Pilgrimage to Machu Picchu: Part Two - Sacred Valley or Bust

[shanmonster]

We arrived at the Prisma Hotel, our base of operations in Peru. Although the woman on the phone had told me our room would be ready when we arrived, this was not the case. We still had a couple of hours to kill, so we put our luggage in storage and decided to take a rather somnambulistic early-morning stroll down the street.

The sidewalks through the side streets of Cusco are narrow and in poor condition. Mostly, we walked single file, and we didn't dare look away from our feet often because of occasional holes, pits, and loose stones. The street wasn't particularly interesting. We passed a school and plenty of closed shops. The air was dry and dusty, and although the traffic hadn't yet picked up, the erratic honking was already in progress. Less than a block from the hotel, I was breathless and weak. Stray dogs trotted past us from time to time, off on important missions, paying us no heed. We made it about three blocks away when I said, "I think I need to go back and just sit."

Kyle nodded, and we turned back. Crossing intersections, even when the traffic isn't heavy, is still unnerving. My Canadian understanding of jaywalking and crosswalk navigation weren't doing me much good. If I treated traffic in the same fashion in Peru as I do in downtown Toronto, or even downtown Fredericton, I'm pretty sure I'd soon be squished. Crossing busy streets in Cusco feels disturbingly like live-action Frogger. It involves a fair amount of sprinting, which was extra taxing, considering our exhaustion and mild altitude sickness.

We dragged ourselves back to the hotel. I asked a hotel clerk if there was WiFi, got the password, and we slumped into chairs in the lobby and sipped on coca tea.




The WiFi didn't work, so we waited in close to a fugue state for a couple of hours until our room was ready. We collected our luggage and began walking up the four flights of stairs to our room.

I'm a fit person. Really, I am. But by the third floor, I was so destroyed by the exertion of carrying my practically-empty suitcase up the stairs that I had to stop and lean on the wall, panting and sweating like I'd just done a 100-meter dash on a hot day. Kyle was in the same boat, and we had a legitimate worry about how we'd fare backpacking in the mountains. We were scheduled to begin our hike the very next day, after all.

After a breather, we lugged our stuff up one more flight of stairs, went into our room, and went to bed. Sleep was wonderful and oh, so necessary.

We woke up in plenty of time to attend our debriefing. We sat down at a crowded table and were handed a booklet on Peru. I was still feeling addlepated and confused. We learned that we wouldn't be starting the Inca Trail hike the next day, after all, but had the option of doing a day tour of the Sacred Valley, which would introduce us to the culture and geography of the region while being relaxed enough to better let us acclimatize us to the altitude. We were relieved to have another day of rest, and signed up for the tour. We were given tote bags to put no more than 6 kg of our things into. This would include our sleeping gear, clothes, and whatever we didn't need to have on our persons during the hike. We were asked what equipment we'd need to rent. I went with two hiking poles and a slim air mattress. Kyle got the same, plus a sleeping bag. I'd brought my own.

We were told we'd need to carry two days' worth of drinking water with us. With all my camera gear and water, my pack massed around 12.5 kg. Kyle's pack, although much larger, didn't weigh so much. Oh, cameras and lenses, why must you weigh so much?

The Sacred Valley itinerary was discussed, and then, when the briefing ended, it got even more confusing. We were taken aside and told we wouldn't be travelling with everyone else, after all. This was sad, because we'd already hit it off with a few of the people there. Apparently, the group was already full, so we'd be going with another tour group on the Sacred Valley tour.

Perplexed, we agreed, went for a bite to eat, then staggered up the gajillion flights of stairs back to our room, had a shower with somewhat hot water, and crashed hard. Our tour was to begin early the next morning.

At stupid o'clock in the morning, we carried our heavy packs with their two days' worth of water down to the lobby. I still didn't understand why we needed two days' worth of water for a day-long trip, but didn't want to leave it in case there was something I was not understanding. Tap water in Peru is not potable, at least, not to foreigners' digestive systems. Eventually, a small tour bus pulled up front, our bags were stowed in the undercarriage, and we clambered into our seats. Neither the driver nor the tour guide, Magda, seemed at all friendly. The bus drove from hotel to hotel around Cusco, and the driver laid on the horn almost constantly. Traffic was much busier, now, and the streets were filling with little hatchbacks, Volkswagen Beetles, small buses, and vans. Almost all vehicles have reflective tape along the sides. We saw the first of many Batmobiles.



