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La Luna de Miel Larga
Chris and Aviva's travels through South America and beyond
About
Chris and Aviva got married in September of 2007 and immediately abandoned everything they know to move to Cuzco, Peru for a little over a year. Aviva is conducting her fieldwork towards her PhD in anthropology and Chris is bumming around shooting some short films and trying to look busy.
Choquequirao
July 9th, 2008 by AvivaThis past weekend (July 10-13), we went on a four-day hiking trip to Choquequirao. These Incan ruins are being touted as the next Machu Picchu—you can see this New York Times article about them. But they aren’t as developed (for tourists) yet so you can only get there by foot: with over 4 vertical miles of altitude change throughout the hike.
The first day we got an early start in Cusco leaving on the 6am bus for Ramal de Cachora, but a late start for hiking as we had to take the three hour winding bus (we were a little carsick and the ride, which is on the road to Lima, definitely clinched it for us that we are never going to bus to Lima) and then a 30 minute taxi from Ramal de Cachora to Cachora, and then wait for our mule driver to get everything redistributed weight-wise and get the mules loaded. We were traveling with an American couple that we met here, and although we had decided not to hire a guide (we heard that the route is very straight-forward) we didn’t want to carry our stuff, so a friend here had helped set us up with our mule driver. We started hiking around 11:30am, mostly flat through fields and forests and along a ridge, where we could see this gorgeous range of snow-covered mountains. We arrived at the first lookout point around two hours later, and stopped for lunch and to check out our route. From that lookout, we could see switchbacks all the way down the valley to the river, and Choquequirao in the distance on a mountain on the other side of the valley. We started our descent, from 2900m to 1800m, where the first campsite was located. It was all pretty much downhill switchbacks, with another cool lookout where we saw condors flying right over our heads. We arrived at camp around 5:30pm, after a little less than four hours of downhill hiking. Our nice muler driver had already set up our tents, which was nice considering it was getting dark and not in his job description. The campsite had about six other groups there, and sold drinks and had bathrooms, as well as a lot of animals. The next morning we awoke at 5am to leave at “6 en punto” (6 sharp), but left more like 6:30am. We hiked down the rest of the way to the river Apurimac, which is at 1500m. Then we hiked up and up and up. We reached the second campsite for a little rest around 9am, and then the third campsite at the “top” by 11:30am. The third campsite is at 3000m. We had lunch and rested and set up camp, and then headed off to finish the last hour hike up to the ruins shortly after 1pm. It actually took more like 1.5 hours, and Chris and I were alarmed to reach the ruins at 2:45pm and see that they were only open until 5pm. But it turned out not to matter that much. Although the ruins are supposedly bigger than Machu Picchu, much of the site still is not excavated and it is very spread out. There aren’t the same level of “grand architecture” buildings like in Machu Picchu, but the site is equally impressive as it is perched high on a mountain top with spectacular drops to the Apurimac River. And it is cool to be one of ten tourists visiting the site. Chris and I (our other travel companions were a little ways behind us) wandered in along the terraces without seeing another soul and wondered where we were supposed to pay the entrance fee. We finally came to the Lower Plaza and walked right past the man in the INC vest, sitting on the grass at the side. We walked up the ceremonial hill and were rewarded with a great view of the whole site and a condor swooping past 30m directly below us. When we came down, we realized that the man in the INC vest was collecting entrance money…talk about the opposite of the control exerted over Machu Picchu! We explored the rest of the site, hiking up to the Main Plaza to hide in the top part of the ruin and watch the sun set over Salkantay mountain. We left as it was getting dark and windy (and cold) around 5:30pm. Our mule driver actually came looking for us around 7pm in the dark because he was worried because we weren’t back at camp yet. Day three we insisted on sleeping in and woke up with the campsite to ourselves. We made pancakes, making jealous a group who hiked in early as we were breaking camp. I think we were on our way by 10am and we made good time, getting down from our 3000m back to 1500m at the river within 3 hours. But our knees weren’t thanking us. We had lunch by the river and soaked our feet. Our friends decided to go swimming and Chris and I decided to face the uphill hike first, and then do our relaxing at camp. It was a grueling 300m climb with the sun beating down on us and every step steeper than the last. I think it was the hardest part of the hike for me, because of the sun. Still, we made it in about an hour, and then got to spend a few hours relaxing at camp before dark. We all had more energy and better appetites that night, but knew that we had to get up the earliest of all the next day, because the sun comes out and shines directly on the cliff face we had to hike back up. We were up by 4am and gone by 5:45am. This last upward push wasn’t nearly as bad as the others because of the coolness of the dawn, and us already having made significant progress up the day before. We stopped occasionally to eat snacks and tell stories, and made it back to the first lookout point by 9:30am. Not knowing where else to kill our time, we had lunch (yes, lunch at 9:30am) and took some naps. Around 11am we started the last bit of our hike back, which I also found difficult because of being so exhausted from the previous days and with the sun now out in full force. But it was mostly flat, and we took our time, arriving back in Cachora at 12:30pm. We bought some “cold” beer, after not being able to find any restaurants, and hung out in the main plaza for a few hours. Everything about the trip had gone smoothly and according to plan, including the food we had packed and consumed, EXCEPT that we really over-estimated how long we would be hiking each day. As a result, our bus tickets back to Cusco weren’t until 7pm, so we had lots of time to kill. Not being able to find anyone to serve us in town, we cooked our last package of pasta on the roadside in front of our mule driver’s house at around 4:30pm. Luckily, our taxi driver showed up reasonably on time to take us back to Ramal de Cachora, and we waited by the side of the highway for only an hour, wearing 4 layers because now we were back at 3600m. Our bus was on time (ish) and here we are, trying to get our leg muscles to recuperate after washing four days worth of dust off our tired bodies. Back to regular life!
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