Friday, March 11, 2005, 7.20 AM Peruvian Time: With an uneasy feeling I take the last few steps until I reach the platform, the sungate.
I continue walking to the other side of the platform and in that very moment my legs turn to jelly. A few hundred meters further down, my eyes can behold what they have been waiting for so long: There is on top of a hill the "lost city" of Machu Picchu.
Three days back, in the morning of the 8th of March, our group left Cuzco and we arrived after a few hours bus drive at km 81. Here we will have our first lunch and also the chance to introduce ourselves. Our group consists of 16 tourists (6 germans, 4 english, 2 americans, 1 irish, 1 swiss, 1 dutch, 1 chilenean), 13 porters (all peruvian, carrying our food, tents, gas cooker, any kind of equipment needed), 2 cooks (one professional and his assistent) as well as Celso and Norma, our english and spanish speaking guides.
Before I went to South America I always thought there is no reason for any discussion, I defenitely gonna visit Machu Picchu when Iīm in Peru. But shortly after arriving, especially during the trip with the horses, I made the experience that Machu Picchu is by far not everything. I even toyed with the idea of skipping Machu Picchu. I was afraid, it might be too touristic, too crowded for me. So I waited with the decision to the very last moment, when I finally got to Cuzco. But as it was March, which is low season, there werenīt the masses of tourists I expected. Furthermore the price I paid for the Inca trail was with 168 US$ comparable cheap. So that in the end I booked the 4-day-Inca-trail to Machu Picchu.
Then, on March 8, the tour started, but I had some more doubts, for example regarding the tour operator (they put me in a different group than initially promised, also the guide was not the same one I knew from the briefing on the day before, finally there were more people in the group than announced, ...). Consequently, I was unsure about the whole Inca trail thing. Questions like "Is that all just one of those tourist rip-offs?" or "Stupid Gringos - they do what they want with us!" flew through my mind. But then Celso, our guide, introduced himself and told us amongst others one important thing. He said: "... no matter if you like the trail or not, ... if you like the people or not, ... if there are blue skies or if its raining like hell - but you have to enjoy! You are here now, so make the best of it! ...". I can tell you, from that point on I enjoyed every minute and I donīt regret any Dollar I spent in that trail.
Well, 4 days Inca trail - now what does that mean in the end? First of all it means a lot of hiking of course, climbing thousands of steps, up and down, all kinds of weather, a lot of fun, you talk to the people in your group, at some point Celso is explaining some things about ancient Inca ruins which are located all along the trail. By the way the trail is about 45 km long, it goes up to 4.200 m (dead womens pass) on the second day and the environment changes with every valley. You have to sleep three nights in a tent, be prepared it gets very cold in the night. And because there is nothing else to do on the trail than taking pictures of strange plants, beautiful landscapes or travel companions I killed the time with singing songs, such as "Buttercup" (Why do you build me up - buttercup - baby, just to let me down - you mess me around and then worst of all - you never call baby when you say you will - and I love you still - I need you, I need you, more than anyone darling - you know that I come from the stars - so buttercup - build me up - donīt break my heart... and so on). Do you know this song? In Ireland they always play it as the very last song before the pub closes and then all the people (drunk or not) are singing together "Buttercup". Well, thatīs another story, I guess. But thanks to Susan and Cat, the irish and english girls in my group, for teaching me the correct verses of the song.
What else could I tell you about the Inca trail? Well, I mean, its difficult, you have to see the pictures probably. Okey, there is another thing I am able to explain. It is the third night of the trail. Alltogether we go to the pub on the campsite until midnight. In a few hours at 4 AM one of our porters is going to wake us. Before I disappear in my sleeping bag and lay down in the tent I have a very important conversation with Joris, the dutch guy who also sleeps in my tent. I tell him that I just checked the temperature on my alarm clock. But then Joris has to admit that this is not the temperature of the air in the tent but the temperature in my backpack as the alarm clock layed in there. We continue the chat for another couple of minutes until I finally fall asleep. Only a few hours later, at 3.13 AM, I wake up again, check the time and the temperature on my alarm clock, Icannot sleep anymore, I am too exited. Outside is rain. What dīfuck! Thatīs not the weather we need to see the sun rising on Machu Picchu. But there are still 4 hours left, so maybe the weather clears off and we will have sun, hopefully... Then at 4 AM the porter comes around in order to make sure everybody wakes and rather gets up now. I am quite fast this morning and jump around in the dark, brushing my teeth and singing for another time "Buttercup". When I go back to the tent to get some stuff out of it I cannot find my passport including Machu Picchu entrance pass anymore. Holy shit, where is it! Only a few minutes before I put it from my backpack in the pocket of my jacket - but now the pocket is open and the passport and the ticket are not in. Damn it. So I start looking for it. Together with Norma, the guide, and some porters. Provided with a candle my eyes are scanning the ground. Its still raining outside. I keep cool as I know the passport has to be somewhere near, because I didnīt jump around much. After a while I found it, totally soaked and dirrty the passport lays in the mud with the ticket still inside. Well, sometimes we have to have luck in live.
