Hiking with the Incas in the Peruvian Mountains

After saying farewell to our friends in Bolivia, it was time for Peru! The adventure starts in Cusco where we had a few days to stock up on necessities and a bit of cough medicine, as Mr. Wander caught something at the end of the Bolivia trip. Then we met our guide and the rest of the group for our 5 day Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu!

Cusco

We arrived directly into Cusco from Bolivia, and is Peru’s second largest city. We used the time to get out some cash, pickup some cold medicine as Mr. Wander had developed a cough, and get ready for our first adventure: a 5 day trek to Machu Picchu on the Salkantay Trail! The night before we left, we wandered to the main square and spent some time relaxing and people watching but we had so many people come up to us trying to sell us a tour, some handicrafts or art.

Soon it was time to meet at our trekking company’s office just off the main square for an overview from our guide and get our little duffel bags. These bags would be hauled by the horses to the first couple of accommodations and hold most of our clothes and necessities. We also met the other 6 hikers in our group, two friends from New York and a family of 4 from Germany. The youngest son had been spending a gap year in South America and they came to visit for a few weeks.

After the meeting we found some Italian for dinner and then booked it back to the hotel to repack for the trek. We tried to get to sleep as early as possible since our pickup time was 4am!

Salkantay Trek

Day 1 – Lago Humantay

The first morning was very early, we were up by 3:30 to make sure everything was packed right between the bags, the duffle, our day packs, and our large backpacks that had been our main luggage. We went to check out and only had to wait a few minutes before the van arrived to pick us up. It took about 40 minutes to get to their office on the outside of town where they dropped off our big luggage, and picked up supplies as well as our chefs. Another hour later we made it to this little village where we were served a simple breakfast with fruit, bread, cereal, yogurt, and tea.

We left a little after sunrise and had another hour to get to the entrance to the park, where we said goodbye to our van and driver and got ready to hike! We met our horseman who tied all our duffel bags and the cooks’ gear to the horses and made their way. Normally we would continue on the road but we had to start climbing right away to work our way above a landslide that had occurred earlier this year.

It was a bit brutal to start climbing so steeply so fast, thankfully he took breaks and gave us insight into various plants and history of the region. He found a bunch of mint, or munya, which is actually better than coca leaves for altitude sickness. This mint is a little different from what we might see back in Minnesota because it is a high altitude variety, and only varieties that can grow at higher altitude help with altitude sickness. Isn’t nature awesome?

We finally made it up to an old Inca irrigation ditch that has since been lined in places with rubber or plastic to help move water to where it is needed in the dry season. The nice part about this ditch is the hiking was mostly flat as it ran across the hill, until we passed the area of the landslide and we began to scale our way back down.

There were so many beautiful views on our way, with some waterfalls and streams we had to cross but managed to keep our feet dry. We even saw a group of horses but they were not those taking our luggage.

We made it back down to the road and walked past several other sets of huts or hotels before reaching our own. The company we went with was called Salkantay trekking, and they had built their own accommodations in 3 sites along the route.

This first site they called Sky Camp, where they had a set of clear glass domes where we would sleep that allowed us to see the amazing stars, directly from the bed! We made it to our individual domes by 11am and had about an hour to relax before meeting in the main lodge for lunch.

It had rained over lunch but thankfully, by the afternoon the skies had cleared.

A few of us in the group decided to hike up to Lake Humantay, while others who had more issues with the altitude or were recovering from a cold, such as Mr. Wander, decided to get some rest. It was a decent climb up through one of the valleys. The weather was nice and looking back you could get a great view of our lodging.

After about an hour, we finally got a view of the lake until once we climbed over the last ridge. Beautiful! We spent some time and I chatted with a woman from the US who had just quit her job and started travelling, so we had quite a bit to chat about! 

Finally it was time to head back down, and we were surprised to see how many clouds came into the valley, some we walked right through!

