Days 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63: The Inca Trail

Day 59
Two months of travelling has been leading up to today; the day we start the Inca Trail! This four-day hike across jaw-dropping mountain passes, Inca ruins bathed in fog, cloud forests and lush rainforest culminates in the unforgettable revellation of Machu Picchu and absolutely deserves its place as the most famous trek in South America. Only 200 tourists are allowed to trek it each day and tickets sell out months in advance. We have to thank Tom´s early planning for our places and the jealousy amongst those without such tickets in our hostel was palpable. Although the total distance is only 44km, almost all of the trail is either a steep climb up precarious mountain passes or a knee-jarring descent, all the while at breath-sucking altitude.

There were eight of us on our tour with a company called Llama Path; the four of us, two Americans (Koto and Saba) and two Argentineans (Romi and Isabel). Accompanying us was our guide Flavio, our cook Wilbur and thirteen, yes THIRTEEN, porters whose job it was to carry our tents, cooking equipment, food and anything else we were too weak to hold. It was utterly surreal (and somewhat, dare I say it, colonial) to have so many people caring for us and care for us they certainly did! The porters each carried about 25 kilograms on their back and literally ran the trail ahead of us so that we would arrive at each campsight to find our tents set up and the food already prepared. Each time we reached a campsite the porters would greet us with a round of applause (utterly endearing after hours of exhausting trekking), refreshing drinks and bowls of freshly boiled water for washing. Each morning the porters would knock on our tent door and wake us up with a mug of tea. The meals were gourmet quality (as you will see below) and the little touches were outstanding, such as the selection of origami napkin place settings or the delicately carved vegetable animals gracing the middle of the plates. This was first class trekking indeed!

Here is a photo of the eight of us at the start of the trek. We began with a buffet breakfast at Ollantaytambo and we enjoyed our last sight of real toilets. 

We then crossed the Vilcanota river and got our passports stamped. Yes, for the remaining 8 years of my passport´s life immigration officials will puzzle themselves over my visit to the country of the ´Camino Inka´. The trail climbed gently alongside the river to the first archaelogical site of Llactapata and then wended its way for 7km to the town of Wayllabamba. From here we had some pretty asazing views of the snowy Nevado Veronica.

Flavio emboldened our spirits with some corn beer and gave a sacrifice to Pachu Mamma (Mother Earth) to help our trek

Then followed a very long, very steep 3km climb to our campsite. Having now spent over a month at altitude, the four of us were easily the best accustomed to the low oxygen and found ourselves in the lead. The Argentines, bless them, had only just arrived from sea level and were feeling a little the worse for wear. We then spent our first night camping in the mountains.

I particularly enjoyed the al fresco ´shower´ using my bowl of boiled water

Day 60
Today was the tough day. A 5.30am wake up and we began the ascent of ´Dead Woman´s Pass´, a lung-breaking ascent to 4215 meters up difficult terrain. We felt such a surge of adrenaline and euphoria on reaching the top. As you can see below the views were pretty impressive. It felt like we were on the roof of the world!

This was just the beginning of the day though and the trail continued down a long, knee-jarringly steep descent to the river. Climbing downhill is much much harder than climbing uphill and our knees were certainly feeling the strain once we reached the lunch spot. A quick nap later though and I was raring to go. Once more we began uphill and climbed to the top of the second pass (a mere 3950 meters). En route we passed several impressive Inca ruins, but alas Paddington Bear remained elusive;

I found the summit of the second pass the most spiritual part of the trek as we reached entered the crater and sat in the recess staring up at the sky. We then trekked along the roof of the ridge and eventually reached the ruin of Phuyupatamarka - the City in the Clouds. The rocks seemed suspended in a marshmallowy world of their own and the ceremonial water baths were still running after 500 years. Just downhill was our second night´s campsite. We were really sleeping among the clouds!

That night we were especially thankful for the weird heat-giving contraption the porters set up in our lunch tent. I dont really understand how it worked, but boy did it heat us up. 

Day 61

The next morning we finally managed to take a photo of our whole group. 

Unfortunately a minute of two later it began to rain and my goodness did it rain. We were actually inside the  cloud and you could feel the droplets forming all around you. The very air was liquid and the water infested everything. My market purchases though did me proud. I may have looked like a chav astronaut in my white puff jacket, but I remained dry unlike some of my more stylish friends.

