An Amazing Andean Adventure

Well I am still in Peru. Still bumbing around the Sacred Valley. Still loving it. To date I have not made my blog entries too in depth due to the limited time I can justify sitting in front of a computer but for this post we are going deep!

It was a couple weeks ago now that a posse of beautiful people and I headed up for a night at the hotsprings in Lares, 3-1/2 hours by bus from Pisac. We pulled into the hotsprings after dark, Meed in hand (honey wine made by this cool guy in Lares. mmm mmm) and hit the tubs. The hotsprings were beautiful, though not exactly clear water as it is heavily mineralized resulting in a murkey yellow hue. A beautiful soak under the stars.


Downtown Lares.

We attempted to make a move the next day but it just didn´t happen so a second night in Lares was needed. The next day we again attempted to head back to Pisac. After a nice walk up the valley we packed up and headed into Lares to catch the last bus of the day back to Pisac. We missed it. Surprise surprise! So we sat in the main square of this small mountain town for a bit thinking another ride would likely come by. Never did. So..... "That valley sure is beautiful...." We decided to start walking up one of the valleys that headed out of Lares. We made our way down to the river (after picking a few Doturo flowers - highly halucinagenic flower that you can place on your pillow for some crazy dreams!) and after a mere 15 minutes of walking we found a beautiful camp spot on the edge of the river. Though we were only a few minutes out of Lares we were an attraction. The path above our camp was quite busy with villagers walking by and shortly after setting up camp a group of teenaged girls spotted us (it was just the boys (Alex, Ruairidh and I) sitting on the river´s edge - the girls were off collecting firewood) and after some hesitation they walked down to where we were to say hi. They gave us some freshly harvested maize (andean corn) and then left. So sweet. We cooked the beautifully coloured yellow, red and purple maize on the coals of the campfire after a soak in teh river. A bit tough but deliscious. In the morning, with Christina and I lounging on the rocks in the river after a refreshing morning swim a large group of young boys on their way to school stopped on the path to view the strange group of gringos. They just stood up on the hill, waving, smiling , running from Ruairidh´s attempted photos, laughing..... Kind of fun being a freak-show! Just up fromour camp was a little marshy area that was teeming with beautiful, small, yellow butterflies fluttering about. Reminded me of a school of little tropical fish filling my view while scuba diving. It was a gorgeous spot. But..... after a nice night, a couple cold dips in the river and a beautiful birthday fruit salad for Christina´s b-day the notion of "just heading a little further up the valley" took hold.





We packed up and hit the trail. We had picked up some supplies in Lares to last us the day but otherwise had no idea where we were headed. Didn´t matter. These mountain trails are so beautiful, winding along the mountain sides from one valley to the next. The hillsides thoroughly covered by ancient Inca crops and terraces with the occasional one in current use growing maize, quinoi, potatoes... (the number of fields that are not in use today gives an amazing sense of just how many people lived here at one time). There is a fairly regular stream of andean people and their goats, donkeys, horses, sheep and cows moving along these paths along with others who have spent the day in the mountains collecting herbs (sure wish I could spot more of these), firewood, etc. The people are genuinely friendly and very helpful. Not to mention a bit curious about what exactly we were doing there and where on earth we were headed. They don´t see many tourists out here on the trails and the direction we were headed was even more remote. As would become the theme, we had a slow, relaxed departure from our camp so after a beautiful few hours of walking it was already beginning to get a bit dark. As would also become the theme, we stumbled across another perfect camping spot just before dark. We had made our way from the river at the valley floor up to the higher elevations and set up camp on an Inca terrace at the top of a mountain with a spectacular view of the 3 valleys that converged here. Wow! Lares already seemed very far away. It was. After clearing away the cow shit that blanketed our camp, we set up shop. Started a fire. Ate sandwiches and had a great sleep. We had borrowed Eroca´s 6 person tent so we all slept there comfortably. My little 0.8 person tent was used occasionally to store our bags. Very cozy.


This is the river that we essentially followed our first 5 or 6 days.


Ruairidh, Christina and Eugenia. Taking a break.




Side Note: Meal of choice for this adventure. Sandwiches! It is very limited what you can find in these little mountain villages and we didn´t have a stove or a pot so.... Bread, garlic, cheese (when we got lucky) and vegies were the ticket. We had also stocked up on honey in Lares so that was a treat for a few days...

So... after a night on the mountain it was once again decision time. Back to Lares for a bus or..... We had heard from people on the trail that there was a village a couple hours further up the valley. Why not?! We packed up and continued on.

What an incredible walk. We were in some seriously remote valleys now and when we finally rolled into the town we were struck by the traditional way of life. The houses were all thatched roofs (clay roofs are what is seen in teh larger towns), houses built in traditional Inca-style (the roof beams are tied with leather to the mud walls), and amazing maize crops. The patterns of these crops are incredible as you view a hillside from afar. And the people..... So incredibley friendly. There was a young girl and her grandma whom we met and the girl simply couldn´t stop laughing! It was adorable. We were just TOO strange! She likely had never seen a whitey adn she found it seriously amusing. Funny clothes, funny skin and hair colour, funny bags on our backs, me with my huge beard (you don´t see that on Andean men).... So beautiful. We also got hit by a brief hail storm. Why not?!


Thatched roof.


