The Inca Trail

My sister is doing her incredulous face, you know the one with the raised eyebrow and kinda pursed lips? Maybe it’s because I’ve just told her that I’m not really into hiking, and I’ve told her that about a day into our four-day hike to Machu Pichu, the Inka city of the Condor. I mean, we could have just taken the train after all, that would have taken like three hours.

The hike takes us up through the Andes, down into valleys and up through number of passes, peaking at the 4215m elevation of the ominously named Dead Woman’s Pass. Then it’s mostly down to our destination of Machu Pichu, the Inkan city of the Condor.

Just prior to this we’ve had to spend a few days acclimatizing to the altitude in Cusco (3800m), as the air is strainingly thin. Fortunately the extent of altitude sickness for me is a shortness of breath that ranges from annoying to mildly disconcerting, along with feeling pretty tired during the first 36 hours. I’m not entirely sure how much the fabled coca-tea and coca-sweets actually helped with the acclimatization, but they definitely didn’t hurt.

Actually it’s not that I dislike hiking, it’s more that hiking doesn’t really create the chemical cocktail of adrenaline and dopamine in the brain that my favourite pursuits tend to do, things like snow sports, motor sports or even my newly acquired mountain biking past time.

One of the great parts of this hike is getting to a bunch of Inkan ruins and learning the history of the people, which from what I understand is constantly changing as archaeologists continue to discover new facts about the civilization. The guides are really passionate about their Inca heritage and without going into any great detail, Machu Pichu was presumably the final rally point for the Inka as the Spanish pushed their way through Peru, but instead of hanging about their sacred city it’s thought that they pushed north into the Amazon, into their last great city, which still remains undiscovered.

What I have discovered though is that hiking actually has the opposite effect of my favourite types of sports, where once you reach a certain level of proficiency, it’s all about very narrow pin-sharp focus. Instead, hiking slows the mind down and almost untangles all those jumbled up thoughts floating around in your head. As the kilometres stack up and you wind my way through mountain pass after mountain pass, it’s like you relearn that ability to just let your mind wander, following random thoughts and tangents, turning menial little things over and over in your head.

For someone so plugged in all the time, it’s not just good to be able to take the time to do the reverse, it’s probably necessary for personal longevity. I never really know what to expect when I start a hike, as my friends will attest the whole camping, not showering thing is something that I tend to be quite vocally against, but I guess these things that challenge you are also the things that give you new perspectives and also the things that you end up remembering fondly. It’s been fun Peru, but now it’s time to get up and push on to the new adventure. Like my new Brazilian friend Charlie liked to say; “keep walking (Johnny Walker)”.

A stroll through the Himalayas

Rain-soaked jacket cuffs brush uncomfortably on moist hands, the sombre, all-encompassing feeling of dampness reiterated by the constant raindrop staccato playing on the hood of my jacket. Having experienced this type of weather on numerous occasions whilst working on the ski slopes of Mt Buller, I’ve employed the well known tactic of garbage bag re-purposing; tearing one up into the rough shape of a shawl and worn as an extra layer of protection. The rain is also making the act of negotiating our descent more difficult, the roughly hewn stone steps have become trecherous to navigate and several near slips and misses have recently culminated into one act of eating shit, albeit relatively benign. Then the fog starts to lift, giving way to blue skies. The afternoon sun gently bathes the surrounding landscape in warmth and things aren’t so bad after all.

That is pretty much how things go when hiking in Nepal. Throughout our five-day trek challenges are constantly counterbalanced with rewards. Starting out with an easy three-hour hike on the first day, the second day delivers a punishing, unending ascent of stone stairs. For seven hours we climb into thinning air, making it just in time to see the sun set over the Annapurna ranges. It’s New Year’s eve, but pretty much zero fucks are given and we all turn in at around 8pm.

The next morning we wake before the sunrise and struggle uphill in a veil of darkness for an hour to watch the first light of the new year, carried by the wind across the Himalayas. It’s cloudy and the view of the snow-capped peaks are shrouded in clouds, but it’s nice to sit and watch the prayer flags dance with the breeze, the sun throws ambers, pinks and yellows across a blue-black sky whilst night gives up her cold embrace.

Day three tests our endurance with another full day of hiking. About as high as we go, the lush greenery is often slathered with snow from falls that look at least a week or two old. Standing on a ridge, having a break whilst waiting for the rest of the team, the wind lashes at my clothes, an invisible cat-of-nine-tails intent on stripping warmth.

It’s believed the Buddhist scripture written on prayer flags are carried by the wind, spreading the Buddha’s messages of peace to the corners of the world. The ridge winds whip at them violently and I imagine the prayers harpooning from the flags, arcing over the ranges and into the horizon.

“I could tell you guys were Australian when you walked into town, it’s just something about how we walk,” says a girl I strike up a conversation with. She’s from Brisbane and travelling with her boyfriend. We both look at the rain that has started to come down, droplets smudging the view through the window. A short time later I’m wrapped up in my sleeping bag, starring at the water-damaged hole in the ceiling, hoping the’ye found and fixed the problem all the whilst wishing I’d perhaps moved my bed about three inches to the left as a precautionary measure.

Day four is relatively easy, though for me the descent is more challenging than the ascent, as I slowly and quietly nurse post-surgery knees, attempting to cushion impact with surrounding muscles. We finish in the early afternoon, enough time to hang up our wet clothes and relax a little.

And now here I am, on day five, having trudged another fifteen-odd kilometers in the wet, looking like some ridiculous ski-smurf cross Hobbit. Damp, unshaven and unshowered, but despite the challenges I can start to understand why people come back here, trekking deeper and higher each time, trying to push the boundaries further and further.