The benefit of being so high though was that the rest of the day was downhill and we eventually descended to below the level of the cloud. The climb was down an incredibly well preserved set of many hundreds of Inca steps known as the ´Gringo Killer´. Josie had a spectacular fall down at one point, but I managed to keep my balance. Our treat at the end of the trek was to encounter the twin Inca sites of Intipata and Wiñay Wayna. The quality of the stonework was rapidly improving, meaning that we were nearing the spiritual center - Machu Picchu!

I then spent most of the remainder of the day sleeping in the tent.

That night to celebrate the fact the trek was nearly over our porters baked us a cake. This was especially impressive as they did it in a frying pan on a camp stove! I was also celebrating the end of Passover and I feasted on a pile of bread I had been saving up since lunch.

Now, we had been warned that the toilets on the Inca trail were equivalent to rock festival portaloos twinned with a Bangkok nightclub at 5am, but up to this point these had been slanderous exagerrations. The squat toilets so far on the trail had been perfectly usable, even if some previous travellers had been a little liberal with their droppings. However, this day I finally found hell in the form of our first porcelain toilet bowl in three days (so so desirable) rendered absolutely vile by being covered in bright yellow splurge. It was like being offered the world and then having it cruelly taken away from you. So upsetting.

By this point our bodies were crying out for calories and to our great joy the campsite contained the first shop we had seen for days. The twixes may have been two pounds a pop, but we threw financial caution to the wind and spent our first month´s salaries on chocolately goodness.

Day 62

A 3.30am wake up and we emerged from our tents to perfect weather! Thus began the final stretch of the Inca Trail; a mere 6km through the jungle to the Sun Gate for sunrise. I had a desire to be the first person there so along with Lizzie jogged my way along the trail by torchlight. It was only later that we realised just how dangerous these paths were. After so many days of hiking with one end in mind, our first sight of Machu Picchu with the sun rising behind us was a mystical and unforgettable experience. Once more the euphoria hit and everyone was all smiles. 

(Machu Picchu is behind Josie´s shoulder)

We weren´t quite there yet though. There remained the final triumphant descent to Machu Picchu and this should have taken 30 minutes. However, Lizzie and I were absolutely bursting for the loo and the throngs of trekkers around meant that our previous solution of going au naturel was no longer a possibility. Consequently we legged it there at sprint pace. So fast did we leg it indeed that I almost knocked a girl right off the mountain on my way down.

Now, one of the main benefits of the Inca Trail is that you get to the site from above - thus skipping the security controls - and beat the day tourists. However, as I entered the site I didn´t even stop for a glance, but rather ran straight past the ruins, out of the exit gate and down the hill towards the glowing toilet block. The toilets were magical and worthy of a four day hike in and of themselves. Later we did return up the hill and explored the utterly amazing lost city of the Incas bathed in victorious sunshine. 

Nobody knows precisely what purpose the city served nor even its name, but the state of preservation was phenomenal (largely because the Spanish never discovered it) and the surrounding scenery breathtaking. We passed a long time exploring the various buildings and basking in our achievement. Over the last four days we had pushed our bodies further than they had ever been pushed in our lives, eaten more food than ever before and, if this doesnt sound overly cheesy, come to have a spiritual existence with the mountains. The perfect ending to our time travelling together.  

Incidentally, during the trek I had been using a new suncream bought in Cusco. In the four days my tan had almost doubled in intensity and some cruel observers have suggested I may accidently have been slathering myself in fake tan. While I am not 100% sure what the bottle contained, the orange tan line visible in the photo below is somewhat worrying.

We then descended the mountain and spent the afternoon at the town of Aguas Calientes, enjoying a family sized pizza each and a stroll around a craft market. A train, bus and taxi later and I was back sleeping in the hostel in Cusco. 

As promised above, here is a selection of the gourmet food we were served during our trek. Note the carved vegetable animals at the bottom!

Day 63

While the others slept in I dragged myself out of bed for my final Spanish lesson then at lunchtime I caught a bus to Lima with the two girls. This marked the point of separation from Tom as he left for two weeks volunteering in the Peruvian jungle. As our fellowship broke up there were some emotional scenes and I look forward to our reunion back in London in a few months. 

