We are heading toward our trailhead gradually for our first day of hike on Quarry Trail, toward Machu Picchu after having spent merely, 36 hours in Cusco. We come to a stop after a few kilometers of drive. I consider, we must have arrived. at our trailhead However, there is something funny going on, on the bus. Rather than getting off, everybody surrounds Becky, who is sitting on the single seat across from me. Apparently as I have been devouring the beauty outside the window, I must have not notices that she has vomited all over the place.
Dear John, victorious just before he starts vomiting due to Entamoeba Hystolitica dysentery hitting him viciously
The doctor and the mother in me are triggered right away, but other people have started helping the poor girl already, who seems very pale and upset, a bit embarrassed, too. She is barely the age of my daughter, perhaps younger, traveling alone, I will learn soon. We help her clean up when the team cleans up the mini-bus, on the floor of which there is now a small pool of what she must have eaten at breakfast. We take her outside to fresh air. They decide it was because of the breakfast she shouldn’t have had. After all the cleaning up is done inside and outside the bus, we are asked to get back on. I then realize we had stopped just to help Becky, we have some more ways to go to reach the trailhead.
When we arrive at the actual trailhead, there are several horses and horsemen in addition to our cooks and guides waiting for us in a lush green, open space. Spread on the small flat area along the railroad is vast number of bags, which apparently are carrying the tents and similar accommodation material we will need. There are plastic boxes loaded with vegetables, meat, and fruit, too. Seeing the meat out in the open on top of other food just as I saw it in the market the other day makes me wonder whether there will be any refrigeration of the food. I recall again Isabel’s order to be careful about diarrhea.
As we are grouping for the hike, the crew is packing things further over the horses’ backs when I notice plastic stools. Apparently, they will have us sit on stools while eating, that is a nice touch. All the information I get about what is awaiting us up on the campsite comes from what I observe down below, which is not much, might also be incorrect and incomplete. As I am busy with these observations, the call “Vamos!” comes. We are ready to walk. As is my usual, I line up right behind the guide not to fall too much behind as we start exerting ourselves. The moment we start, the slope is already about 15-20 degrees, scary… That whisper of my monkey mind is there: “Will I be able to keep up with these youngsters here?”
To my great surprise, I will never fall behind on this first day. The young women especially are exhausted right away. Becky and another Brit John are way behind us with the assistant guide. Soon, chief guide gets a radio message from his fellow, who is bringing the rear end of our group, that Becky is feeling worse, in addition to her vomiting one more time, John, the other physician in the group also started vomiting. They decided to go back to Ollantaytambe. Wow, that is not good. We feel both sad and down wondering if anybody else might get sick. Soon we learn that Scott is also sick, but he is not planning to go back…
We are now down to one guide, who will bring the rear end? All of a sudden, another guide emerges out of nowhere and fills in the gap the assistant guide, who is now taking Backy and John back to town left. Wow, these guys are very well organized! By this time, we have passed through the village of Racq’a. Some communication takes place between horsemen from the village and our guide in the process of Becky and John’s delivery to Ollantaytambe, perhaps to use their horseback service. Our guide takes the first coca leaves bag hanging down his backpack shoulder strap and hands it to one of the horsemen as a gift. The men are happy. Shortly after this ritual, another bag out of our guide’s backpack replaces the one that changed hands. First-hand witnessing of this ritual that I have been reading in travel books warms my heart and brings memories from the Taurus mountains in Turkey. Mountain people are so similar wherever they may be on the earth’s diverse geography.
We haven’t seen the horses and horsemen in our own team at all, it is possible that they are taking a short-cut. Although short (6 kms), this trail is up and up and up. Focusing on our steps to make sure our footing is secure while stealing glimpses of the wild and harsh beauty around us is meditating. One must be mindful of every movement of the body, especially feet in this rugged terrain, hence the meditative nature of what we are doing. You cannot multi-task. Even to enjoy our surroundings, we must stop and take in the visual beauty or take photographs. That is one of the many things I love about hiking in difficult terrains. And perhaps that is why life seems to have slowed down up in the mountains and remote parts of our earth.
We stop and look back every half hour or so to see how far we have climbed up and to enjoy the sense of elevation as we rise above the deep valley and Ollantaytambe disappears from our views. On the way to our campsite, we pass by a beautiful waterfall, where we all catch our breath while lots of pictures are taken. As we climb up further up the mountain, we pass by an Inca site, which seems like it was restored with some extra effort. This makes me recall a statement in one of the books I had read that was critical of some of the Peruvian government’s efforts to restore ruins into their original form. I wonder if this one is one of those excessive efforts. Our guide announces that we will go there late afternoon and will receive our first history lesson.
