I’ve never gone trekking before. Not the nine hours a day, cross-a-mountain-range sort of trekking. I’ve never done backcountry camping. Only car camping, where my sister sets up the tent, while I decide which tree to pee behind. I don’t own hiking shoes or a daypack or a breathable raincoat or a sleeping bag. None of those things made sense in Bangladesh where I’d been living for the past two years. I don’t have those hip ripstop trekking pants that zip into shorts. Only jeans with holes in the bum that I reluctantly had patched after my father forbade me to leave the house thus attired. I’ve had knee surgeries on both knees, and these been inexplicably stiff for weeks. I don’t do well in high altitude, as recently proved in Bolivia’s alien surreal salt flats. I hate the cold.
So what’s the first thing I do after landing up in Cuzco, Peru? Sign up for a five-day/four-night trek to Machu Picchu: two days of hiking up and down snowy Salkantay mountain (4,600m at its highest trail point), two days of wandering through the Peruvian jungle, and the last day spent climbing up to and touring the newest named wonder of the world, the spectacular sky high lost city of the Incas: Machu Picchu.
Bright idea, no? Por supuesto. More than bright. It was brilliant. Really. Despite what the Oracle was telling me. All this after I got to Peru via the worst bus ride ever. 10 soles ($3.25) earned me seven hours on a rickety, marginally upholstered bus from Bolivia to the oldest city in South America, the first Inca city, Cuzco. Fifteen minutes into the trip, the engine stalled and the bus started sliding backwards. Our driver slammed on the emergency brakes and steered us backwards-sideways to the kerb. An hour of petrol filling and other mysterious mechanical work got us heaving forward again.
Two hours in, 10 large-hipped screaming Peruvian women swept past me to bang on the driver’s door to let them out. He unwillingly opened the door and the bus immediately filled with smoke. It seemed the engine was on fire. I grabbed my laptop and joined the rest of the passengers standing in the scrubby Peruvian desert. The driver doused the fire with water from a petrol station across the road. I took this opportunity to pee behind a scrub. Then, amazingly, we all reboarded the bus.
From this point onwards, every time we stopped (which appeared to be every 10 minutes), a crowd of small thin men would gather around our engine for an hour and discuss its state, while another crowd of small thin boys would heave sacks larger than themselves onto our already towering bus roof. Of course, this is nothing new if you’re from Asia. Maybe that’s why I arrived in Cuzco (only one hour late!) totally well rested. I am ever grateful for my ability to sleep under any condition, no matter how dangerous or unstable.
Twenty-four hours later, I was marching on my first trek, alongside 10 intrepid travellers from Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, France and, of course, Israel. I think it would be fair to say that Israelis get around. I don’t know if it’s their mandatory military service that drives their nubile 20-nothing-year-olds into months, nay years of travel, but they’re catching up with those gypsy Australians in wanderlust bragging rights.
The ‘classic’ Inca trail to Machu Picchu is 33km long and takes four days and three nights to traverse. If you can get on it, that is. It’s booked solid, months in advance. In an effort to manage burgeoning tourist demands (1,000 visitors a day to Machu Picchu in the high season) and to contain environmental damage, the Peruvian government has levied heavy taxes and restricted the number of trekkers on the classic trail. Despite this, the classic trail is overcrowded and, of course, madly expensive. Like $500 (minimum) expensive — if you have your own sleeping bag and carry your own bags. Otherwise, it’s more. (Note to the less adventurous: you need not trek to get to Machu Picchu. There are (pricey) trains from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes from where a bus will take 45 jaw-dropping awesome minutes to Machu Picchu.)
If your budget is less robust, or perhaps you decide you want to do a trek the day before you arrive in Cuzco (ahem), then your best bet is one of the ‘alternative treks’ which boast solitary Inca trails (there are many many others), pack horses to carry your bags, rented sleeping bags, and half the price tag of the classic package. And if you’re up for an intense, high altitude, sometimes freezing, difficult, beautiful, tremendously varied five-day-long walk, well then, Salkantay is the trek for you.
