In Defence of the Inca Trail

When you´re backpacking you´re not supposed to book ahead. Booking in advance is cheating, it´s for flashpackers and people on holiday. Except for some things you have to and one of these things is the Inca Trail.



 

The start point at Ollyantambo

The Inca Trail is rapidly disappearing from the South American traveller´s itinerary. You have to book at least a month in advance, which in reality means three, resulting in a rigidity unsuited to your average gringo. Thus the Inca Trail is largely populated by short-trippers - families on their once-in-a-lifetime holidays, uni students on summer break and old Australian women with something to prove.



Luckily I have sisters. Sisters who, when I announced I was trotting of to Latin America, demanded to come out for a bit and since they were forcing me to be in Lima by a certain date it made sense for us to suck up the extra cost and tread in the paths of the Incas

But was it worth it?



I think yes.

Llaqtapata - High Town in Quechua

Trekking to Machu Picchu whether it´s via the Inca Trail, the Salkantay or the Lares really makes you appreciate quite how isolated the citadel is. So isolated in fact that its existence remained a mystery because the Conquistadors, even with their new fangled technology (horses), couldn´t penetrate the area. As you climb up and down it never looks as though there ought to be a city just over the horizon or round the next mountain. On the Inca Trail you pass several ruins, many of them Tambos or guest houses for the original users of the trail- this I think is partly what gives the trail its edge. This part of the Andes is not the most beautiful and those seeking jaw dropping scenery in Peru would be better off sticking to Colca Canyon and the Cordillera Blanca. But the ruins give the Incas a presence outside of beleaguered Machu Picchu, a reminder that this civilisation was once the biggest empire of its day, that beautiful, colonial Cuzco was one their city and these impassable mountains were and are their domain.

The trail´s crowning glory is Intipunku, the Sun Gate. Contrary to most reports you do not get to watch the sun rise over Machu Picchu from here.The authorities have deemed walking the final 6km in the dark too dangerous - a tendency to European standards of safety is one of the trail´s cons. However climbing up to Intipunku and getting your first sighting of Machu Picchu set in its mountainous context below you is amazing. A 45 minute walk downhill past one final appetiser of a ruin and you are in the city itself, right next to that infamous rock from which everyone has their picture taken. Day trippers and alternative trekkers unfortunately enter the city at its midpoint and must climb up through it before reaching ´that view´- not quite as impressive.

Of course the Inca Trail has its bad points. The sheer number of people for one, although quite how many of us there were wasn´t revealed until lunch on the third day which everyone has at the same spot. The loos are horrendous even for a veteran of British festivals! And if you get a pedantic Spanish guy in your group well...

No trip to Peru would be complete without a visit to Machu Picchu which definitely deserves its title as one of the new wonders of the world. If you are going to trek it and have sisters who will be restricting your itinerary anyway, not to mention book it all for you, then strap your hiking boots on, grab your backpack and whatever you do don´t buy a sodding walking stick.

As this picture was taken a man blew angrily at us with a whistle.

Inca Trail Costs with Cuzco Explorers

Trail itself: $300

Porter to carry stuff: $90 (divided by the three of us)

Tips: 40 soles

Hiking Boots and Guide Dogs

I´ve written before about the possibility that travelling has turned me in to my Mother. Well today I would like to explore whether I am turning in to my Geography teacher. On one school trip involving cagoules I promised myself that, unlike my teacher, I would never wear hiking boots with shorts and I would never buy a fleece.

Well guess what... I did both.

Hiking (or if you want to sound more hardcore, trekking) is the travellers bread and butter. Back in the UK if I asked said to a friend ´Hey let´s go hiking in the Peak District this weekend!´ I´d probably be met with a scowl. Yet  here in South America I am regularly comparing notes on treks, enquiring in to those I want to do and advising on how to fall asleep at 4000m with only a three season sleeping bag.

Snow-capped peaks and icy blue lakes

At least once a month out comes the hiking boots, fleece and oh-so-useful zip off trekking trousers and off I wander into the jungle, or down a canyon, across a valley, or up a mountain. Undoubtedly the best, most awe-inspiring scenery has been found whilst hiking. I have stood at the bottom of canyon on the Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador about to cry at the ascent required, climbed to the top and then exclaimed ´Isn´t it a lovely view´! I have frozen to death in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, stomping along for an hour without feeling my toes and then forgotten all about it at the sight of a particularly blue lake and an especially pointy snow-capped peak.

