Salkantay Trek - arriba!
The Salkantay Trek was probably one of my top experiences in Peru, in South America even. |
| Sultry tones at dawn in the Andes |
The most popular trek to get to Machu Picchu is the famous Inca Trail - a part of the route of pilgrimage from Cusco to Machu Picchu used by the Inca (the Emperor) in the 15th century. But that required booking 6 months in advance as it is so popular but only has limited spaces due to conservation, and it was too late to book to fit this into my trip. But a little research brought up Salkantay Trek as the best alternative - in fact, it looked and sounded even better than the Inca Trail - blue lagoons, higher altitudes, hot springs, forests, close up views of spectacular snow-capped mountains…It was longer, but cheaper. It’s definitely suited for one who likes to hike (insert hands up emoji here) and be close to nature.
Our tour was a mid-range-ish tour, which included a great guide, all meals during the trek cooked by our group’s own chef (and such wonderful meals, super full every time, catered to our dietary restrictions) and snacks and water, private transport to and from the start and end of trek, cargo mules to carry all our gear (except for our own day pack), personal accommodation at private campsites / hotel, camping equipment, sleeping bags and liner, trekking poles, entry ticket to Machu Picchu, and a bang-up good time.
Our guide Leo was a local, speaks multiple languages, and does an excellent job at explaining history, geography, religion, culture, sociology, vegetation etc, as well as keeping track of our schedule, our accommodation, organising the chef and porters, and helping out whenever we were in trouble. The lectures did make it feel a bit like a school trip at times - was actually kind of nostalgic! We had a nice tame bunch of people in our group - a couple in their 40s from Brazil, an American who works at the army base in Iraq, and a Chilean family of 5 - dad and his 4 children of 17-22.
Day 1 started at 5AM, in a van zipping around Cusco picking up the team. By 6:30 we were all sat around the breakfast table in sleepy silence shoving jam on our bread and sugary cereal in our faces. By 7:30 we were starting on our hike. We reached our first night’s campsite by lunchtime, spent a bit of time napping and acclimatising. After lunch, we trekked up to the Humantay Lagoon. Leo told us that this would be a "test" of how we’d want to do the next day’s trek - the average time to get to the Lagoon was about 60 minutes, and if we did it within 75 mins then we’d be “fine”. Otherwise we should consider hiring a horse on the next day, as it’ll be a 3.5 hour ascent, 700m elevation gain, reaching 4650m ASL. I managed to do it in 48mins, thanks to the thigh-busting hikes I’ve done in the last few months.
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| Laguna Humantay |
Good weather meant the lagoon was extra blue as it reflected the glaciers of Apu Humantay Mountain which sits behind it. At night, the stars and Milky Way were out in their glorious splendour, and we slept on proper beds in glass domes under the stars (it did get freezing cold as it was high at 3900m ASL, and our breaths steamed up the glass, and the moon shone like a gigantic spotlight in the middle of the night).
Day 2 started with a 4:20AM wake up call with coca tea brought to our domes as promised by our guide, in the dark. It was the only way to get out of a warm bed into the pre-dawn coldness of the outdoors. By 5AM we were doing our pre-trek stretches, and beginning what was to be the TOUGHEST DAY, hiking 22km, climbing 700m and then descending 1700m to the jungle. The sunny weather was definitely a blessing, but within a couple hours I had - from 4 layers - stripped down to my base layer as we battled through the “Seven Snakes” switchbacks. By 8:30am we had reached the highest point of the trek: The Salkantay Pass.
It was simply breathtaking - and that's not just from being at an altitude of 4600 above sea level, or the 3.5 hours of continuous uphill through debris-ridden hairpins. But the magnificence of the rugged, snow-capped Andes was an absolute sight to behold! And again I couldn’t be more grateful for the perfectly glorious weather.
But it also felt like an achievement, and that it was necessarily tough to be rewarded with such a spectacular sight.
Sometime during the trek, Derek said that he didn’t realise until just before the trip that Machu Picchu was actually reachable without having to do days of trekking. He thought in order to visit something so acclaimed and sacred one must endure some kind of suffering or hard work.
Nope. You can simply take a train and a bus to get there. You don’t have to scale perilous switchbacks to heights of 4600m watching avalanches rumbling in the mountains behind you, or bust your knees descending from alpine to jungle, or risk your life dangling over a river gorge in a bucket hanging on a rope (day 3), or get ravaged by sandflies that leave horrible bites if you don’t “take a shower with (toxic) bug repellent” every 2 hours (to quote to our eclectic Brazilian tour-buddy Leonardo).
BUT you would also miss the spectacular snow-capped mountains towering above you, the incredible emerald lagoon glistening in pre-golden-hour sunlight, gazing at the Milky Way and the millions of stars dancing around it, learning about traditional alpaca-wool weaving techniques and tasting some of the (certified) best coffee in the world (day 3), bathing in natural Peruvian hot springs (day 3), encountering Inca ruins Llactapata, and last but not least, waking up to hot coca tea every morning.
