Oh Yea, Your Going to Die - Day 4

The days seem to come earlier and earlier as sleep becomes harder to come by. I woke up about 45 times last night packing in about 1.5 hours of solid shut eye. The stray dogs around the camp are nervous little bastards. The slightest noise sets them off. And when one starts barking, the entire stray dog civilization starts barking. This goes on until about 4am when the god damn rooster starts crowing about 1 foot from our tent. No lie, he is posted up 1 foot from our tent. I can see his silhouette, mocking me. My tent mate Jason is “PETA Certified” to humanly kill a chicken 2 different ways. I contemplated waking him up to kill it in a non “PETA certified” way. I wanted blood. Soon the chiefs assistant comes to the tent with his morning offerings of coca tea and we begin packing our shit for our final day of trekking.

Spirits at the breakfast table seem to be a little low. Hubert’s mood buster last night still lingers around and it is apparent no one is looking forward to today’s hike. I recall a conversation I had with Hubert a few days back that lightens my mood slightly. At the summit of Salkantay I ask him what day of the trek is his favorite, offering the best views, and with out hesitation he says “day 4.” Im set back for a second. How can anyone say something like that while standing at the summit of the Salkantay Pass. I am eager to find out. We quickly eat breakfast, slam down a cup of coca tea, and trek out leaving the town of La Playa behind us.

Not 20 minutes into the trek, we come to a part where we must cross a river. Last nights rain is causing us problems already. The river is flowing a little faster and fuller then normal, dumping itself over a 50 foot fall just to our left. The odds of us making it across to the other side dry are near impossible, unless we take a certain pass. And that pass happens to be along a group of rocks at the VERY EDGE of the waterfall. So not only are we walking inches from a 50 foot drop, we are doing so over lose, slippery 20-30 pound rocks. Death seems certain for one of us. Or at least a broken back. Of course, we could always just wade a few inches in the water and deal with the wet shoes and socks for the rest of the trek, but we all decide to dance with the devil and take the risky route. Its more fun, and it makes for good action shots. Because I hung back to take pictures, I am the last to cross. If someone falls to their death, I want to make sure I get it on camera. As im crossing and the others are waiting on the other side, I have a flash back to my childhood when I flirted with death. In the neighborhood I grew up in we had a duck pond not far from my house. Every 5 years or so it would freeze over and being the young dumb asses we were, we would walk out in the middle and slide around. My friend Jimmy and I were out there in the middle near a little island (maybe 20-30 feet from the shore) when hear the ice start to crack. Not a good sound. One ass hole (who will remain nameless because we are no longer friends with him) decided it would be funny to throw rocks toward us in an attempt to crack the ice and send us into the frigid water. He wasn’t trying to kill us or anything, he just thought it was funny. We did not find humor in it and thus proceeded to beat him up when we got off the ice. As im making my way over the rocks, I started thinking to myself “wouldn’t that be a bitch if they all started throwing rocks at me as I try and cross this rover of death.” I now associate myself with better friends, so I don’t see that happening.

After a short hike up a hill we reach a fork in the trail. Hubert informs us that this is where the trail gets hard. “The next 2.5 hours is up hill, stay on the trail and don’t stray off even a few feet because snakes like to hang out in the long grass.” Its starting to get warm so we shed some layers. At this point we are actually walking on part of the original Inca Trail. The trail its self is about 10 feet wide, with the classic Inca style boulders build up on either side. It’s hard to imagine people using this trail hundreds of years ago.

The next few hours are grueling as we ascend up at a steady pace. No flat parts here, just straight up. But the views get better and better the higher we get. Again we are walking along the mountains edge, so we have wonderful views at all times. We eventually make our way from the bottom of the river valley, up to cloud level, and soon above cloud level. Before long we reach the summit for the day. It was like a jungle up there. Everything is dripping wet, the trail is mud, and the vegetation is as thick as we have seen it. I figured we would see a lot of wild life – birds, maybe some squirrel like creatures, the Spectacle Bear....we see nothing but a bull. A freaking full grown Bull. If someone would have asked me “did you see any Bull’s on the trail?” I would have thought they were a complete idiot and slapped them. But there it was, about 30 yards away eyeing us down. What the hell do you do here? There is a 2,000 lb bull on the trail. This thing is barely big enough to even fit on the trail, how are we supposed to get around it? Some random guy (kind of weird, this guy was just hanging out up there) picked up a big stick and took off after it. I didn’t think this was going to do anything but get someone killed, but sure enough he scared it off. The Bull had to do an Austin Powers style 8 point turn to turn its self around before it could run off in the other direction, but it finally did. And we carried on. now I am worried that this Bull is waiting in the bushes for us to pass so it can bull rush us (no pun intended). You know the part in Jurassic Park when the gang is walking through the jungle when all of a sudden a Velociraptor peers through the bushes and pounces on someone’s head? I was waiting to see bull horns come charging through the brush. But we escaped death once again.

We reach an open spot on the side of the hill and we come across some ancient ruins believed to be built by the Inca’s. There is not much information about this particular site, but they know it is an Inca site by the way the windows were built in the classic Inca 

style. Only a small section of this village has been reconstructed. 

Hubert takes us through the part that is still in shambles. Its amazing and eerie at the same time to walk through an ancientvillage that has not been touched since the day it was abandoned some 500-600 years ago. Most of the walls had begun to crumble, trees and brush covering most of what is left. The small section that has been

 reconstructed in the clearing consists of 3 small rooms. The middle

 room contains a door with a water channel leading out to the edge of the mountain. From the clearing, we have our first views of Macchu Picchu. We only get a few glimpses as the cloud cover is still looming, but when the clouds lift for

 that brief second, it is a magical view.

The trek down is painful. A steep decline back down to the river valley. I can feel the cartilage in my knees ripping apart with every step I take. The value of my trekking poles increased dramatically here. Despite the pain, the spirits seem to be higher then ever on the way down. Maybe its because we know we are nearing the end of the trek and we can finally take showers and sleep in a bed, or maybe something at that Inca village gave us a boost, a sneak peak at what our day will be like tomorrow at Macchu Picchu.

We finally reach the bottom. The sun is out and it is hot. We cross over to the other side of the valley via a suspension bridge that is about 75 yards long and about 50 feet in the air. On the other side we hike our way down to the river banks and take a break. We spread out across a few large boulders, dangle or feet in the glacier river, and soak up some sun rays…..the best way to relax. This is near the end of our Salkantay journey, only about a 20 minute walk to the town of Hydro Electrica, a small town build around the dam that supplies all the electricity for Cusco. Not much of a town really, just a few market stands and eating places for the trekkers to sit and have their chiefs prepare their last meal. After lunch (late lunch – 2:30pm) we take a short train ride to the town of Aguas Calinentas.

Back in civilization for the first time in 4 days. Here we get to do the normal things in life; use the internet, check in with loves ones, use a real bathroom, have a chicken try and steal your last cookie from your bag at an internet café…..sleep in a BED with a real pillow under our heads! We check in to our hostel (which is more like a hotel), take a shower, and head to dinner at a local restaurant. Here we enjoy each others company, indulge in a few beers, and recap stories from the last few days. I cant wait to lay my head down and sleep for once. Tomorrow: Macchu Picchu.