So last I wrote I was in Ollataytambo with plans of hitting the hay early to catch the sun rising over the ruins. Um no. That is not what happened…

As it turned out, there was a missing pane of glass in the bathroom window and it happens to be very cold at night in the Andes this time of year. My room did not have heat but luckily I bought a “genuine acrylic baby alpacha touque” in the market and there was an extra bed with a spare 5 lbs of damp smelling blankets. I felt a bit better once I had effectively sealed every possible air pocket around my body… but then the altitude sickness set in.

Thinking I was well acclimated by now, I had left my Diamox in Cusco. Besides I was finding cocoa tea was very effective with staving off altitude sickness. Luckily I bought a bag of cocoa leaves from one of the many lynch mobs when I stepped off the bus in Pisac so I at least had something to work with.  However, finding hot water in Ollaytaytambo at any point past midnight is a challenge – so I munched on them straight. It was like eating dry bay leaves. It wasn’t as effective as ingesting in tea form, but I was able to get about 2 hrs sleep.

Then the¨”tourista” set in. It was not my finest moment. I will spare the gory details, but I have learned to be far more cautious with my culinary choices. Bringing Imodium and antibiotics was a very wise thing – as I have heard some horror stories about people getting sick for days on end in Peru.

The night before, my tour company had told me Machu Piccu was closed due to landslide. In reality, they closed a portion of the trail until they could figure out if a certain rock was going to fall. (Personally I thought dynamite would have created a very quick answer – but who am I to judge. It could have been a special rock. )

As I understood it, we were still going to do a portion of the Inca trail so the next day I caught the train and got off at KM104 – as per the original plan.  I expected to see a guide with a sign bearing my name – however this is not how things went down. There wasn’t anybody waiting for me. That is when I realized my tour company and I had had a unfortunate clash of Spanglish.

So there I was in the middle of the Andes with no guide or pass to the Incan Trail – and my train to Auguas Calientes was gone. I explained my situation in my best Spanglish and Pictionary to the park warden to discovered my tour company hadnt been through that way at all. A nice family from Bogota had offered to let me accompany them and their guide – but the trail authorities wouldn’t let me onto the trail without my pass. My pass was with my tour company – wherever they were.

I didn’t have a clue what to do so I tried bargaining – I even tried tears. I could have one an Oscar for my performance as I was biting my lips and fanning my face with tears welling in my eyes.

Peruvians dont like to see people unhappy so the warden jumped out of the booth and accompanied me back to the train tracks to be sure there was nobody there. Then there was a flurry of walki talkie chatter. After about 10 minutes, he asked if my name was Theresa. I lit up. “Si!” I stood up to approach but he waved me away while more walki talki chatter continued. Finally, he said, “Vamos”,and motioned me to run with him along the trail.  I wasn’t sure what was going on but wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth so I ran into the park with him. He connected me with the nice family from Bogota and their guide. The guide informed me that I had my own guide walking towards me from Aguas Calientes. He will meet me at the second set of ruins.

The timing was perfect. My guide hit the second set of ruins at the same time as I. His name was Vladamir. This is him with my bag of cocoa leaves. He taught me how to chew them properly with the catalyst – which is a mixture of ash and a couple other things to activate them. I was not convinced the catalyst wasn’t llama poo. My cheek went numb. Big deal. I was happy to give him the bag and he was happy to have it.

Vladamir knew slightly more English than I knew of Spanish, so somehow we were able to communicate. I actually got to relax and try my hand at conversational Spanish. In retrospect it was more like pointing at things and speaking spanish nouns. He also taught me a bit of Quechua – the ancient Incan language.

He told me were going to climb to see Wynawanna and dragged me up this crazy high mountain.

I busted my butt in the gym for several months before this trip – but there is no amount of gym or cardio training that could ever prepare you for the Andes. I believe Andes is the Spanish word for Stairmaster. That’s what these people and their ancestors do best. The climb stairs and move rocks.

Now let me explain the way Incans build trails. First they make a 20-50 foot rising at about a 45 degree angle. Then they suddenly switch directions and send another in the other direction. They repeat this until they reach the top. There are no nice long flat meanderings anywhere. If you find a flat stretch anywhere it is only about 5 feet long. Its called a direction change. The Incans were crazy people. They would cut massive stone bricks from one mountain then haul these things to a different mountain on these crazy trails to build a city. If only you could see the porters out here. They average man is about 5’4  looks like they weight about 100 lbs soaking wet  – yet they RUN with loads twice their size up and down this mountain for about $2 a day. They are SO fit. Crazy stuff. I could barely carry myself much less some of those loads. Like check this out:

They haul these loads up mountains! There was one guy running with two full sized metal propane tanks on his back but the pic didn’t turn out as he was moving too fast.

Anyways back to my climb. Vladimir basically said (In Spanish) “Let’s go. Twenty more minutes.” to me for the next three hours until my soft gringa ass made it to the top of the mountain. This is me part way up:

I was clearly still optimistic about being almost there.

This is the Urabamba (Sacred River) as seen from where I started:

This is the Urabamba from where I ended up:

 

When I arrived at the top of the mountain saturated in a combination of sweat and persistent Andean rain, my reward awaited. The ruins of Wynawanna were completely devoid of human presence. It was beautiful and eerie. Magic. The only sound was the pouring rain and the song of exotic songbirds.

 

After spending some time wandering the ruins we climbed back down the mountain and walked to Auguas Calientes – which took about another three and a half hours.

It seems that each ruin I see becomes increasingly more impressive as a draw closer to Machu Piccu…