I took a little nap before we both went over to the main lodge for dinner. The amazing part about this meal is the chefs did the hike with us to the lodge and the horseman carried all the food and supplies, and every meal starts with a delicious soup that was perfect in the cool and wet weather.

At the end of the meal we got to meet our two chefs and horseman, they told a little of their family and how long they have been working on the Salkantay or other trails. Then there was another surprise, they brought out a cake because it was one of the our fellow hikers’ birthdays! That was a fun surprise! 

Soon it was time for bed since we had another early wake-up call. We settled into our domes for the night. A few hours later I woke up to visit the bathroom, and when I went out I could see SO MANY STARS! So I used the long exposure setting on my phone to get a great picture, letting my phone sit on the entrance to the dome to keep it steady. The view from inside the dome wasn’t quite as cool since we must have been full of hot air and the glass was pretty foggy!

Day 2 – Salkantay Pass

Our wake-up call came early as we had to climb to the top of Salkantay pass, and then back down to our next accommodation. Our guide knocked on our door at 4:30am with a cup of coca tea for each of us, which is hot water poured over a single coca leaf. Mr. Wander’s throat didn’t like it so much, it’s not my favorite flavor either but we were hoping for a little caffeine boost before we started out. 

Once our bag was packed we went to the main building for a breakfast of  crepes filled with bananas, eggs, ham, cheese, olives, hot chocolate, and another birthday cake for one of the members in the German family! It was a bit harder to eat so much cake after the night before and as it was so early in the morning. 

Due to their illnesses, Mr. Wander and the father of the family decided to take the horse up to the pass to save their energy for recovery and later parts in the trek. Where they really lucked out was skipping some of the muddy sections right at the beginning! Pretty soon we had passed a few of the other groups and then he let us go at our own pace for the middle section and stayed back with me, who was the slower one of the group.

It was fairly foggy today, or perhaps we were in a cloud but we couldn’t see much for views. About ⅔ of the way up we saw Mr. Wander pass us, since they left about 45 minutes later. A few from other groups had joined them as well on the horses. His horse though had an extra friend, a cute dog was following the horse the whole way up the mountain! They did have to hop off in one section that is hard for these horses but then they could get back on after a 5 minute walk. 

They beat all but one of our group to the top of the pass and I was a little bit behind but soon I made it! Just before I caught up to everyone my asthma must have reacted to my excitement (and having hiked to over 15,000 ft!) because just like back in Nepal, I had a sudden attack despite having preemptively taken my inhaler before the day began. It was short lived and after a short sit on a rock and a few puffs later I was ready to walk the last 100ft or so to where Mr. Wander was waiting.

Just after I arrived, one of the chefs came behind us! Not only did he catch up to us after having cleaned up from breakfast, but he was carrying up a thermos of coca tea for all of us plus sandwiches for a snack break that we all enjoyed together. Then we took a group photo and began our trek down. We were a bit bummed the weather was so clouded because this is supposed to be one of the more spectacular views of the whole trek! 

We had an hour or two of hiking before we met up with our chefs and horseman again at this house. They had ran ahead and started preparing our lunch for us! There were tents set up outside and we made it just in time before the rain started in earnest! They gave us a pizza appetizer, a delicious noodle soup that was perfect in the chilly rain and a beef dish that was delicious. There was also this corn and pumpkin sauce to put on rice with a salad on the side.

By the time we were ready to go the rain had stopped and we continued on our way. It was very downhill in spots but the knees did hold out fairly well. It was getting very long and monotonous but at least the sun had came out!

He directed us on the correct road then we had to cross the bridge and walk back along this valley to the Mountain Lodges overlooking where two rivers come together. It was interesting to see the mixed colors as one was very muddy due to recent mudslides and continuing erosion.

We got into our dome and enjoyed a much needed shower and a change into dry clothes, while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. Then we met up with everyone for tea time with popcorn, jam and crackers and we chatted until it was time for dinner.

