Sep
Sept. 19: I had an adventurous last couple days in Cusco, gateway city to Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail that serves it.
After meeting with the impressive crew at Amazonas Explorer to discuss a rafting adventure next spring, I rented a mountain bike from Cusco’s most famous Scotsman, Dougie Stewart. Dougie has a huge inventory of killer Kona bikes, most all downhill fat-tire demons. I rented a Kona downhiller to ride uphill, steeply, for two hours, along a winding road arcing up into the hills overlooking the city.
Guinea pigs, caught wild, eaten con gusto.
Two hours of near non-stop pedaling, up grades that only a bike with an almost 1/1 gear ratio could make possible. I could have walked the bike faster than I was riding it at certain points, but there’s something to be said for consistency. So I stayed in the saddle….a cursed, evil saddle. My behind was numb after an hour.
I rode — pedaling maniacally in absurdly low gear, yet moving at a pace that can be described only as glacial — past the white monolithic statue of Jesus Cristo, overlooking Cusco below, and several Inca ruins, to and from which a trickle of other foreigners were walking. I envied them. All they had to do was put one foot in front of the other. Walking. What a concept.
On I peddled. Until I reached, finally, a windy, almost cold plateau that led to the turnoff for the village that Scotsman Dougie Stewart told me was the point at which all offroad trails lead back to Cusco.
“You can’t get lost. Evre’thing leeds bahk ta toun,” Dougie told me, blissfully. He offered to draw me a “wee map” showing that it was physically impossible to get lost.
Downhilling toward Cusco: Halfway to lost, two hours from the middle of nowhere.
Exiting town, of course, I promptly got lost.
Later on, back in Cusco, Dougie would tell me, “Ah, you taerned rrright, when you should’ve gone strrreight thrreuw toun.”
I really enjoy Scots accents.
Anyway, instead of the sloping, enjoyable offroad trails that Dougie told me I’d easily find back to Cusco, I found narrow, steep, and ankle-breaking rocky cowpaths that required me to carry the Kona bike on my back. I’d had enough downhill hiking in Peru, mind you. This was neither rugged nor fun. The sun was setting, I was in the middle of literally nowhere. No people, no animals, no man-made structures. Just big hills that looked…really cold to sleep on all night.
Do I turn back and take the highway back home, and know I wimped out? Or do I trust in the Scotsman’s proclamation: “You can’t get lost”? I had one hour of daylight. If I kept riding/carrying the bike further into the hills, presumably toward Cusco, I ran the risk of having to backtrack in total darkness on ankle-breaking terrain….carrying the bloody bike.
Sometimes you just give yourself up to the universe, and this was one of those times. I figured the worst that could happen was that night would fall, I’d be lost in the hills and have to slaughter a cow and slice open it’s belly and crawl inside to survive, like that scene in “Star Wars.”
But eventually, the deeper into the hills I rode (and carried the bike), I found signs of civilization. By “civilization,” I mostly refer to a litany of angry dogs that, no matter how small, seemed to think they needed to angrily nash at my ankles as I rode by their masters’ homes.
But dogs begat homes, which begat homeowners who pointed me in the direction of “toun.” By sunset, I was riding through the smoggy streets of Cusco….on a now-flat tire. I walked the bike back to the drop-off point and was happily exhausted.
In Cusco, Das Auto takes a back seat to Das Llama.
After a sound, desperately needed sleep, I spent one more day in town, absorbing its essential flavor and relishing the relative dearth of foreign tourists. Cusco is a pretty city for the uninitiated. The climate is cool, dry and crisp by day, chilly by night. It’s small enough at its heart for one to still glimpse any number of hearty old women walking their llamas through the narrow cobblestone streets.
Roadmonkey will be back here, in spring 2010, to raft the untamed Apurimac River, and hike the lesser-known segments of the Inca Trail around Machu Picchu.
Now, it’s off to Vietnam, to scout out Roadmonkey’s November expedition.
See you there!
- Paul
Sep
Going back in time a couple days…
On Sunday, Anotonio (my driver) and I left the tourist-choked lil’ town of Chivay, Peru, at the eastern end of el Cañón de Colca, the Colca Canyon, at 6:45am. I arrived in Peru four days ago to scout Roadmonkey’s March 2010 adventure philanthropy expedtion.
We drove west to Cruz del Condor, where multitudes of candy-colored coach buses disgorge camera-carrying tourists at canyon’s edge to watch South American condors, the world’s largest flying carnivores, ride thermals looking for breakfast.
Condors are a huge tourist draw on this route, so there was a lot of French and Dutch and Germans snapping digital pix at a speck with wings in the canyon far below, presumably a condor. We (the tourists) saw a couple condors wing by, maybe 100 feet below the cliff. It was nice. I couldn’t help note, though, how many completely worthless photos the crowd was snapping.
Antonio & I hopped back in his Hyundai van and drove to Cabanaconde, a sleepy town on the western edge of Colca Canyon. I dropped my bags off at my hotel, sunscreened up, filled my liter water bottle and hit the trail down into canyon. I was in for a rough surprise.
Two solid, near-nonstop hours of very steep, rock-strewn downhill trail hiking. About 3,000 to 3,500 feet in total. Killer on the quads, and on any knees that have more than, say, 23 years of wear on them. This is one tough canyon climb, my friends.
