A South American Adventure - Trekking in Peru

Eventually the people waiting stormed the mountain and drove the protestors to the top of the mountain and cleared the road of rocks. They all then ran back to their cars and buses and drove through the canyon. However when we finally arrived at the canyon the protestors had reassembled and were now pelting the vehicles with rocks even more violently than before.

Mousse (the truck in which we are traveling); the poor victim of this barrage was left with 12 large dents in his side and a smashed window from one of the more precise rocks that managed to penetrate our defenses. This was all highly exciting and luckily no one was hurt.   What was even more comical was that earlier on a couple of friends and I went to skim stones in the river to avert our boredom. A few moments later a hoard of locals came rushing down the bank waving at us. Thinking they were just being friendly we waved back.

They arrived at our side and pointed frantically up at a lone assassin wielding a slingshot and aiming at us. Obviously our superior skimming skills had put them on the defensive.   The next and possibly most exciting adventure was the Inca Trail, a phenomenal experience, very hard at times, but amazingly rewarding in the end.   On the first day we trekked for 10km after being dropped off at what's known as kilometre 82 as it is 82km from Cusco . The scenery is absolutely amazing as you trek through the mountains next to rapids and end up walking through the jungle.

The trail takes 4 days. Before starting we went to the sacred valley, thought to be sacred because of its amazing fertility. Here there are amazing ruins which are built into the side of the mountains, a truly awesome sight considering the size of the stones and the effort it must have taken to pull them up the slope. A few years ago an experiment was conducted in which around 400 people tried to pull a similar sized stone to those used in the ruins and even with this amount of people they could only move the stone a few metres in several hours.

This shows how ingenious and possibly immensely strong the Incas were.   The first day of the trail was fairly easy, the hardest part was acclimatizing to the lack of oxygen (apparently there was only 15% in the air, compared to the normal 21%). What is even more amazing are the Porters who carry our bags and tents and cooking equipment literally running the trail with around 25kg on their backs, an amazing sight.

Their strength and balance was epitomized on the third day when one of our group members fell ill with altitude sickness and possibly food poisoning and had to be carried by the porters down the steepest flights of stairs I have ever seen and they ran the entire way! On the first day we stopped at a campsite in a small mountain settlement where we played the Guides, Porters and locals at football. The porters were so fit and ran rings around us, my team did however manage to beat a group of porters which we were very pleased about.

The second day was by far the hardest with approximately 5 hours of solid uphill with no break. This part of the trail is called dead woman's pass, aptly named I thought. There is however a mountain shaped like a lady's breast to aim for which made the climb slightly easier.   We went over passes in excess of 4000m with vertical drops on one side and a cliff on the other.

On the third day (my favourite ) we had to go over two more high passes and visited several Inca sites which were amazingly carved out the side of the mountain, equally as breathtaking as those in the sacred valley. What made the third day even more exciting was when our guide gave us the choice whether to stay on the path or take the route he called the Indiana Jones Experience. This entailed trekking up the side of a mountain through thick undergrowth with marsh underfoot and random plants everywhere.

This culminated in us climbing up the side of a mountain with almost a sheer drop on the side and only clumps of grass to cling to, slightly dodgy I thought but I did it nonetheless and benefited from an awesome view and a large rush of adrenaline. We had lunch on the top of the third pass above our final campsite and then began our descent. We camped at Wynawyna near Macchu Picchu.

Here there are some of the most beautiful Inca ruins that exist. Most of the group were tired and spent very little time at these ruins. I decided to spend longer and walked to the bottom of the ruins which was quite an effort as they too were cut out the side of the mountain in an amazing terraced effect. It proved very beneficial as I saw sunset through the window of one of the ruins, truly amazing.   On the evening of the third day we had a presentation for the porters where we gave them beer and money, they really appreciated this and seemed to really enjoy it, singing us a song.

The lowlight of the evening was us singing them a song composed by several of the group entitled walking on Inca, sung to the tune of walking in Memphis, not good! We arose at 3.50am on the final day in an attempt to beat the crowds to Macchu Picchu. We were the second group in the queue at the checkpoint. The checkpoint opened at 5.30am and the crowds began to flood through. This was the last stop before the sun gate where the first views of the lost city were to be had.

At first progress was slow as the path was narrow and the group in front were doing their best not to let anyone pass and to make it perilous if anyone tried with a vertical drop waiting for a wrong step. Eventually jimmy (a gutsy Australian) and I took matters into our own hands and began to run. I left the walking stick that had got me this far on the trail and followed Julio (our guide) in a sprint to the finish. The terrain was hard and we were running by torch light for much of the journey.

I was rewarded by being the first to arrive at the Sun Gate and the view did not disappoint. The walk which is meant to take over an hour took me about 20-25 minutes!   The group arrived in drabs and we then went to explore the magical city. Macchu Picchu (big mountain) is one of the most spectacular things I have/will ever see in my life and I would recommend coming here to anyone.