Day 90 08.10.15
*Warning – this blog entry may contain several landscape photos, if this is not of your liking don’t read this blog entry*
It was the day of our Quarry Trek! I was excited and a bit nervous but definitely ready to go.
From Cusco we headed out early in the morning to the town of Ollantaytambo where we would be picking up the rest of our group. I had bought myself some porridge from Jacks yesterday, so I was prepared and snacking on some breakfast on this 1,5 hours ride. (Yes we left Cusco at 05:45…)
Ollantaytambo is a nice little town that still shows a large amount of Incan remains in its original form. The road leading into the town for example is made entirely out of cobblestone and is somewhat a one-way street.
Surrounding the town on the hillsides you can see ruins built into the mountainsides. For example these terraces.
Or for example this corn or food storage.
After a cup of hot chocolate waiting for the other group, we headed into the van and drove to Raf’qa, the starting point of our trek at 2850m.
Here our “no more than 6 kilos” weighing duffle bags were attached to the porter horses as well as everything we were going to need on our trek in terms of kitchen, kitchen tent, normal tents etc. The rest, our dire essentials in our day packs were strapped to our backs and off we went. A few before photos and then we started wandering up the street and then headed straight up the mountain.
We were excited because so far we were feeling fine.
We walked and walked and walked and headed further up the mountain towards a little village called Socma.
Here we let the porter horses walk passed us, or pretty much race passed us as that is the only way to describe their pace against our pace, and headed onwards.
We stopped at the town centre in Socma for a little rest and to eat the snacks that we were taking with us. So far so good – no real pain just a little huffing and puffing.
We carried on passed the farmers crops and terraces.
Then the way got a little steeper and a little more uneven, no longer resembling a road but more just a passage way.
The views however got better and better.
Just an example of how steep some of the parts we walked up were.
We saw different animals everywhere; unfortunately I didn’t see the inhabitant of this well formed cylindrical web though…
Conquering more and more of the hillside.
Heading up a little further to reach a beautiful waterfall.
Suddenly the vegetation changes and we see the little stream and lush green colours.
We had reached the waterfall.
I made an offering to Pachamama with this stone tower, hoping that Mother Earth would bless our trek, seeing as other people had done so by burning confetti and herbs next to it.
After the waterfall we climbed further and further up the mountain.
Every success was documented :).
We were heading to this Incan ruin (just above the waterfall!)
We got there and the passageway leads over their intricate irrigation system.
Beautiful ruins of their food storage.
The trek we walked upon.
The ruins are being restored.
After a short break at the ruins and some information on the Incas, we headed up for the final leg towards our campsite, passing several fields with crops.
When we got to the campsite we were tired, but felt like we had accomplished something! Having climbed up to 3700m.
Time for lunch.
Appetiser: Avocado crème with nachos.
Spinach soup.
Chicken with vegetables and Yucca.
We finally crashed in the tents to relax a little until it was time for tea.
For tea we had some little cookies and coca tea.
Then some more resting time before it was time for dinner, where we had quinoa soup and then some fried trout and rice. For desert we had some fried banana and chocolate sauce, where I picked off all the bananas and left the chocolate sauce for everyone else to cherish. Delicious!
After that we headed back in the dark and went to sleep to be prepared for the toughest day of the trek that was yet to come.
