Glaciers, train tracks.... and I need a shower

Ok, this is a long blog bit. But then... a lot happened in 5 days :)

But first: again the world has been good to me! I left my ATM card in the machine the day before I left for my trek and I left a note for Kristina asking if she could ask if it was still there. Guess what??? It´s been handed in and is waiting for me to pick it up tomorrow!! Thank you again Pachamama or my guardian angel or whatever is looking out for me!

Our trek started with the disorganisation and change of itinerary to be expected in Peru. First waking up at 3:30 am, catching the cab into town and me sitting on the street side as drunken people were still making they´re way home and freeeeezing .... Eventually various tour groups (and I) got loaded onto a bus and I was still so bloody cold because the window didn´t close properly so I spent the drive shivering and feeling car sick as we drove zigzag up and down hills and across some of the hairest bridges I´ve seen. Hmm... ´hairy´... is that a term that you can even use in English. Muddling my way through different languages I forget what are real words and what I´ve just made up.

Anyway, we arrived in Mollepata, had our breakfast and then found out there weren´t enough arrieros and horses to take our stuff up to the next camp site. Our guide explained the situation and then asked politely if it was ok if we went to the next campsite by bus, to which I replied ´errrr.... we don´t have much choice, do we?´ It was all good though. We were loaded into something like a cattle bus with a pole in the middle for everyone to hold onto which kept sliding out everytime we went around a corner up a hill. That along with the all the college students and Gorito (one particularly chubby chico) singing and laughing made for an interesting journey. We just drove along the road we would have been walking up anyway, so really we saved ourselves 9 hours AND we wouldn´t have had time to ... umm... stroll up a particulary steep hill to find a green/blue lake directly below the glaciers. I think coming down was just as hard.

Hmm... what next. Lunch, tea, dinner, a game of Uno and a shivering night at -5 to -6 degrees. I was definitely glad I rented that extra sleeping bag! Another early morning and a start up to the highest point and past Salkantay, the big mountain which, apart from Machupicchu, was the feature of the hike. Oh, every meal throughout the trek was served to us at a table, sometimes in a tent... it was all very civilised. Everytime we went to clear plates or help with bags or tents we were told to go away. There were a lot of silences at our table since our group was a brother and sister from Chile, myself, and Fiona a medical student and army girl from the UK. Oh, and our guide of course. Although we tried to practice our spanish it was just too hard to try and make small talk, fumbling our way through another language when we were tired and sleepy. Mind you, they never tried to converse with us in English even though the guy could speak it quite well.

Trekking up to 4650m altitude certainly is noticable. With 4 little steps or more specifically shuffles for every metre it takes a long time. My mantra was á la Dory in Finding Nemo: just keep swimming, just keep swimming... Meanwhile arrieros and cooks were practically running up the mountain beside us. I´m still in awe of how the locals are so adapted to tracks like this.

Salkantay is a sacred mountain for the Inkas or quechuans or indians (I´m not sure what to call them), and it definitely felt amazing to be walking along side this huge vast expanse of mountain covered in snow, ice and glaciers. Very big and very intimidating. Apparently no one has every managed to climb Salkantay. Avalanches kill those that try.

Once past the highest point it was down hill all the way. Lunch was on a plain where the toilet was behind a big lump of dirt. It was so gross. Doing your business in nature is one thing but when you leave everything for the world to see and don´t take your paper with you... bleh! What was equally depressing was that as they were packing up I saw our cook dump a handfull of trash into a hollow with rubbish that was there before we arrived. Apparently the arrieros pick it up on their way back but I seriously doubt it. There was too much there when we arrived.

Just as we were packing up we saw a very funny site. Two mattresses running through the middle of no where. The only way they could have gotten there is by accending up to 4650m above sea level, zigzaging up a hill. Crazy. I told you these locals were hard core.

The second night was warmer but still chilly and still at the 2 sleeping bag level. From then on it got warmer though.

On the third day you could tell we were much lower in altitude. The air was as actually filling our lungs with oxygen, there were green plants, animals and I saw my first snake in the wild!! Woo Hoo!!! Coming from Australia I was pretty excited. Suddenly this slim green thing was slithering beside me and across the path. It wasn´t a dangerous snake but it still looked very cool. Did you know that strawberries grown in the Peruvian jungle. They were only small, but still, strawberries! I associate them with Germany if anything. On the way we also ate delicious passionfruit which is much ligher in colour on the inside than the ones I´ve had in Australia and much sweeter. mmmmmm....

Has anyone seen that email about the world´s ugliest dog? Well I saw a real life version of the same breed in La Playa. It definitely is ugly. And it´s not the only one I´ve seen here. They are meant to be a special breed here.. alledgedly... ´special´...

I think one of the greatest highlights was getting to the hot springs at Santa Teresa. After 3 days of no proper shower, sweating lots and just generally feeling tired, these hot springs were the BOMB!! I´ve only been to one other set of hot springs and that was in Malaysia, and what a great disappointment they were. These however were huge, clean, and vary degrees of hotness. Oh so good. Oh so clean. We were there for several hours and I don´t think I´ve ever reached such a stage of wrinkledness before.

After a night in Santa Teresa we had to cross a river by cable cart. Very interesting if not very cramped. The first half of the morning took us past bananas, coffee and lots of little stops where we could buy tasty avocado. For lunch we arrived at Hidroelectrica. As it sounds like, it´s a hydroelectric plant with a train station full of locals with produce and sweaty trekkers eating lunch. From there we continued along the train track to Aguas Calientes for our final night of the adventure.

Has anyone ever realised that walking along train tracks is really hard. The sleepers aren´t spaced evenly so you can´t walk on them with an even pace and trying to just walk on the rocks that are scattered over them (can anyone tell me why they put that massive gravel stuff on railway tracks anyway?) means that you´re ankles roll all over the place. We walked two and a bit hours all around the Machupicchu mountain, along the river, from Hidroelectrica to Aguas Calientes. I was definitely over walking by the time we arrived. I didn´t see much of Aguas Calientes but we were very lucky to see a music video being made with a lovely one legged lady in pink and her 3 (or 4) lads in red. hehehe.. The other thing that really struck me about Aguas Calientes is that it´s a town that is surrounded on all sides by really steep mountains. It´s more dramatic than just a valley. It´s like a whole as been dug out and a building plonked in the middle of it.

So, finally it´s the last day of the trek. We're up at 3:50am and the walkers were on there way up to Machupicchu by 4:30am. I took the easy route via bus (only because I found out it was included in my trip, othewise I would have hauled myself up anothr 1.5 hours worth of stairs). Machupicchu looks just like all the picture. Amazing and in such an incredible location. Basically most of what they can tell you about it is just theory anyway since it was a lost city for 100s of years. We did, however, spend 5 minutes absorbing energy from a rock though. Another amazing thing about the whole place is how they´ve built stuff around natural (massive) rocks and incorporated these into the whole design and function of the place. After a tour for a couple of hours we were left to our own devices and we headed straight for the entrance to another climb up Wayna Picchu. The mountain you can see behind the picture of Machupicchu. Only 400 people a day are allowed up there and we were numbers 107 - 111. This was when I appreciated my bus ride up. Fiona's legs were struggling with every step. There was a great view from up there though and I enjoyed my slighly stale bread and marginally squashed avocado from the day before.

That was my trek to Salkantay and Machupicchu. Congratulations if you read to the very end. I apologise for all the mistakes, it´s taken a long time to write and I can´t be bothered re-reading it.

Now it´s another 3 days of spanish classes, then Monday to Manu for some voluntary work.

Hasta luego!