On the Way to the Golden City

If there's something every tourist that comes to Peru ends up visiting, is the sacred mountain of Machu Picchu. Discovered in 1856 by two brothers looking for gold, they followed an Inka trail that lead them up to 2300m, the ancient city of Machu Picchu was covered in vegetation. They found so many treasures that they named it "The Golden City", later renamed to Machu Picchu, "The old mountain" in Quechua.


Now, the Inca Trail is followed by thousands of tourists every year, and reservations have to be made months in advance.


As many of you may know, the Cuzco region was hit by heavy rainstorms last January. Villages were completely destroyed and people had to emigrate to Cuzco or other communities... where the main source of revenue, tourism, was almost inexistent for two months : Machu Picchu was closed until April 1st !


The Inka trail being completely booked, I decided to do an alternative trekk to the sacred moutain : Salkantay Trekk, 5days/4nights.


It's hiking time then !

We were lead by a guide (that seemed to be discovering the track with us due to the flooding destructions), and two cooks (who also did the "arriero"'s job as the original "arriero" was sick). We had incredible meals both at lunch and dinner (I would have expected just sandwitches for lunch!) : always a soup for starters and meat with rice to follow, and obviously "Mate de Coca" before and after every meal.

We walked close to 100km in 5 days, passing through impressive valleys,

camping underneath the Salkantay mountain

and beautiful sunrises

up to 4600m to see how the snow is retiring year after year

cows on the way

down into the jungle, used impossible bridges to cross the scary rivers,

and some (eh Francesc?) had shoes stuck in the mud

squeezed into cable cars that have replaced the only road that lead to Hidroelectrica,

sprinted up 8km on the railway to Aguas Calientes not to miss the Real Madrid - Barça !

Climbed up more than 4000m irregular stone-made stairs...

what for ?