2018 South America Adventure

With the last minute change of plans for our final day of trekking, the wake up time was brought forward to an unearthly 4.00 am in the morning. Fortunately for me the sleeping bag decided to become my vicious enemy during the night and I was awake and ready before any need for the wake up alarm.

I flashed the torch around the scattered ruins inside my tent, deflated the mattress for the final time and stuffed everything into the duffel bag. I was not really sad to be saying goodbye to my time in the tent and I couldn't help but feel that my days of camping have probably come to an end.

By 4.15 I had crawled out into the pre dawn night and noticed that not all of my fellow trekkers had awaken yet. I flashed my torch around to hasten their departures from the Land of Nod and proceeded to grab something to eat for breakfast.

At 5.00 am the order was given that it was time to move. We shouldered our bags, switched on our lights and formed a single line along the narrow walking track. At this point there is a dramatic drop down to the Urubamba and a single slip could prove disastrous. For some in the group it was probably a good thing that they could not see what was lying just a few centimetres away from each footfall.

After crossing the suspension bridge across the raging river, we climbed the other side and boarded our waiting bus. We all knew that we had less than 75 mins to catch the train as it passed through Ollantaytambo. This would not seem much of a challenge, but the roads here have to be experienced to be believed.

For the next hour we crawled our way along goat tracks, passing several other vehicles with only a few cm clearance on each side. In some places the road was almost completely blocked with piles of huge rocks. At one stage several passengers had to get out in order to lighten the bus and increase the ground clearance. Our guide started to get noticeably nervous at our glacial rate of progress

Just when we though the worst was behind us we noticed that the road ahead was blocked by a police roadblock. We all knew that if we stopped we would miss the train and the consequences would be disastrous. The only answer was to tell the driver NOT to stop. So that's what we did. The driver planted his foot and just ignored the waving policeman, narrowly avoiding running over his foot. We looked at each other in amazement. Would they send out an all points alert for the notorious Ghostriders in their runaway bus ???? Apparently not.

To cut a long story short we reached the train station with only about 5 mins to spare, scrambled on the train and settled in for the hour long trip back to where we had just started from earlier in the morning.

The train eventually stopped at the so called Km 106 point, deep in the jungle. If the famous Paddington Bear came from darkest Peru, this certainly looked like the sort of place that could have been his birthplace. We climbed out of the train and assembled at the start of the final leg of the famous Inca Trail.

After passing through the checkpoint we started out on what was probably the toughest section of the entire trek. The path climbed relentlessly up and up, so that the river was soon hundreds of metres below us. Once again our ageing legs ached and our lungs heaved as we trudged on and on. We did not reach the resting spot until we had climbed around 1000 metres from the valley floor. It was only then that the guide told us that we were the fastest group he had ever had on this climb. In fact we had cut 60 mins off the "normal" time for this climb. I guess that is not so bad for a group of elderly travellers !

For the next couple of hours the going was considerably easier as we passed through the magnificent rain forest known as the Jurassic Section. I must admit that you could almost be forgiven for thinking that we were walking through some sort of prehistoric forest, laden with miniature orchids, towering ferns and all manner of mysterious plants. Now and then butterflies fluttered through the dappled sunlight. It was a magical time.

The final major challenge in approaching Machu Picchu along this trail is to negotiate the famous "monkey steps". This is an almost vertical wall of 50 stone steps. Presumably it was built as a final defense to fight off any would be invaders of the city. Nowadays it does a great job in almost killing the daily army of trekkers as they approach the final stages to the Sun Gate. This section is best done on hands and knees, but once it is achieved you can rest assured that the city is almost inn view.

The final few hundred steps lead to the famous Inti Punku (Sun Gate). This is a narrow opening high in the mountains that allows the sun to shine directly into a window on the Temple of the Sun on the summer solstice. For the modern day trekker, the rewards of passing through the Sun Gate is that you get the most amazing view down to the city of Machu Picchu. This is a moment in anyone's life that I am sure they will never forget.

After a few moments of savouring the view and reflecting on our achievements, we began the final climb down to Machu Picchu itself. An hour later we were there. It was a pity that about 6,000 others were there also. Of course most of the huge throng had not arrived via the trail, they had just taken the bus up from the train station at Aguas Calientes, way down in the valley.

By that stage we were hot , exhausted and greatly dismayed by the huge throng of shoving and selfie stick carrying tourists that had invaded this sacred spot. We decided to quickly pass through and return early the following morning when it hopefully would be quieter.

Before we could descend to the town we had to wait about an hour in a huge line of jostling tourists, all waiting to catch a bus. It was not pleasant. We finally squeezed onto a bus and completed the hairy zig zag drive down to Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters). This town has developed solely because of the massive tourist traffic to Machu Picchu. It is full of expensive restaurants, bars and gift shops. Wandering pan pipe playing buskers do a roaring trade entertaining the wandering tourists who have just climbed off the train from Cusco.

For us, we just wanted a nice hotel, a shower and a clean bed. We actually got all three and a whole lot more. We find we had been booked into the best hotel in the town. With a tariff of around $500 AUD a night it was far above what we had been expecting to get. But we certainly were not complaining. We LOVED it. The El Mapi had beautiful rooms, luxurious showers, minibars, delightful beds, good Internet and a superb breakfast, in fact everything that an exhausted trekker could possibly want.

After enjoying a superb final meal with our main guide, I returned to my room and went to bed. It was about 9 pm, pretty late I thought.Read more