Almanac Travel: The Trek

 

“Try this.”

 

I bite into the tart, cherry sized, orange fruit. Delicious.

 

“What is it?

 

“Aguaymanto” he says.

 

Two bites and it’s gone. I eat two or three more. They’re little thirst quenchers. Bitter but not unpleasantly so. We’re in the back of the car traversing the Sacred Valley in Peru. This fertile valley of the Peruvian highlands was at the heart of the Incan empire over 500 years ago. It became a vital food bowl as the Incans spread their influence across the regions. Beautiful little Spanish villages are dotted along the valley floor. Ollantaytambo is one of them. With its magnificent Incan ruins, this delightful village of narrow stone-paved streets that almost shake the windows out of the car when traversed, is seemingly at the end of the road. It’s here that three valleys meet. The austere mountains bend over the town as if in ancient conversation giving the little settlement an almost fairytale feel. We will kick off our four-day Machu Picchu trek just beyond Ollantaytambo tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

An hour and a half after our visit to Ollantaytambo the first rumbles began. It wasn’t much, just a minor tummy turn, a piece of digesting fruit selling candy within. But the rumble became thunder. Suddenly no toilet was close enough. My body was trying to eject the aguaymantos. I was about to become a walking Krakatoa.

 

That night’s sleep was fitful. There is nothing delusional about a bacterial food complaint. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. As the stomach’s “good” bacteria strategically retreats to gather it’s strength, the recently ingested poison runs amok; throwing chairs, breaking windows, setting fire to the contents within. It’s war. And it’s a war that can last 24 hours, one week, or several weeks (that probably means hospital). I’ve had it before. In 1987 I writhed on the sands of a beach at Tavira in southern Portugal for days, having consumed a substance formerly known as beef, and was sustained and guarded by a group of German university students on their summer break. God bless them. I really mean that. I saw death at my door. Whatever went in was coming out at twice the velocity. I awoke the next morning feeling like I’d swallowed a wide jaw wrench. Four tough days of hiking lay ahead. This was bad.

 

There is a thing in Peru called Peruvian flat which describes the topography of this country, a country where mountains stand next to each other like hungry people queueing for bread. Here, you are mostly walking up or down. Even the flat bits are up-flat or down-flat: Peruvian flat.

 

Day one of the Machu Picchu trek is Peruvian flat. A path that edges its way along the Urubamba River has reasonably gentle rises and falls and meanders close to the base of the mountains. The flow of the river becomes more and more urgent as we leave Ollantaytambo behind us, until the noise of the rapids becomes a rumble. My stomach is rumbling too! We stop to rest. I feel exhausted, crook, thirsty and generally miserable. The next three and a half days loom as tortuous. The shade of a large rock offers some respite as I collapse onto the cool grass. The war inside rages.

 

 

Feeling the pinch only two hours in.

 

 

But Gonzales, our guide, is a master. He gets me drinking some of his “salts” and judges the rest stops perfectly, not letting me reach the point of total breakdown. And I keep eating what I can stomach, even though its imminent exit is rather inelegant. The body needs fuel.

 

“Little by little. Step by step”, becomes my mantra.

 

Towards the end of day one we climb a fairly steep path, stopped momentarily by a rampaging donkey, loaded with cargo, which has escaped the control of its owner. It’s galloping down the hill like a mad thing. Moments later a young girl sprints down after it, raising her eyebrows with an apologetic “what are you going to do?” look. We reach camp one. I reach the toilet.

 

Day two I awake, eat something, vomit, dash to the loo, then I’m ready to go. Great start. This is the day where the real ascent begins. Yesterday was kids’ stuff. We pass along the valley floor then quickly head up. And up. The day starts at about 2500 metres. We’ll end at about 3500 metres. There is a bit of local traffic. Trekkers give way to horses and donkeys.

 

 

 

 

The cool of a high-altitude morning leaves us quickly. The mountains show their spectacular faces. Snow covered peaks loom over the skyline, dwarfing the green, often terraced, lower reaches. Some of these peaks are over 6500 metres. Our path is even but steadily the gradient lifts and as the air thins we rest and hydrate more regularly. Fortunately, we have no altitude sickness, just the normal puffing and panting that goes with reduced oxygen. Every step is a photo opportunity. This landscape is so un-Australian. The hills and mountains here are readily defined as if they’ve been 3D printed and placed carefully into the puzzle, whereas in Australia we have ancient, sprawling undulations, brown and craggy and beaten, that tend to melt into each other like ice cream on a hot day.

