There is
so much to say I really wasn’t sure where to start with
this! In summary, I have been trekking in Peru, suffered from high altitude
sickness, camped in remote isolated mountains in the Andes, tasted fruit and
veg I'd never even heard of before, nearly got run over by Llamas, had hairy
scary bus rides on roads closed due to landslides, experienced the several
thousand steps on the old Inca trail, reached Machu Picchu, wondered at the
magical mysteriousness of it all, tasted the best chocolate in the world, and
celebrated with too many Pisco sours (*takes deep breath*)!
I'm going
to be writing more detail about different aspects of the experience over the
next week or so, as there’s too much to put in one post,
but here are some of my highlights.
It was
definitely a once in a lifetime experience - though some things, like being in
hospital on the first night due to altitude sickness - I will be happy to never
repeat! We climbed to heights of over 4,500 metres and I really felt the
effects of the altitude on the three days we were trekking at that kind of
level. It's like nothing I've ever experienced before, you are forced to walk
much more slowly than a normal pace (frustrating for someone like me who likes
to march onwards!) and even then have to stop every few minutes. 'Breathe in
through the nose and out through the mouth' become one of our medically
approved mantras!
It was
amazing trekking through these isolated, quite barren but breathtakingly
beautiful mountains – and we’d often see a spot of bright red on the horizon. As it got
closer we would see it was a person dressed in the colourful traditional
clothes, often women and children, who’d be walking along – seeming to appear out of thin air and be heading
absolutely nowhere. Women would always be carrying something on their back -
firewood, fruit, vegetables or cloth to sell, or often a child. They would
scuttle past us half our size and twice as fast.
Even in
these most remote, hostile areas there is life, unchanged for probably
centuries, small patches where crops or vegetables are grown, everything
maintained by hand, stone built thatched roofed houses with families of three
generations all crammed into one room, a fire in the middle for cooking and
heating - no chimney - the smoke filling and bellowing out of the house. The
local mountain people we met mostly don't even speak Spanish, they speak their
traditional language of Quechua. We were on a little used trail and visitors
are rare - so goodness knows what they must have thought of us with all our
equipment, huffing and puffing up their mountains. They were quiet, shy, very
dignified people. At one point a few of us had fallen behind (we’d had a toilet stop – with no bushes or rocks to go
behind you just had to wait for others to get past then squat!) and had even
lost sight of the guide in front of us. A little lady appeared and walked with
us, at a slight distance and without saying anything, just giving an occasional
smile. She would wait until we were all safely across a boggy bit or a stream
then carry on walking with us. She accompanied us for miles and I am sure she
was making sure we were all right and safe until we caught up with the rest of
the group. When we did she just disappeared.
Camping
was not my favourite thing (never has been, never will be), everything got damp
and the sun disappeared very suddenly so it became very cold very quickly. But
the guides and crew we had, all local men, looked after us wonderfully well.
They would wake us up with a cup of tea and bowl of water, with a cooked
breakfast on the go – which made us forgive them
for the 5am starts. When we set off for the day’s trek, the crew would stay
behind, take everything down, clear away, then set off, overtake us and by the
time we got to the lunch stop or that evening's camp they'd have all our tents
up, the dining tent set up, toilets dug, and would be cooking up a meal and greet
us with tea and cake. We were amazingly well fed, with three cooks rustling up
cooked breakfasts, lunches and always a three course dinner. They catered for
two vegetarians, one gluten free diet and someone who couldn't eat onions! Our
local guides Tony and Paco who were with us all week took great care of us,
they were also so passionate and informative about the area, and incredibly
good humoured - essential for them to survive a week with a group of 15
females!
My
favourite trek day was the fourth day when we were due to reach Machu Picchu
itself. We had come down from the very high levels we'd been at and joined the
old Inca Trail. This is literally a stone path clinging to the side of the
mountains, so you always have a sheer drop at one side of you. But as it was
much lower altitude I could breathe! Instead of quite barren mountains with no
insects or birds, they were green, lush and rich with plants, flowers and trees.
We saw huge butterflies, poisonous millipedes, humming birds and wandering
llamas. After a day of walking through spectacular waterfalls, Inca ruins and
the humid jungle feel on this part of the trek we finally passed through the
sun gate and got our first sight of Machu Picchu. Well - we would have if it
hadn't been covered by clouds! The clouds made it all the more mystical and
when they did go – there is was - the classic
sight of the ancient city that you see on all of the pictures and programmes.
It isn't until we walked down towards it I really become aware of the size and
complexity of the ruins - which actually are in an unfeasibly good state.
We
celebrated that night in a colourful lively restaurant in Aguas
Calientes, the town near to Machu Picchu. After several days of not being very
hungry (a positive of high altitude) we tucked in like we'd never seen food
before - I had the most marvellous melon starter - a whole melon scooped out into balls and the inside filled with an Andean liquer (I don't
know what - only that it was red and very very delicious!). I also had the
best beer ever - freezing cold liquid gold - just what the doctor ordered (or
should've done) after the week we'd had.
The day
after, our final full day, our trekking was over and we were just tourists. We
went back to Machu Picchu and Paco who used to work at the site led us round on
a really informative tour. We were then taken to lunch, grabbed a bit of
shopping in the markets, and had a train and bus ride back to Cusco.
Our final
night was party night in Cusco at a local restaurant - with the meat eaters
trying the traditional dish of guinea pig (verdicts included: salty/ gamey/
like nothing else ever tasted/ yuck). After several Pisco sours and bottles of
celebratory wine we took over the restaurant and ended up dancing until the
early hours.
The next
day we had a few hours to spend in Cusco before setting off for the long long
journey home. Slightly worse for wear, I managed to make it to the Chocolate
Museum which had been on my ‘must do’ list for ages. This is the most gorgeous smelling museum I
have ever been to, the scent wafted through the air on the approach to it, and this
is where you can get the best chocolate I (and others) have ever tasted. So our
final last hour was spent chilling (the first opportunity we'd had!) in the
sunshine with coffee and chocolates on a colonial style balcony watching the
world go by in the main square below.
This was
a much anticipated experience, and a real adventure into the unknown - it's like
nothing I've ever done before. I booked it a year ago, spent 12 months fundraising,
faced last minute plane cancellations and then spent the first night ill in
hospital in Cusco wondering if I was actually going to be given the ok to do the
trek. But it was all worth it. For me personally it's been a real adventure and
achievement, I’ve got some amazing memories
and made some friends for life. And of course what got me into this in the first
place, is that the charity and other women facing breast cancer will benefit.
Between us our Peru posse raised over £50,000 for Breast Cancer Care.
