nuestro norte es el sur: June 2009

Mateo queria que este blog se llame “dias de caminata” porque hicimos bastantes horas a pie en este viaje a M

achu Pichu! En Ollantaytambo nos habian dicho que eran mas o menos 5 horas para llegar a Santa Teresa, y que la carretera era asfaltada cas

i todo el camino a Santa Maria. En el principio la carretera estaba muy bien, pero en muy poco tiempo despues de salir de Ollantatytambo empezamos a subir la montania. Muy lentamente, terminamos en el Abra Malaga, a 4,300 metros de altura, donde todo el tiempo esta nublado y frio. Veiamos los nevados alrededor nuestro, y nos preguntab

amos como hacia la gente para vivir aca con sus animales. Bajando por el otro lado, el clima cambio de nuevo, y empezamos a ver selva, verde, y hasta llovio – de repente estabamos de vuelta an las tierras de

bananeros y café!. Aunque la carreterra estaba muy bien (a parte de algunos derrumbes chicos) igual asustaba bastante, porque esto es una zona muy acidentada, de curvas y precipicios. Contentos de tener calorcito de nuevo, al mismo tiempo empezamos a ponernos medios nerviosos porque estabamos quedando sin gasolina y no habia estaciones de servicio en ningun lado! Para hacer las cosas peores, la pista de azfalto termino por completo (bastante antes de llegar a Santa Teresa), y se convirtio en un camino de tierra/piedras, con rios pequenios de agua de montania

cruzando el camino. Parecia que no terminaba mas, pero en un par de horas llegamos a una estacion de servicio (bueno, era un loco que te vendia gasolin

a en botellas). Cuando llegamos a Santa Maria Gustavo paro para ayudar a un par de motociclistas de Quillabamba que necisitaban un par de herramientas para arreglar su moto.Es impresionanate que este camino descuidado es la ruta principal a Quillabamba, un productor importante de café, te, y frutas. Aca nos dirijimos hasta Santa Teresa, y solo nos faltaba la ultima hora de viaje. Aqui empezo la diversion! Fue la hora mas aterrorizante del viaje! El camino es mas que peligroso, con curvas y angosto, y bien alto por el costado de la montania, siguiendo el rio (que se veia

chiquitito, alli abajo!). En muchos lugares era angostito, habia lugar solo para un auto, y las piedras estaban medias flojas. Si salis del camino un poco, literalmente te caes al precipicio. Esta carretera le gana a la “carretera de la muerte” en Bolivia, sin duda. En muchos lugares casi ni entrabamos: que hubiera pasado si nos cruzabamos con un cami

on o bus que venia doblando la esquina a toda velocidad? Habia puentes medios precarios y rios corriendo por la calle. Despues de pasar la hora mas larga de nuestras vidas, por fin llegamos a Santa Teresa. Encontramos el lugar de camping de Genaro Moscoso, donde pudimos estacionar para luego, poder ir caminando a Machi Pichu. Nos tomamos una cerveza bien fria para calmar los nervios mientras los nenes jugaban con “Pacho,” el monito titi que

vive en el campamento, y le hicimos saber a Genaro que nos pensabamos quedar a vivir alli en Santa Teresa desde ahora, ya que ni mamados ibamos a pasar por esa ruta de nu

evo! Por suerte, nos hicieron saber que hay otra ruta, por abajo, que es mucho mas segura. Ya mas aliviados, agarramos algunas cosas y nos tomamos un taxi que nos arrimo unos 40 minutos mas hasta la hidroelectrica, donde empieza la caminata hacia Aguas Calientes. Despues de registrar los pasaportes en un libro gigante (junto con un monton de otros turistas que de repente aparecieron de algun lado) empezamos a caminar por la via del tren. La caminata en si fue bastante facil, aunque las piedras grandes hacia que fuera mas

