Trifter

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I wrote this article, because I believe that some of you may benefit from my experience of visiting Machu Picchu, and may be encouraged to take the same route. It was, indeed, a fantastic trip. Inca Trail was amazing.

Everything started when me and a couple friends decided that Machu Picchu would be a cheap nice trip we could all take together. We were college students back then, and we didn’t have much money. After a few weeks of discussion, we chose a travel bureau that would take care of things like transportation and accommodation. We paid for the cheaper route, meaning everything would be by bus or train (I live in Brazil, and although it is possible to go to Peru by ground means, it still is very far), except for the Inca Trail, which is don by foot.

The day we got into the tourist bus to Machu Picchu, I had my first chock. We were the older ones in the bus. I was 22 back then, and everybody else was barely 18, and that was not the only problem; they were those kids that we can tell that are professional pot smokers just by looking at them. They all wore loose, old and hand made clothes and had that slow talk typical in marijuana addicts. I felt incredibly misplaced, but I didn’t let it crush my spirit.

Twelve hours later though, my spirit was a little crushed. The bus was in the Pantanal, dozens of hours away from Machu Picchu, and it was noisy, people talked loud and sometimes yelled hysterically. The landscape was beautiful, but after a few hours of the same one, I got bored. My friends already made some friends by then, but me, I’m kind of a difficult person and I don’t make friends easily.

Things got really interesting when we reached Corumbá, the border city between Brazil and Bolivia. There we had a fun, although sad moment. The border agents are used to tourists crossing Bolivia border to get to Peru in their way to Machu Picchu, and they take great advantage of it; we had to pay 5 American dollars as a bribe to the Bolivian agents, so we could cross the border. I never paid bribe for anyone in my entire life; I felt so important in that moment. Of course the feeling flew away when I saw the city that expected us on the other side of the border.

Puerto Quijarro was something I only seen in TV. Do you know those Western Movies, where they show a ghost town without a living soul around and hay balls rolling over unpaved streets? That was the scenario. The bus moved around a little before we reached what seemed like an oasis in town. It was the hotel. It was not like it was a five stars hotel, or anything… it was just much better than everything around. I saw poverty there, and the only good thing was for the tourists. Quite depressive, indeed.

That night, the people made a party around the green water pool. I stayed for a while but went to my bedroom around eleven. A few hours later I woke up with the noise of people talking in the room right next to mine; they sounded worried. I went there and one of my friends was drunk as in the verge of alcoholic coma. We put him in a borrowed truck and took him to what the natives called “hospital”. It was a small, dirty and fetid building, with rats’ sized biting flies moving around like they owned the place. We had to buy the medicine my friend needed outside the hospital, and the nurse, a nun, had frightening tremulous hands. I’m still surprised that my friend survived without any sequelas. In the morning, he had the worst hangover face ever. I sincerely hoped that Machu Picchu would worth it.

The next day we took the “Death Train”, as the Bolivians call it, to Santa Cruz de La Sierra. Twenty-five hours in the most uncomfortable train I had ever been, and yet, it was a funny trip. The train stops in every city, and in all of them, vendors move outside, around the windows, selling anything you can imagine from food to craft. I bought some oranges, and my friends, more courageous than me, got some “pollo con papas” (thicken and fries – very typical in the country). Despite many people told us not to leave the arms outside the train, a 15 year-old kid traveling with us didn’t feel like taking the advice. His 300 Dollars watch was stolen right under his nose in the first hour of the trip. We all laughed so much. Beyond that, there was the dirt. Really… more dirt than you can imagine. In the end of the train trip, my hair felt like clay, and anything that left my nostrils were hard and black. That day, we didn’t have much opportunity to know Santa Cruz de La Sierra, because we entered a bus and took our way to the next city.

