“Knock, knock, knock… Wake up.” Dazed and confused, I jumped up from my bed to meet our friendly, smiling guide at the hut door with two cups of coca leaf tea. It’s dark out, it’s cold, and I don’t want to get out of my sleeping bag to get dressed. So I just linger in bed, drinking the coca tea and wrapping my hands around the cup to absorb its heat. Anton is awake, and we exchange our analysis on how we slept. We both slept really well and stayed sufficiently warm. We slowly start packing to be ready for breakfast within 15 minutes. Breakfast wasn’t anything spectacular, but there were enough calories to keep us going until lunch.
Today, we were going to cross the highest point of the trek. We would start at 3800m, cross the Salkantay pass at 4600m, and descend to our campsite at 2800m. The altitude, elevation, and long descent made this the toughest day. One of the Israeli girls didn’t feel she would be able to walk the initial ascent to 4600m, so she opted to be taken by mule instead. The rest of us were a bit more confident in our legs, in high spirits, and ready to kick off the day ahead.
Our trusty mules carrying our food and supplies as we start our gradual ascent:
From the campsite, it was a straight path to the top: a gradual incline followed by a serious switchback at the end. The initial incline was quite manageable, and we were still actively engaging in heavy conversations. I was mostly speaking to Ollie. He works in forestry and was telling me about the ins and outs of daily life in the business. I told him how I would love to spend a month or so doing something completely different as a job. He suggested I look into being a tractor driver since one might be able to land a seasonal job with relatively little experience. I took note of this and pondered it as the conversation grew quiet with the increasing incline.
We soon stopped right in front of the switchback section that led to the top. We were given a choice: take the most direct route or a longer, less steep route. We all opted for the direct route. With our game faces on, we hunkered down and pushed as hard as we could up the steep, high-altitude mountain path. We were going quite slowly as the altitude took its toll. I noticed how I was completely out of breath long before my legs started to burn. With this incline at sea level, my legs would be the bottleneck not my breathing.
After a relatively short but intense battle, we reached the top! At the top we faced a windy, foggy, and rather unpleasant environment. However, this didn’t diminish the joy we all shared in making it to the highest point on the trek. While others rested and had snacks, I wandered off to peek into the gorge a few hundred metres away. It was the only thing to look at since gazing up at the snow-capped peaks yielded nothing but grey clouds, obscuring any view of what lay beyond.
It was pretty miserable still when we arrived at the lunch spot:
There wasn’t much to see at the gorge, so I soon returned, only to realise I had lost my group. There were quite a few groups around, making it difficult to find them among all the people lingering about. Visibility was low, so I couldn’t see far ahead either. After some searching among the groups at the top, I had to assume they had carried on. I ran to catch up, like an emergency vehicle navigating through traffic. I ran quite far down, passing at least 10 groups before I eventually spotted a familiar face.
Not too long after rejoining the group, it began to rain. At first, it was a light drizzle, but it soon turned quite heavy. I had a rain jacket, but that’s all. My trousers were made from a stretch material ideal for rock climbing, but not very useful against the rain. By the time we reached the lunch spot, I was completely drenched.
Fortunately, the lunch spot provided some shelter from the rain, but we were all freezing. Most of us were wet all the way to our under layers and none of us were carrying dry warm clothes. The shelter provided no heat whatsoever, and the conditions were pretty miserable. Nevertheless, we remained in good spirits and played a game similar to charades while waiting for our food. When the food arrived, it gave us a tremendous morale boost. We were energised and ready to go, eager to get some heat back in our bodies.
There were no more stops further down, so we all spread out to go at our own pace. Anton and I were keen to get down as quickly as possible and stormed off ahead. Olly and Felicity joined us but eventually got fed up with running in the rain and fell back. It wasn’t long before we reached the treeline and entered the jungle. The jungle obscured the views but provided shelter from the rain. It was much warmer by now, though very muddy, with streams flowing down from the rain.
The path was steep, and we occasionally had to make way for passing mules and their handlers. Every now and then, the jungle would clear, revealing breathtakingly beautiful gorges with views of the lush, towering peaks all around us. Soon, we could see Challway down at 2900m, a tiny village where we would be staying for the evening.
Entering the village we were camping at:
Unsure of our lodging, we waited for the guide. Gradually, the entire group assembled, and we walked into the village to see our accommodation: a patch of land with round huts in a half-circle. Though slightly less wild than the previous night, we still had spectacular views of the surrounding landscapes. Anton and I shared a hut again. It was more spacious, but we struggled to find enough space to hang our wet clothes and gear. We had little hope they would dry overnight in the freezing temperatures.
Not the best conditions to dry clothes in:
Because the day was clouded by rain and hardship, it was easy to lose sight of the grander journey we were on. It was on that final stretch home that I collected myself and recognized the wonder around me—the breathtakingly beautiful mountains in my view, the amazing camaraderie with Anton, Ollie, and Felicity, and our incredibly awe-inspiring journey to the magical Machu Picchu.
