Patagonia 5
1st November 2003 -25th February 2004
The Team:
Laura James
Sarah Georgina
Perrin Phillipa
Carla Caroline
Dustin Katherine
Jez (Leader)
Jo (Leader)
Extracts from our Diaries
Hola VentureCo!
The first week's report as follows, by Perrin and Sarah
Thus far our experience has been tansient and we write this from Cusco feeling eager to settle down for three weeks. We started off in Lima, where the Brits and Americans joined forces after arriving from different directions. The Brits won the worst airport experience contest with an action packed 12 hours stuck in the Buenos Aireas airport.
Lima was a unique environment (hmmmm). The hotel Espana was comfortable and the food brilliant, although it was a bit of a culture shock to be awakened each day to the screams of parrots.
Pisco was extremely friendly- Dustin managed to converse at length with a particular girl although their conversation didn't stretch past the menus due to a mild language barrier. From Pisco we drove out to te coast to Paracas, and as the Americans would say we had an awesome boat trip during which we saw hundreds and hundreds of sea lions. It was incredible. Then we drove to the Ica Winery where Jex managed to impress us with his highly abridged translations during our guided tour. After a Hands on experience
there we went sandboarding, with renewed post-wine tasting confidence. We then enjoyed a beautiful journey to Nazca with sandy mountain views, and
were amazed continually by our drivers' ability to take such sharp turns at such great speed. Alarmed might be more approriate. We saw the Nazca lines the next morning, some of us more than others. Jo was sick after viewing the first line, and has calculated that she paid 7 dollars each time she vomited during her experience. The planes were tiny and made it very easy to see the lines as the driver tilted the plane vertically. After an overnight bus trip we arrived at Arequipa, and were free to explore the city for a day. It was beautiful, and we were even more impressed by the plane ride to Cusco, with amazing views of the mountains and city. We eagerly await meeting our Peruvian families tomorrow!
Patagonia 5 signing out...for now.
First Section of Expedition Phase
NEW VENTURECO RECORD SET!!!!
After having had a very Merry Christmas, we set off on Sunday, 28th December for the infamous Inca Trail and to conquer the heights of Machu Picchu.
Our two Inca Trail guides, Carlos and Jaime, picked up a very tired, but excited group of 10 at a very unearthly hour of 4:30 in the morning. We all piled onto the bus and travelled to Ollantaytambo where we found breakfast waiting for us at a small ‘restaurant’. After filling up on bread, eggs and jam we continued our bus journey to Km 82 (at an altitude of 2750m) where our trek began. Before we left we had the customary Kodak moment at the Inca Trail start signpost and our passports stamped. As we were leaving the start we could hear the train chugging along and blowing its whistle, mocking us because it was carrying all the tourists up to Machu Picchu and they didn’t have to walk for 4 days to get there.
As we walked along for about the first hour, I thought to myself: “Oh, this isn’t too bad. I can cope with this” as the path was fairly flat to begin with. Little did I know what was to come...
After about 1 ½ hours walk we could see the ruins at Llactapata from our path. By this time everyone was getting fed up with James who had his toy attached to his bag. This was his Christmas present from Georgie who now regrets ever finding the thing. Every time it is hit or bounces (which is quite often whilst walking, which i’m sure you can imagine) it goes “BOING!!!”. Ahh – it nearly got boinged off the mountain, accidentally on purpose!!
After a further hour walk we reached Wayllabamba campsite (3000m) where we spent 1½ hours for a lunch of ‘Chips Ahoy!’ and Soda Crackers. Here someone (not mentioning any names) proceeded to fall asleep and was made fun of by having crackers put on her so that the local puppy could eat off her! Yuk – she was covered in doggy drool.
Then came the hard part. Oh my God! The steps were never ending. They went on and on and on! However, this was no problem for Speedy Gonzales Jez who came sprinting past those that had rucksacks weighing 12Kg, carrying a rucksack that only weighed 21Kg!!!!
Eventually the first few arrived at our campsite at Llullucha Pampa (3800m) only to find that Jez had already set up his tent and was running back down the mountain to help the ‘slow’ people. By the time all the tents were up, the porters had put up the cook tent and boiled the water for us. How great are they!?! We had a meeting that evening where Carlos told us that we were walking so well that we could do the 4 day Inca Trail in 3 days!!! This is, I’m told, a new VentureCo record! Yay! After all the deliberations we agreed to it, as we were told that the first day was much worse than the others.
And so to bed...
The next day we left at 7:30 and walked to ‘Dead Woman’s Pass’ – the highest point of our trek at 4200m. It is so called, not because a woman died there (no, that would be too obvious), but because the hill looks like a dead woman. They were right. This day was a lot easier than the previous as it was mostly downhill. We visited 2 sets of ruins – Runkuraqay (3800m) and Sayacmarca (3580m) where we had our lunch. We got to the campsite where we were supposed to be staying at 2pm, which confirmed our ideas to complete the trail in 3 days and push on to the next campsite which was only 1½ hours away. As soon as we got there we realised that this had been the right choice as this campsite was far better – it wasn’t as dirty, didn’t smell (as much) and was much nicer to look at.
This night was another early night to bed as not much could be done after the sun set at 6ish as it was dark and cold.
The next morning was an early one (good job we went to bed early!), everyone having to get up for 4am so we could be at the Sun Gate and Machu Picchu at a reasonable hour when there were not as many tourists.
On this day we visited 2 more sets of ruins – Puyupatamarca (3640m) and Wi?aywayna (2650m) where we stopped for about half an hour to look around as this was the best set of ruins.
After about 3 or 4 hours of walking we finally arrived at the Sun Gate where we could see absolutely nothing!!! The weather was too bad as it was cloudy. From here you are supposed to be able to see Machu Pichhu and go “Oooohhh, Aaahhh” and marvel at the spectacular views. We waited for over ½ hour but didn’t see a thing – only clouds.
It took just under an hour to walk down to Machu Picchu and when we got there it was a bit clearer (as we were lower – 2400m) and we could actually see what we had been waiting for, for the past 3 days. It was fantastic!. We went down and handed all of our kit in to storage as we were not allowed to carry it around with us (not that we wanted to carry it any further!).
After lunch we had a tour of Machu Picchu with Carlos and learnt a load of interesting stuff. After this we all (yes everyone made it) walked up Wayna Picchu, which is the big mountain you see in the background of all Machu Picchu pictures. It was under an hour’s walk up the wet, slippy stairs to the top and occasionally, when the clouds parted, you could see magnificent views of the lost city. We came back down, collected our things from storage and walked down even more steps to get to our next campsite. Well some of us decided to go down the steps. Others decided on a more natural, cross-country route, as they didn’t know there were any steps! When we arrived we set up camp and a few of us went into town to check out what it had to offer, including the hot springs and a chicken and chips restaurant.
We packed up and walked into town to find the train which was to take us back to the familiar sights and smells of Cusco with enough time to spare to meet Jo and prepare for new year celebrations (as by this time it was the 31st December).
From what I have heard, everyone thinks that they had a good party that night, but I’m not sure everyone remembers everything! One thing that was remembered, though, was at midnight everyone rushed out of ‘Mama Amerika’ to find the whole of Cusco sprinting round the plaza and letting off fireworks. Some dirty stopouts managed to stay out until gone 11am the next morning thereby going far beyond the requirements of the 24 hour challenge that was set after finishing the Inca Trail. Unsurprisingly, not much else was done the rest of the day!
On the 2nd January we left Cusco for Puno, which meant that our journey to the south had begun. This is also where all roles change and I can’t wait to see what else is in store.