Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Tom's Blog: I am sat on our 16 hour bus journey south from Cusco to Chile. The Peruvian lady who has just sat down in the seat in front of me has with her a bag of live chickens. Yes folks, here ends the week of many surprises…
We arrived in Cusco, jumped in a cab and gave the driver the address to our hotel. This has generally worked over the course of the last 10 weeks in South America. Well, 20 minutes later and having asked several other taxi drivers where the hotel address was and each of them looking more puzzled than the previous, it wasn't looking good. Eventually, the driver pointed up a steep flight of steps and began to empty our bags out of his boot. Feeling as though we had been chucked out on the streets we struggled up the steps from hell. 10 minutes later and hallelujah… a small door with our hotel name on it appeared before us. We were greeted by hugs and kisses from a lady called Nelly, who congratulated us on getting married. This was getting too surreal. She led us down the back of the property and suddenly our climb had not been in vain - the view was stunning. Our huge room overlooked the twinkling city lights of Cusco. It was almost as though we were on honeymoon…
Cusco is a city where people tend to enjoy being (especially directly compared to our previous destination, the world's unfriendliest city - La Paz). It is the continents' oldest continuously inhabited city and was the heart of the mighty Inca Empire. This fact along with the stunning setting, colonial charm and proximity to the 'lost' city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, means it draws the crowds in by their thousands, yet somehow it remains a place people like to be.
There is no doubting this is a city (overly) devoted to tourism, and the locals use all their charm (and desperation) to pluck money from your wallet. The prospect of a £5 massage was too much to resist. We wish now we had known that it also included muscle rearrangement and spinal cracking, and needless to say we felt worse coming out than we did going in. You live and learn.
But we weren't here to experience painful massages, we were here for the four-day classic Inca Trail. The evening before we were due to set off, our guide Ivan ("Ee-van") came to our hotel for the pre-briefing. The Inca Trail is made up of groups of 10-15 travelers. You can imagine our surprise when we asked him how many people were in our group and he replied 'just you two of course - this is a private tour'. Quietly, we just nodded and smiled. We were to have one guide, one chef, and six porters for just the two of us over four days… A week later and we are still asking ourselves how this happened!
Our 'private' tour guide Ivan proved to be one of the nicest people we have ever met. He hardly stopped smiling, every other word was 'please' and he taught us about the Inca's like he was a wise master tutoring his prodigy (Anna). 'Religion, Astronomy and Agriculture' he whispered meaningfully over and over, as though he was revealing the meaning of life. 'The Inca civilization… it's as simple as that'.
The trail itself was the greatest walk either of us had ever experienced. The mountain vistas, cloud forests, and Inca ruins buried in mist all keep you from falling down in exhaustion. But what really 'makes' the experience are the true heroes of the Inca Trail, the porters. Porters are the men who carry everything you need along the way. The six of them carried between them all of our camping equipment, kitchen equipment, gas tank, our private toilet tent (!), sleeping tent, food, table, chairs, mattress, our bags of clothes. The list goes on… They are incredible people, and not only do they each carry 25kg but they do it running… in sandles! On top of this they provided a wake-up call direct to the tent with our choice of hot beverage. Anna is certainly going to miss her coca leaf tea in the mornings.
The other hero of the trail was our chef Mario. He also ran the distance (despite being much porkier than the porters) and cooked up a storm everyday. We devoured two-course lunches and three-course dinners (not to forget afternoon tea in between), all freshly prepared in a makeshift kitchen of a gas tank in a tent. A surprising highlight for me was the freshly caught trout from the river by our campsite. Hats off to Mario and the porters.
The final day of this epic trail saw us arrive at Machu Picchu before 7am. Our first glimpse of the famous ruin was from the Sun Gate. The thick mist when we arrived gradually cleared revealing a white stone city perched on the edge of a mountain top surrounded by green jungle. It was quite something and suddenly the race was on. Previously sedate fellow walkers began running for the entrance to the site. Once we arrived Ivan gave us a guided tour of the main temples ('Religion, Astronomy and Agriculture' he whispered). As he stared into our eyes you could truly believe this man was descended from the Incas.
This myth was dispelled once we had finished our tour and Ivan took us for lunch down the local town of Aguas Calientes ('hot water'), and he managed to put away six litres of his favourite lager 'Cusqueña'. This was a man who loved his job.
Thus with our departure from Cusco we find ourselves at the end of our 10 week honeymoon adventure in South America. We have taken in six different countries and yet have only touched on a tiny portion of this giant continent. Nevertheless, the variety of food, people and culture is something neither of us will ever forget. Now, if you will please excuse me I have a 16 hour bus journey to attend to and the chickens are getting excited…
- comments
Rosemary Fantastic account of your Inca Trail journey, what an accomplishment and done with such panache and the help of your attendants!
RicoandSoph One word... Jammy!!! You guys lucked out big time on the Inca trek. Sounds like a pretty cool way to travel... Your own chef, 6 porters and a 'toilet tent' you said?! We might try that way of travel, not sure our budget will last out very long though. X