Sin Cola and a happy sister

My sisters (who have joined me for three weeks) and I recently returned from the Colca Canyon. On day one we hiked in to the canyon, on day two we hiked along the valley floor to the Sangalle Oasis which was unusually and thankfully deserted. On day three we got up at 4.30am to climb out of the canyon (a 1000m ascent) before the sun came up. It was on this third day, in the pitch black with no view to speak of that I found another reason to love trekking. The dogs. The friendly Sin Cola (No Tail) who had helpfully eaten our unwanted rice the night before accompanied us the whole way up. A look of fond concern on his face Sin Cola guided us up the switch tracking path turning what was supposed to be a three hour, uphill slog in to a walk in the park.

Challa and a still happy sister

The dog collecting happened again a few days later on the Isla del Sol in Bolivia. Strolling along the ridge line we were joined by the beautiful Challa (named after the village we poached her from) who guided us all the way south to Yumani. Faithful to the end she tried to bed down with us at our hostel only to be cruelly turned from the premises.


Tomorrow the sisters and I are off to hike the Inca Trail. The fleece is packed, the boots are waiting by the door. The phrases inter-locking spurs and v-shaped valley will be echoing in my head as we hike, although I´ve long since forgotten what they mean, and hopefully in amongst the Incan ruins and the stunning vistas there will be, patiently waiting, another dog eager to go walkies.

A Whale of a Time in the Poor Man´s Galapagos

Since I arrived in Ecuador I´ve had a touch of the green-eyed monster. Everywhere I go there are backpackers as scruffy as I jumping on planes to Ecuador´s crown jewel; The Galapagos Islands. Whereas on the mainland $1000 can easily last you over a month, on the Galapagos Islands it might last you a week. Clearly for me Lonesome George and his compatriots were off limits.

However Ecuador does provide for the cash strapped backpacker: one tiny island nicknamed, as so many islands on South America´s Pacific coast are, ´The Poor Man´s Galapagos´. However what Isla del Plata has over other contenders for this second rate title, and even over the Galapagos itself, is whales. Massive, jumping, Humpback whales.

Pelicans at the ready.

I had been going to miss out Ecuador´s coastline completely but then I heard that July/August were prime whale spotting months with whale sightings all but guaranteed. I fled the delights of the Andes and jumped on a couple of buses (one of which decided to play Predator vs. Alien at 1am) down to Puerto Lopez. That evening a tour was swiftly arranged and the next morning a very excited me sped down to the beach to catch my boat. In Puerto Lopez there is no harbour, or even a dock. Instead there is an end of the beach were boats attempt to come in as possible to the shore and passengers wade through oily waters to reach their boats. Boats for dragging gringos out to sea were far outnumbered by fishing boats coming in with the mornings catch. As we waited for our boat we watched the hordes of Pelicans dive bombing weary fisherman as they hoisted crates of eels on to the beach and laid out their fishy wares.

The journey out to sea was uneventful save for a Spanish man continually vomiting. I, unusually, was spared this fate but perhaps only because I was so busy looking for whales. Eventually we heard and saw an enormous splash. It must have been a whale! Quickly a few of us scrambled up a rickety ladder, circumnavigating the pile of vomit, for unimpeded views of the whales. At first we would just see three fins breaks the water and see what looked like massive dolphins diving deep with a farewell flip of the tail.

The best shot I got.

And then, it was impossible to predict where, a whale would erupt out of the water, arching its back in an impressive display for our awe struck boat. After a while it seemed as if the whales were competing with each whale jumping further out of the water and closer to the boat ´til they couldn´t have been more than 20m away. I tried initially to get that money shot and almost succeeded until I realise that these beautiful creatures were better appreciated with my own tow eyes and not through the lens of a camera.

I see Boobies!

The highlight of the day behind us we headed to the island itself in search of the Galapagos's most famous bird, the Blue-Footed Boobie. To my delight I discovered that whilst the female boobie (stop sniggering) quacks the male makes a whistling/hissing sound exactly like the sound lecherous Latino men make to intimidate blonde gringas. We also saw the comical Red Frigate Bird the male of which has an enormous wobbly red breast which he waggles at the other birds in some sort of display of macho pride. The baby of this species are sometimes called Teddy Birds because their down is so fluffy that they actually appear bigger than the adults!

