Greetings readers! When I left you last the wife and I were perched at the foot of what can only be described as a hellish staircase carved into the side of Apu Salkantay, just a few hundred yards from the pass. To this point in our journey we’d mostly escaped the symptoms of altitude sickness but for a few slight headaches. As we edged up this last stretch of incline I began to feel a bit light headed and woozy, a condition that I leveraged into even more frequent rest stops than before. I could see several trekkers atop the pass whooping and celebrating having conquered the switchbacks. This being a family website I will not repeat here the bitter and ugly thoughts I directed toward them and their merriment as Kayte and I proceeded at our injured snail’s pace. Alfredo was especially helpful at these moments, urging us on with visions of a delicious lunch and the promise that within minutes our uphill portion of the day would be concluded. We reached the top just after noon – some five hours after we’d departed camp. At the pass our group performed the time honored Andean tradition of rock stacking, an offering to the local mountain gods for our safe journeys. We then commenced with the time honored obnoxious American tradition of posing boastfully next to the signs marking the altitude. The sense of accomplishment didn’t sink in until much later in the day, partly owing to my woozy head and associated desire to get downhill ASAP.
Once we began to move down I allowed myself a smile at the thought that we’d made it past the toughest section of the trek. A few minutes later these smiling thoughts had bloomed into full blown hubris and a sense of invincibility. I began to entertain wild fantasies of besting Kilimanjaro and the Himalaya. Everest, I reflected, was no match for a man of my superior talents and endurance. And then just as these rapturous visions reached a crescendo with me imagining myself on the cover of Outside Magazine making a zoolander face under a headline reading “Andersen declares his next climb will be a volcano on the planet Mercury”…. I fell. Yes, that’s right, I fell hard and fast on the easiest breeziest=2 0little sloped trail, my body collapsing into an asymmetrical pile of limbs and trekking poles. After it was established that I hadn’t sustained any major injuries outside of a few scrapes we all had a good belly laugh at my atrocious sense of balance. Naturally I blamed the altitude sickness. No one bought it.
This little portion of the trek was, to these eyes, the most beautiful – no small feat during a week in which we regularly gasped due to sheer sensory overload. We were winding down through a long valley dotted with grazing sheep and granite boulders the size of houses. The valley floor was still and green, shielded from wind, as though God had scooped and then set apart this secret paradise out from the moist crust of the earth. The colors and vegetation reminded us of the great rift valley in Kenya, a place that Kayte and I have never forgotten. I promptly christened it “the valley at the end of the world” and made a mental note to amend my last will and testament so that my ashes may be scattered in this place when I die. We ate lunch next to a small stream, spooning soup and swiveling our heads around in wonderment, drinking in the fire of the blue sky and the smooth curvature of the valley walls. After a while we set out again, walking by a pair of wild horses drinking from a stream oblivious to us awestruck wanderers. The radical shifts in topography and vegetation that can take place inside just a few hours on this trek are truly extraordinary. At the end of the valley at the end of the world lay, shrouded in green mist, the beginning of the rainforest. Considering that we began the day alpine hiking above the tree line, it was borderline disorienting to be stumbling into a jungle scarcely seven hours later. We hugged a mountain wall as we continued our steady descent, with camp still four hours away. Orchids of differing colors began appearing beside us on the trail. I told Alfredo that one purple and yellow flower combo was hereby to be called the Laker flower. He returned a blank stare.
The downhill began to take a toll with camp still two hours to go. It was at this point that our knee joints began to feel gelatinous. As a child I remember reading with genuine puzzlement the stories in Exodus of the Israelites repeatedly turning upon Moses after he led them out of Egypt. Now that I reflect upon Alfredo’s wild swings in popularity with our group I think I understand the phenomenon much better. He was our hero after he got us to the pass but here we were the very same day, our legs aching and rubbery, questioning loudly if perhaps there was a more direct route to camp that he’d overlooked. Al fredo, to his great credit, took our fatigue induced moodiness with good humor, always replying with a smile and the maddeningly vague assurance “almost there”. Day two spanned eleven hours when all was said and done. Camp was a little ranch in the middle of a jungle clearing. Chickens, puppies and small children all took turns chasing one another over the grounds as twilight turned to dark. Our hosts sold us water and we sat quietly drinking, envying the poetry of this simple life. We ate and then slept, knowing that morning would bring with it a soreness unequaled by any other in our lives thus far.