My legs, fairly well-conditioned from Brooklyn-to-Central Park-and-back bike rides through the New York summer, were shaking 40 minutes into the 2-hour hike to the “oasis” at the Colca River’s edge. I made it down, after several pauses in which I mentally parried invidious “holy crap” thoughts, to the grassy, palmy oasis by 12:45pm.
The oasis was really pretty cool: a couple of cold but clear, blue swimming pools, framed by green, short thick grass that ran right up to the pool edge, and a basic bamboo-style cantina with drinks, surly young waiter/minder, and a single “menu” aka food offering: a plate of rice, a puddle de papas puras (ie, crappy box-made mashed potatoes) and, to top off the carbohydrate rush, one boiled potato. That was lunch. But it did me fine.
I drank two bottles of sprite and ate the carb plate from hell and swam and read my book, ¨Zeitoun,¨ which is excellent, and lolled in the sun, listening to the breeze in the trees and the rush of the river water in the distance and thought, If every sunday were like this, free of worry or electronics or the need to do 10 things or compete with peers or see anyone except the couple people one wanted to see…that would be alright with me. It’s the same idea that draws me, still, to the idea of a year cooking, eating, writing and surfing in Hawaii.
A simple but full life. The sun and breeze, and the unique feeling of a nature-nestled well being, away from most other human effects, were worth the hike down. Note to self: find places like this more often.
After two hours of rest and relaxation, I had — after another refreshingly crisp swim — to put on my dusty brown pants and sweat-dried merino wool Ibex long sleeve and strap on the backpack and start the slog back up that 3,000 feet or so. Another round of “holy crap” thoughts soon began filtering into my sun-baked head.
For perspective, Cabanaconde lies at 3,600 meters above sea level — about 10,800 feet. For all y’all Americans, that’s twice as high as Denver.
What a climb. Three hours. Often at a 10% grade, if not greater. It was everything I had to keep shuffling one dusty boot ahead of another, one…more…step….higher. There was a sense of urgency driving me: darkness falls quickly and promptly at 6pm; I had started climbing at 3pm. If I took longer than the prescribed three hours, I’d risk being caught on the side of this cold, rocky cañón in utter darkness.
I passed several people on the trail. By passed, I mean I ever so slowly caught up to them, whispered “hi” or “ciao” or “hola” in a parched, non-accented throaty way and kept moving…glacially slow. The relentless sun, at this altitude, exacted its toll, in sweat and fatigue. Many times, I had to stop, sit on a rock and let my heart rate lower back down below its “gimme a break, pal” threshold.
The challenge was at least half mental. I had just enough water — I thought — to last me back to Cabanaconde. Rationing water on these kinds of climbs is, itself, an exhausting mind game. At one point I came upon a Peruvian guy with two mules on the trail. A female Euro-tourist sat on one of them. Her Euro-dude stood by, prepared to hike on foot. I asked the mule owner how much longer to Cababanconde.
“One hour,” he said. “You want a mule?”
I trundled upward. Finally, the sun dropped far enough onto the horizon to allow boulders on the zig-zag trail to create shadows in which to rest, ready one’s body and mind to continue onward.
When I got to the top of the trail, where it levels off toward town, the sun was 10 minutes from dropping behind the 20,000-foot peaks to the west. I sat down on a dusty rock and allowed myself a congratulatory 4-swallow chug from my near-empty water bottle. Soon the crepuscular sky was all but drained of light. I have no idea what came of the several people behind me, who fell out of my sight and must have been still climbing as the rapid cold of evening took hold of the region.
But as I was about 20 minutes from the top, I’d seen a second Peruvian guy walking two other mules down the trail….into a canyon of approaching darkness. I could only guess that he makes money by rescuing exhausted, grateful foreigners on this trail every day. Clever business model.
I ate dinner at the hotel, voraciously. Vegetable soup, two halves of an avocado stuffed with beets and chicken cubes (I scraped off the mayonnaise), and then a plate of lasagna. One huge Cusqueña beer, and one glass of marginal house wine. And now I’m at the hotel’s only computer terminal with another beer.
Cost be damned, I’m eating & drinking whatever the hell I want tonight.
Goodnight from Cabanaconde,
Paul
Sep
Just arrived in Cucso, the hilly city nearest Machu Picchu, this morning via overnight bus from Arequipa, in Peru’s canyon country to the southwest. Cusco is quite pretty in the early, early a.m.
I’m waiting for my room to be ready here at Hotel Marani, full of Dutch, Danes and Germs & Aussies….curiously not a Frenchie to be heard or seen in the breakfast area or in the hotel logbook. The hotel is at the top of a narrow, winding cobblestone street just off Plaza San Blas, overlooking the city….a city probably overrun with gringos y otro extranjeros como yo.
But there’s comfy armchairs, semi-cheesy “Andean” flute musicwafting about, weak instant coffee served in pleasant faux-Inca red-clay mugs, and a strong, free wifi signal. What more could a roadmonkey want before 8am?
Breakfast, perhaps. But that can wait. I have dried apricots and plenty of mixed nuts from the supermarket in Arequipa to keep me energized.
- Paul