And now my story jumps back to the point I have started with - Friday, March 11, 2005, 7.20 AM Peruvian Time. I stand on the Intipunku mountain, the sungate. From here I have to walk another 30 minutes until I finally get to see Machu Picchu, not from a distance, from a picture or in tele but in real. Machu Picchu is sooooo amazing. It did stop raining this morning but somehow the sun wonīt come out. Instead Machu Picchu is bedded in soft clouds, not completely but parts of the city. And this picture, this scenery makes this place even more mystically, with all the clouds scratching the mountains. Machu Picchu is sooooo cool, if I can use such a word for such place. So far the trip with the horses was my favourite but after the Inca trail and Machu Picchu the horse trip takes place number two. Well, of course a horse trip somewhere in the sierra on the one side and Machu Picchu on the other side are two completely different things and probably not to compare. But anyway, Machu Picchu was outstanding.
Oh my god, there is so much more to say, so many impressions. Huulaalaa. Before I went to Cuzco/Inca trail I came all the way down from Lima (a city I liked more than I firstly thought), over Ica (Huacachina, place in the desert, here I did some sand dune surfing and also a tour with a buggy ==> that was so much fun, jesus chries), then Nazca (did a tour with an airplane over the mystic Nazca lines ==> incredible), after that Cuzco (Inca trail ==> read story above), from Cuzco to the Copacabana. Attention please! Attention please! I did not visit the real Copacabana in Brazil, but its namesake in Bolivia. The bolivian version of Copacabana, also called Cocabacana (Donīt worry, I did not try the white stuff, even though it is with 96% very pure here and with 100 Bolivianos = 12 US$ per gram quite cheap. But my mother always says I should not take drugs and so I donīt. Is easy, he?!), is located on Lake Titicaca, a lake on 3.820 m above sea level. Together with Joris, the dutch guy from the Inca trail, we did some camping on the Isla del Sol (the island where Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca empire, was born) and its little sister Isla de la Luna. After 4 days in Bolivia I went back to Peru, as the political situation in Bolivia is a bit unstabile at the moment and when you travel there you have to expect delays because of road blocks and stuff... So I am back in lovely Peru, in Arequipa in particular. I feel sorry for you my travel report became a bit long but the good thing is you are uptodate with your knowledge now. This travel report matches exactly with my current location. Tomorrow is March 19, and I gonna do a 3 day trip through the worlds second deepest canyon, the Colca canyon.
Thanks for reading and in about two weeks I will be back on the european continent and for this reason also be able to provide you with some photographies. Thanks again for the time you spent reading my lines.
Buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches - depending on the timezone you linger.
As signified, today I am going to talk about the travel experiences I made in Puerto Bermudez and its neighbourhood. Puerto Bermudez. First of all it is not a shame if you haven`t heard about this place before as it is just a tiny little village (pop. 4000) in the jungje of Peru. I went to Puerto Bermudez with the intention to do a jungle trip as my guide book recommends Puerto Bermudez as a place with budget offers. When I first arrived in the village I called the next mototaxi to bring me to a hostal called "Albergue Humboldt" (http://www.geocities.com/puerto_bermudez/), also highly recommended by my guide book. The "Albergue Humboldt" is run by a 50-year old spanish guy, named Jesus, who at the same time lives in this hostal. Jesus has spent the past 25 years in South America and lives in Puerto Bermudez since 7 years now. He got to know this continent and its people very well over the years. Therefore Jesus told me quite a lot of things (e.g. the system, the people`s mentality, the country`s fortune which leads to misfortune for its residents, ...) that help me to a better understanding of the people of this country, the people who live here, in a world so very different from the world we live in.