Six hours into our first day, I decided I was not a trekker. I was not only exhausted, but worse: I was bored. There was icy Salkantay looming ever larger before us (our first camp site would be at its base). Did I care? No. I was cold and hungry. Taking photographs only left me further behind the disappearing pack. Four more days of this?
By nightfall, it had dropped to below freezing. Additionally, our guide, who was, in all other aspects, capable and instructive, had engineered me into his tent. At first, I didn’t mind. His sleeping bag, which he had swapped for mine, was much warmer than the rented one. But that was about the high end of that cost-benefit analysis. Luckily, as aforementioned, I am a good sleeper. I was out within seconds and any ‘molesty’ intentions he had were eclipsed by my snores.
Scaling Salkantay the next morning, took me three slow, sluggish, sulky hours. Did I mention I don’t do well in high altitude? But at the top, a vision. As per Inca tradition, visitors to Salkantay are asked to carry a stone from the small lake halfway up the mountain, to the top. The trail summit has turned into a garden of rock sculptures, à la Andrew Goldsworthy’s gorgeous organic creations, intricately placed stones of all shapes and sizes and colours. And above, the glittering snow-white mountain range of Salkantay, etching out the bottom lip of the sky.
In Agra, there’s a precisely tended midnight garden across the Yamuna called, naturally, Mahtab Bagh. From here, you get an unobstructed wide-angle view of Shah Jahan’s seminal labour of love. As the sun moves across the marble and sandstone, the entire sight pulsates with the light. The same thing that happened to me at the Taj Mahal struck me while looking at Salkantay’s sun-drenched changeling visage. My body gave itself over, prickling with the fabulousness.
By lunch, a thousand-metre descent later, my altitude exhaustion was over, and I was ready to deflect unwanted attention with the best of them. As I loudly swapped tent spaces with the Canadian, the landscape shifted, the snow melted with the horizon, the cloud forests emerged, and we entered the Peruvian jungle.
Because I don’t want to undergo a third knee surgery, I descend mountains at a snail’s pace, a half hour or more behind others. This suits me just fine as I love walking alone. Then I can stop as much as I like, take as many photographs, choose my path across the innumerable mudrock streams, sing out loud. I had so much fun on that walk, filled with frothy flowers and bouncing butterflies that I forgot that I didn’t like trekking.
Our third day included a dip in the divinely warm wet thermal springs of Santa Teresa. The fact that I had to wear the same pair of damp heavy jeans and dusty running shoes afterwards didn’t make the experience any less refreshing and essential. Even if I had foolishly packed only three pairs of underwear for a four-day trek (ok, so I can’t count). It’s funny how dramatically your basic toiletry and attire needs can shift with time and place. I changed my clothes every day in San Francisco. In monsoon Dhaka, I sometimes took three showers a day. Here, in the Sacred Valley of Peru, a t-shirt was an easy 72-hour wear, and that was before turning it inside out.
Our fifth and last day dawned with a surprising downpour. Our guide had assured us that it never rained in winter in Machu Picchu. Right. We had planned breakfast at 4.30am, on the trail by 5, so as to get to Machu Picchu by sunrise and beat the madding crowds. Except that even the most hardened trekkers among us were reluctant to set out in a thunderstorm. We waited till 6am and when the rain showed no signs of letting up, we decided to forgo the trail (an hour and half of slippery steps straight up) and take the bus instead from Aguas Calientes.
An hour later, we were huddled in the Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock, surrounded by elegant and implacable alpaca, watching the shrouding grey clouds in despair. Was this the grand finale of our trek? After four days of walking, would we not get to see what anyone and everyone says is the highlight of any South American adventure?
