Nice Mohawk, Jackass.

Made it back safely from Choquequirao, a literal lost city of the Incas. Though it´s whereabouts have been known by the locals for centuries, it has only been recently that it has been excavated and accessible to tourists. Known as Maccu Piccu´s sister city, it can still be visited in relative isolation. Alas, a new road is being built, and within a few years the allure of visiting a ruin accessible only by a two day hike will be lost forever. Soon there will be gift shops, tacky (but maybe kind of awesome as well) t-shirts, and tours full of loud mouthed, ill tempered, litterbug Isrealis. Not that I haven´t been any of the previous three at one time or another in my life, but I´ve can safely say I´ve never been all three simultaneously.

We begin in the town of Cochara, not much to look at, but notable for being the closest significant settlement to Choquequirao. We began our hike (Chis, myself, a Peruvian family-Mom, son, daughter, grandma, another Peruvian, Piero, our guide, Walter, and a team of cooks, porters and burro wranglers) downhill from the town´s central plaza into a fertile valley where I assume quinoa and potatoes (principal crops of the region) are grown. It´s nice to not have to carry a pack, as we walk unfettered, our packs are strapped to the strong and steady backs of several burros accompanying us. Several of them are indeed done up in mohican style hairdos, see the subject line.

Cochora and the Valley below are dominated by an incredible range of glacier topped mountains, the first we have seen in Peru that can rival the mind-blowing awesomeness of Bolivia´s Cordillera Real. These peaks are easily 17,000 feet high, but we are currently so high up that they seem half that. The pace is easy going and downhill (a fact that I would come to regret in a couple of days. Choquequirao is not a loop. You hike two days in, and then 2 days out over the same route. Anything that you go down one way, you need to go up coming back.) we wind through fields and into a eucalyptus forest. The tree is not native here. The Spanish planted them to stabalize the slopes of the mountains and hills of the areas. As we continued to hike, we would eventually leave the Eucalyptus behind, a sign that we were also leaving the realms of European colonization. A gentle breeze blowing in the leaves makes a pleasant walk downright magnificent. Once we clear the forest and hike along a rutted dirt and gravel road, we are again facing the massive mountains in front of us. We will hike towards them for the next 2 hours or so, our forward vision always filled with their sheer immensity.

We break for lunch and it turns out Grandma isn´t up to the task of hiking. Why she even signed up in the first place is beyond me, as this trek is generally regarded as very tough. She rode a burro to lunch, but after returned to Cochora where she would stay in a hotel for four days waiting for us to return. More on the suitability of this trek for the very young and the very old to follow...

After a punishing 2 hour descent (oh my knees and toes, god I´m getting old.) we arrive at our camp where we are immediately assaulted by tiny gnat-like insects that leave bites like a volcano, complete with tiny red crater in the middle. The itch is maddening, and they are especially prone to bleed freely at even the slightest scratch. Chris might posses the zen discipline required to ignore the unignorable but I am no Bhuddist, and soon my legs look like Dresden circa February 15 1945. We had purchased new DEET rich bug spray after exhausting Chris´s New Zealand Army surplus, but by the time we realized we needed it it was far far too late.

Other than the entomological problems we encountered, the campsite itself was fairly pleasant complete with snack hut, and flush toilets (although no toilet seats). We were to get up at 4:30 the next morning in order to begin hiking by 5:30. The logic of thise insanely early rising being that it would allow us to do the bulk of our hiking before the punishing sun could poke its nosy rays over the tops of the mountains surrounding us. Sure enough we were awakened at 4:30 with coca tea, and accustomed to a certain degree of pack up and go from our Gray Wolf days, were packed and ready to eat by quarter to 5. We then proceeded to wait and wait and wait. Apparently, despite the repeated warnings of Walter the night before, the family decided that they didn´t want to get up that early. As my rage slowly simmered towards boiling, I watched the night turn to dawn turn to full-fledged morning. By the time we finally finished breakfast and hit the trail, it was 7, 1.5 hours later than we intended.