On my second day in Puerto Bermudez I wanted to to something I have ever dreamt of - I attemped a tour into the jungle. Tours are fairly cheap here in Puerto Bermudez compared to other locations throughout Peru, such as Iquitos for instance. Together with Pacaya, my peruvian tour guide, his two sons and his wife we left the "harbour" of Puerto Bermudez on a boat, with 5 meter lenght, 1.50 meter width and half a meter depth just big enough for all five of us. For the next two hours we followed the small river upstream, small in the understanding that the river at this patch is about a hundred meter wide. Then we came to a place where a path leads from the bank into the jungle. Here Pacaya, his oldest son and me got off the boat to continue along this small path. His second son and his wife were going to drive the river further upstream where another jungle path meets the river bank again. There they were going to wait for us to pick us up later this afternoon. Shortly after leaving the boat I made my first painful jungle experience. When I wanted to climb the short but steep hill, that seperates the bank from the forest I was directly touching into ants when grabbing hold of a nearby tree. Nothing seriously happened and I took it as a warning to be careful with where to put my hands and feet. For the next one hour we had to cross the secondary rainforest before we got to see the flora of the "primera selva" (primary rainforest, original forest that has not been cut down). Rainforest, now, how does that look like. Well, first of all it is hot, 25-28 degree I would say. And green, of course, everything is fresh and green. You breath and sweat more than usual. Its like walking in a huge greenhouse but all natural. Sometimes the sun hits the ground. Then it gets a bit lighter down here under the enormous roof of leaves. There are plants allover. Plants that grow as they want. Many kinds of plants. Trees, bushes, lianes, flowers, mushrooms. You canīt escape neither the heat nor the humidity. Pacaya explains to me some of the plants. Trees which when you destroy the bark you should not drink the fluid unless you want to die. Or other ones, lianes, that entwine around a tree with such power that the tree finally dies off and can only fall down. The environment of the tropical rainforest has its own rules, much stronger as the forest we know from at home. Here a leave falls down to the ground, but it wonīt last long down there. Because of all the rain, heavy rain, all the sun, the humidity, the nature reacts much stronger here and the leave will be in the ground after a week or so, and soon through the water absorbed by the same tree again. The circle closes much faster in the rainforest. But not only products of the plants themselves decompose faster than in our forests at home, also textiles, paper, cardboard or even iron cannot stand the strong climatic conditions. Until now I was always a bit shocked to see the people throwing all their garbage into the river, on the street or into the forest but after realizing the rules of the rainforest I donīt feel that shocked anymore. And also plastic doesnīt really destroy the nature here, plastic stays plastic, plastics stands the climate, it just doesnīt look good. It destroys the scenery, for a long time.
At day number three I did another trip into the jungle, this time not alone but in company with two guys from the Basque Country who also stayed in the Albergue Humboldt. On the trip today we were guided by a native, indegene. I don`t remember his name anymore. He lives in a community, which is completely hidden in the forest, with no road access or anything. He and Jesus are good friends wherefore the man posed as our guide. He lived in the jungle his whole life and knows what to do and what to take care of. His competency we should get to know soon. Because it was the first day in the jungle for the guys from the Basque Country today, it happened that one of them made the same mistake as I did yesterday. He was grabbing hold of a nearby tree, but this time there were no ants walking on the bark but the bark consisted of many little stingers. When he let off the tree about a dozen stingers sticked under his skin. Not that they were dangerous or poisonous or so, but it hurted him quite a lot. Then, the native broke another, bigger stinger from another tree to use it as some kind of tweezers. A few minutes later we continued our trip, while moving more carefully. Later on the native showed us a plant that when you cut it on the one end you can drink the water, that is coming out. And with every other cut you do, there is more water coming out. Its some kind of physical law I don`t understand.
The following day wasn`t that spectacular anymore. Rather than booking any jungle tours I decided to do some hiking around Puerto Bermudez. Unfortunately, there was heavy rain this day and little streams became strong rivers, that made it impossible for me to continue my hike so that in the end I had to return to the hostal. On the next morning I left Puerto Bermudez and after 18 hours of going by Pick-Up, bus and car I arrived totally exhausted In Puerto Ocopa. From there I intended to travel for a few days by boat on the river Urubamba, which should bring me a couple of hundred kilometers down south to a place called Quillabamba. And from Quillabamba there is a road going to Cuzco. But after one day travelling south on the river Urubamba I got to know from some local people that it is quite hard to get to Quillabamba as there is not necessarily a through-going boat connection down south. They explained to me like this, that there is mostly jungle and only sometimes a small village along the river. Of course, there are boats going from village to village, so that I could get to Quillabamba, but it would take a number of days. Like siometimes, I would have to wait two or three days in a village for the next boat that goes further south. And so on, and so on. To be honest, I would have liked to do that trip, somewhere through the rainforest, wait in a village a few days before getting to the next village to wait there for the next boat, but as my stay in South America is limited I had to say NO to this adventure. Although it would have been quite cool actually, getting to Cuzco on a very different way and route. But, as mentioned before, I stayed common-sense and went back on the river from Atalaya to Puerto Ocopa, afterwards taking a car to Satipo and from there on the same day an overnight bus to Lima. And here, another chapter starts, waiting to be written first. I give my best to announce it shortly.