Much A Pinch You

Machu Picchu is the cherry on top of the Peru cake, this is the place the vast majority of people come to see. A city that was made by the Incas and never found by the Spanish, it was "discovered" in 1911, as in it was discovered by white people, the local people have known about it for hundreds of years. The cool thing about Machu Picchu is the high quality of the stonework, huge stones fit together intricately. Was it for ceremonies? or was it a city for the 'chosen women'? or maybe a summer vacation home where the Inca elite playfully splashed each other with water, while betting on the highly popular llama races. NO ONE KNOWS! ohhhhhh. very mysterious. An undisputed fact is that Machu Picchu is a fantastic city on top of a mountain, and well worth seeing.
There is only one way to get to Machu Picchu, and that is a grueling four day hike over mountains (dead woman's pass) and valleys. No wait that is just what my wife let me think, until I read (long after we had booked a guide) you can also take a 45 minute bus to the top. The only way to hike the Inca trail is to book a guide, you can not do it along anymore. When you book a guide you are actually booking a guide, a porter, and a cook. The cook makes four course meals for you three times a day, in the kitchen tent that has been carried and set up by the porters. The guide sort of tells you about the trail.
So, we booked a guide four mouths in advance and in preparation for the long and hard hike Lotta got sick, with a kind of flu, the day before we left. The morning we left we told the agency that we might now be able to go and they jumped up and said "oh no you O.K." then they gave Lotta some pills that simple can not be legal on earth, either that or it is Nyquil in pill form. Lotta said she felt great, sure she saw a tree turn into a dragon and fly away but that is to be expected with 'Peruvian-get-you-well-fast-pill'. Here is a photo of the Porters getting ready.

The first day of the hike was good, give or take. We started with a little chaos but that is par for course here. Many group that go on the hike are 20 to 30 people, we decided to go with a smaller group as it is better for the porters and a bit better for the trail itself. Our group was suppose to be eight to ten people and it ended up being three, me, Lotta, and a Dutch girl named Eva. We had our small group and we could not have been happier with it. Lotta stared to feel better and better, I became her personal porter for the first day and carried her pack, once the pills kicked in she smiled a lot and chased a butterfly. here is happy Lotta.
The mountains in Peru are just like mountain in Peru. I was struck by the
uniqueness of the mountain. One would not mistake them for the Rockies, or Swiss Alps, they really look like the Andes.

Some of the things that I have learned on the Inca Trail, or Inca Trial as some call it. I have learned that the Porters are the second, maybe the firs most amazing thing about Peru. These are guys who backpack at least fifty pound, and up to sixty-five pounds on a mountain trail for four days. Not only that but they mostly only wear sandals, they ALWAYS pass the tourists, and they get paid about 12 dollars a day for this. But you say "12 dollars a day is a lot of money for people down there" ummm no it isn't, but it is more than they get paid as farmers, so that is what they end up doing. Yet, another reason to be thankful that we got lucky in where we were born. The cook carries a lot of things too but he is a little bit higher up on the food chain. The guide is even higher up and kind of runs the show.
Oh here is a photo of me sharing the road with some animals


The job of the guide on the Inca trail is to pass by interesting ruins in silence, when you come to a site that she knows something about she will stop the group and relate in half-broken English, information that contradicts the facts you just learned about in a book about Peru. Here is a photo of our guide telling me something that I am pretending to understand.

While it is true, when you go to another country you should be expected to know some of the local language and make an effort to know what the people around you are saying, it might also be true that if you hire a GUIDE, they might want to be able to ummm guide you. oh well, to make up for it Maria, our guide, was very nice and she helped out Lotta a whole Lotta when she was sick. We also had some really good conversations about what life is like now in Peru and what she personally thought about Peru, the U.S., and everyday life. That sort of made up for her underwhelming knowledge of the trek we were actually on.
This is a photo of Maria, Eva, and Lotta on our second day. The breakdown of the days was: Day 1 Easy (code for, not so easy if you are carrying your wife's backpack, and in Lotta's case if you have the flu) Day 2 Challenging ( code for, Inca Trail will break your gringo soul ha ha ha ha) Day 3 Amazing (code for, O.K. day three WAS amazing, but they lied to us when they said it was all down hill) Day 4 Unforgettable (Code for, well, yes day 4 was unforgettable, but in all fairness so was day 2 because I will never forget the day I wanted to die rather than walk another step) Oh by the way, Eva the Dutch girl was very nice and modest, from the first day on all she would say was "oh I hope I do not become too tired, I hope I have enough energy" That was fine because I am sure we all thought that the only difference is that she was always way ahead of us, mostly we would catch up to her while she was sitting resting.

This is a photo of the only thing Lotta and I saw for the whole hike.

Day two was the hardest and consisted of climbing to a height of 4198 meters. I really can't mention too much how high altitude will put a hurting on a person. Climbing a mountain in one day and coming back down is one thing but just living at a high altitude is another thing altogether. All day me and Lotta did the "ten step gasp'N'sit" This is not a bad way to climb really, because you get to sit down as see what you are climbing. Also, you can marvel at what the porters are taking with them, propane tanks, potsNpans, old women.
None the less we made it to the top, here is Lotta at the top of "Dead Woman's Pass" I would have preferred they call it "The Happy Go Lucky Pass of Joy and Fun" and then maybe put an amusement park up there, and a steak house, but that is just me.
Day 3 was an up and down affair, with a bunch of amazing mountain, they have no shortage of them. Day 4 the big pay off for the whole trip will have to wait as a tired Lotta has the look of "I need to eat" in here eyes. Hope all is well back on the home front.
A going away photo of one of our porters.