Having walked and worn our hiking shoes for 12 hours and 26km that day, and more importantly, being Asian, Derek and I both took our shoes off and left them outside of our tent to air out. Our tour guide had warned us not to leave our shoes out overnight, but with our brains being as knackered as our feet, the advice promptly slipped our minds. In the middle of the night, nature called and I got out to use the washroom (in my flip flops). When I returned, I noticed that one of my shoes and one of Derek’s shoes were lying outside the tent, but the other one of each pair was nowhere to be seen. I shone my light around, looked under the stilted tent, nothing. I went over to our neighbour’s tent and crouched down to shine my torch there, and a pair of dog eyes glistened back at me, but no shoes. I was too scared to look for the shoes by myself, but I was also panicking, crawled back into bed and lay awake for 2 hours with my mind racing - what if the dogs took our shoes and took them far far away, up the hills, in a cave somewhere, or down to the river? What if we never find our shoes - would we have to hike the next 2 days in flip flops?? Would we have to get in a vehicle and give up the rest of the hike? Can we buy shoes out here in the wilderness??!
The next morning, when our guide Leo came around with coca tea, I sheepishly told him that we had each lost one shoe because we forgot to bring them into the tent before bedtime, and asked if he and his fellow tour guides and porters could help have a look round. Of course I expected his “I told you so” response which he promptly delivered, what I didn’t expect was our shoes turning up less than a minute after he told his colleagues, a little damp but still in more or less the same shape as we had left it. It was under the tent next to the last one I looked at, along with a cluster of other treasures and toys the dogs have scavenged. Crisis averted. Panic unnecessary. Time for breakfast and another 6 hours of hiking.
On days 3 and 4, we trekked through jungles, along river gorges, through coffee plantations, and along the Peru Rail train line. We had good weather most of the way, continued to be very well-fed, and even got a trip to the hot springs! (So many parallels with my second home, Japan! Sushi/Ceviche, hot springs, mountains & oceans...) We made canine friends, learned about coffee farming and coca leaves, and joked about Andrew's "going out to get milk" look. (He wore a baggy t-shirt and those loose baggy harem pants that you see all over Peruvian markets, while almost everyone else was in more 'proper' outdoor gear).
It had already been 4 long days of feet-crushing muscle-bashing treks, which I had enjoyed immensely. But one couldn't help building up great expectations to somewhere that's on every passport holder's travel wishlist or dating app profile pic.
That morning, we had to wake up well before sunrise to catch the first buses to get up to the mountain on which the ancient citadel is crowned. We were in the queue long before the buses even started, and we queued in the cold and drizzle for almost an hour. On the bus ride up, the sky started to brighten ever so slightly, but the rain didn't stop. At the entrance, another queue. Anticipation in the air.
And....fog. Lots of it. Coming and going. One minute, you see things - ancient ruins, temple structures, llamas, tourists...the next minute, nothing. It kept drizzling, it was cold, it was miserable. But we still managed to catch glimpses of the famous Machu Picchu poster visage. We also had the 10am ticket to climb Machu Picchu Mountain from where you're supposed to see the whole of the ancient ruins and the distant skyscraping Andean peaks. 5 minutes into the 90-minute climb, Derek rightly bails. I carried on, sweating under my raincoat, rain soaking into my shoes and leggings, for another 35 minutes. When I asked people who were descending if there was anything to see up top, they gave me a sympathetic yet unsurprising 'no'. I turned around.
Back down below, there were a lot more people by now - big Chinese tour groups, smaller (but numerous) groups of old French people, umbrellas poking in all directions, and not many alpacas or llamas to be seen. Soaked, cold, annoyed, hungry and with a side of cramps, I endured another hour or so walking around the ruins, trying to take photos with as few people in my shot as possible. Enjoyment was replaced by endurance.
After not staying for very much longer, I took the bus back down, got changed into warm dry clothes, bumped into my Brazilian tour buddies, and we went to a market for lunch together. Nothing like hot soup and a big plate of fish and veggies and rice to lift the soul where high expectations had been dashed by unfortunate weather and sub-optimal physical conditions of myself (mostly lack of sleep and full of fatigue). I'm definitely still glad and happy to have made it there, and very grateful for the fine weather throughout the 4-day hike that preceded it. But I think I have to come back again to give it the credit it deserves!
Thoughts about hiking: it is almost like a drug, addictive. There’s something deeply satisfying about hiking: the determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other, the focus on breathing deeply, being awestruck by the grandeur and changing faces of the landscape, the realisation of how small I am…hiking has become a form of meditation and my medication. Worth the aching thighs, busted knees, sore feet, stiff shoulders, SD cards full of photos.
BUT you would also miss the spectacular snow-capped mountains towering above you, the incredible emerald lagoon glistening in pre-golden-hour sunlight, gazing at the Milky Way and the millions of stars dancing around it, learning about traditional alpaca-wool weaving techniques and tasting some of the (certified) best coffee in the world (day 3), bathing in natural Peruvian hot springs (day 3), encountering Inca ruins Llactapata, and last but not least, waking up to hot coca tea every morning.