A few more birds later (Golden Albatrosses and Red-Footed Boobies) we headed back to the boat and wearily to shore. The waves were enormous and it felt at times like we were on a roller coaster. Sea sickness began to set so I though I´d prove my claim that I can sleep literally anywhere. I dozed bolt upright whilst everyone turned green around me and was non too pleased when our guide woke me up to check if I was okay! However soon the shore was in sight and I was quickly cheered by the thought of the unbelievably fresh plate of calamari that awaited me.

Existential Question Time in Tatacoa Desert

When travellers get together there are a few things they inevitably end up talking about.
First there is the expected ´where are you going? / where have you been? / where are you from?´ - a boring necessity.
Second there´s the ´did you transit Miami´ discussion which usually involves recounting all know USA border nightmares.
And third there´s the ´what do you miss about home?´. For Brits the list is usually a roast, Marmite and proper chocolate. For me, it´s duvets.
So imagine my delight when we arrived in San Agustin to discover our room had a duvet. A beautifully warm, soft, perfect example of a duvet. For four nights it was bliss, but then we had to move on. Well obviously I couldn´t go straight back to being cold at night. I need to be let down gently so, en route to Bogota, we thought we´d stop in the desert.


As you do.

El Labaryinth

El Desierto de Tatacoa is a somewhat surreal place. For one thing you just don´t expect a desert to be there. The jumping off point for Tatacoa is a leafy, green town called Villavieja. The only thing about its typical plaza that hints of anything unusual is the statue of a giant prehistoric sloth replacing the usual one of Simon Bolivar. But a quick mototaxi ride takes you into the Sloth´s old stomping ground, now turned to desert. Tatacoa is not a sandy desert a la the Sahara but looks more, I imagine, like Arizona (the boyfriend who watches a lot of golf confirms this). There are two sections, the more impressive and smaller red part and the larger, sparser grey part.


Our surreal few days began when our taxi driver dropped us at the Observatory where we were greeted by Xavier, the Astronomer, like old friends. Jokes were made about him joining us in the tent before we wandered out to a small hill which was to be our bed for the night. Xavier enthusiastically started tackling the tent whilst Mike and I stood looking bewildered, not sure how to help. Suddenly the two police officers who had been leaning against the observatory watching thought they would join in. Soon the age old question ´how many people does it take to put up a tent´ was answered... two gringos, two policemen and an astronomer.

With our bed for the night all ready we set off to explore the part of the red section known as ´El Labaryinth´ - the name turned out to be pretty apt. Thinking we were sticking to the main path through the towering rock formations getting back shouldn't have been a problem. Except it was. Turns out most cacti look the same and one rock dune is much the same as another. We eventually made it back before dark fell but only just and only after a somewhat unorthodox clamber back to the mirardor.


Evening activities were limited to lying in our tent, with the flap open, gazing at the stars and pondering the mysteries of the universe. The next day we awoke early in order to complete a 16km hike before the midday sun. There is just one road the runs through and in to the desert making getting lost fairly difficult even for us. Our hike took us through cacti fields, across rugged bolder strewn landscapes and across cracked, red earth - all without leaving the road.

The grey part

As strange as the the landscape was the Colombians themselves decided to provide us with far odder sights. On our way in to the desert I had giggled at the sight of two people, on a motorbike, leading a horse. But Tatacoa added to this with three people on a motorbike with a lamb and then two people on a motorbike with a calf. Why and where the lamb and calf were headed I have no idea but I hope they enjoyed the 50kmph ride.


After one more disgustingly hot attempt at El Labyrinth we headed back to Villavieja and on to Neiva. To the Boyfriend´s disgust he was, as usual, shunted in to the back of the camionetta (a jeep taxi) whilst I got the warm inside. However when we set down in Neiva a lopsided smile assured me all was well. ´I have been speaking the universal language of banter´ he cryptically declared before revealing he had been swigging aguardiente  with the locals whilst I had been making polite conversation with the driver.


Typical.

Two Days of Solitude

The Lonely Planet has a habit, where Colombia's concerned, to describe anything a bit otherworldly, a bit off track, as being straight out of a Gabriel García Márquez novel. After a while it leaves you slightly infuriated; 'well yes' you think, 'the place where he lived and wrote obviously bears some resemblance to the world of his books.' It's a bit like going to Edinburgh and exclaiming (as I have)over the castle's similarity to Hogwarts.

Now I have no idea if García Márquez has ever been to San Cipriano, a minuscule, ramshackle village, deep in the pacific jungle, but the place is, undeniably, like something out of a storybook.

