The Salkantay Trail, Peru, January 2023 (Part 2 - The Trek Begins)
Day 1
Melissa and I woke up bright and fucking early on the morning of January 3rd to wait for Felix and the rest of the tour group to pick us up from our hotel shortly after 4:00 AM. We loaded our bags which were going to be stored at the tour operator’s offices and made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the back of the white Mercedes Sprinter that would drive us to the starting point of the trail.
After a few hours on the road and getting breakfast on the way, we made it to Challacancha, the starting point of our trek.
The first leg of our trek would serve as a good warmup for the next few days that were to come. Starting in Challacancha (12,467ft/3,800m above sea level) we would hike about 7km (4.3mi) to our camping spot for the night at Soraypampa where we would be spending the night under these glass “igloos” known as Sky Domes.
The hike was relatively easy and was mostly on flat terrain as we only gained a little more than 300ft (100m) in elevation over the length of the hike, most of which came on a rather steep climb at the beginning of the journey. The ease of this leg of the journey was greatly appreciated as both me and Melissa had only been acclimating to this altitude for a little over 48 hours. We arrived to Soraypampa shortly after noon and were given our room assignments for the night and were allowed to collect our duffel bags which had been brought up on horseback.
We had lunch prepared by our field cooks who prepared a surprisingly intricate multi-course meal several hours hike from the nearest population center. After lunch we were given a few hours to relax and recover before we would embark on one more short excursion before the day was over: a one mile hike to Humantay Lake, a glacial lagoon created from the melting ice and snow from the Humantay mountain that feeds into it.
As I sat on the peak of a hill looking down at the lagoon, I was suddenly overcome with a rush of emotion, stunned at what I got to look at with my own eyes.
I managed to collect myself in time for us to all make our way down for the night.
Back down at the camp, Melissa was feeling unwell so she stayed in the dome while I went to the tour group meeting to see if there was any information we needed to know about.
A pretty intense thunderstorm was making its way down the valley towards us and was moving fast. The temperature dropped some 20 degrees in a matter of minutes and the wind started howling between the mountains.
We ate dinner underneath a glass dome as the rain fell down the sides and the lightning lit up the night sky. Our private Sky Domes, once hot and muggy, were now ice cold, forcing us to sleep in sweatpants, inside a sleeping bag, and underneath a thin blanket just to try to stay warm.
Day 2
We were woken up at 4:50 AM with a knock at our door by Juvenal (aka “Juvey”), the assistant tour guide of the group.
Today was going to be the big one.
We were going to be in for a doozy today. We’d start with a 4.3 mile (7 kilometer) hike up the mountain towards the Salkantay Pass, climbing 2,395 feet (730 meters) until we got to the pass at an altitude of 15,190 feet (4,630 meters). At that altitude, there is only a little over half as much oxygen than at sea level. From there, things would get easy as we would be going downhill the rest of the way…the rest of the 12 miles.
The hike up to the Salkantay Pass was grueling, some of the steeper sections were almost at a 100% grade (one foot of elevation gained for every one foot of forward movement). The physical exertion was beginning to take its toll as I was sweating like Shaq at the free throw line.
I was going through it
At second or third resting spot (its all a blur at this point) about 2/3rds of the way up, I lost whatever small amounts of breakfast I was able to eat that morning. At this point the guides started worrying about my ability to make it to the top…but I’m nothing if not a stubborn motherfucker. The views were absolutely incredible as I clawed and dragged myself up the mountain before finally reaching the pass around 11 AM, about an hour behind schedule thanks in no small part to my lumbering ass.
After laying on my back at the top of the pass for about 10 minutes as I struggled to catch my breath, I was finally able to look upon and appreciate what I had managed to achieve. We ate some bologna and cheese sandwiches that were brought up for us as a surprise by one of our guides. I never thought I’d ever appreciate a bologna sandwich so much in my life.
The group took some time to reflect as Felix led us in a small ritual ceremony thanking Pachamama (the Earth spirit of the Quechua) for giving us good weather and allowing us to get to the pass safely.
At this point things got really easy for me as the rest of the way was about 98% downhill all the way until we got to our camp for the night at Collpapampa.