Around one o’clock, we are all happy to have arrived at our campsite. The young women were told on the trail, this was the most difficult day and they are hoping tomorrow will be easier. That is not my understanding, tomorrow is 16 kms and it will be constant up and down with a net 800 m elevation gain (gross elevation gain, much more). How can it be easier? Sure enough, our chief guide makes it known that today’s difficulty and tomorrow’s are of different calibers. “We will make it ladies, no worries”. I smile… I am stunned when I look around our campsite: All our tents are put up. There are two big tents, I assume one is the kitchen, what about the other one? I peek into it, my goodness, there is a table complete with a light plastic table cloth, plates and metal silverware already set! And the plastic stools I saw down below are around the table: This is our dining room!
Inka site on our way to the campsite, a bit too restored?
At the far end of the flat is the bathroom, another tent, in which there are two toilets with heavy plastic bags in each: One is for “light business the other for serious business” in our guide’s terminology. There is toilet paper and a salt shaker we can use for serious business that eliminates bad odor! I had never expected and never had this kind of luxury out in the nature in my close to 30 years of hiking all kinds of mountains both in Turkey and in the Americas…
As they announce that lunch is ready, we are asked to line up before a plastic container with a faucet to wash our hands with soap. A crew member helps us use the warm water out of the container and hands out paper towel when we are done. I feel like anew with clean hands. As we settle down around the table in our dining room, the most amazing corn soup I have ever had is served. I must confess with the first lunch, the thought that crosses my mind is “it tastes so delicious because we are so wasted and hungry.” But meal after meal, we have the best food I will have eaten in Peru out of Achiles’ kitchen. We hope and tell him that we wish he can open his own restaurant some day.
Achiles, our cook, in his kitchen with sue chef!
The soup is followed with grilled hellumi cheese: They use the same name as we do in Turkey for this particular cheese, unbelievable! The same cheese is produced on two different continents and acquires the same name, can that have happened just by chance? I will be pleasantly surprised to find many common practices between Turkish culture and Inca culture including some words such as Hatun in Hatun Mamako, the name our guide gives me at the end of our trek:
Apparently, Hatun Mamako is the terminology used to address a respectable older woman in Quechua culture! I tell him that in old Turkish culture Hatun is the title of the Queen or of women of power. That will be quite an honor for me to win this title meaning as an “older woman” (ah, my white hair gets me this sometimes unspoken sometimes boldly expressed title) I didn’t do that bad after all among these young people.
Close up to our dining room tent!
Hellumi cheese is accompanied by avocado halves filled with chopped fresh vegetables. All is delicious and we all devour the food in an instant! Time to visit our tents and get established before dark. The chief tells us to rest a while with a promise that we will be woken up at 4 pm to go to the Inca site nearby. I am somewhat worried about whether I will be warm enough at night. We have rented sleeping bags from Intrepid along with walking sticks. Sleeping bags come with an additional fleece lining, which is good news for me. I prepare my bedding, take off one layer of my clothes and get in it for a nap. In no time, my body is as warm as fresh-baked cookies. I start meditating to the mild breeze, birds chirping and foot steps of some of our campers.
I wake up from a delicious nap that I haven’t had for a long long time with the chief’s voice asking me if I will join them. Certainly I will, is he worried about me? I feel rejuvenated after my unintended exquisite nap and get dressed in no time. We form a line as we start climbing up the narrow path leading to the Inca site. As we approach it, I have yet another de ja vu experience. This site is so similar to Hitler’s Eagle’s nest near Berchtesgaden National Park in Germany.
Approaching the Inka site from the mountain side
On top of a hill, at the very edge of a cliff, looking down on a very deep valley and controlling the valley that we traversed from all directions! The structure of course is quite different, but geographic orientation is identical. As we move about it, I can’t help thinking again that this looks like a model Inca structure that was restored by the government a bit too much (as one my travel books claimed). When I share with our chief guide, what he thinks about the author’s thoughts, he adamantly denies it and I see that he is a bit upset.
I realize that he may not be open to discussions and debate on what he presents. I will take this into account in my conversations with him from now on. After all, I need to be respectful of the natives’ views of their culture. His history lesson verifies a lot of what I already know from reading the Andean awakening. However, his presentation is very scattered, perhaps his English is not at the quality that a top notch guide should have. What I have read already helps me ask appropriate clarifying questions, too. All in all, it is a positive exchange although I feel like our guide glorifies the Inca culture a bit too much.
This original Inka stone structure that we saw at the fortress is totally different than the small stone/mud walls of the fortress
When I ask him about human sacrifice, although he accepts it, he loses eye contact, looks away giving me the message that this is not a topic he would like to discuss. I follow his lead... Later on assistant guide shares with us that both genders of virgin children/adolescents would be chosen for human sacrifice in the Inca culture. However, he also presents it from the volunteer martyrdom perspective and states that chosen ones would see this as the highest honor. There he loses me, but I am not going to challenge him since both of them seem to believe or want to present that Inca culture was the best in every aspect of the culture from their Incas (emperors) to the labor men; and the evil Spanish destroyed it.
The walls of the fortress and the above sacred seat are of totally different nature, aren't they?