The first impression I had from Bolivia wasn’t a fair one. I realized that when we got to Cochabamba, one of the many stops we had before reaching Machu Picchu. The city was big, urbanized, had tons of restaurants, stores, casinos and nightclubs. Cochabamba’s nightlife is very intense, and the kids from the bus got a new supply of marijuana in about an hour. It was another party night, and the thing I realized just when we got in the first restaurant was the power Brazilian money, Real, had over Bolivian Pesos. I felt like a king. I could buy, eat or drink whatever I wanted without even thinking about money. I could move around the city by taxi during the whole day with nothing more than 5 American Dollars. Their handcrafted objects are beautiful and unique, and with very little money I could buy more than carry. I bought gifts to all my relatives and friends and I think I didn’t spend more than 20 Dollars on them. Great city. I would love to re-visit it.

The next city was La Paz. Well… in La Paz I was already feeling the consequences of ingesting great amounts of Bolivian food. It tastes awesome, and the spices are great, but my stomach and intestines didn’t agree very much. By that time, I heard noises coming from my belly all the time, and I was severely constipated. I tried to ignore it, and kept having lot of fun. La Paz had so much culture around the streets. Everything, from the bricks on the walls to the church towers seemed like works of art. Food was, once again, amazing. In a street called “Ruas das Brujas” (witches’ street) we could buy all sorts of amulets, magic recipes and ingredients as herbs or dried insects. Unfortunately, one of the most common magic ingredients there are llama fetus, and there were hundreds of those. I must say that I bought a Love amulet there, and a few months after I came back to Brazil, I met the girlfriend that became my wife in a couple years. Coincidence? I don’t know.

Next stop, Peru. Finally, in the same country as Machu Picchu. When we arrived to Cuzco I was already sick. Vomit, diarrhea, nausea, you name it. In Peru and Bolivia, if you feel sick, the natives push into you as much as they can of “mate de coca” (a tea made of coke’s leaves), and the cokes’ leaves themseslves, so you can chew them. The first times the “mate de coca” worked and I felt better. After a while I could vomit just by feeling its smell. I tried once to chew the coke leaves, and it was a very disgusting experience. The taste was awful, and after a couple minutes my entire mouth and tongue were completely numb.

I spent the whole day in bed, paying for the king days in Cochabamba. At night, I went to the city. I was amazed with Cuzco at night. If I thought that Cochabamba had a great nightlife, it was because I didn’t know Cuzco. The whole place is crowded by nightclubs ands pubs, each one better than the other. People are very friendly, and the food, that I didn’t resist again, was divine.

The next day, we started the Inca Trail. Four days by foot, from Cuzco to the Lost City of Machu Picchu. Those were the most beautiful landscapes I have seen in my entire life until today. Despite the cold, the diarrhea, the pain of sleeping on the ground and from hours walking, I was overwhelmed by the trail’s beauty. Sometimes, we were so high above the ground that we were literally walking in the clouds. All I could see while I had my eyes opened was perfection.

Of course, the beauty was just an aspect of the trail, and that is the moment where I handle a few tips.

1. Never drink water that you didn’t purified with water purifying pills. I did, and my doctor in Brazil said that I was infested by alien bacteria.
2. You will need to carry with you baby wipes, toilet paper and a powerful source of light. The accommodation camping facilities in the path to Machu Picchu aren’t much more than somewhere you are allowed to place your tent. There are no showers or decent bathrooms. You can use the baby wipes to clean yourself after a long day walking, and toilet paper is a rare commodity in the trail. At night, the place is black dark, and you will need the light source if you want to do anything after twilight.
3. Sleeping bags. The hotter you can get. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep the cold I was feeling.
4. Rain cape. That one was tricky. In the second day of the trail, the harder one where you spend most of the day climbing, it rained the whole day; ice sometimes. At night, everything I had was wet, including the clothes I was going to sleep with.

After four days of long walks, we got to Machu Picchu. I must say it was very disappointing. It is not that the city isn’t nice; it is. But after four days walking through the most beautiful landscapes, a stone city is kind of boring, and of course, at that time I was exhausted and all I wanted was to get some decent sleep. In the end, the best wasn’t the destiny, but the unforgettable journey we made.