Looking for a travel adventure off-the-beaten path? Number 8 in our series of Blogmas travel adventures is hiking to Machu Picchu, Peru. Instead of the popular but busy Inca Trail, this trip is over the 4,600-metre (over 15,000 ft) Salkantay Pass. A word of advice? Don’t eat ceviche the day before!
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Hiking to Machu Picchu
Months before our Peruvian adventures begin, we scour the internet for tour companies leading treks to Machu Picchu. We settle on Salkantay Trekking. Instead of taking the popular but busy 43-kilometre (26.7 mi) Inca Trail, the guided hike we pick climbs over Peru’s 4,600 metre (over 15,000 ft) Salkantay Pass in a 65-kilometre (40 mi) circuit.
Adventure on!
Tip #1: Don’t eat ceviche before hiking Salkantay Pass!
Morning comes early with a 4 am pick-up at our hotel. We doze on the two-hour drive to Mollepata, our breakfast pitstop. It’s my lucky day – no one else wants any of the robust French press coffee set on the table.
Blaming the third cup of coffee an hour later, I watch the winding dirt road from the side window of the van with a slightly queasy stomach. As the van pulls to a stop at our launch point, I jump out and suck in a few breaths of fresh air.
“No, I’m fine,” I think to myself. “Must be car sickness… or it maybe it’s the cerviche I ate yesterday.”
Tip #2: Don’t look the shaman in the eye
We hike into our first camp, dropping gear in our glass-domed room. Meeting up with the group again before supper, we walk slowly up to Humantay Lake for a Coca Leaf ceremony. I’m still feeling off but enjoy the blue-green waters of the idyllic lake tucked in a pocket beneath towering mountains.
In Andean culture, people believe in the spirit of the mountains, or Apus. It is a ritual to ask permission to the Apu of the Salkantay for a good journey. Shamans are hired to perform the ceremony.
Our shaman – Victor – walks around the circle of hikers, giving each of us three coca leaves. We are to think of three wishes: one for ourselves, one for someone else, and one for the trip. When done, we are to hold the leaves in one outstretched hand while he completes the ceremony.
I hold out my hand… and watch in horror as one small green coca leaf flutters to the ground. Quickly and quietly, I bend over and put it back with the other two leaves. Standing up, I peek over at the shaman out of the corner of my eye.
He is staring right at me.
Tip #3: Take a horse on the hike to Machu Picchu if you need it and be grateful
Watching the coca leaf fall to the ground, I’m thinking it probably isn’t a good sign that it was the one I used to wish for good health.
The next morning, I can’t face breakfast. We start seriously discussing whether I should hire a horse to make it to the pass.
“This is the last place you can get a horse,” our guide Willi comments several times. “You have to make up your mind now.”
I can’t take a horse. This is my dream trip. I am going to hike the whole thing or die trying.
As luck would have it, neither happened… but throwing up trailside did become a reality.
Willi suggests I chew some coca leaves. Up comes the remaining contents of my stomach.
He turns away with his portable radio. There is a volley of rapid-fire conversation between Willi and someone else on the other end of the radio.
“Good news,” he says, “a horse is coming back down from the pass right now. You can get a ride. You are lucky.”
I don’t feel lucky.
A big brown horse arrives and kicks up a rock as the horseman slides off its back. He helps me up into the saddle and leads the horse as we quickly take off towards the summit. I start to cry.
The horseman looks at me in panic and tells me it is going to be okay. In broken Spanish I tell him that my stomach hurts, my head hurts – and I want to be hiking to Machu Picchu, not riding a horse.
We pass the rest of our hiking group. At the summit, I turn down a sandwich and take a few small sips of coca tea. It helps ward off some of the chill, but I can’t stand around.
Time to move on.
Tip #4: You are always stronger than you think
Slowly, I start walking off the pass in the drizzle. The rain lifts as the group gathers for lunch. I lay out in the meadow on a tarp spread out for everyone’s backpacks, hoping my stomach will feel better soon.
Over the next three days, I learn that it is possible to hike with little more than coca tea and dry biscuits in your stomach.
The leaf may have dropped, but I found strength I never knew I had – and that is a blessing!
Other travel misadventures
This story is one adapted from our eBook, “I’ll Never Pee in the Woods Again!” It’s a series of 12 tall, but true, tales of active travel misadventures.
What misadventures have you experienced in your travels? How did you overcome them? What did you learn about yourself in the process? Feel free to share your stories in the comments below.
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