The road less travelled to Machu Picchu
Trio overcome cold, lack of oxygen
Mary Charleson and friends have returned from their trip to Peru. Here is the second part of her Reader Postcard.
Having been attracted to the peacefulness of a less travelled route and the exclusivity of exploring ruins not widely known, we didn’t truly appreciate the magic in that choice until we arrived.
Every year thousands of international travellers visit Machu Picchu, the historic lost city of the Inca in Peru. As one of the Seven Wonders of the World, its popularity is understandable. It’s hard to avoid the crowds at Machu Picchu and scoring a coveted peak season Inca Trail ticket to get there, will still leave you hiking with multiple tour groups.
Instead, we chose the Moonstone Trek; an alternative route offered by Andean Treks and Adventures, an established operator since 1980. And no doubt an outcome of travelling in shoulder season during October we were provided with a great ratio of time and attention with our guide.
The nervous anticipation of hiking at altitude had been ever present for the three of us. But evidence of a solid commitment was present when our party girl control was tested the night before the 6 a.m. departure, as the waiter delivered a second round of TRIPLE pisco sours, rather than the three drinks we thought we had ordered in Spanish.
While we had prepared well with training, gear and altitude medications, we had somehow missed the fact that Michele was afraid of heights. Thankfully she soldiered on traversing cliffs, since as she put it, “What other options were there?”
And when we bought our tech gear, we didn’t anticipate wearing it ALL to bed to stay warm while sleeping in tents in sub-zero weather.
But we all agreed that the request to separate liquid and solids in the chemical toilet tent had lead to some unintentional dancing back and forth with questionable success for the women on tour.
The four-day trek started at a trailhead on the Huaracondo River and ended in the town of Ollantaytambo, before boarding a train to Aguas Calientes for an overnight stay and visiting Machu Picchu on the fifth day.
Our Peruvian guide lead us on daily 10- to 15-kilometre hikes through the Andes Mountains from Cuzco to the Sacred Valley, while cooks, wranglers with horses to haul our gear, set up our next camp.
Passing through numerous Inca ruins, we marvelled at the labour to build at high elevations, and the thoughtful construction, conscious of how the elements such as the sun and moon interacted.
We passed remote Andean villages where farmers harvest potatoes, and women weave textiles in a simple, yet beautiful quest to sustain daily life. We laboured with the sparse oxygen at high altitudes through three mountain passes, the highest being Accoccasa Pass at 15,700 ft. And we were charmed by tropical ecosystems leading out from the Sacred Valley to the Amazon. Such was the diversity of our trek to Machu Picchu.
Except for the odd villager, stray llama, wild horse or alpaca, we saw nobody outside our trekking group the whole four days.
A trip highlight was exploring, unrushed and alone, the ruins of the Inca shrine Huayrapunku or Wind Gate, propped high above the Sacred Valley and framed by Veronica Mountain. Huatta, a 2,500 year-old pre-Inca fortress was exclusively ours to savour, as was the sacred shrine of Quillarumiyoq, or Moonstone. And exploring the Cachiqata Quarry, where the Inca sourced much of their stones for Ollantaytambo Temple and agricultural terracing offered a rare glimpse of the engineering involved.
Being able to freely explore open burial tombs high above the Sacred Valley, seemed like breaking the rules when contrasted with the supervised and timed experience that touring other archeological sites has become.
Our group discovered conversation rather than connecting through social media and we found community in our basic needs. Normally food, shelter, warm clothing and safety are a given, but suddenly our entire day was focused on sustaining life by ensuring these were in place.
And while some in our six-person group came to Peru with an attitude to conquer the physical and mental challenge of trekking, what we came to appreciate was the beauty in the simplicity of life in the Andes during the journey there. Kids walked to faraway villages to attend school, farmers worked ground crops and took livestock to market, women made textiles, and life seamlessly beat on despite a wired world beyond their access.
This beautiful disconnect during our four days trekking was only fully appreciated once we were tossed back into the crowds at Machu Picchu where selfie sticks and the drive to post and share seemed ever-present.
While Machu Picchu was undeniably the treasure at the end of our tour, the trek there, having taken the road less travelled, became the unexpected gift.