Salkantay Trek - Day 5
In the middle of the night, I exit my tent to use the bathroom and as I unzip the door, I sense something nearby. I am disoriented and one eye open and that one eye is still blurry from a deep, deep Peruvian red wine induced sleep. As I peer out, my headlamp catches the glare of animal eyes and I nearly fall backwards into my tent as my heart skips a beat. It’s a horse roaming free JUST outside the door of my tent, pulling grass by its root from the earth as it grazes under the stars. I catch my breath, laugh a little to myself, and choose to take a hard right to leave the horse be as I make my way across the field to the bathrooms. I’m wide awake now as I’ll ever be.
Horses, mules, and donkeys have all become commonplace on this journey. While I am beyond grateful for them all, especially the mules carrying our larger duffels and camping gear each and every day, having all of these animals nearby means their shit is always nearby too. Shit has become a normal part of the scenery at every camp, on every trail, and at every turn. I swear it is why I am sneezing so much! Any who, as of the second day of our trek, I stopped trying to avoid it all on the trails. It is nearly impossible and, as I said to my friend Lori here, “that’s not a game I have the energy to play.” I think the group would agree.
After returning to my tent from the bathroom, I popped my earplugs back in and apparently went back to dreamland. The next thing I heard was “Good morning” coming from outside my tent as a crew member knocked. Holy hell, I slept hard last night!
After some hot morning coffee in my tent followed by a quick clean up with some wipes dipped into my basin of warm water, I packed up my duffel now filled with dirty, stinky clothes all stuffed into zip loc bags that had broken wide open, and I prepped my day pack for the day ahead.
Last night, before all the wine and snacks, we had been given two options for today. Option one was to hang back at the Chamana camp, explore the Llactapata ruins nearby, and spend some time relaxing before lunch. Option two was to head out on a morning trek to explore the ruins at Machu Q’ente and Huayna Q’ente. This would include a steep and challenging ascent of 1,200’ and take about three hours round trip. Additionally, we were told that the majority of people visiting Peru never get to see those ruins. That was all I had to hear to be hooked. I opted for option two along with the majority of the group. This morning though, as I took some Motrin with my breakfast, I hoped I would just sweat out all the wine and the trek would magically become a piece of cake.
Make no mistake. I absolutely did sweat out all of the wine and then some. As for the trek, it proved to be the most challenging ascent yet, but hey, easy is overrated anyway.
We headed out around 7:45 AM, sun blazing in the sky above. Temperatures were heating up fast. I knew that the higher we got we would likely have zero cover so I slopped on a few extra layers of thick, white sunblock which, as I walked, quickly became covered in a new layer of dirt. My war paint was back!
As we exited the doorway to Chamana camp, we made a right turn down the rocky dirt hill, passing a few local women and their children as we went. After a short walk, we arrived at the nearby river where we crossed a small bridge. A few steps later, we had entered a space that immediately felt full of magic. The energy had completed shifted in this new space. It was absolutely breathtaking. Our trail was lined by giant, swaying, dark green eucalyptus trees giving us cover from the sun. Mixed in were juvenile eucalyptus trees, their leaves a lighter mint green color and a different look than their elders nearby. I felt surrounded by families of trees and more than human friends. As we walked, I reached my hands out to say hello to them all. There were massive boulders covered in lichen and moss , cool to the touch as I placed my palm flat on them for a moment of connection and just to our left, the flowing water of an original Incan canal, part of it still in use today.
Absolutely mind blowing. I get goose bumps even now as I mentally place myself right back in that space.
Our trail was relatively flat with some mixed in Peruvian rolling hills…until it wasn’t. We had been moving at a good clip when our guide, Uri, called for a quick water break and informed us that we would now begin the steep, uphill portion of the climb, lasting approximately 45-60 minutes. I thought to myself, how much harder could this be than what we have already done?
The answer was…A LOT.
As we started moving again, single file, one foot, one pole, and then the other foot and the other pole on repeat, I quickly realized what the guides meant by steep and challenging. This was full sun, dirt kicking up in your face, 45 degree incline, high altitude, climb for your life kind of shit for 45 minutes with two, maybe three short breaks to make sure everyone was alive and kicking. To the outside world looking in, I’m sure we seemed to be a very quiet bunch, focused on making it up the ascent. To me, all I could hear was my own breath. Head down. Inhale. Step up. Head down. Exhale. Step up. Over and over again. My breath had found a pattern, albeit hard and audible. I reminded myself that I can do anything for 45 minutes, even this, and I kept moving forward, every so slowly, one step at a time. Every single step I took I knew I was closer to the top and there was no way in hell I was stopping now. Sweat covered my body, dripped into my eyes and down from my elbow creases, my wrists, from everywhere, down into every crevice known to man. After about 35 minutes, there was a small taste of relief as we reached a small jungle-like area with cover from the sun, a waterfall, and a cool breeze blowing. The views were indescribable. In the mind fog of it all, I was sure I had ascended into Heaven momentarily. About ten minutes later, after a short and brief final climb, I reached the top and dropped my pack.