No longer going through it. Still sweating like Shaq at the free throw line
Not trying to brag (after all I did just tell you about how I struggled so much up the mountain I literally threw up) but I am surprisingly nimble for a man my size and let me tell you…I was hauling ass down that mountain, essentially jogging down the majority of the next 5 miles (8 km) until reaching Huayracmachay, a very small community where we would be having lunch that afternoon.
In a weird way it felt good to be able to blow past everyone on the way down…especially after I was the one holding everyone back on the climb up.
I was the first one to our lunch spot by a bit which gave me time to change out of my wet base layer and T-shirt to put on something dry and warm. Despite completely loading my 3L Camelbak with water I blew through it about an hour earlier so I was able to refill my reservoir for the rest of the day.
Still feeling way too nauseous, I could barely eat at lunch, maybe taking a few bites of chicken and potatoes before tapping out. I was very quickly learning in real-time the shitty Catch-22 our bodies play out when you are physically exerting yourself to a degree you’re not accustomed.
As you exert yourself harder and harder doing things like climbing up a mountain so high up there’s only 55% the amount of oxygen you’re used to breathing, your body will reprioritize what is going to get blood (and therefore energy). Your muscles doing the bulk of the work (in this case my legs) are going to hoard everything, and your other bodily functions (in this case my digestive tract) are going to get the scraps of what’s left. It’s like trickle down economics if those at the top actually worked for their money and those at the bottom are just lazy welfare queens like Fox News tells me.
Now the cruel irony plays out that as your body exerts itself more and more, you’re going to need more energy and you can’t replenish your body’s energy reserves if you can’t eat, can you?
My body was being pushed to its physical limit. I’ve never felt worse for those members of the Donner party.
After attempting (and failing) to eat, I was determined to haul ass the rest of the way down and get to our camping site. I was doing this well, I wanted to be the first one there. I had this insane drive to just get there first and I have no idea why or where that motivation came from. So I just started hauling ass back down again, going a little slower as the conditions of the terrain got shittier and shittier as the rain turned the dirt paths into mud pits.
By the time I got to the last half-mile away from our “glamping” site at the Mountain Sky View in Collpapampa, my body began to give up on me. After barreling down this mountain for the previous 9 miles (15 km), the last half-mile or so to our camping site was uphill.
I was passed by one of the porters guiding the horses that carried our duffel bags (yeah, we’re boujee, fuck off). I asked him how far behind the rest of the group was to which he told me that everyone else was about an hour behind them still.
It took every ounce of willpower I had to truck my way up that last push up the hill. By the time I reached the entrance to our camp site, I literally had to crawl on my hands and knees up a grass hill where I threw down my backpack, laid down, and lit a cigar to celebrate what I had accomplished…but I quicky realized that thanks to the altitude and the ungodly levels of physical exertion I had just put myself through, the nicotine from the cigar hit me like a Mack truck.
I managed to limp my way towards me and Melissa’s room where we would have a private bathroom and shower with hot water. Glamping is dope.
That night for dinner we were in for a treat. On this evening, we were celebrating not one, but two birthdays as one member of our group, Cindy, was celebrating her 55th birthday, and Melissa was celebrating her 30th. Unbelievably, the field chefs were able to bake a cake to celebrate.
Unfortunately for Melissa and I, we were just informed we were going to have to make a tough decision.
Unfortunately, those nationwide protests that I talked about in part 1 of this journal resumed that morning and they were intense. As such, the trains to and from Machu Picchu would be shut down due to safety concerns meaning the only way in was to hike an additional 7 miles (11 km) to Machu Picchu and then to hike an additional 26 motherfucking miles (42 motherfucking kilometers) to a pick up spot where a van could take us the rest of the way to Cusco.
Additionally this meant we would have to add an extra day to our trip which could jeopardize our ability to catch our flight back if there were any other delays that would keep us from getting back to Cusco.
Given all that information, our tour guide informed us that we had a choice:
We could continue with the 5-day tour at which point Melissa, myself, and our assistant tour guide Juvenal would split off from the rest of the group at some point the next day and go about the route we had originally signed up for but this did mean we were playing it risky with our ability to return to Cusco on time
or…We agree to downgrade our trek to the 4-day trip like everyone else in the group to make sure we have wiggle room for delays and make sure we get to Cusco in time to catch our flight but this would mean we would miss out on the Llactapata Pass which also offered some incredible views.