San Cipriano is home to roughly 300 Colombians mostly descended from African slaves brought to the area to work on the banana plantations. It's proximity to a crystal clear river peppered with idea swimming spots has made it a popular weekend retreat for Calianos but where it all gets a bit odd is the fact that in San Cipriano there are no cars.And there are no cars because there are no roads. Well there is a street, in the sense that there's an unobstructed passage land between the houses, but once the houses end so does the street leaving only a thin, muddy path that winds itself deeper in to the jungle.

'If there's no road' you're probably thinking 'how did you manage to get there?' Obviously if stepping in to Colombia where actually like stepping into One Hundred Years of Solitude we would have levitated there, or rode in on the back of a friendly Jaguar, but it isn't and we didn't. Instead we sat on a flat wooden cart attached to a motorbike (complete with a picture of a scantily clad woman on the seat) and using some physics far beyond my paltry GCSE we were propelled along a disused railway track through the jungle to the T-junction of corrugated iron that is San Cipriano.

The whole journey, which takes about an hour, is a wryly comedic one. For a start only the motorbike's back wheel rotates giving the driver the appearance of being bizarrely motionless and not too dissimilar to a child on a motorbike ride outside a supermarket. Then, because there is only a single track, you will occasionally meet a similar cart coming in the opposite direction. Protocol dictates that each driver switches of his engine, sits back and along with his passengers stares at the cart opposite. For a few minutes nobody speaks before one driver (it always seemed to be us) throws up his hands, climbs off his bike, pulls off the two dazed gringos and their enormous backpacks, before lifting the cart, bike and all, clean off the tracks. The winning driver then trundles past, smug looks from his still sedentary passengers, before bags, cart and people are all thrown back on the tracks and the journey continues.

It is the journey that makes San Cipriano such an alluring destination but the village itself is delightful enough. It is unlike anywhere else in Colombia I have, or will visit, devoid of the usual town square filled with impossibly old men, fruit sellers and a statue of Simon Bolivar. Instead it is just two 'roads', a few kids playing 'three and in' on a bedraggled football pitch and an excellent rope swing swaying above a particularly deep and secluded section of river. For two days it was bliss, before rice, beans, fish and plantain three times a day became a bit too much and jumping back on the H.M.S Bikini Babe we headed back to hot,dusty and boringly modern Cali.

A Lost City Found and a Maternal Revelation.

My Father (who thinks he's a funny man) spent my childhood following my Mother around Europe's various Greek and Roman ruins deriding their 'half-built' state and questioning why we kept taking him to 'buildng sites'. This coupled with a particularly hot traipse around The Valley of the Tombs in Cyprus when I was twelve left me with a deep seated conviction that as an adult I would not 'do' ruins.

However, since I left for Latin America, I have, in fact, become my Mother. I now own a fleece, have enjoyed a rainy hike in Boquete, Panama, and never miss an opportunity to use the loo. So it is no surprise then that last week I signed up for a five day trek to the Cuidad Perdida of Teyuna deep in the Colombia jungle.

Three days hiking to some rubble and the back again all whilst sleeping in hammocks - my Mum's idea of Heaven, my Dad's of Hell.

The hike turned out to be possibly the highlight of my trip so far. Yes it was hard but not overwhelmingly so and we had two brilliant guides, Jesus and Gabriel (so we knew we were in good hands), who were constantly on hand to slice up watermelon and oranges for the weary. Carlos, our translator, knew where all the best, and safest, parts of the river to swim in were and would suggest a dip just as you were thinking 'I'm getting a bit hot'.

The one with the two waterfalls

Over the five days I became quite a connoisseur of these spots weighing up the pros and cons of  'the one with the two waterfalls' versus 'the one with the big rock you could jump off'. My favourite place was 'the one with the really fast current'. There existed in our group a French guy, named Jean, who had a penchant for almost getting swept over rapids. At the spot in question he and a Dane named Rasmus (a common name in Denmark it would seem; his mate was also called Rasmus) finally got dragged down stream. Frantic cries from Gabriel instructed the two to swim with it and to the opposite bank. They then walked upstream and dived back in, across the current, back to cheering group. Well after that we all wanted a go and one by one we swam down the current, off to the side, walked upstream and dived back to safety. 

Lost City Found.