Truth be told, the morning was creaky but not as bad as expected. Alfredo enticed us to arise early with a vicious lie: he said that today would be mostly a leisurely stroll along a broad flat path running parallel to a river. He later added that by flat he meant “peruvian flat” a linguistic distinction that did not amuse us. The trail did hug the river, but it was a rollercoaster of hills, up and down and there were constant muddy stretches to negotiate. It was much easier than days one and two and yet still it challenged us psychologically, mostly because we kept waiting for the promised wide and flat part. At times the trail would snake so that it lay just next to the river and you’d feel the wind coming a cross the water, cool on your face, the view clear of trees so that you could look forever into emerald hills without the slightest blemish of civilization. Then the trail would move back into the thicker, hotter jungle, and biting flies would circle your face, impervious to your feverish swats and you’d yearn for a long soak in deet jello. I have a feeling that last sentence won’t quite make the Peruvian Tourism Ministry’s official brochure. Just a hunch. Alfredo shamed us successfully by mentioning casually that the kids we met at camp walk to school along the very same trail, three hours each way, EVERY DAY. During one of our forays into the dense foliage a striking blue brown butterfly came swooping down and landed on the bill of my hat, refusing to move for several minutes. I took off my hat and took pictures of it at point blank range and still it just posed and stared, shimmering under the flash. We quickly became fond of this butterfly and were very sad to see it depart, flapping its way back into the impenetrable green. Near the end of the day we came to the beginning of a small town, with tiny houses set twenty and thirty yards apart. We passed by a hotly contested pickup soccer game, the locals blurring back and forth in bright jerseys, shouting at one another in clipped spanish. We were mesmerized, staying to watch until night threatened to swallow our path to camp in darkness.
The fourth day saw us weave through still more small villages and towns, the sights and sounds of which were nearly as captivating as the natural wonders we’d passed earlier in the trek. We saw a man and his son skinning a cow right by the road, a quasi Abrahamic image I won’t soon forget. The animal lay prone on its back, its blood fresh as they peeled, with great skill, long strips of its flesh until only meat remained. Alfredo was quick to remark that these people were careful not to waste any part of the cow, even down to the jawbone. Whether that’s true or not, it does seem that there’s something more honorable in being so intimately involved in the preparation of one’s sustenance. In the West our eating is so far removed from the animal itself, its as though all meat falls mysteriously from the sky into the grocery store freezer like manna from heaven. We stopped at some hot springs, nature’s jacuzzi, and soaked for an hour or so. This marked our first shower in four days not counting haphazard baby wipe baths in the tent. I felt like a new man afterwards, and looked like one too thanks to the new beard wrapped around my face. The beard, by the way, got mixed reviews. Kayte liked it but one of our fellow trekkers told me it made me look like George Michael, which I found horrifying. When, in the face of my visibly hurt feelings, she did not withdraw the comparison I vowed to be rid of the beard just as soon as we returned to civilization. That night we camped in a small town who’s name escapes me, the hard work of the trek now behind us. The train on to Aguas Calientes, and Machu Picchu were still waiting for us, we were excited to see them with our souls so refreshed by the countryside, and the beautiful people of Peru. We lay awake in our tent, listening to the moths fly blind into the nylon, wondering… Would the famed lost city of the Incas hold up to the hype? Time would tell.
(to be continued)
Click here to read part 1 of Trekking in Peru.
Ross Anderson
outsideallday.com Contributor
