Salkantay to Machu Picchu
What a trip. What a route. What a way to end an eight-month journey of a lifetime. Like any pilgrimage, the Salkantay Trek (conveniently listed in National Geographic's Top 25 Treks) provided me with the perfect opportunity to reflect, push myself, and complete a physical, emotional, and even spiritual adventure.
Salkantay Mountain, the centerpiece of the Salkantay Trek, means "Savage Mountain" in quechua. The trail is kept untamed by the Peruvian government and unclaimed by the hoards of tourists who flock to Machu Picchu every day. In fact, we only came across three backpackers in six days of hiking.
The route provided me with hours of personal space and time, especially when our guide let me jog ahead and hike alone for a few hours. I had to catch my breath after jogging ahead at 15,000 feet but I was also able to catch and synthesize what's been bopping around my head for the past 250 days.
I took the above self-timer selfie on one of these solo-hikes away from the rest of the group. It took a few tries and my white camera even slipped into the mud a few times but it was worth it. I needed to capture the solitude of hiking and the immensity of the Andes.
The trek itself was beautiful. Our first day, we hiked for around six hours from Mollepata to the Salkantay Lodge. We experienced the tempestuousness of Peruvian mountain climate when the weather dropped from hot and sunny to windy and freezing in just a few moments. When we arrived at the lodge, we were greeted with hot cocoa tea and warm towels. Heaven. Later that evening, we soaked in a hot tub with a perfect view of the Salkantay Peak in the distance. After months of bed bugs, hostels, and Couchsurfing, the luxury was a welcome change!
On day two, we went for an acclimatizing hike to visit a crater lake, Lake Humantay, situated next to Salkantay Mountain. The hike took approximately four hours and was a perfect way to gauge our fitness levels at 12,000 feet. That evening, we took another dip in the hot tub, did yoga at sunset, and ate an incredible dinner before going to bed early to prepare for the big summit day.
Day three, we woke up bright(ish) and early to start our hike up the Rio Blanco valley. As we slowly trudged higher and higher, we were afforded panoramic views of the Vilcabamba Range and the glacier-topped Salkantay. I felt incredible. Although the air was thin, my heart was full. By the time we passed through the Salkantay Pass at 15,123 feet (give or take, there were a few signs with conflicting numbers up there), I even had the energy to take some jumping shots! I might not have gotten as much vertical as usual but the background was hard to beat.
Day four we descended into the cloud forest. As our guide told us when we reached the Salkantay Pass, it's all down hill from here! All of our knees were smarting by the time we reached the next lodge, where the staff was preparing a traditional Pachamanca meal, a traditional festive Peruvian meal cooked by layering meat and vegetables with hot stones, and then covering the whole thing up to bake. The food was, predictably, incredible - even the guinea pig!
Day five we followed the Santa Teresa River Valley through banana, avocado, and coffee orchards. The hike was a slow downhill descent to our last Mountain Lodges lodge. That night, our guide gave us a guided tour of the constellations, so perfectly visible with such distance from the city lights.
And the last day of hiking, Day six, offered us the first cloudy views of Machu Picchu in the distance. We walked downhill for almost six hours (good training for that last day on Kilimanjaro) and then took the train to Aguas Calientes, the launching point for visits to Machu Picchu.
And finally, Machu Picchu. What a feat, what an incredible feat. The sheer scale of Machu Picchu is breathtaking, and the capacity of the Incas to create is humbling.
My last week of travel with my mom was ideal. Although I threw such a hissy fit about doing the Mountain Lodges lodge-to-lodge trek at first, I am so grateful that that is what we did. It was the perfect transition back to "normal" life, if you can consider Bay Area living normal.
I've got a few more posts coming up before I officially retire this blog this summer after Kilimanjaro. Until then, I'm sorting through my pictures from the trip and starting the long process of creating a more permanent way to commemorate the adventure.