The bus was utterly five star with massive seats, waitress service and complimentary gifts. Much appreciated when the journey is a whopping 21 hours long.

Days 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58: A tale of good and evil

Day 53

Today my paternal grandfather Simon (Simey) Dobias passed away, or as he was always known to his grandchildren, ´Poppa´. We were fortunate enough to live so close to Poppa when growing up that we saw him more as a second father than a grandparent and consequently his death has left us utterly distraught. Poppa was unfortunate enough to be born a Jew in Poland in 1924. With the outbreak of war he saw his father shot in front of him by the Nazis and every single relative (including his mother, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins) go to the gas chambers. Poppa himself survived many years in the concentration camps and after liberation in 1945 came to start a new life in England. Refusing thenceforth ever to talk of his experiences in the camps, Poppa dedicated himself to creating a family and continuing with a life that the Nazis had tried so hard to exterminate. He remains an utter inspiration to me. To carry on living throughout all those years of hell is achievement enough, but then to bring good to a world that had showed him so much evil was nothing short of a miracle. I will never stop missing him.

In one of life´s tragic incongruities, I passed the morning of his passing away in rather high spirits. Oblivious to the emails in my inbox informing me of Poppa´s death, I headed from my overnight bus to the local synagogue to buy myself a ticket for the following night´s Passover dinner. This was however no ordinary synagogue, but rather a Chabad Lubavitch one. In brief, Chabad are a sort of missionary organisation dedicated to bringing lapsed Jews like myself back into the fold. Entering the building I was immediately given a bowl of chickpeas to peel. As I sat peeling there I kept on asking whether I could buy a ticket. Eventually a guy came over and before I could speak asked me whether I had ever worn tefillin (Jewish prayer clothing). I told him no and immediately he whisked me upstairs and started wrapping them around me. A few enforced prayers later and he congratulates me on having ´finally´ had my bar mitzvah and calls all the building into the room to celebrate. I stood there while tonnes of Orthodox Jews danced all around me and finally only then would they let me buy a ticket.

It was then that I checked my inbox and I spent the remainder of the day inconsoleable.

Day 54

Cuzco is South America´s oldest inhabited city and was once the capital of the Inca empire (representing in their belief system the ´navel´of the world). Massive Inca-built walls continue to form the base of the city´s many colonial buildings and you can barely walk an inch without bumping into Cuzco´s amusing flag (it seems nobody told the Inca kings that the rainbow is also the international LGBT symbol!).

Such Inca-origins aside, you could barely hope for a more exciting place to spend Semana Santa (the Easter holy week). The citizens/police force/army were out in force all week polishing the stones and decorating everything with Easter cheer.

In 1650 a painting of Jesus on the cross was believed to save the town from the terrible destructive effect of a local earthquake. Since that date the indigenous local people have paid homage to the image of ´Taitacha Temblores´, a mixed Quechua and Spanish title meaning ´Lord of the Earthquakes´. On Easter Monday (today), a representation of this Jesus is paraded out from the town´s cathedral (built over the temple of the Inca creator god) and marched around the surrounding streets. The locals shower the statue with red flowers that grow in the local mountains which represent the blood of the Andean people. It may have been my fragile emotional state, but I was very moved by the whole ceremony.

  

The second main local Easter tradition expresses itself in the town´s food. Today I tried some sweet Easter empanadas (which tasted very similar to shortbread) . A little girl saw me eating this and ran up to ask for some. Her mother joined her and the three of us had a lovely conversation about the local religious beliefs.

That evening I scrubbed up and dug out my only shirt from deep within my bag for the Passover dinner. I was not in the mood for any frivolity, but I know my grandfather would have wanted me to go. For a Jew Passover holds the same family-based importance as Christmas and is a day not to be missed no matter how secular you are. I have spent every Passover of my life with my family and I was looking for an approximation of the same out here. In a quirky twist, it turned out that the Passover dinner in Cusco was the largest in the world with Jews from all over South America specially making their way to Cusco just for the event. There were 1,200 seats spread out on the grass of Cusco´s football stadium and enough security to launch a minor war. There were snipers on all the surrounding buildings, checkpoints, roadblocks and Mossad (Israel´s secret service) galore. Out of the 1,200 seats, 10 or so were set aside for Jews of non-Israeli origin and I went to join.

