Salkantay

Here's a quick recap of the 5D/4N Salkantay trip with Q'ente. All in all it was quite good, the people were fun (backpackers from England, Oz and Holland, a Swiss and Dutch couple and Ze Germans who were always in the lead), the food was tasty (if not particularly plentiful) and the rum was cheap (if overly plentiful).

Day 1: Cusco - Soraypampa (3900m)
After a two hour ordeal to round everyone up, we finally got rolling about 9am. We headed out of the city on a dodgy one lane mountain road (under construction of course), picked up some last minute supplies (coca leaves) and then met our cooks and horses to start the hike. We followed a dirt road for about 3 hours, enjoying views of the foothills and a bunch of soaring birds. The road ended at a really nice looking hotel and after two hours we got to our campground in the middle of nowhere right under Salkantay mountain. When the sun set the temperatures plummeted (hot water in Nalgenes in sleeping bags = awesome) but we had one of those spectacular nights where you can see 5 billion stars and actually make out the milky way.

Day 2: Soraypampa - Salkantay Pass (4600m) - Colpapampa (2600m)
After a decent nights sleep, we got up early and were treated to the best pancakes I had in South America. We got on the trail and after three or four hours of huffing and puffing got to the top of the pass and had some phenomenal views of Salkantay, the surrounding ranges and the Nepal-esque rock chortens. We went down a bit, relaxed and enjoyed lunch basking in the sun under the mountains. Another three or four hours of going down into the jungle and we arrived at Colpapampa, a really small village complete with horses, chickens, pigs, Cusquena beer and Chica (some sort of odd fermented corn concoction).

Day 3: Colpapampa - Playa (2200m)
Woke up bright and early with the roosters and had an easy five hour walk to our campsite outside of Playa. The scenery was nice and different from the last two days, banana trees covered the slopes of mountains and we followed a river valley as we passed through plantations growing bananas, passionfruit, avocados and coffee. In Playa we hit up the local hotsprings (which somehow didn't smell like sulphur) and we relaxed while the clouds rolled in over the tops of the mountains. It would have been a great way to end the evening but I decided I needed to show that I can still drink like 19 year old backpackers, so we bought two bottles of shit rum and played Kings until everyone was thoroughly shitfaced (incidentally, two great rules for kings are that you have to end every sentence with "in my pants" or "England is shit").

Day 4: Playa - Aguas Calientes (2000m)
Woke up at 2am curled up around a 5 gallon drum in my tent. Thanks guys, I really appreciated that. Passed back out till 9am and then woke up, felt like shit. Had breakfast, felt like shit. Started walking down the railroad tracks, felt like shit (fyi if anyone in a railroad engineer, you really need to space the ties at a comfortable walking distance, they are either way to close or too far apart, especially when you feel like shit). Anyways, met some girls who go to Colorado College and made it to Aguas Calientes. Had a hot shower, some terribly terrible pizza and was in bed by 9.

Day 5: Aguas Calientes - Macchu Picchu - Cusco
Woke up at the bustling hour of 4:30am to catch sunrise over MP though even that hour didn't get us a seat on the first bus up to the entrance. Still, got there in plenty of time and though the sunrise wasn't particularly clear, the fog and clouds lent the whole scene a cool, mysterious feel. Had a two hour tour where we checked out the huge terraced fields, the sun temples that do nifty things on the solstices, some still flowing fountains and a lot of three level things (sun/gods, earth and then the inner world). Did the forty five minute climb to the top of Huyana Picchu (the big mountain in the background of all the MP pics) which was really good - but if you want to do it you need to get an entrance ticket by like 8am, they only allow a certain number of people up per day.

Spent the next five or six hours taking pictures, hiking around, taking pictures, going to the Sun Gate, taking pictures and generally taking pictures. Macchu Picchu was really impressive, it would be amazing to put such a huge complex on top of a mountain in modern times, yet alone nearly one thousand years ago. It also was not as crowded and full of tourists as I'd expected, so that was a pleasant surprise. So anyways, after something like 10 hours there, I headed back to town, grabbed lunch, hopped on the tourist train to Ollyantambo (which costs about 30 times as much as the local-only train) and then finished off the trek with a somewhat painful and mundane two hour bus ride back to Cusco.