Another dip in the river....

So we made our way into the town. Not much here! After asking around we eventually found a tiney store to pick up some supplies. Little shack attached to a small shack of a house. Didn´t have much. No vegetables, no fruit, no cheese, no bread..... Bottles of pop, packages of crackers and cookies... Thanks to Eugenia´s strong spanish we managed to get the woman in the shop to hook us up big time. Keep in mind that this shop was our lifeline at this point. Darkness was coming and there was not another town for 3+ hours further up the valley. She agreed to cook us up a late lunch of rice, fires and an egg and she also cooked us up an extra bag of rice and some hard boiled eggs for the next morning. Wow! Sure, it took 3 hours or so before being served our lunch but who cares! After some nice hot cocoa and some bread from up the street we quickly went to check out the local ruins before darkness hit.

These ruins were very interesting. Perched atop the hill overlooking the valley with terraces and these strangely un-Inca style remnants of houses. They were stacked rock like the Incas but they were round. Incas really seemed to like there structures square! Want to figure out what these ruins are....

Side Note: This amazing hook up in this village - lunch and breakfast (cooked over an open fire) for 5 people plus snacks for 35 soles (about $12). Amazing.

With the moonlight guiding our way once again, we began down the mountain towards the river. Even with the moon it was dark going, but the route down was a road so all was good. No need for torches. After a splitt pit stop and a singing lesson from Eugenia to Christina about half way down, we continued down into the darkness. We had no idea where we were going to camp for the night but at this stage in the journey we just knew we would find one (not an obviously esay accomplishment as these mountain sides are steep!). After numerous switch backs and the sense that we must be getting close to the river, we spotted a ¨path¨ (not really!) leading off the road. I volunteered for the scouting mission as it was a steep bush-wack down this trail. It was not far down that I found the river and right on the shore, on the edge of what looked like a Eucalyptus plantation (they love these hardy, fast-growing trees here!), there was our camp. A perfect spot. Of course. We set up camp, lit another nice fire and generally smiled at eachother at our luck and the beautiful wander we were all sharing.

When we awoke we saw the full splendor of our location. Gorgeous. Another beautiful morning dip in the frigid river. In a morning wander, Ruairidh found a big field of maize not far away. Alex, Ruairidh and I decided to go steal a few cobs (would happily have paid but with no one in sight what is a group of gringos to do?!). Just as we were leaving, these beautiful young boys strolled into our camp. They were brothers and it was their family farm that was growing the maize. We asked if we could buy some and they happily agreed. Ruairidh went off with them and returned with a welcome addition to breakfast. He also returned with a couple wheels of homemade cheese. Nice one! These boys (their sister showed up as well) were so cool. The one had a sling-shot, the other had a popular andean toy consisting of an old bike tire and a stick that, with some skill, you can push along the ground rolling, guided by the stick. They hung out with us for a bit, watched us eat, then went about their day.


Nice shot Christina!


Christina


Nice old lady on the trail.

We packed up camp (something we were getting very good at by now) and started treking. Where to now? It really as as if we were in some kind of rip-tide, taking us further and further down these remote valleys. At this stage we were adventurers, all keen to see what was around the next bend, confident in our abilities to find whatever we needed to keep going. All we needed was the notion that there WAS a town not too far off and that was enough for us. Pretty incredible to have a group of 5 people that is so keen and adventurous. We seemed to feed off of eachother and we just wanted to keep going. There was also this little idea that had started to form from bits of info we had gathered along the way. The jungle wasn´t far away! Walking from Lares to the jungle? Seriously? Sounded very cool to us.

But for now, we simply needed to get to the next town. We ended up crossing over the river and after a steep ascent found ourselves in a village across the valley from the previous village he had found. Quite a place. It had a large central square with a large Inca wall that had 10 large Inca alcoves. This town seemed to be very poor. Furit and vegies were not to be found. We found a small store for some packaged supplies. We chatted with the family in the store about where we were headed and they informed us that there were some hotsprings not far away. But of course! They offered to have breakfast ready for us the next morning so we headed off in search of the baths.


Inca ruin in the center of town.


Rush-hour.


Ruairidh with his game-face on.


After a couple wrong turns and with the sun falling quickly, we finally found them. Two square concrete walled tubs perched on a steep hillside overlooking the river and cows grazing all around them. We were stunned. However, as we got closer we became a little less so as we found the one bath covered in a a thick green layer of algae and was definitely not usable. The other pool was basically empty.... But not quite. With about a foot of fairly clear, and nicely hot water we could at least get wet. We went about setting up camp, with some difficulty as the terraces were very small and not level. In the end our tent was perched fairly precariously on an incline with a steep sequence of terraces below. Pretty freaky and not a very comfortable sleep as I was constantlhy sliding down to the bottom of the tent. Oh well!

Then, after relaxing for a bit, we noticed something very interesting. The tub was filling up! It was bizarre. Within a few more hours it had filled to a level that was perfect to sit in, coming up to our necks. Ruairidh and I (the others had gone to sleep) hopped in for an incredible soak under the starry sky. The bats came to say hello as well, diving down inside the walls of the bath adn along the top of water right between the two of us. Many more flew quickly over-head. We got pruned and then hit the sloped tent.


Hold on!



to be continued......


much love,

Joel