Day 2 is far and away the most difficult of the trek. After a brief hour descent the rest of the way down to the river, we crossed a suspension bridge, and immediately began to climb up the other side. We then continued to climb for the next 3 hours or so. We occasionally rested, once at the village of Santa Rosa where I bought an insanely overpriced bottle of Gatorade (although in the villagers defense, knowing supply and demand as I do, I would have charged twice what they did) and once on the side of the trail when we finally crossed out of the blissful shade of the mountain into the full intensity of the morning sun. At this point, all I could think about was the fact that we should be 1.5 hours further up the mountain. The pain was intense, especially in the lower calves, but after a while, you develop a certain zombie-like rhythm and continue to shamble forward and up up always up the trail. Needs like water and rest become secondary as one thought begins to consume me, ¨stop at the top.¨ I´m counting switchbacks since our last pause, and despite especially long and steep ones on 11, 14, and 16, 18 turns out to be the one that takes me to the crest at the village of Marapata, 1500 vertical meters above the river. As I sit, exhausted on a rock overlooking the valley below me, I realize that I´m eye level with the clouds.

Once you round the corner in the village, you can see the ruins, still several kilometers distant, perched on top and on the side of the mountain. We wait for an hour in the village but the family never shows so we just push on to the Choquequirao campsite. We´re there for a solid 2 hours before they finally get htere. Now, I don´t begrudge them being slow, god knows I went slow enough going up El Misti, but what does really piss me off is their rudeness in waking up in the morning. We´ve now lost close to three hours of the day waiting for them, and by this point it´s late afternoon and we have very little daylight remaining.

Chris and I decide to head down to some terraces that are literally built into the side of the mountain. They´re called Casa de Agua Caida (House of Falling Water) I assume because their steplike formations resemble a waterfall. The great thing about them is Chris and I are literally the only people there, something unheard of in this day and age of eco and anthropological tourism. The only sounds are the wind in the trees and the rumblings of a distant waterfall. As we look out over the path that we have come up and the cloud forest that surrounds us, and then down at these enormous stone steps (all of which still contain fertile soil) we are momentarily overwhelmed by the majesty of this place. All of this was built by hand, and has lasted undisturbed for well over 500 years. Unfortunately, momentarily is the key word in the preceding sentence, and after only 15 minute or so we are forced to head back to camp in order to have enough time at the primary ruins before nightfall.

We hustle back up the trail to camp, and from there it´s another half hour up to the primary ruins on the top of the mountain. I´m breathless by the time we arrive, but also impatient, and I urge my aching body further, faster. First I encounter more terraces, they appear in front of me without warning as the forest abruptly ends. I follow them, ascending when I encounter stair cases between levels. Ahead of me and above, I can see the main complex, but I can also see the rapidly waning sunlight. I put on a final burst of desperate speed, and I´m almost running by the time I scramble up the remaining bit of the trail.

By the time I´m there, the ruins are virtually deserted. Outside of our own group I only saw 4 other people the whole time we explored. Set on the edge of a cliff, Choquequirao offered its inhabitants an unobstructed view of any possible attackers. Its height offered the perfect natural defense as there is really only one possible route to take to the city, and because of the terraces it was self-sufficient agriculturally. In short, before it was abandoned, it was virtually inpregnable to conventional attack as the Incas knew it.

There is a central square with a major temple facing it. Behind the temple lie the ruins of smaller buildings and dwellings. To the south the mountain rises another 50 meters or so, we encountered a sacrificial area for priests, and to the north, also on an elevated area above the main complex, lay the homes of the royalty and nobility. Unlike Maccu Piccu and Sacsayhuaman, the buildings here were built with rocks and mortar, not just perfectly shaped rocks. We climbed an ancient stone staircase to the area of the priests and witnessed spectacular vistas of the whole city, terraces, temples and all, and it was from here that we watched the sun set over the distant mountains. It was now a bit cold and we descended back to camp, the wonder that the city inspired slightly overcoming the resentments I had towards the family for costing me valuable exploring time.

Since this email has already droned on way too long, I´ll be succinct and say that the next two days were spent hiking out. The family delayed us again, but on the last day they surprised us all by getting up on time. Everything we had hiked down we had to hike back up, and vice versa. In the grips of a powerful case of ¨trailhead fever,¨Chris and I motored out the last day with a sort of Batan Death March like intensity.

Back in Cuzco now, we leave tonight for Maccu Piccu and the Sacred Valley. After that, one last overnight bus ride back to Lima for a day and a half or so, and then home. Unbelievable that six weeks is almost up. Thanks to grad school summer programs, I won´t be able to do another trip like this, at least for the next two summers. Glad I got the experience in while I had the chance.