I ended up sitting with an entertainment lawyer from Hollywood (she knows Barbra Streisand), a journalist from New York Magazine, two web-designers, an archaeologist, a toxicologist from L´Óreal and a young couple who were volunteering their way around the world (12 months, 12 projects) - my what an accomplished crowd this was! The food was an amusing twist on Passover classics (e.g. instead of parsley, we had red onion and potatoes), but was well received. The service was nothing less than pandemonium though as everyone in the room came with their own family´s tunes to the songs and their own speed of reading Hebrew. As I had spent part of the last two days grieving for my grandfather in the synagogue I knew quite a number of the rabbis present and they very kindly kept coming over to ask how I was feeling.  

Day 55

Looking for distraction, I enrolled myself in 20 hours of Spanish classes over the next four days. Meeting my teacher Carina I discovered a fellow food-lover and we spent much of the day learning Spanish whilst walking around the San Pedro food market. The market was the size of an aircraft hanger and full of Peruvian classics.  

I could not have had a better guide to show me around and Carina suggested I try some Easter biscuity treats, prime amongst which was Maizilla (a cornflower based cookie).

She also introduced me to some local fruits. The one on the left is called a lúcuma and tastes just like a date, but with the texture of a sweet potato. The one on the right is called a chirimoya and tasted like the sweetest pear I´d ever had. I was a big fan.

For lunch I had the Cusco classic of ´Chicharron´, a dish of pork fried in a local spice mix. It was very salty and rather unkosher, but very addictive.

That evening with Tom I went to the language school´s weekly ´night out´ at a local Medieval themed restaurant where all the profits went to local charities. That night was pub quiz and bingo night. Naturally our team of four won (largely due to my knowledge of Glee I must boast) and we shared a bottle of wine. Note the obligatory Medieval themed hats below;

Day 56

Another morning of Spanish classes and another voyage through Peruvian cuisine with my teacher Carina. Today she introduced me to Picarrones a local doughnut made from sweet potatoe and pumpkin covered in orange flavoured honey;

And Carina pointed out the one fruit-juice stall where she could confidently say the owner regularly washes her hands;

Afterwards we went out to the ´robber´s market´ to buy various items I needed for the Inca trail. As Carina explained, the robbers market is where everything that is stolen or pickpocketed in the town in resold at bargain prices. She had twice been there to recover her phone once mugged. Carina is fast becoming indispensable. I guess this must be what it is like to have an personal assistant. More pertenently, I am also beginning to wonder whether Carina might accidently have become my girlfriend as I spend all day with her and pay for her lunch wherever we go. Here is a picture of the young couple;

That evening I decided to try my skills at another pub quiz. Unfortunately we lost this time.

Day 57

Today Carina revealed we had something special to look forward to. We grabbed a terrifying local minibus and ended up far from gringo-territory at a special Easter food fair. Much like the Good Food Show in England, this fair involved tens of stall holders selling their delicious wares. I went crazy and tried almost everything there.

To begin I had some ´Tiger Milk´, which is a drink containing the leftover juices from preparing ceviche (i.e. it is a glass of raw fish juice). Absolutely delicious!! I could drink gallons of this stuff. So salty and creamy and fantastic.

Then I had some ceviche proper. Fantastic once again.

 Then a glass of liquid chocolate

I can´t even remember what this was...

 The headmaster of a cooking school in Lima cooked me even more ceviche whilst teaching me (in English!) how to make it myself;

(The result) 

Then I had a mixture of even more ceviche, some stuffed peppers, some paella, a potato pie and some vegetable stuff.

Fearing for my health that night I decided to join a Spinning class in the local gym. Spinning is hard enough at sea level, but at Cusco´s altitude and heat it can be deadly. Thankfully I sat on a dud machine which only had one speed (easy), meaning that I lived to tell the tale.

Day 58

Today was the day of my grandfather´s funeral and today was also the day where the ´evil´ referred to in this blog made its entry. I will not broadcast the specifics on here, but, rather than respecting his memory and those he truly loved, a certain person who I shall never forgive decided to use the funeral to act in an utterly shameful and disgraceful manner.

Contrary to this person´s wishes though, her behaviour only serves to highlight the more through contrast the goodness of my grandfather and the love he bestowed on the family he fought so hard to create. I will never stop missing him.