WHO MOVED OUR HIKING SHOES
On the second night, we stayed at a campsite within a farm, where chickens roamed freely among dogs, goats and children.Having walked and worn our hiking shoes for 12 hours and 26km that day, and more importantly, being Asian, Derek and I both took our shoes off and left them outside of our tent to air out. Our tour guide had warned us not to leave our shoes out overnight, but with our brains being as knackered as our feet, the advice promptly slipped our minds. In the middle of the night, nature called and I got out to use the washroom (in my flip flops). When I returned, I noticed that one of my shoes and one of Derek’s shoes were lying outside the tent, but the other one of each pair was nowhere to be seen. I shone my light around, looked under the stilted tent, nothing. I went over to our neighbour’s tent and crouched down to shine my torch there, and a pair of dog eyes glistened back at me, but no shoes. I was too scared to look for the shoes by myself, but I was also panicking, crawled back into bed and lay awake for 2 hours with my mind racing - what if the dogs took our shoes and took them far far away, up the hills, in a cave somewhere, or down to the river? What if we never find our shoes - would we have to hike the next 2 days in flip flops?? Would we have to get in a vehicle and give up the rest of the hike? Can we buy shoes out here in the wilderness??!
The next morning, when our guide Leo came around with coca tea, I sheepishly told him that we had each lost one shoe because we forgot to bring them into the tent before bedtime, and asked if he and his fellow tour guides and porters could help have a look round. Of course I expected his “I told you so” response which he promptly delivered, what I didn’t expect was our shoes turning up less than a minute after he told his colleagues, a little damp but still in more or less the same shape as we had left it. It was under the tent next to the last one I looked at, along with a cluster of other treasures and toys the dogs have scavenged. Crisis averted. Panic unnecessary. Time for breakfast and another 6 hours of hiking.
On days 3 and 4, we trekked through jungles, along river gorges, through coffee plantations, and along the Peru Rail train line. We had good weather most of the way, continued to be very well-fed, and even got a trip to the hot springs! (So many parallels with my second home, Japan! Sushi/Ceviche, hot springs, mountains & oceans...) We made canine friends, learned about coffee farming and coca leaves, and joked about Andrew's "going out to get milk" look. (He wore a baggy t-shirt and those loose baggy harem pants that you see all over Peruvian markets, while almost everyone else was in more 'proper' outdoor gear).
Our accommodation
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| Skydomes on night 1 |
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| Our 'jungle domes' for night 3 |
Stops along the way
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| Santa Teresa coffee - some of the world's award-winning coffee beans come from this area |
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| Llactapata ancient Inca ruins |
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| Onsen! |
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| The final 10 kilometres - from Hydroelectrica to Aguas Calientes |
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River crossing, the Santa Teresa way
FINALLY - Machu Picchu
Day 5. I had been looking forward to visiting this place almost since Instagram became a thing.It had already been 4 long days of feet-crushing muscle-bashing treks, which I had enjoyed immensely. But one couldn't help building up great expectations to somewhere that's on every passport holder's travel wishlist or dating app profile pic.
That morning, we had to wake up well before sunrise to catch the first buses to get up to the mountain on which the ancient citadel is crowned. We were in the queue long before the buses even started, and we queued in the cold and drizzle for almost an hour. On the bus ride up, the sky started to brighten ever so slightly, but the rain didn't stop. At the entrance, another queue. Anticipation in the air.
And....fog. Lots of it. Coming and going. One minute, you see things - ancient ruins, temple structures, llamas, tourists...the next minute, nothing. It kept drizzling, it was cold, it was miserable. But we still managed to catch glimpses of the famous Machu Picchu poster visage. We also had the 10am ticket to climb Machu Picchu Mountain from where you're supposed to see the whole of the ancient ruins and the distant skyscraping Andean peaks. 5 minutes into the 90-minute climb, Derek rightly bails. I carried on, sweating under my raincoat, rain soaking into my shoes and leggings, for another 35 minutes. When I asked people who were descending if there was anything to see up top, they gave me a sympathetic yet unsurprising 'no'. I turned around.
Back down below, there were a lot more people by now - big Chinese tour groups, smaller (but numerous) groups of old French people, umbrellas poking in all directions, and not many alpacas or llamas to be seen. Soaked, cold, annoyed, hungry and with a side of cramps, I endured another hour or so walking around the ruins, trying to take photos with as few people in my shot as possible. Enjoyment was replaced by endurance.
After not staying for very much longer, I took the bus back down, got changed into warm dry clothes, bumped into my Brazilian tour buddies, and we went to a market for lunch together. Nothing like hot soup and a big plate of fish and veggies and rice to lift the soul where high expectations had been dashed by unfortunate weather and sub-optimal physical conditions of myself (mostly lack of sleep and full of fatigue). I'm definitely still glad and happy to have made it there, and very grateful for the fine weather throughout the 4-day hike that preceded it. But I think I have to come back again to give it the credit it deserves!
Thoughts about hiking: it is almost like a drug, addictive. There’s something deeply satisfying about hiking: the determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other, the focus on breathing deeply, being awestruck by the grandeur and changing faces of the landscape, the realisation of how small I am…hiking has become a form of meditation and my medication. Worth the aching thighs, busted knees, sore feet, stiff shoulders, SD cards full of photos.
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