We soon gave our driver the name Honey Badger Driver, because this guy didn't give a shit. No matter what the situation, how narrow the road, how heavy the oncoming traffic, Honey Badger Driver forged ahead, fist punching the horn. He got us from place to place without crashing, but I think our mouths may have dried out from being agape at the sheer assholishness.

Aside from the honking of the horn, our bus ride was mostly silent. Magda would occasionally give short lectures on upcoming sites in both Spanish and English, but mostly she was silent. The other passengers were quiet, too, except for Captain Snotty right in front of us, a guy who spent much of his time snorting and gargling phlegm like a five-year-old with a head cold who'd never learned to blow his nose. Gah!

The Sacred Valley is filled with small towns, majestic views, and farmland tracking the Urubamba River.



The large fields are tilled by tractors, and the smaller ones (which are much more abundant) by oxen. Peru is exceptionally diverse with not only its wild flora, but in its variety of farmed vegetables. There are over 3,000 varieties of potato in Peru, and a comparable variety of corn/maize. These are staple crops, and almost every dish contains potato and/or corn. Two popular drinks--chicha morada and chicha de jora (or just chicha)--are made from corn. I drank chicha morada a few times. It's a delicious, non-carbonated soft drink made from purple maize and flavoured with pineapple and cloves. I didn't get to try any chicha de jora, which is an alcoholic drink favoured by the people of the Andean highlands. It is unwise to drink alcohol when you are acclimatizing to high altitude, and I was still having a hard time adapting.

While in the Sacred Valley, and later, while up high along the Inca Trail, we saw many buildings with a big bunch of red plastic out on a stick. This red plastic means that chicha de jora may be obtained inside.



The vast majority of buildings in the Sacred Valley are of adobe construction. This mixture of mud and straw eventually succumbs to the elements, and is protected either by being stuccoed, or covered with thatching, plastic tarps, or clay tiling. The inevitable disintegration means there's a lot of rubble and dust all around.



The highway going into the Sacred Valley from Cusco is two lanes wide, and has no speed limit that I could see. Sometimes there are solid yellow lines down the middle, and sometimes there's a broken yellow line, but no matter what, everyone passes slower vehicles pretty much whenever they feel like it--even on blind turn switchbacks with boulders falling from cliffs and sheer drops of hundreds of feet and little to no shoulders or guardrails. Speed is regulated by speed bumps in inhabited areas, which means the drivers go really fast, then brake for the speed bumps before pressing the accelerator to the floor again.



In rural Devon and Cornwall, England, the narrow roads are lined by hedges. In the Sacred Valley, they're often hedged by prickly pear cactus.



It wasn't long before we started seeing the remnants of Incan society in the forms of terracing.



The Incas were experimental botanists par excellence. The terraces were used for agriculture, with each tier having a different altitude and temperature for growing conditions. Terraces were constructed from the tops of the mountains working downward. Some extend from almost the top of a mountain all the way down to the river. Workers transported topsoil and manure from the valley and placed it on each of the tiers. Many of the terraces are still being used for agriculture today. I saw young corn plants growing on many, and plenty of llamas, sheep, cattle, and horses grazing on the grasses growing there. Some of the ancient aqueducts still have water flowing through them now.

Our first stop was a short one at the textiles market in Chinchero. Kyle and I bought alpaca wool sweaters, hats, and gloves which came in handy in the mountains later on. I'm willing to bet we could've purchased our goods for cheaper with haggling, but the prices were cheap by Canadian standards. I think I paid about $15 for my sweater, which I'm wearing right now as I type.



We also gave scritches to some unimpressed llamas and alpacas.

Our next stop would be our first visit to some Incan ruins.

(To be continued....)