 

 

 

 

The second camp is a large open area on the floor of a high-altitude valley. Up there, in the mist, about 900 metres above us is Dead Woman’s Pass. The highest point of the trek at 4312 metres. Tomorrow we’ll get there, rest, descend to about 2500 metres before ascending again to about 3900 metres. Easily the toughest day of the journey. My knees complain at the thought of it. Going up tests the quads and the calves and aerobic fitness. Descending tests the knees and their ability to bend and straighten, under load, about a thousand times in a row. I Wish I’d packed a spare meniscus.

 

By now the turmoil in my belly had become predictable, if not improved. I’d eat, get cramps that would sink Moby Dick, drink lots of water, and an hour later have the insatiable urge to turn inside out. Thankfully there was no fever or headache. The two-ply I’d brought from Australia was the only luxury I had. I tried to make my little side adventures as discreet as possible but when the fury within ignited I had only a matter of 60 seconds to find grace. Difficult to do in a landscape of stumpy vegetation.

 

 

 

 

Dead Woman’s Pass is so called because it resembles a female form that has been laid out post-mortem. She could be sleeping but the rock formations are arranged in such a manner that her head is tilted slightly, somewhat unnaturally, forward. It’s the unnatural tilt that says dead not sleeping. Death brings awkwardness to the human body. We distort. At least physically. Spiritually? Who knows?  Like a bacterial stomach complaint death is also not delusional. You are or you’re not.

 

Our day three camp is magical and not just because of the scenery. It’s magical because our journey is almost done. Tomorrow, we will rise at 5.30am and aim for the Sun Gate by about 1pm. It’s a nine-kilometre path mostly downhill. But it’s a path not a track. A Peruvian flat path.

 

What is behind us is probably life changing: the effort, the sights, the sounds, the porters who shared our trek, the conversations with Gonzales, the altitude. The altitude!! The colours of the mornings, the depth of the evenings, the light, the gushing rivers, the sheer beauty of white tipped mountain ranges, and the imprint on the soul that impossible splendor leaves. But I don’t see these things in the moment. I only see the conclusion: the target. The rest is lost until we get home and sit in the backyard with a cuppa and ponder where we have just been. Which is probably a bit sad. Sad in that I can’t quite fathom that which is in front of my eyes. I see it but it doesn’t quite compute. Strangely when I can no longer see it, it blossoms in my consciousness. Is that nostalgia?

 

The target, of course, is Machu Picchu. An extraordinary place constructed mostly from mammoth stones carved out of the surrounding volcanic rock by the Incas for reasons best known to them. Part summer escape? Part holy temple? Part king’s retreat? It eventually became a refuge from the Spanish around the 1570s until it was abandoned and left to the wilderness until rediscovered again in 1911.

 

Perhaps it was built because of its exquisite location, as if laid down in a gentle embrace. Perched low beneath the mountains on the tip of a bluff that plummets on one side and slides off on the other. Surrounded by the spirits, cradled by the jungle. It reaches for their God. Or Gods. It looks up, which is important. The stars were important to those who envisaged constructing this place. The heavens informed their stories.

 

The last ascent up to the Sun Gate which provides the first glimpse of Machu Picchu is more a clamber than a climb. Straight up. Large rock steps, built for giants rather than humans, require exertion and concentration. With quads burning and lungs gasping I make it; three kilograms and most of a toilet roll lighter than when we commenced the trek, and even more astounded at the human body’s ability to endure. The view is expansive. Other trekkers have congregated. There is an abundance of air being exhaled from lungs in wonder. This is a universal language. The best humans can do to express the feeling of transcendence. Below us, about a kilometre down the track but seemingly in arm’s reach, is Machu Picchu.

 

Wow seems a ridiculously inadequate word to be using but it just spills out. Repeatedly. Wow!

 

 

 

 

More from Dips O’Donnell can be read Here.

 

 

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