Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu

Salkantay: Day 1

We were woken up Monday morning by our German doormmate Michael who came home loudly from the bars at 4am. After quickly getting our things together we packed our bags and went outside the hostel to wait for our guide to come pick us up and take us to the beginning of the Salkantay Trek. This was our first experience with the unreliable and unorganized Peruvian operating system. First of all, the guide who said he would come and get us, did not actually arrive. Instead another guide from another company showed up and assured us that we should go with him. After quick deliberation, we decided to take our chances and we got on the bus with a guide we had never met before. We rode for about two hours until we got to a small town called Ollatatambo where the 5 day trek would begin. After eating a quick breakfast of stale bread and coca tea, we (Trev, I, Kasper and Luigi from Germany, Rachel and Jeremy from Australia, and Johanna and Matilda from Finland) were off.

That day we walked for about 19km through the high desert of Peru. After surviving severe dehydration and a little sunburn, and about 8 hours with a few small breaks, we arrived at the base of the snow-covered Salkantay Mountain and set up camp. We all had a quick “shower” in the glacier melt by the camp and then went back to our camp site for some coca tea, awful instant coffee, and a pretty traditional Peruvian meal of asparagus soup, rice and chicken, and steamed veggies (a meal we would come to know very well over the next four days). We all watched the sun disappear behind the mountain and went to sleep once the light faded.

Day 2:

Wake up at 5am. Breakfast of crapes covered in caramel and some coca tea. We then began day 2, the most challenging day of the entire trek. We left the campsite while it was still dark and trekked our way between the mountains. The high desert quickly turned into rough rocky mountain terrain. We walked for about 5 hours until we reached the top of a miserable rocky serpentining hill covered in horse crap. There we took our first official break of the day. We stopped at a very random turquoise lagoon and rested for a while. With the massive snow-covered Salkantay right in front of us, all of our fatigue and dehydration seemed pretty irrelevant. We sat there, drank water, and curiously admired all of the random rock stacks around us. Our guide Nilton told us that the rock stacks were brought in from a nearby town and stacked to symbolize a gift to the mountain gods. Trevor also made a stack of his own.  This was the highest elevation we reached on the trip, which was around 15,500 ft. 

After our break we made our journey down to lunch.  We ate soup (of course) rice and a meat dish, with tea at the end as always.  It’s only day two and if you couldn’t have already guessed the food got a little old.  The mere sight of rice makes us both cringe.  We walked another 6 hours to our campsite where the mountains met the jungle.  That night we “showered” which consisted of washing our faces and feet with a hose.  This is when the bugs started getting really bad and we realized that we were the only ones of the ten of us to have any bug spray.  Like good American’s we of course brought enough for all and shared with our European counterparts.  Luckily this campground had a nice little store and was not short of liter bottles of Pilsen (crappy Peruvian lager), so we indulged to reward ourselves for our hard day.  The night ended with a torrential downpour, in which a lot of our things got wet.

Day 3:  The mosquito situation continued to get worse. We awoke on day three to clear skies and a promise of an easy walk through the jungle.  We ate breakfast and set off on the trail.  As we set off we were surprised to hear a squealing pig being castrated in a near by farm.  We stopped, watched in shock for a while and then continued on our way, a few of us seriously considered vomiting.  As we walked a few small pulperias (fruit stands) appeared on the trail.  They offered very cheap Maracuya (similar to passion fruit).  Trevor was pleasantly surprised by the seedy, slimy, and sweet fruit that looked a little too much what we imagined cat brains would look like. We walked for a few more hours until we reached our bus that would take us to our lunch spot. We ate lunch, I’m sure you can imagine what was on the menu, and then headed to a small town called Santa Teresa that is known only for it’s hot springs, and its large mosquito population. We set up camp and made our way to the surprisingly hot water that flowed out of the mountain/volcano nearby. We, along with about 40 other gringos from around the world, enjoyed our first semi-bath in three days. We also continued to order liters of beer from the bartender, a 5-year-old girl who was quite the saleswoman. Later, we went back to the campsite, ate dinner, and played with a monkey who lived there. We made a bonfire and had a dance party until about 11 with some older, very drunk, Brazilian women. This was the first night we had stayed up past 8 in a few days.

Day 4: We woke up, had breakfast, played with a monkey, and began our walk along the train track towards Aguas Calientes (the base of Machu Picchu). This was the day our horses left us and turned back, which meant that we would have to carry our 30 pound bag, a day pack, and water bottles for the entire trek to Aguas Calientes. Although we were promised that the hard part was over, this very hot, dusty, mosquito-infested part of the trek would prove to be anything but easy, especially for Trev who was nice enough to carry our bag the entire way. We walked quickly and in silence. We were all tired, dehydrated, dirty, and ready to make it to our hostel in Aguas Calientes where we would have our first real shower (complete with hot water) in 5 days. In a few long hours, we finally made it to our destination. We all rushed to our hostels and enjoyed our very long showers before heading out for some pizza and beer. We had dinner together and made it back to our rooms by about 8pm to get some sleep before our alarms would go off at 3:30 for us to begin our 3,300 stair hike to the lost city of the Incas.