facil saltar de durmiente en durmiente, asi que se nos hizo bastante meditativo. Cruzamos un puente de tren, y seguimos el valle entre las montanias, rodeado de bananeros y café. En un momento dado empezamos a ver la parte de atrás de las ruinas de Machu Pichu arriba nuestro. Dimos toda la vuelta (literalmente entramos por la puerta de atrás de Machu Pichu), encontrandonos con un tren en un momento, y llegamos a Aguas Calientes, justo cuando estaba oscuriciendo. La epoca de turismo no es tan fuerte como deberia ser en esta epoca, asi que facilmente encontramos un lugar para quedarnos y salimos a conocer este extranio lugar. Al lado del rio en la base de Machu Pichu, Aguas Calientes es un pueblito hecho solo para el turismo, y por lo tanto parece algo de una revista. Hay hoteles de $30

0 la noche, y todo tipo de restaurante. Lo primero que hicimos fue sacar los boletos para las ruinas para el otro dia (por suerte tres de nosotros somos estudiantes y el precio disminuyo a la mitad). Despues

salimos en busqueda de un lugar bueno, bonito, y barato para comer. Al final, tuvimos que cruzar para el otro lado del rio, donde vive y come la gente que trabaja aca. Despues de una buena ducha caliente, nos fuimos a la cucha porque al otro dia teniamos que salir muy temprano para tener la oportunidad de subir a Wayna Pichu; que es la montania grande que se ve en todas las fotos de Machu Picchu, y solo dejan subir a 400 personas por dia. A las 4:30 de la maniana estabamos caminando por las calles de Aguas Calientes (junto con un monton de otros turistas que tuvieron la misma idea

nuestra). Despues de 20 mintutos llegamos a la base, donde empiezan las escaleras zig-zag 6 km para arriba. Rapidamente nos dimos cuenta que no iba ser facil (especialmente cuando los mochileros y los omnibuses empezaron a pasarnos a toda velocidad) pero empezamos a mascar hojas de coca y eso nos dio mas energias. Salio el sol cuando estabamos por la mitad del camino, y en una hora y media estabamos en la fila para entrar a Machu Pi

cchu. El ambiente alli estaba medio tenso, mas que nada porque estaban muy estrictos con no dejar entrar mochilas ni agua en bottella, y por supuesto, todos querian ir corriendo para hacer la cola para entrar a Wayna. Nos dio la impresión que la mayoria de la gente ni podia apreciar donde estaban! Decidimos probar ver si podiamos subir a Wayna Pichhu, y al final eramos el numero 321-4 de 400. Lo que pasa es que estabamos tan cans

ados ya de subir las eternas escaleras de piedra que en parte estabamos deseando no poder entrar! Pero bueno, somos masoquistas y subimos por otra hora mas! Por lo menos esta vez no fueron tantos escalones, pero estaban mucho mas inclinados y el camino era muy angosto. A veces hasta tuvimos que gatear! Ni que decir que cuando llegamos arriba las vis

tas eran espectaculares. Las fotos tendrian que explicar todo, pero la verdad es que no son suficientes. Era magico estar tan alto y ver todo Machu Picchu, y el camino que habiamos seguido para llegar alli, y los nevados atrás. Nos quedamos alli arriba lo mas que pudimos, hasta teniamos ganas de quedarnos a dormir para ver las estrellas! Pero eventualmente tuvimos que bajar. Esto lleva mas tiempo que subir, sobre todo para Gustavo que estaba sufriendo vertigo terriblemente! Una vez en las ruinas principales, recorrimos y paramos para jugar con las llamas que viven alli, pero nos cansamos de tantos

turistas por todos lados! Esto debe ser uno de los lugares mas turisticos en el mundo; un promedio de 1000 personas por dia pasan por aca (mucho mas en temporada alta). Decidimos tomar el omnibus para bajar y la caminata qu

