Salkantay Trek, 5 days, 4 nights

After spending 32 hours travelling from Riobamba to Lima, getting ripped off on the border crossing i decided to chill in Lima for a day and night. I stayed in uptown Miraflores and glad to say all was safe and good.

On another bus for 27 hours and had some craic with two young Peruvians on the bus, one of the girls was some local beauty queen, but I only had one thing on my mind......Macchupicchu :)

It was the evening and i managed to book a 5 day hike and 4 nights camping trip to Salkantay mountain and finishing in Machupicchu. In total we walked 88 kilometres but let me assure you it was up and down and only the third day was an easy walk.

The first day we (“the lady flowers” left at 4am and hiked for 9 hours, the last half hour was a killer (even though the little horse had my rucksack).

On arrival it was not long before dark and -7 degrees but the site of the blue moon light snow capped mountains made up for the freezing cold feet later that night.

On the second day we reached the top of Salkantay mountain, 4650 metres high, and when if anally got up there I left my wish stone on top of a little pyramid of stones. There was a group of old fogies from France and they put the youth to shame which was great to see, some even in there 70´s would you believe. Every time they were on our tail we would use it to motivate the speed of our group.

For the third day we hiked in the “jungle” which is really a spectacular forest with crystal clear blue water falls and rivers. The views are amazing but unfortunately it was not always possible to capture it on camera.

After lunch we got a bus to Santa Teresa and hit the hot springs and partied later that evening.

On the fourth day to Aguas Calientes it was excruciatingly hot but in the afternoon we hit the rail road and I practiced my balancing act as I walked the tracks. On arrival it was clearly “tourist ville” but we embraced it and danced with the locals in the town square that evening.

For the final day we got up at 4am, Felix and I climbed to the Machpicchu entrance in 27 minutes which later took an hour and a half to walk back down, so needles to say we desperately wanted to be in the limited queue for a Waynapicchu. It was 7 am I was on route for the top of Waynapicchu, (to peoples amusement in my flip-flops), after 45 minutes of serious hiking I was one of the first 5 to reach the top and enjoy the views before it became too crowded.

Shortly after Joover and I hiked to the Inka cave and then the Inka Bridge. After all the trekking it was time to enjoy the views of Machpicchu and the Inka civilisation are spectacular and I highly recommend you put it on your list of things to do.

Oh I nearly forgot, in true typical South American Style, I had to hassle the agency or my train ticket and our bus never appeared so our concierge haggled three different taxis for one route home.