The mountaintop citadel of Machu Picchu was ‘discovered’ by American historian Hiram Bingham in 1911, under the guidance of a local Quechua boy. It was built in the 15th century, and its actual function and place in the Inca empire is still unknown. Some say it was founded in an attempt to rekindle Inca predominance (only 100 years strong), although it may have already become a forgotten city at the time of the Spanish conquest. Others say the site was a royal retreat for the Inca king, his 400 wives and 1,000 children.
We listened, dripping, as our little Yoda of a guide rattled off facts and figures that only vaguely matched those in our guidebooks, in a hilarious sing-song dialect that even more vaguely resembled English. He gestured to the mountains hidden in the rain clouds, to the Temple of the Sun, the Royal Tomb, the Sacred Plaza, the Temple of the Three Windows, the Inca drawbridge, and the major shrine which was damaged by a crane during the filming of a beer commercial: Intihuatana, the Hitching Post of the Sun. Afterwards, we scrambled up the steep stairs of Wayna Picchu mountain, slip-sliding the whole way, craning our necks around each blind corner. And we waited.
It was 10am before a wind swept across Machu Picchu, scattering the clouds in its wake, revealing centuries-old contours, like a photograph developing before our eyes. It was noon before the sun washed the smooth grey stonewalls with light. But by then, I was sold. I was in love with my first trek. Even the parts I hated I loved. But next time, I’m packing more underwear.
The information
Getting there
Fly into Cuzco from Lima (US $70-200 one-way) or take a bus — pay extra for nicer buses, you won’t regret it. From Cuzco, visitors to Machu Picchu have two choices. The easier one is to make the spectacular train journey up, available on a choice of three trains — the Backpacker (slowest, cheapest; $44 one-way), the Vistadome (quicker, first class; $62 one-way) or the Hiram Bingham (luxury; $495 round-trip only, including meals, cocktails and a guided tour of the ruins of Machu Picchu).
I, of course, chose a trek (see below).
Where to stay in Cuzco
Because of Machu Picchu’s draw, Cuzco is Peru’s top tourist town. A backpacker’s delight, it has a mind-boggling number of places to stay, from budget to lux — plenty of the former and a few of the latter. Depending on your means, you’ll pay anywhere from US $7 to $1,000 a night. The town’s most luxurious and most unusual hotel is Hotel Monasterio (from $400; http://monasterio.orientexpress.com), which occupies the San Antonia Abad monastery — breakfast to the sound of Gregorian chants, a gilded chapel on the premises, its own art collection, and so on. The other luxury choice is the Libertador Palacio del Inka (from $180; www.summithotels.com). Recommended hostels include Loki Hostel ($8/dorm bed; www.lokihostel.com), Pirwa Hostel ($8/dorm bed; www.pirwahostelscusco.com), Ninos Hotel (from $35; www.ninoshotel.com), Hostal Marani (from $35; www.hostalmarani.com) and Amaru Hostal (from $25; http://cusco.net/amaru) all good bets if you’re travelling en famille.
What to see & do in Cuzco
The town is a Unesco World Heritage Site — lovely and hilly with a lively night life and plenty of museums, ruins, markets, and plazas to peruse. There’s usually some festival or parade going on, and so you’ll be amply entertained while shopping around for your perfect tour, or resting afterwards. Other activities around Cuzco include mountain biking tours and jungle trips.
Trekking to Machu Picchu
All treks start from Cuzco, and your guide will pick you up from your hotel/hostel. Try to arrive a few days before so you can acclimatise to the altitude (11,000ft) before you set off. If you want to do the classic Inca trail — ‘Camino Inca’ — be sure to book ahead (three to six months), especially in the high season (June through August). If an alternative trek is more up your alley, then you have a bit more time. Popular treks include Salkantay (which ends in Machu Picchu; this is the one I did), Lares, and the newly discovered Choquequirao ruins. You can still book ahead for these, or just walk around the town when you get there and sign up for something that looks good. Do bargain, and be sure to talk to other travellers in your hotel — they’re a great source of information.
When to go
Machu Picchu is open year-round except in February for maintenance. The rainy season is December through March. June-August is the dry/winter/high season.