e nos llevo cerca de 2 horas y media, duro apenas 20 minutos (por el camino zig-zag que se ve en las fotos)! En Aguas Calientes fuimos al mercado para comer algo rapido y seguimos camino, de nuevo por la via de tren hacia Santa Teresa. La caminata nos dio una buena oportunidad para hablar sobre nuestras experiencias y despedirnos de a poco de Machu Pichu que la veiamos desaparecer en la distancia. Cuando llegamos al campame

tno, fuimos directo a unas aguas termales que hay en Sanata Teresa. Esa noche justo estaba la fiesta de inauguracion (estan espernado un turismo impresionante en los proximos anios, ya que ahora esta es una alternativa popular para llegar a Machu Pichu). Estas aguas termales

son unas de las mas lindas que hemos visto! Muy lindo, al lado del rio con las montanias atrás, la verdad es que las dejaron muy naturales. Y aunque el agua pudo haber sido un poquitito mas caliente, era justo lo que necesitabamos para sacarnos los

dolores musculares. Al otro dia nos levantamos como nuevos (y con la piel suavecita). Despues de jugar con Pacho y hablar con unos guias y gente que estaban haciendo una caminanta por las montanias, salimos – pero no antes de visitar las aguas termales una vez mas! La mejor parte, es que tienen duchas con las aguas calientes para poder enjuagarse despues. Juntamos fuerzas para encarar el camino a Santa Mari

a, despues de preguntar como a 20 personas exactamente como hacer para evadir el maldito camino de arriba. Al final, el camino de aba

jo era bastante parecido al de arriba, pero igual nos parecio un poco mas corto. De nuevo sobre la carretera de tierra (esta vez lleno de ciclistas) y subimos y bajamos la montania, llegando a Ollantaytambo cuando estaba oscuriciendo, comimos en el mismo lugar de la vez anterior y dormimos en la misma plaza. La intencion fue levantarse temprano para llegar a Cusco,

cambiar la bomba de gasolina, y salir de Cusco para Puno (y el Lago Titicaca), pero nuestra suerte

quizo que la camioneta siga mal y tambien hay bloqueos indefinidos en la ruta de Puno. Esta vez son la gente Aymara que (con mucha razon) estan protestando que el gobierno les privatize el agua. Por suerte el hecho de que nos hemos quedado aca estancados por lo menos nos haa dejado conocer una gente muy buena onda - de Suiza, Alemania, Francia, Belgica, Australia – algunos estan mas o menos en la misma que nosotros. Tambien algunos de ellos saben algo de mecanica, asi que entre Claudio, Celex, y algunos mas vamos diagnosticando de a poco lo que le pasa a nuestra querida y tan necesitada camioneta. Ojala un dia de estos abran las carreteras y podamos ir hacia el sur: ya tenemos muchas ganas de seguir camino!

Mateo wanted to name this entry “Days of Walking,” which is a pretty apt name for what seemed like a 3 day odyssey to Machu Picchu and back! We had been told that it was about 5 hours to Santa Teresa from Ollantaytambo, and that the road was paved until about Santa Maria, where you have to turn off onto a smaller, gravel road to reach Santa Teresa. The road out of Ollantaytambo was a bit rough, but soon enough it turned into a smooth (if twisty) paved road. Almost immediately, the road began to snake its way up the mountain, higher and higher until about an hour into the drive the climate changed into cold, barren pampas and we passed through the Malaga pass (4,300 metres) with snowy mountain peaks on either side of us. It was misty and cold, and we marveled at how people can live up

here with their herds of anim

als. The road quickly began to descend again toward Alfamayo, where it became jungly green and even rainy! We were suddenly back into coffee and banana growing land! We were happy to be warmer, but a bit nervous at this point, as we had assumed that there would be some sort of gas station by now, but really there are not many populated areas here and we were running out of gas! The road also had fallen rocks on them at regular intervals, and so we had to be very careful when going around the corners as it was a sheer drop down the side of the mountain, and apparently this is a high accident zone. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, the paved road stopped (long before reaching Santa Maria) and a bumpy, twisty and narrow dirt road began. The