They served us a huancaina pasta, cauliflower cake, mashed potatoes that were very runny, chicken with a ham and pepper sauce, and several mixed vegetables. There was a traditional Peruvian dessert of Mazamorra morada that is a gelatin made from purple corn juice! We had a chance to get extra beverages from their little bar so I got a local brand of stout beer and Mr. Wander a gatorade. 

That night it was time for all of us to introduce ourselves to the chefs, guide, and horseman, a few opting to try it in Spanish, including myself. Well it was a very slow Spanish for me and I eventually had to switch to English. We slowly made our way down the stairs back to our pods, at least as fast as our knees allowed.

Day 3 – Landslides into the Jungle

We got to sleep in until about 5am today before we made it back up to the dining room for a breakfast including pancakes, garlic french toast, and this salty fried cheese that was very tasty. We said goodbye to our horseman today as from here on there is a road that can bring our gear, food, and our chefs.

Then we left continuing on the road along the valley through a small town. He introduced this flowering bush called Floropuño or Angle Trumpet. Many parts of the plant are hallucinogenic with effects lasting 6-8 hours but an overdose can cause a heart attack. Used properly, it can help with sleep or has been known to make neuron connections to help those with paralysis.

We had a bit more walking on the road before we made it to the first part of a landslide. We let ourselves bunch up a little too much so we were all sinking in pretty easily. We made it through without incident but after a switchback we had to go across another part of the slide. This time we let smaller groups go through but just as we were getting to the end some higher up stuff started to fall a bit so we hurried through.

There was water flowing the whole time and sometimes little sections of rocks would come down but thankfully it didn’t lead to anything major. With dirt up to our knees we continued on the road for awhile until we looked back and noticed that the parents of our group were just trying to get across themselves. Neither were doing great with the altitude and opted to take a car to the next spot, however with the land slides they still had to do some of the hiking themselves.

We were able to watch them just about cross the lower slide when a bunch more started coming down so they all backed up to make room. Once it seemed stable again they made it across so we felt better about continuing on. 

Another half hour down the road we stopped at a house where you could buy some snacks or pay to use the bathrooms, and even a bucket to help us clean up some of the mud. Once I did this I noticed I had some bleeding from some rock I must have scraped in one of the slides. The guide had some alcohol swabs he put on it just to help make sure it wouldn’t get an infection and put a bandaid over the worst of the scrapes.

Then he introduced us to Granadilla, which is like a passion fruit and to eat it he smacked it on his forehead to break open the shell and get to the inside. I opted to squish between my hands instead. He also had us try a goldenberry, which is yellow and the size of a cherry tomato, but has about 10 times the Vitamin C as an Orange!

As we were walking along the road our guide stopped to talk about various plants and we even got a bit of war paint thanks to one of the plants he found called Mio Mio. This plant is often used to dye textiles and you can mix with other things to intensify the color, such as an acidic lemon juice or similar. He explained that we were moving from the cloud forest at the higher elevations to the jungle, where the humidity continued to rise. This cloud forest is the transition area between the Andes mountains and the Amazon jungle.

There were several streams we had to cross. I should have just stood in one of the first ones to get all of my legs and shoes cleaner after the mud, since I wasn’t always great at avoiding the water hopping from rock to rock. There were just enough streams that just as things were starting to get dry, I’d slip and get a foot in the water again, so I started getting some blisters on my feet. 

Our next stop for the day was at a chocolate plantation where we were shown what chocolate looks like in the full pod and even got to taste some cocoa nibs. We got to taste some of their chocolate bar as well as purchase some to take with us.

It was a bit farther down the road before our last stop, but my feet were hurting with blisters thanks to all the times my feet got muddy or wet along the way. We stopped at a coffee farm where we could drop our daypacks and rest for a bit while learning about the coffee growing and making process.

We were able to try some of the coffee fruit, called cherries, and saw parts in various stages including fermentation, drying, and deshelling. At this point the green coffee is ready for roasting, so the host set up a fire and everyone got a chance to help roast the beans over a fire, how cool! Then we took it to a hand grinder and they made a cup of coffee for everyone. I let Mr. Wander have my cup though since I’m not into coffee. 

