La Luna de Miel Larga

NOTE: Although this post says authored by Aviva, we actually wrote the post together, hence the switching of who “we” refers to depending on whose adventures the paragraph documents.

One of the things Silas wanted to do when he got down here was a trek to Machu Picchu, rather than just taking the train there. The most famous Inca Trail was pretty booked up around Christmas/New Years, so Chris and Silas decided to do the Salkantay trail, which is a bit more strenuous and adventurous than the traditional Inca Trail. After a bit of miscommunication with the trek organizer, we left at about 3 AM on the 27th of December, taking a treacherous van ride up a mountain to the first campsite. We had skipped the first day of the trek because of timing issues, so we ended up meeting the rest of the group that first morning before heading up to the Salkantay pass. From around 3800 m.a.s.l. we climbed a ridiculously difficult trail up to about 4650 m (around 15,250 ft). Despite Chris having lived in Cusco for 3 months and Silas being a college-level football player, we had to stop and breathe every few minutes. Finally making it to the pass, we headed down to the cloud forest on the other side of the mountains, dropping over a mile in altitude in a few hours. We immediately passed out once we got to our campsite, only getting up to eat dinner for a few minutes.

The next morning we hiked for several more hours before taking another gravity-defying bus to the small town of Santa Teresa, where we watched a cow get slaughtered across the road from our campsite, and soaked our aches and pains in the local hotsprings. The next morning we had to cross the raging torrent that was the Urubamba river at flood level in a tiny little basket dangling from a cable. We hiked to the local hydroelectric station, passing several rivers pouring straight out of the side of mountains (think of the end of The Temple of Doom) and then hiked along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes.

Kathie and Aviva got into Aguas Calientes earlier in the day (on December 29th) and checked into a nice hotel. Then we went to hike up the mountain of Putucusi before meeting the boys in town. Putucusi is a hard hike, mostly stairs and these giant ladders that stretch in a row (there were 7 different ladders, with, we think Kathie counted, 147 steps in one stretch of 4 ladders). It is an especially hard hike because you always think you are almost at the top, and then you come over the rise and there is another uphill stretch on a piece of the mountain you couldn’t see from your previous hiking trail. The people at the hotel told us it would take an hour, and when we had been going about 70 minutes and we met a couple who told us that it would be another 40 minutes, we laughed at them. But they were right, and it took us about two hours total to submit, and another hour to get down. It was getting late when we got to the top, but there is a fabulous view across the valley to the mountain Machu Picchu is on. Our photos didn’t turn out that great because the sun was setting right over it, but it was rewarding just to have made it up. We couldn’t linger too long, especially since Chris had called us that he and Silas had gotten to town around 90 minutes into our hike up. We raced the sun down, and got into Aguas Calientes just as it was getting dark.

We had a celebratory dinner all together, where our plates came with sculptures of the animals we were eating (see photo below).

The next day we all headed up to Machu Picchu on the bus, to meet up with Chris and Silas’s tour group and see the sights. When we first got up there, the whole place was absolutely socked in with clouds/fog, so we could see almost nothing, but by the time the rest of the group arrived the fog had started to burn off and we got some pretty spectacular views of the whole site. We wandered around a bit after the tour ended, taking a look at the Inca Drawbridge and some other areas that don’t get visited a whole lot. We headed back down to Aguas Calientes in the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day bumming around the town, something not recommended. Chris and Silas’s train tickets were supposed to arrive on the mid-day train from Cusco, and when they didn’t show up we started to get pretty concerned about the boys getting back to Cusco in time for New Years. The next morning, Aviva and Kathie headed back to Cusco on the morning train, leaving the boys biting their fingernails and getting really nervous until their tickets finally showed up an hour or so before they were supposed to leave. Everyone got back to Cusco safe and sound in the end, though, and it was a really great experience if you ignore all the random incompetence associated with getting stuff done in Peru.

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1. Virginia Paul Bastedo Says:
   February 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 pm

   Just now happened upon this message and wonderful pictures, apparently sent and I had failed to open when received. Thrilled to be able to share this moment in time of your lives. Thank you!! Memories that you will always treasure. I have always been fascinated with this ancient site in Peru also the Aztec pyramids of Yucatan which Charles and I were fortunate to tour years ago.