small rivers of mountain water run off go right over the road at regular intervals. Seemingly endless, this stretch continued for another couple of hours until we reached a gas “station” (actually, just a guy selling it out of his shop). Soon after this, we reached Santa Maria,

where we stopped for more gas at a more legitimate station (with a real pump!) where Gustavo lent some tools to some guys from Quillabamba who were fixing their motorcycle. It is amazing to think that this road, in terrible shape, is the main highway to reach that city (a major fruit, coffee and tea producing area in the jungle). As I said before, there is a real problem with infrastructure in

this country. Anyways, we turned off toward Santa Teresa, which was supposed to be another hour away, and then the fun began: This was the scariest, nail-biting ride of our lives! The road snakes high up and around the mountain, following the itsy bitsy river way down below, and in most places it is loose gravel and only wide enough for one vehicle. Literally, if you go even a tiny bit off the road you fall off the cliff and into the gorge and you die. Simple as that. I’m serious, this road beats Bolivia’s “death road” hands down. I mean, at some points it was barely even wide enough for us, let alone that truck or bus that was coming around the corner at full speed, and there were rickety bridges and rivers running through the middle of the road to boot. After the longest hour of our lives, we finally made it to the small town of Santa Teresa. Whew. We found the campsite ow

ned by Genaro Moscoso that we had been told about, where we could park while we go to Machupicchu. We had a cold beer to calm our nerves, the kids played with Genaro’s pet squirrel monkey Pacho, as we let Genaro know that we would now be living permanently in Santa Teresa, because there was no f*%#!-ing way that we were taking that road ever again. Much to our relief, he let us know that we had come in on the “high” road, and that

there was a lower road right beside the river that we should have taken. Oops. Anyways, a bit lighter of heart, we gathered together some stuff and took a 40 minute taxi ride to the hydroelectric dam, which is the place where the 2 and 1/2 hour walk to Aguas Calientes starts. After registering in a big book along with a bunch of other tourists that suddenly appeared out of nowhere (this is seemingly the new “cheap” way to get to Machupicchu) we started on our walk. It was a very pleasant and fairly easy walk along the railway ties, although the rather large stones made it a bit difficult so we mostly hopped from railway tie to railway tie, which became quite meditative after a while. We crossed over a train bridge, and went through the mountains following the rushing river with coffee and banana gr

owing on wither side of us. At one point we

could even see the back of Machupicchu way up above! After going around the site (we literally came through the back door of Machupicchu) and meeting up with a train at one point, we arrived to Aguas Calientes just as it was getting dark. We quickly found an inexpensive room in a hostel with hot water, and went out to explore this strange place. At the base of Macchupicchu and right beside the river, Aguas Calientes looks like something out of a magazine. There is a lot of

money here, and there are even hotels that charge $300 a night! The first thing we did was go to the tourist office to buy our tickets to Machupicchu, and luckily the kids and I are all students so we paid half price (regular price is $40 each!). Then we went in search of an inexpensive and non-tourist oriented place to east and ended up having to cross to the other side of the river, where the people who work in Aguas Calientes live and eat. That night after a hot shower we went to bed early because we wanted to walk up the 6 km to the ruins and yet we still wan

ted to get there early enough to climb up Wayna Picchu (the taller mountain that you see in the background, where they only allow 400 people a day access). We woke up shortly after 4 am and were on the road by 4:30. We were surprised to see that we were not the only ones with the idea of getting an early start: there were quite a few other backpackers walking right alongside us. After about 20 minutes or so we reached the base of the mountain, where the zig-zagging stone steps to Machupicchu begin. We quickly realized tha

t it would not be easy to walk all the way up and our lungs began to explode as the young backpackers all ran past us one by one. We were a bit disheartened after 5:30 when we heard all the buses start to whiz past us. Luckily we had lots of coca leaves to chew and this seemed to give us more energy! It was still pitch black when we began the ascent, but the sun rose when we were about half way up. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the top, and we had a bit of a break standing in line to get in. The atmosphere among the people was a bit tense, unfortunately, as the people at the gate had see

