It is safe to say that the Land Of The Incas has captured the heart of Matteo Del Norte. Pilar "La Bruja" says that she thinks that I used to be an Inca in a former life. If that is the case then it certainly would explain the way I feel about this place, and the sadness I feel about leaving it. It is a place of blue skies and clean air. A place where a brilliant people built amazing things and designed intricate and delicate systems for interacting with nature. It is a place that has taught me many things and there is indeed a weight in my heart at the thought of departing tomorrow.
Let me say at the top of this blog that it would be completely impossible to get even a majority percentage of the story written here at this point. You wouldn't want to read that much. It was like 3 months in a week. No joke. I can't believe how much happened in that timespan. Here is a brief rundown.
Last time I wrote it was wednesday and we were preparing our supplies and packing our bags to head to the mountains. We were picked up long before first light on thursday morning and made the hour-long drive over a huge mountain pass to Ollantaytambo for breakfast and a team briefing about the plan for the trip. There were fourteen of us and then the two guides that we had. Most of the people were from the US and England. There was a guy from Ireland and another guy from Canada who had lived in Isreal and is now married to a woman in Spain. There was one kid from Brasil that cracked me up the whole time. We had pancakes and bread and jam and then again piled into our vehicle to drive to the departure point. The porters loaded up and we passed through the customs point and got our passports stamped. Then it was off across a suspension bridge and into the rocky terrain of the High Andes.
The first day was the most mellow of the four. We walked a couple hours along the rushing Urubamba River and then began to rise up above it and into the trees. There were a number of vistas looking out over the vast valleys and ancient stones of the Inca sites. The conversation was tranquil and light and even though the rain threatened a number of times, it never broke loose on us. At that point we were amazed by all the things we saw, but we really had no idea of what lay in store down the trail.
By the time we made it to our camp that night I was done in. The elevation was doing its worst to us. It was tough to get much breath and a number of us had raging headaches. The way it works with the camp is that the porters do all the work and the gringos just try to make it up the hill. All day long we were being passed by tiny but muscled men who were seemingly carrying their weight in packs and tent parts and food. Their calf muscles were huge and they walked bent over at the waist to carry the load. They wore sandals and their toes were torn and calloused, their feet as coarse as the trail we walked over. They arrive before the gringos and set up the eating tents and then they would cook lunch. After we ate lunch they would wash the dishes and then pack everything up into packs on their backs and then they would catch us and pass us only to arrive and set up the sleeping tents and the dinner. After they cooked our dinner they would get things set for the morning and go to sleep long after the sore whities had sunk into restless tent-style dreaming. In the morning they were awake long before us getting our breakfast ready. It was embarassing really. The food that they cooked was really good. Very healthy with a lot of carbs to keep us filled up with energy. Every meal had a soup and then at least four platters of meats and veggies and potatoes or rice or pasta. We got tea three times a day and lunch and dinner had dessert served with them.
That first night it was all we could do to keep our eyes open during dinner. I was asleep in two seconds when I got into my sleeping bag and I got solid sleep despite sleeping on the ground and having no pillow. We woke up at 530 and stumbled out of the tents as sore as could be. The huge glacial mountains that were directly in front of us had been covered in clouds the night before and in the morning the sun made its way up behind them, they were glorious and otherworldy in their domination of the sky. A guy named Pat, from San Francisco, had his camera set up on a tripód and he was capturing the surreal quality of the color and light. We started out soon after breakfast and immediatley started heading up a very steep mountain side. The second day is by far the hardest of them all. It is only 16 kilometers in distance, but we started by going up 2700 feet over a pass, then down 1500 feet, then up 1200 and then back down 1000 to finish the day. The elevation of the first pass, dubbed Dead Woman's Pass, is over 13000 feet and you can bet that at that height it is tough to function correctly. We had lunch at the bottom of the first downhill stretch of the day, and that would have been enough walking for me at that point. After lunch we were afforded a brief seista, which we spent the majority of talking with the brits about film and words that the americans "made a mess of". Back on the trail it didn't get any less steep but I did get a good second wind from all the food I had for lunch . We stopped at an incredible Inca sight and Orlando, our trusty guide, gave us the history. Orlando and his sidekick Cesar are both men of Quecuan descent. They ended up with the names "papa puma" and "baby puma" respectively. They were great guys who have terrific senses of humor but at the same time take their culture seriously and do their best to convey the histories and successes of their ancestors.
As we crossed the final pass for that day, the wind grew cold and we bundled up against it. We walked down into a new valley that had an entirely different set of flora and fauna. This was the beginning of the Cloud Forest, the place where we would be spending the second night. If there is one thing to say about the names of things around here, it's that they mean what they say. The Cloud Forest was just that; a large, very humid forest that had the visibility of a sauna set on high. When we got to camp we had no idea of what was around us. It was like a white womb. Not as warm as a womb, but not really that cold either. Very damp and seemingly confined. A group of us played cards that night and we were allowed to sleep in until 630 the following morning so we stayed up a little later despite the fatigue.
During the night it rained a number of times. Sometimes hard and sometimes not so hard. In the morning it was even more humid, and the porters, who we grew to trust on their instincts, promised more rain. We didn't have to wait long. On the first rise up out of the valley it began to come down. Those of us with panchos donned them and those without quickly grew moist and then soaked. We walked along for probably three hours in the rain. My shoes soaked through and my pant legs were stained with mud. The trail had sheer drop offs on the side and I was sure we were missing some incredible views. We reached the first pass that day and then began one of the toughest parts of the trip; the descent of 2000 stone stairs. Common sense tells you that going down would be easier than walking up, but for me it is not this way. With the weight of the pack bearing down, each step is a jolt that racks the knees, ankles, hips, and muscles in all sorts of areas. The rain made the stones a bit more slippery than usual and that was an added degree of difficulty. This third day saw us arriving at a camp high above the Urubamba. The place reminded me of a ski lodge. Big and full of people and smells. Not good smells generally. Up until this point we had been without the option of a shower, and we had been working hard so we were all quite ripe. That night there was a lot of drinking, but the crew crashed early because the wakeup on the fourth day was at 4 am.
The idea of the fourth morning was to get to a place called the Sun Gate by the time the sun came up over the huge mountains. We passed through passport control and then hurried along the damp and dew-covered path to barely make it in time. The view was unreal. The sun shown down from behind our backs and illuminated the ancient city and the wispy white-cotton clouds that hung suspended above it. We descended into Machu Picchu and wandered around for a few hours. Some of us climbed the mountain on the other side of Machu Picchu, called Wayna Picchu to get a good view. It was incredible too. There really isn't too much more that I can say. I feel very strongly about that place, but find it difficult to explain why. The photos on my myspace page may help to tell the story. I took close to 300 on that trip.
We soaked in the not-so-hot hot springs in Aguas Calientes that last night and drank a shitload of Cusqueña beer before passing out into many, many hours of satisfied slumber. The rest of the story will remain hidden for the time being. I have been trying for a few days now to get this blog up, but I got distracted my last couple days in Cusco and it didn't get done. Now I am in Puno after a long day in a bus. I will be exploring Lake Titicaca for the next few days before paying an outrageous amount of money for a visa to go to Bolivia. God save Jorge Bush. Punkass.
To sum up...Cusco is a place like no other. I can't wait to go back there. It has an energy that no other place has. A huge history of noble and devoted people. A respect for nature and this wonderful planet that we inhabit and work so hard to destroy everyday. Much can be learned from this long lost civilization. I love Peru!!!!
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