and cook try to smooze you into a tip with one nice last meal.. and their are beers to buy and hot showers to pay for and of course a stereo system pumping. Despite all that, it was an early night for us with another attempt at icing the knee with cold water in an MSR bladder and given that we had to be up at 4am. We went to bed in a tent with the fly already plastered wet to the inside of the tent, leaking from the top and sitting immediately in a spill way of water coming down from the hill above. We trenched and hoped for the best and given it poured most of the night, still ended up only slightly damp.
We booked the cheapest tour we could find in Cusco, so we were kind of wondering exactly what we would be getting as we left Cusco at 6am with 7 other gringos, 4 porters, a cook and two guides. We took a mini van to Ollantaytambo, weaving through misty rolling mountains and stopping to buy walking sticks and breakfast. We decided to splurge on walking sticks (bambo sticks with a woven top cover and strap for your hand), which worked out to be a good idea (more on that later). From there it was a dirt road weaving across train tracks and farmland to the trailhead at KM82.
Instead of leaving right away, stoves and a table were taken out and we were served spaghetti and soup with tea... looking like saving $200 ea would be alright. We got our tickets, passed our first check point and started out on the trail. The first day started by crossing the River Urubamba and mostly wove through semi/arid terrain and farm land. We passed a few ruins below in the valley, some recently restored, but with some nice examples of Inkan terracing.
Our first night was spent at the campground of Wayllabamba. This is definitely rainy season and the first day was spent navigating through rain patches and sun. Rain at night, although not too much, left the air damp as we started out on the second day.
We lost an older couple, one of which had heart surgery a few years back and they turned around, after finding the first day of some minor uphills a little difficult. The second day included an elevation gain of over 1,000 vertical metres, followed immediately by a descent of that much. All was well for the first couple of hours of the asscent, as it was somewhat tiresome at over 3000m above sea level, but being acclimatised definitely feels good now.... anyway all was well until two rocks planted themselves firmly around Justine's ankle and combined with rain and a freak raincoat accident, Justine was left with a knee that had dislocated then relocated itself in a rather painful manner. Not much more will be said about this incident, except for the fact that walking was a bit of an issue after this point, which is why it was quite fortuitous that we bought walking sticks....
So from here there was still about 500m climb on what was now the old Inka trail of rocks and rock steps. Now don't you worry, the climbing actually turned out to be a hell of a lot easier than descending and Justine was soon hobbling her way past all the others on the trail who were weezing their way to the top of Dead Woman's Pass at 4,250m. Then the fun began as we descending into the misty clouds, down, down, down to our second campsite at Pacaymu. This took forever, and just about all those weezers on the way up flew by us on the way down.. but we damn well made it.
Interlude: Machu Picchu itself was rediscovered in 1911 after being forgotten by most except for a few farmers for hundreds of years. After it was rediscovered it was eventually cleaned up and as the years progressed with its fame it became a HUGE tourist attraction. There are two ways of reaching Machu Picchu, either via the Inka Trail or via the Tourist town of Aguas Calientes and then by bus up the mountain. The Inka Trail became such a meca because not only do you traverse an old Inka road and many old Inkan ruins, but approach the city of Machu Picchu from a the fabled sun gate. Consequently through the 1980's a lot of people were using the trial and it was becoming heavily degraded with people's usual nasty garbage and general disrespect. As a result a few years ago the Peruvian government stepped in and heavily sanctioned the trail. You are no longer able to hike solo the trail, but must go in a guided group. Porters are limited in the weight they can carry and so on and so forth. Now only 500 people (including porters, guides and cooks) can enter the trail each day. That is still a hell of a lot of people per day, imagine what it was like before....(The Inka trail is usually in a state of being fully booked from May-Sept).
Anyway back to the trail...
So now there are washrooms instead of just people doing their thing wherever whenever, and of course our campsite was one of the farthest away from the washrooms (about a 1.5min walk... this took Justine 10mins). The campsite is beautiful, nestled between mountains and overlooking a steep valley down to cloudforest and snowcapped mountains.
After another night of rain most people in our group woke up wet (except us...somehow), although we woke up to clear skies. We were soon on our way trudging upwards, once again Justine making mince meat out of most people on the uphill. We stopped to take in the ruins of Runkuraqay on the way up, then down, down, up, up to the ruins at Sayacmarca, down, down, up, down, down, down, down past the ruins at Puypatamarca and on to the ruins at WinayWayna and our campsite for the third night. The day was spent mostly hiking through jungle like conditions and cloudforest, and once again rain thrown in for good measure. Despite it all, and given our early start times we were always some of the first people at the ruins, and they are beautiful to see sitting high in the mountains surrounded by cloud, mist and tropical forest. It is also fun to watch the different group dynamics as some people are clearly there to check MACHU-PICCHU, MACHU-PICCHU off the list (say it with them, like some half crazed, pumped up, frat football team) as they run the trail in parts, and glaze past ruins.
The last campsite is basically a big party where the porters and cook try to smooze you into a tip with one nice last meal.. and their are beers to buy and hot showers to pay for and of course a stereo system pumping. Despite all that, it was an early night for us with another attempt at icing the knee with cold water in an MSR bladder and given that we had to be up at 4am. We went to bed in a tent with the fly already plastered wet to the inside of the tent, leaking from the top and sitting immediately in a spill way of water coming down from the hill above. We trenched and hoped for the best and given it poured most of the night, still ended up only slightly damp.
Interlude: Lets just say a quick something about porters. They are amazing. Most of them hike the entire trail in sandals made out of recycled tires. Most of them do not have proper packs or gear and their pack consists of a few bags wrapped around their sholders supporting their up to 20kg loads (the most they are allowed the carry). They have to carry their own gear, and will often have to sleep on the ground in the cook tents once the gringos have called it an evening. They often run the trail, and infact there is an annual race in September where the record time for running the trail is 3hours and 45min (The entire trail to Macchu Picchu is just under 45km in distance with much vertical gain and loss!!). See porters resting below.
