Salkantay Part 2

Day 3 was my favorite day of the hike. We started in the morning hiking along that same, boring road from day 2, but quickly diverted off to an Inca trail. Now, there is the classic Inca Trail, which many people trek along, but this wasn’t that. This was a different Inca trail. The Incas had several trails, each with different purposes. Some were commercial, some were for transportation of people. This was a commercial Inca trail that we were on, which wove steeply up and over the mountain that we were on. It was a narrow dirt path, which was held in place by stone restraining walls and the path was established by steps in steeper portions. Both of these features were original Inca features. Though the path was just as steep as our path up to Salkantay Pass on the first day, being at nearly half the elevation of the first day made it much more relaxing of a hike. Not to say it was easy, but it was certainly much easier.

The camera really undersells how steep the path was...

We stopped at a coffee farm, where we learned how to make coffee, from bean to drink. We picked the berries that were ripe, and our guide Henry was having a fun time with us, yelling at us to pick faster.

We then had to skin the coffee berries, revealing only the seeds, before the seeds were sent off to be dried. The machine that we used to skin the beans was actually really nifty—it worked amazingly well, separating exactly the beans from the berries, spitting all the berries out the back, and the beans into a bucket.

The beans were very slimy coming out of the machine, and that’s why they are dried for a week. We were given a pre-dried batch of beans, and we put them into a clay pot over an open fire, where we roasted them until they started to crack. Towards the end, we added an orange peel for fragrance, and sugar for taste. We ground the roasted beans, and made coffee from it!

Pictures from the coffee making process

Though I don’t like coffee much, and this didn’t change it, I still enjoyed being able to enjoy the product of my experience, and we all found it amazing how the berries—which don’t taste like coffee at all—can be turned into this iconic taste.

We continued up the Inca trail until we arrived at the top of the mountain, stopping at some swings on the way.

At the top, we came to a clearing, where we saw, for the first time, Machu Picchu! It was amazing to me just how different the terrain was on either side of the mountain we were on; the Machu Picchu side was very rocky, and the mountains were very steep. So steep that trees couldn’t really grow off the sides of many of the faces of the mountains. On the side we had come from—and hence, the view we had for the last two days—was of much more gentle mountains, sloping down to a river. Though there were landslides frequently, the area was really just dense green, and where there wasn’t green, it was dirt that was exposed, not rock.

The whole view was amazing. Just wonderful. Seeing the variety in something as specific as mountainous rainforest; seeing the sun, low in the sky; having, for the first time, seen this seemingly elusive place that we’d been chasing for three days; there, with a group that we’d become close with in only a matter of days. The comradery, spirit, scenery were all indescribable. Elisban pointed out the two important mountains to Machu Picchu, namely, Machu Picchu, and Huayna Picchu, meaning “old” and “young mountain” respectively.

We headed downwards, having completed our last difficult uphill of the hike, to Llaqtapata, which took about fifteen minutes. Llaqtapata means “settlement on a high place,” and was, interestingly enough, the initial proposed name for Machu Picchu. The Incas were not obsessed with naming things—they didn’t name their mountains, for example, and Machu Picchu went unnamed throughout its construction. (The site was, contrary to popular belief, never actually finished).

Llaqtapata

Llaqtapata, as we know it today, was a small area where Inca trail runners would live and rest. The Inca trails had a very involved system of runners, who would each run only a mile or so, passing a message on to the next runner. In this way, though a hike from Cusco to Machu Picchu takes four days, they could pass information between the two cities—separated by 77 miles—in just five hours.

Though covered in grass now, the grass was actually an English species that made its way across the Atlantic. Previously, they kept the floor of their houses sand, and currently occupied villages in the Andes and the Sacred Valley still keep this traditional sand floor.  

We discussed a lot about Machu Picchu and Quechua Culture, but I’ll save most of the information I learned for the Machu Picchu article, as there’s certainly overlap.

Our campsite was close to Llaqtapata, and we watched the sun set over Machu Picchu before heading in for dinner.

Our Last Campsite

Day 4 of the hike was more like day 2: not all that difficult, and rather uninspiring. We headed down the Inca trail for about two hours in the morning. This part of the hike was downright beautiful, and definitely hard on the knees. But once we got to the bottom, we essentially followed train tracks for five hours, just walking to the city of Aguascalientes. We were all kinda in a bad mood by then, having walked for four straight days, and having this endless, repetitive hurdle of walking by the train for hours and hours. We did get to cross a cool bridge, though!

If you look closely in the last two pictures, you can see the terraces stretching all the way down from Machu Picchu

We neared Machu Picchu, seeing its terraces stretching all the way down the mountain, to just a few stories above our heads. We rounded Huayna Picchu, and snuck around into Aguascalientes. I was disappointed, since, though I just spent the last several days

We finally made it to Aguascalientes, which is a really quaint town at the base of Machu Picchu, entirely made for tourism. The city follows the river running through it, and its main street is split in half, with one side on each side of the river. The city is, though entirely fake, very pretty, and very well developed. Zack and I were both a little sick by the food at this point, and we both rested in bed for a few hours after showering, hoping that we’d feel better by dinner.

Well, we didn’t feel better by dinner. Dinner was at a restaurant, included in the tour, and I couldn’t bare the thought of eating anything, frankly. Unfortunately, after one bite of my alpaca saltado (an Andean take on a Peruvian staple dish), I had to run upstairs to throw up my entire stomach.

Luckily, I managed to throw whatever was making me sick up before processing it, and I immediately felt like a million bucks. I came back downstairs and vacuumed up the rest of my dinner. Zack, on the other hand, took a couple of days to get back to feeling like himself.

We all went to bed pretty early, so that we could wake up to catch our 6 AM bus to Machu Picchu!

The hike was really enjoyable, and though it certainly had its highs and lows (physical and emotional), we all had a great time together as a group. I would highly recommend hiking to Machu Picchu, it makes the whole experience of being there just that little bit more special.