Once people had their fill or got opportunities to purchase, we were gifted with a ride to our accommodation, a jungle dome! We gathered our duffel and went to drop things off at our dome. Since it was the jungle, they suggested we should investigate to make sure there weren’t any unwanted spiders or other critters that could be more dangerous as we had come down in elevation quite a bit since the pass. 

We went back down for lunch right away which included one of my favorite things, yuca fries, and then went up to shower and relax, including attempting to wash the muddy socks and shoes. After resting awhile it was tea time and then dinner. We were all pretty tired after the last few days so we turned in early. 

Day 4 – Llactapata Valley and Descending Through the Rain

Today we had breakfast and said farewell to our chefs bore heading off through the jungle.. We had a bit of uphill and there were so many different paths I’m glad we had our own guide for this part! Soon we arrived at an Inka trail that we followed to the overlook. Most people think of there just being one Inka trail, as that is the most popular route to Machu Picchu. It is pretty unique as you can get there at the right time of day and see the sunrise through the gate but you have to book months in advance and it can be closed during the rainy season. 

In reality, there are many Inca trails as they were connecting different parts of their kingdom. The pan American highway that stretches from Alaska to the bottom of South America is partly based on old Inca trails as it moves through this region.

The one we were on lead us up to an overlook with ruins that normally gives you a nice view of Machu Picchu, but we were once again unlucky with clouds and we only ever caught a tiny glimpse of shadows as the clouds thinned for a moment. 

This area was named Yacapata according to maps that were found, but it is thought that might have been the name of the Machu Picchu city originally. The ruins look to point directly at the city so perhaps the name on the map Yacapata was referring to the overlook and not the settlement itself. When it was found in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, Machu Picchu was named after the mountain.

We had sat here awhile for a break after the climb but soon after the almost break in clouds it started to rain. We put on our rain coats and ponchos and started hiking. It began raining even harder, and I fell a little before we made it to a structure that we all hid under as it really came down on us hard! Once it slowed down a little we had to get going because we had a ways to go. It was nearly 2 hours downhill on endless switchbacks full of rocks and slippery mud. It was best to walk directly in the stream that was following the trail because at least there wasn’t mud on those rocks! I did fall one more time and had several near misses before we finally made it to our lunch spot at a restaurant. 

They had preordered a certain meal for us but I was too hungry and tired so I cannot remember what it was nor did I take a picture! I was just happy to get some warm soup and get out of the wet weather for a bit. By the time we left it had let up a little and we only had a bit more down to go before we made it to the bottom and a little village where we had the option to ride on the train into Aguas Calientes or to hike the rest of the way. After the falls and so much time in wet shoes I was ready for a break so Mr. Wander and I opted for the train. We saw several hikers on the way as the tracks and the hiking path cross each other several times. After 30 minutes we made it and only had a little walk to get into our hotel. 

Just as I was about to get into the shower, the power for the whole city goes out! We heard the rest of the group get in about an hour or so later and so we went down to say hello. We made a plan to meet in about 30 minutes for dinner and thankfully the power came back on with enough time for me to take a shower, phew! 

We walked through the city to a restaurant and ordered dinner and a few of us got a drink as well. We had another early morning the next day as we needed to pack our bags, eat breakfast and be ready for checkout before catching a 6am bus up to Machu Picchu!

Next Time

I’ll leave a little teaser of a picture, but we were rewarded after our two cloudy views with excellent weather for the Machu Picchu day! After returning to Cusco via train and car we had to get to bed early for another pre-5am wakeup for a hike to Rainbow Mountain, but for us was more like snowy mountain! Finally we treated ourselves to sleeping in a unique accommodation and some lovely hot tubs after all the hiking. But it’s not for the faint of heart… Until next time, Ciao!