I don’t have a sense that these two young people may be open to any intellectual discussion about the significance of Inca culture then and now. I even wonder whether economy plays a role in all this. Obviously, the travel agencies thrive on the fact that there is big global interest on Inca culture. This interest is what is behind all the economic activity that brings livelihood to our guides and their peers. I wonder if they feel glorification of Inca culture is a must to sustain this touristic interest on Machu Picchu. Just curious…
As the sun sets behind us, the valley seems like gradually falling asleep to wake up anew tomorrow morning. It starts getting chillier and we start our back-trek. The chief guide approaches and asks me “Are you sore, do you need any medication?” Hmmm, no I am not sore at all. I tell him that, he then asks me the funniest question “What do you eat at home, if I eat what you eat, I am sure I can be much better in hiking”. Well this is a bit of flattering since he is already quite a “mountain goat”. But I tell him that I mostly eat vegetables, lots of fruits, grains, and fish with some meat and chicken. He is surprised. I guess it is my white hair that’s all.
As we arrive at the campsite, we are hungry again. A lovely, warm vegetable soup is waiting for us after heart-warming handwashing. This is followed with trout, rice and vegetables. The cherry on top of the cake is a grilled banana dessert presented in chocolate and wine sauce! We cannot believe the way we are fed at 3700 m elevation up on a mountain! It is lovely to have our guides eat with us. We are curious about the crew and feel comfortable when we learn that they also eat the same food in the kitchen tent. They are all from two mountain villages Markuray and Socma that we saw from a distance on our way up to the campsite.
Villagers working in their fields near our campsite
We also ask about where they will sleep. The guides have a shared large tent. But we don’t see any additional tents for the crew. We are stunned to hear that the five crew members will sleep in our dining room. This is just a tarp supported by side poles with no floor! Chief guide defends the fact that each crew member has a sleeping bag. I saw them carrying their own backpacks. I can’t imagine they have high quality sleeping bags, but there is nothing we can do under these circumstances. Cost reduction requires letting the mountain men live the way they are accustomed to, it looks like. As the young people start drinking, I ask for permission to go to bed with a heavy feeling in my heart.
Our campsite from up above as we start our upward journey as the horsemen break camp
As we are enjoying ourselves with our hobby, these people, yes they make money, but are allowed to live under suboptimal conditions as they do so. I wonder how they are paid, how their working conditions and payment are determined. Glad to hear that my fellow hikers are also perplexed on the same issues. During a meal, Chris asks the guides the same questions. We learn that with tips included the salary of each crew member is about 1.5 times of minimum wage in Peru, which is not much at all. Nobody including the guides has any benefits such as vacation time, health insurance etc.
Our chief guide tells me at some point “I am a freelancer”. The assistant guide, who in fact is the manager at the Intrepid office in town is hoping, the travel agency may recruit him to Australia to the headquarters so that he can have a real job. I wish the best for him. When we join with the groups that did the Inca trail, my jaw will drop one more time regarding how harsh work conditions may be for the crew. UNESCO working with Peruvian government banned horses on the Inca trail as well as limiting the number of humans on the trail to 500 per day. That means, everything that horses carry on our trail is carried on the backs of “porters”.
As soon as I hear this, I feel relief that I was too late to sign on the Inca trail. When we don ourselves with layers of warm clothes, crew members have a sweater on top of their shirt at the most. The most heart wrenching scene is to see their feet on the last day: They wear only plastic flip flops on their feet with no socks that are covered with brown sticky mud all over. No wonder the chief had told us about the company giving them hiking shoes that caused blisters on their feet “they went back to using their traditional plastic sandals”.
Shoes our horsemen wore throughout our trek
There is a crew member, who is the most uncommunicative of all on our campsite. When I tell him “Buenos dias or gracias”, he never responds. The chief explains this as “These are mountain men, they are shy.” I can understand that since I have encountered the same in Turkey in mountainous areas. I will keep at it, and finally on day three, he starts looking at me when he responds “Buen dia, senora” or “de Nada” with a sheepish smile.
The two men I connected with the most are on my side wearing gray shirts
I love connecting with people in especially such remote areas. These are all good and innocent men, who are satisfied with a little bit more than what they can get in their own markets. Thanks to ibuprofen, coca paraphernalia, and reduced exertion, my headache is gone. The verdict is that we will wake up at 5:30 am tomorrow; I would like to get enough sleep and leave my friends on the crew with no headache but some heartache. In my sleeping bag, I meditate on loving kindness and compassion as Isa taught us just before leaving Iowa City focusing on the four pillars of Buddhism: Equanimity, loving kindness, compassion, and joy. There is a good core in all these sweet people, they want to be happy as much as I do. They have to work much harder under much worse conditions than I to get there. I feel for them, I love them, I wish the best for them.
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| The group and our two guides in the dining room of our campsite! |
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| Layers of nature up on the Andeans |
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