Day 10

Day 10 Ollantaytambo to Inca Trail

This is the day that we have been looking forward to for weeks if not months or years.  After an early breakfast we packed up and board our bus for the Inca Trail trek.  Our tour guide, Paula, could not stay with us on the trail because every spot had been taken; our local guide, Marcelino, along with Jaco, a chef, an assistant chef and 21 porters would take us to Machu Picchu.  We started out on a paved road and after a few km veered left onto a dirt road.  At the veer off point we saw a road block where the guards were checking cars for coca.  Apparently coca is grown on the eastern slopes of the Andes and its transport westward is supposedly prevented by road blocks on the trans-Andean roads.  Nevertheless, coca leaves are served everywhere- in the hotels at the self-serve hot drink stations near the front desk, in restaurants and at all meals on the Inca Trail.  It’s treated as just another one of the herbal teas; it’s reputed to be a stimulant that is best not ingested before bedtime but no one in our tour group reported any feeling of stimulation.

Not long after, we arrived at km 82, Piskacuchu, to start our trek.  This involved getting our trail passes, and showing them plus our passports to the control gate, followed by the usual group photograph under the trail sign.  The trail started by immediately crossing the Urubamba River, which was running high and muddy at this time of year; it’s the end of the rainy season and the land is moist and the vegetation lush.  The trail climbs gently along the left side of the river through really mixed vegetation; along with various trees, shrubs and grasses were quite a lot of prickly pear cacti.  They had plenty of pears, many of which appeared to be ripe.  The elevation at Piskacuchu is 2650 m and the trail climbed gently to our first camp site at Wayllabamba, which is only 3000 m.  Nevertheless, the altitude plus a respiratory problem but I developed in Lima a few days earlier and something I ate that stirred up my gastrointestinal tract all conspired to drain my energy.  That night Dr. Mom suggested that I try taking the ciprofloxacin that I had brought to control my cough which had apparently gotten worse.  To this I added our altitude drug, acetazolamide (aka Diamox).  They worked because I started to feel better and got stronger overnight.

Our group.  Guide- Marcelino, assistant guide- Jaco, and 16 of us tourists being-
the Norwegians- Steiner (undertaker) and his sons Kristean (teacher) & Oyvind (doctor), Roulf and his son Earik,
Tam (arbourist) and Elizabeth Australians on their honeymoon,
Astrid (Aussie) and Peter both engineers from England,
Cecilia a Swede who commutes to Denmark to work at a big pharma,
Fletch (Gavin) and Dean (accountant) from South Africa,
Hanna (lawyer) and Jason (teacher) from England.

    That afternoon K, O, E, P, F & D made up a team and played soccer against in a seemingly random grouping of guides and local teams.  They played amazingly well especially considering the way that I felt.  They played and lost 2 games by one goal after leading early in the games; you could see their energy level drop about half to a third of the way through because of the altitude.  I was puffing just walking over to the small sandy soccer field.

    On our arrival at camp, we were given juice to drink, and then asked to select our tent, from the many that the porters had already set up.  The porters had all our tents set up on our arrival at camp and all we had to do was pick a tent for the rest of our trek.  Most other people had rented sleeping bags and thicker sleeping pads from Gap; our tent had regular full length closed cell foam sleeping pads, and we used our own summer weight bags.  Sleeping was quite comfortable although we tended to slide toward the door due to a gentle slope of the ground beneath.  The campsites are located on terraces build during the Inca Empire.  We were brought warm water in blue plastic basins with biodegradable soap and paper towels.  When we closed the fly, we could wash quite well.  At this point we knew that we would end the hike on the dirty side but nearly as smelly as we had imagined.  We were given lunch soon after arrival, and then had snack at 5.  Dinner (6:30) that night was trout plus vegetables and starch; a big part of the Peruvian mountain diet is rice and potatoes.  There was some form of dessert after every dinner.  The food overall was excellent especially when you consider that it was prepared under camping conditions.  We took our meals in a tent that accommodated all of us, including M & J, along a central table sitting on plastic stools.