Back to the trail...
We were up and in line for the check point at 5am... we were still about 3 or 4 groups back at that point and the checkpoint didn't open until 5:30am. In the meantime Justine popped a few Advils and anit-inflammatories as our guide wrapped her knee up....Then we passed the checkpoint and the RACE WAS ON. People were running, people were fast-walking, people were pushy and rude, passing, cutting off, not letting people by...It was a RAT RACE which we are disgustedly delighted to say we took part of...... it was raining, it was misty.. the trail passes steep drop offs and more jungle on its way to the Sun Gate.....And of course Justine and Chris led the way on our group.. determined not to let any more people pass them and to hopefully pass a few more on their way.....
Being among the first 10 or so people to rat race their way to the Sun Gate, only to find it was more like the Cloud Gate.... no view of Machu Picchu to be found, it was socked right in....So we hobbled and hopped down to Machu Picchu and explored the ruins in the fog and mist wondering why our guide was telling us to get photos now, even though it might clear later. .... Oh but we found out...
After our guided tour we climbed up the terracing (let us tell you the terracing is out of this world, climbing steep hillsides, so beautiful and practical to see) and waited as the clouds slowly but surely lifted more and more.... and as the clouds slowly lifted the tourists trickled in with every cloud that left....And we all waited, waited, waited for our prized Machu Picchu classic shot... But Oh was it worth it.
Seeing the city perched in the clouds, high above towering cliffs and jungle is a sight in itself that cannot be forgotten. No wonder the tourists come, Machu Picchu is beautiful. Fresh and green from the rain, its terraces spill down the steep mountain faces to cliff drop offs. Temples and old buildings sit silently and with reflection beneath soaring mountain peaks and cliffs covered in lush green jungle. Mind you, soon the site was not only bathed in green of plants, but the red, yellow, blue of ponchos and tourist coats... You have to be artful, you have to be cunning if you want the shots without the tourists, and most of all you have to be lucky. You have to out race the best of them on the trail, and then be lucky enough for it to be clear, to get your shots... and even then the check point on the trial opens at 530am and the trail takes about 40min-60min to fast walk to the Sun Gate..... and they start letting people in to Machu Picchu at 6am.. so even if you race.. they are racing up from below....
We spent what time we could exploring, chasing llamas through the ruins (there for the tourist photos) and taking pictures of other smiling couples wanting their prized classic shot, and of course attempting to block other people out of our classic shot... and then when we had had our fill of ignorance (people seem to think that just because you are given the privaledge of being allowed to pretty much roam the ruins that they can walk all over them, and scramble the walls and otherwise be disrespectful) we hiked down the hour plus to Aguas Calientes, for once in our lives, pretty much tired of hiking downhill.
It was a Rat Race alright, but when you see Machu Picchu for a split second it all makes sense.
We were up and in line for the check point at 5am... we were still about 3 or 4 groups back at that point and the checkpoint didn't open until 5:30am. In the meantime Justine popped a few Advils and anit-inflammatories as our guide wrapped her knee up....Then we passed the checkpoint and the RACE WAS ON. People were running, people were fast-walking, people were pushy and rude, passing, cutting off, not letting people by...It was a RAT RACE which we are disgustedly delighted to say we took part of...... it was raining, it was misty.. the trail passes steep drop offs and more jungle on its way to the Sun Gate.....And of course Justine and Chris led the way on our group.. determined not to let any more people pass them and to hopefully pass a few more on their way.....
Being among the first 10 or so people to rat race their way to the Sun Gate, only to find it was more like the Cloud Gate.... no view of Machu Picchu to be found, it was socked right in....So we hobbled and hopped down to Machu Picchu and explored the ruins in the fog and mist wondering why our guide was telling us to get photos now, even though it might clear later. .... Oh but we found out...
After our guided tour we climbed up the terracing (let us tell you the terracing is out of this world, climbing steep hillsides, so beautiful and practical to see) and waited as the clouds slowly but surely lifted more and more.... and as the clouds slowly lifted the tourists trickled in with every cloud that left....And we all waited, waited, waited for our prized Machu Picchu classic shot... But Oh was it worth it.
Seeing the city perched in the clouds, high above towering cliffs and jungle is a sight in itself that cannot be forgotten. No wonder the tourists come, Machu Picchu is beautiful. Fresh and green from the rain, its terraces spill down the steep mountain faces to cliff drop offs. Temples and old buildings sit silently and with reflection beneath soaring mountain peaks and cliffs covered in lush green jungle. Mind you, soon the site was not only bathed in green of plants, but the red, yellow, blue of ponchos and tourist coats... You have to be artful, you have to be cunning if you want the shots without the tourists, and most of all you have to be lucky. You have to out race the best of them on the trail, and then be lucky enough for it to be clear, to get your shots... and even then the check point on the trial opens at 530am and the trail takes about 40min-60min to fast walk to the Sun Gate..... and they start letting people in to Machu Picchu at 6am.. so even if you race.. they are racing up from below....
We spent what time we could exploring, chasing llamas through the ruins (there for the tourist photos) and taking pictures of other smiling couples wanting their prized classic shot, and of course attempting to block other people out of our classic shot... and then when we had had our fill of ignorance (people seem to think that just because you are given the privaledge of being allowed to pretty much roam the ruins that they can walk all over them, and scramble the walls and otherwise be disrespectful) we hiked down the hour plus to Aguas Calientes, for once in our lives, pretty much tired of hiking downhill.
It was a Rat Race alright, but when you see Machu Picchu for a split second it all makes sense.
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