So guess what... there is no road to Machu Picchu. This
only matters when after 4 days and 43 km of hard trekking through the Andes on the Inca Trail, you arrive at Machu Picchu to find that there is a train strike. The good news? No tourists at Machu Picchu that day, except the ones who walked 4 days to get there. The other kind of news? You`re stranded. And your cleanest clothes are 4 days and 43 kilometres and 3 high altitude mountain passes old... and you haven`t showered since another county... So what is one to do? You have 3 options.
1) Attempt to find accomodations in a tiny town (you and 250 of your closest, smelliest, grumpiest friends who have also just arrived at MP to find no train home)
2) walk 3.5 hours to the closest village with a road, take a truck for 1 hour, and then a local bus for another 8 or 10 hours to arrive at 4 am, or
3) walk back 28 km to the beginning of the trek on the train tracks (the very ones that were supposed to take you home via petrol power...)
Guess what I chose. Duh! # 3 of course... (Have you met me?)
So, I did the Inca Trail Round Trip
Special. Seventy-one kilometres in 4 days. The trip home was 7 hours of walking on the train tracks.
The first hour we start out in the pouring rain - really pouring. I am wearing rain pants, a $1 poncho (red!), my gore-tex jacket, a hat, and a pack cover and am still soaked. I am feeling festive. Mr. and Mrs. NeverHappy are bickering, Mr. and Mrs. AlwaysLate are nowhere to be found at our agreed time of departure... I hum the 7 dwarfs tune.. hi ho, hi ho... A stream of brightly colored coneheads with giant humpbacks (backpackers in $1 plastic ponchos) can be seen tripping down the tracks in the downpour.
Hour two - I have the
most annoying song lyrics in my head --- I´m a little bit country, I`m a little bit rock and roll...--- by the Osmonds - that`s the only 2 lines of the most annoying song ever that I know... It`s from that damn coke or pepsi commercial with Ozzy Osbourne.. Why that? Why now? No idea. Over and over. Still raining. I`m sweating under all that plastic and opt to shed layers and get wetter. If it ever stops raining I`ll dry. If not, I`m wet anyways. The scenery is beautiful. We are on the valley floor, the Andes rising around us, the Urubamba River beside us.
At the end of hour two we come upon some blessed locals who are out selling drinks beside the tracks for the backpackers and porters who are walking. What a lovely sight... At this point a large group of walkers decide it`s too tough and turn back to Aguas Calientes to try and find a room for the night. No one knows how long the strike will last.
By hour 3 I am hallucinating from staring at railway ties under my feet and trying to match my steps to them. It is now 3:30 pm, and I have been up since 3:30 am and walking since 4:30 am with a 1.5 hour break for lunch at a pizzeria with a stone fireplace to help us dry out before we started the walk home.
Around hour 4 I check the bottoms of my shoes to see if there are still soles on them, because it feels like I am walking in slippers. The ones I truly feel for in all of this is not the trekkers, but the porters who, after 3.5 days of carrying our crap up and down mountains, now have to walk the seven hours along the tracks with their monstrous loads. Some of them jog (probably to take their minds off the pain in their shoulders), all of them
still have words of encouragement for us!
At hour 5 I am literally drunk with fatique, staggering along, finding it hard to walk in a straight line. The rocks between (or on) the rw ties are sharp chunks. They´re pointy, and it`s a bit like walking in sand, the way you slip around. The song is gone from my head, but phrases spin repeatedly in my mind in the rhythm of my footsteps. It`s possible that this is the first step of insanity.
Hour six we stop at the side of the tracks because some lovely señora is selling food. It`s a giant pot of stew-like stuff with potatoes, vegetables and rice, a heaping plate for 1 solè (about 33 cents). I am pretty sure I will regret it tomorrow, but for now it`s the only option, and much appreciated. Exhausted backpackers, guides, and porters sit on the tracks and shovel in the food. I watch people stumble up, all look like they are drunk. I am surrounded by about three mangey dogs while I eat, but I could care less. No one is taking this lightly. We know that in one hour it will be dark, and there are many reasons to be slightly nervous about that.
By the beginning of hour seven it is pitch black, and my headlamp doesn`t give me much depth perception. Rocks are jumping out to trip me and I am seriously stumbling now, about every third step in the slidey rocks, only catching myself with my walking stick. (Best 75 cents I ever spent...) The rocks are knocking into my ankle bones. I can hear the river but it is too dark to see it. I take the memory card out of my camera in case we are robbed, at least then I won`t lose the photos.
This last hour is extremely difficult. For awhile I can see dim headlamps ahead of me but lose sight of them after a few stumbles. I seriously have to pee but the thought of snakes and scorpions off the side of the tracks convinces me that I can wait. Half a kilometre behind me I can see a comforting trail of headlamps. As I become more and more clumsy they slowly catch up. There is lightening flashing behind us. There are four lights walking behind me now, all of us silent except for the sound of our stumbling in the rocks .
Seven hours after we left, I see the lights of kilometre 82, where buses and taxis sent by our respective agencies await to take us for the still 2 hour ride back to Cusco. I am relieved. The five of us trudge silently into the train station at kilometre 82 and our respective groups come out and give us hugs, drinks, and congratulations. My guide, who accompanied us only out of the goodness of his heart, is there to take my pack and provide bandaids and a hug. I fall into the grass, hand blisters weeping, feet throbbing, hips bruised from my pack, hair matted. Seventy kilometres... It was soooo worth it.
Nick and Nick and the Guinea Pig
The Guest of Honor
Before my taste