As I stood there in the high grass catching my breath, the views before my eyes were like something out of a painting. I wondered, “Am I dreaming?". If I was, I didn’t want to wake up. Words like green, technicolor, vibrant, and expansive don’t even begin to describe the sights all around me, as far as I could see. This was my reward for the push and the burn I had experienced for the last 45 minutes of my life. During the trek I had shared with some of the team that I was there for a lot of things, but most notably to keep pushing my edges, to keep getting extremely uncomfortable, to keep doing hard things. I only had one rule. Don’t die. Today was the closest I had felt thus far to a sharp edge, to true discomfort, to a really hard thing. Hard thing is actually an understatement. It was hot as hell, everything burned, my lungs and legs were on fire, there was no where to escape to and the only way out was up. My mind though…my mind was tough as nails, fully dialed in, and never going to quit. I would do it all over again because to be that close to heaven, to be in the middle of ancient ruins filled with history and stories and substance, to be so close to something so far removed from the world we live in today, THAT is fucking living.
Bonus? I clearly didn’t die.
After Harry shared more history of the ruins and we had some time to explore and refuel our bodies, it was time to descend. We needed to make it back to camp on time for lunch and to meet up with the rest of the group that had stayed back. Our final ceremony with our crew lie ahead along with an afternoon trek still to come.
As you can imagine, we descended much quicker than we had ascended although it was extremely steep. We also had a moment of being lost but were quickly found thankfully! I wondered how my legs would do when we headed out of camp again following lunch for our three hour trek back into town. I remembered though that there was a bus waiting at the end of that afternoon trek that would take us to our first hotel of the trip. That meant a hot shower and a warm bed were waiting on the other side of this afternoon for me. Suddenly, the worry of tired legs dissipated. If I had to crawl, I would get to that hotel.
After returning to camp, we had a beautiful lunch all together at one long table outside in the field. I was ravenous from the morning adventure and so for the first time, I got myself seconds. Our tents had been packed up one final time by the crew and our large duffels were piled up waiting for the mules to carry them to the bus, our final destination today before we would shift gears on this trek from camping to hotels. Little did I know, we would be trekking by day and exploring small towns by night, riding trains and more buses, and even visiting an unexpected spa in the coming days as we continued to move closer and closer to the final destination for this portion of the trek - Machu Picchu!
After filling our bellies, we celebrated one last time with our full crew. These amazing humans who had cooked for us, set up and broken down camp for us, carried our duffel bags from camp to camp, and helped us to survive over the last four days, this family we were now a part of was disbanding and going separate ways. Our crew had even provided us with creature comforts along the way, most notably the toilets. THAT is love! It was a bittersweet moment for sure as this ceremony marked our point of separation, our final goodbye. Chris, our fearless leader, presented each crew member with their tip and shared a beautiful thank you speech on behalf of our group. Then, before closing things out, our lead guide, Nep, shared with us a word I will try hard to never forget. In Quechua, there is no real word for goodbye. There is only “tupananchiskama”, meaning “see you later” or “until next time”. And so, we went around in a circle and one by one, shook each crew members hand and exchanged the word “tupananchiskama”. It was not our final goodbye after all. This was simply a moment to give thanks and say until next time my friends. Until next time.
No sooner than I had shook the final crew members hand did Nep say another, very familiar word. “Hakuchis!” And so, with a group response of “Si. Si.”, we strapped on our day packs and off we went. The afternoon portion of the trek had officially begun.
The first thirty minutes or so consisted of another uphill climb, but then, things thankfully began to even out. Together, we hiked for nearly three more hours before crossing a bridge, snapping a group photo, and finally arriving at the bus station. I was so grateful to see that bus! As I climbed in, legs like jello, smelling like some unique concoction of sweat and work and nature and dirt and sunblock and deet all mixed into one, I fell into my seat and thought, what a day. WHAT A DAY! I was the best kind of exhausted there is.
After about a 30 minute bus ride through small towns and narrow roads, the bus in front of us only clipping one metal roof along the way and narrowly missing a car, we arrived to our first hotel, Las Qolqas, an Eco Resort in Ollantaytambo. Upon driving through the gates, I was reminded of the uniqueness and quality of hotels that Embark Exploration Co. finds for their trekkers. They do not disappoint! We were greeted with a beautiful patio area, complete with comfortable couches and a welcome Pisco Sour, the classic Peruvian cocktail. While we had all fallen deeply in love with the dirt and our tents, this was a welcomed change. We had arrived! The best part of it all? They offered laundry service which I immediately found and took advantage of. The thought of putting on clean clothes in the morning instead of clothes stuck in shapes due to salty sweat and filth was enough to nearly produce tears!
The property was absolutely beautiful, a peaceful haven filled with flowers and plants, a spa, and a running waterway throughout. Each eco tent had been named for the plant or herb that lined its entry way, mine being called “Iresine”. My tent had a beautiful deck out front with chairs for reading or relaxing and inside, wood floors, two bedrooms, warm blankets, a large bathroom with an oversized rainfall shower, and a small wood stove that someone would tend to for me just before bedtime that evening. Phenomenal!
After taking some time to clean up and organize my things for the next day, which would consist of a train ride and the need for a separate overnight bag, I met up with the group for some drinks at the bar followed by an amazing dinner all together. Thanks to my friend Lori giving me a nudge, I managed to book myself a massage for 1.5 days from now when we would return to this very property again for the night.
Tomorrow, we will wake earlier than we have thus far to catch our bus to catch the train, climb another 2,000’, and arrive to Inti Punku, the Sun Gate at Machu Picchu. I think it may take everything I have to hold back tears when I catch my first glimpse of it all so I decide I won’t. I’ll let the tears flow if they come and I will embrace all that is this epic journey to Machu Picchu.
For now, I’m crawling into bed, belly full from dinner, body warm from the wood stove and cozy blankets, and drifting off to dreamland.
Tupananchiskama.