The ruins themselves, although not the trek's highlight, were impressive enough. Two hundred stone terraces soaring above the jungle where the Kogi Indians (who still inhabit the jungle) used to dwell until the Spanish arrived with their European diseases and the city was left to the infected. To my delight at the very top of Teyuna we found six army personal guarding the site from gold diggers, guerrillas and clumsy gringos alike. I may be turning in to my Mother but I am still a Cowley girl and naturally I had to have a picture with the soldiers, wearing one of their hats. The resulting photo definitely trumps my sisters' usual Notting Hill Carnival London Bobby efforts.

So after five days of only washing in streams and having run out of clean socks and t-shirts it was time to return to modern Colombia. In no time we had exchanged the lush idyll of the jungle for the laughably bureaucratic traffic police who impounded our jeep not because it contained twelve people instead of seven, or because the engine and petrol tank were connected by a rubber tube running through the passenger cabin, but because our diver didn't have the correct piece of paper. Civilisation Indeed.

Drink up, me 'earties, Yo Ho.

They say half the fun is getting there and whoever ´they´are they might have been referring to the border between Panama and Colombia. There exists, in the Americas, an optimistic road called the Pan American Highway. The romance being that you can drive all the way from Canada to Argentina on one, nicely paved, road.

And it would do if it weren´t for the Darién Gap.

100km of dense jungle filled to the teeth with bandits, guerrillas and other people who might want to kill or kidnap you. The Darién presents an interesting choice for the pan American traveller...

Do you      a) Fly (boring)

                 b) Do an awkward but cheap mix of flights, boats and buses

          or    c) Sail there

Despite a long family history of sea sickness (my grandfather a WW1 pilot reportedly couldn´t even fly over water without turning green) I plumped for ´c´ and signed myself up for five days onboard a 40ft yacht named ´Impetus´ sailing first through the stunning San Blas archipelago and then across the sea to Colombia´s colonial jewel, Cartagena.

The San Blas Islands number somewhere (it depends who you´re talking to) between the neat 365 to 400 + tiny islands, most sporting little more than a few palm trees, a white sandy beach and an appealing strip of coral reef. A few are home to the island´s autonomous, indigenous people the Kuna Yale. On our first day we hadn´t been on the yacht for more than thirty minutes when two Kuna men appeared in a dugout canoe with ten live lobsters milling about their feet. Bargaining between them and our First Mate ensued and five minutes later we had purchased seven lobsters (one each!) for $20. The second night the event was repeated with enormous red snapper replacing the lobster´s role. Thankfully both our Aussie First Mate and Norwegian Captain were excellent cooks and did the unbelievably fresh food justice.

Dinner!

The first three days were spent cruising between the islands and diving off the boat. Our Captain took us to an amazingly wrecked wreck just a few meters below the water line where we could snorkel amongst the tens of tropical fish and bright corals. Foolishly I indulged in a bit of free diving down to the cabins and swam away with two painful stings on my elbows.

On our first night, between mugs of rum someone noticed a spotted eagle ray gliding past the boat and only a few inches deep. We all rushed over to the side and spent the next half hour watching the graceful creature and its companion ripple around the pool of light our boat created. Having not bee lucky enough to see one when diving in Utila this definitely made up for it!

However after three days of bliss it was time to set sail and we awoke on the fourth day to see the palmed islands slipping out of sight. For a while all we could see were the jagged, forested peaks of the prepossessing Darién before they too disappeared leaving us alone at sea.

Dinner!

Then the sea sickness set in. Clearly my grandfather is alive and well in my veins as I spent most of day four lying on my back listening to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, then Down and Out in Paris and in London and finally before sleep claimed me most of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. However the next morning the seas had died down and I managed to force down a few spoonfuls of oatmeal, enough to provide a base for the mariners secret weapon; seasickness tablets.

I spent day five feeling like superwoman able to stumble about the boat, sit down, stand up and eat at whim. Amazing stuff! The elation didn´t even subside as night fell because sitting on the deck admiring the bio-phosphorescence around the boat I heard a splash. A loud splash, too loud to be the tuna who had been flinging themselves out of the water all day. Looking down I saw a phosphorescent trail loop under the boat and then out of the water arched two dolphins. The rest of the crew were summoned and we spent our last waking hours on the boat being guided towards the glow of Cartagena by the sparkling dolphins and their ghostly leaping shadows.

The next morning we had arrived in Cartagena and all that remained to be done was to find our land legs and, like the true pirates we had become, hit the rum.