Day 8 Puno to Lima

Today we left our hotel in Puno by a nice bus that took us to the bus station.  My thought was that we should have stayed on that bus because is was quite comfortable and the public bus was not going to as good.  Was I ever wrong!  Susie and I got the front right seats of the upper deck in seats that were very comfortable and spacious.  The backs reclined a long way and there were lower leg rests not just foot rests.  This was the best bus that we have ever ridden in.  We followed the altiplano, high plain, for hours then climbed a mountain pass before dropping into Cusco, where we were met by a Gap bus and taken to the Cusco Plaza Hotel.  Our room was very nice.  We spent about an hour or so in downtown Cusco picking up some insect repellent and exchanged some Canadian dollars for Peruvian currency, Soles.  The exchange rate for C$ was better than for $US.  After a nice dinner, we packed the duffel bags that we would take on the Machu Picchu trek, and left the rest of our clothes etc in our travel bags that would be left at this hotel to be picked up after the trek.  We are down to bare essential now.  Our weight limit is 6 kg/person including our sleeping bags.  Since we have had some practice in travelling light, we were well under our limits.

Lake Titikaka

Susie in Lima

We flew from Lima to Puno via Cuzco which took a whole day.  On our
arrival in Puno, Gramie and Boppa got altitude sickness.  We had
headaches, upset stomachs and more.  During the briefing by our tour
guide, Gramie had to go back to our room.  Sleeping the first night at
high altitude was tough; there were times when we thought that we
might not be able to handle the next day's boat ride.  Nevertheless we
managed and got a great visit to Taquile Island.  The people there are
amazing.  The land is rocky and steep, but they still manage to live a
decent life and feed themselves well.  The island has no crime, no
unemployment and no hungry people.  Through their cooperation they
managed to build their town hall which has lots of glass in two
months.  All the materials were carried up from the lake by hand or

At Floating Islands

Lake Titicaca from Taquile Island

donkey.  They now have cell phones and cable TV.

That night we were taken to Luquitos for a home stay; our hosts were a
mother and 12 year-old son.  The father was away working.  We were
given a display of traditional dancing, and also got to participate.
Part of the show was us being dressed in very colourful traditional
costume.  We had quinoa soup and tota, fried bread.

The next morning we boated to the floating islands where the "land" is
made of reeds as are the houses and boats.

Peru Trip 2011

Leaving Kingston

 

We took the Megabus (a double decker bus) from Kingston at 8:15 a.m. to Scarborough and stopped to visit Auntie Eiko.  Then we took the Go Bus to the airport and left Toronto at 5:35 p.m.  We arrived in Lima at 1:30 a.m. and then made our way to the hotel.  After breakfast we walked north above the beach for over an hour then walked down to the beach and then south on the beach for about 2 hours.  The ocean and beaches are beautiful.  Later we had an authentic Peruvian meal in a very small cafe- good soup followed by chicken, beans and rice.  After our afternoon nap we walked to downtown Miraflores.  Tomorrow we will visit the older central part of Lima.

 

My computer will not work with the hotel WiFi so I am not sending pictures today.

 

 On the way back, we stopped to rest in Kennedy Park where we started talking with a couple of locals, who wanted to practice their English.  We talked to them for over 2 hours.  There was also a small musical group who sang Andean folk songs for about an hour.  It was really fun talking with the local people.  Lima has been very interesting but we are ready for the mountains.

 

Today we started out with a beach walk again, this time to the south.  We walked through a fish market where a local gentleman talked to us about all the fish, and the fact that they owned a fish restaurant nearby.  After that we walked to the top of a hill nearby that had the 12 stages of the cross and a planetarium.  After getting back to our hotel, we had a nice nap before heading out to the craft market; Boppa bought a Peruvian toque.

 

 

Tomorrow we will fly to Puno.