mingly subjective rules about what size backpack is allowed in, and everyone was eager to rush to the line for Wayna Picchu. We couldn’t

believe that some people didn’t even seem to appreciate where they were! Anyways, we decided to head over to the line to try our luck with Wayna Picchu, and ended up being numbers 321-4 out of 400. Yay. We were so exhausted that we were half hoping not to get in I think! Feeling like complete masochists (not to say idiots), we climbed up more stairs, although this time (although there were thankfully less

of them) they were narrow and very steep, half the time having to use all fours to get up. About an hour later, we were at

the top and were rewarded with spectacular views! Amazing. The photos should speak for themselves, but truly they don’t do it justice. For us it was almost magical to be so high up and see not only Macchu Picchu itself but the whole 360 degrees around it, with the snowcapped mountains in the distance and the river/railway track/ bridge, etc that we took to get there! We stayed up there for as long as we could, but eventually we h

ad to come down (we were thinking about how beautiful the sky must look at night from up here). This was the hardest (and longest) part, especially for Gustavo who was suffering from a serious case of vertigo! We explored the main ruins for a while, stopping to play with the resident llamas, and were eventually d

riven away by hordes of tourists from all over the globe. This must be one of the most visited sites in the world, and an average of 1,000 people a day come here (more in high season). We decided to take the bus down, and laughed that what had taken us almost 2 hours to climb up only took about 20 minutes to ride down on the zig-zagging road that you can see in the photos. In Aguas Calientes we had a cheap set lunch in the market and were quickly on our way again, following the train tracks back to Santa Teresa. The walk back was a great opportunity to slowly go over the events of the day, and say goodbye bit by bit to the ruins on the mountaintop. As soon as we got back tot eh westy, we headed over to some spa-like hot springs in Santa Teresa to soak away our aches and pains. That night happened to be the inaugural party for the recently revamped

place (they are banking on some major tourism here – anyone thinking of investing should come to Santa Teresa!). We were amazed at the gorgeou

s setting: these are some of the nicest springs we have ever seen! Even though for us the water could have been a bit hotter (you can’t argue with Mother Nature, I guess) it was the perfect cure for our aching legs and feet. We woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and renewed, and our skin was so soft! After playing with Pacho and talking with some guides and trekkers from a group that were also staying at the campground, we headed out – but not before visiting the hot springs one more time! The best part about the hot springs is that they have natural hot showers that you can rinse yourself off in afterward. We finally got up the nerve to leave the town and head toward Santa Maria again, but not until we had asked about 20 people for precise instructions on how to avoid the high road…and the low road ended up looking conspicuously like the one we had

come in on, but at least it see

med a bit shorter this time. Back through the rutted dirt road and up and over the mountain pass, we got to Ollantaytambo just as it was getting dark (again). We went to the same place for dinner and went to sleep in the same plaza. Our intention was to spend one night in Cusco, pick up and install the gas pump, and be on our way to Puno (and Lake Titicaca) early the next day. Unfortunately, this was not to be. A combination of continuing and inexplicable (at least to now) mechanical problems and roadblocks between here

and Puno have stranded us in Cusco again. This time it is the Aymara indigenous people who are protesting (rightly so) the privatization of their water. Actually,

this is a really interesting (not to say bad) time to be here because there are roadblocks and protests going on all over the country! At the camping place we are staying at, there are a variety of travelers – from Germany, Switzerland, Australia – some of whom are more or less as stranded as we are. At least being stuck here for a while has allowed us to get to know them. Some of them even know about mechanical stuff, so between us we finally seem to be figuring out what is wrong with the westy. Hopefully the roads will open up soon (although they are calling for major protests tomorrow, including at the airport in Cusco) and we can be on our way: we are anxious to keep moving south!