The Road Less Traveled

Day 1
Our minibus skids to a halt in the valley of Soraypampa, an untrammeled trailhead high in the Andes of south central Peru. A recent rain has left the air crisp and perfumed with a succulent earthy scent. The snow-capped summits of Salcantay and Humantay, two of the most sacred mountains of Peru’s Quechua-speaking people, tower in the distance. I feel like a speck of dust in a sacred shrine.

Ahead, a footpath zigzags its way up the valley walls toward the rocky saddle that joins the two mountains. It’s part of the Salcantay route that winds through the Cordillera Vilcabamba to the fabled city of Machu Picchu (picchu means mountain in Quechua). I’m supposed to set out on this traditional Inca trail tomorrow, but it’s not just the scenery that has left me gasping for breath.

The Andes form the largest mountain range in the world, the spine rising up in Venezuela far to the north and running 7,000 kilometres to the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego. Formed by the ever-grinding tectonic plates on the western side of South America, they are second in height only to the Himalayas. The Soraypampa Valley is some 3,600 metres above sea level and I’ve given myself only a day to acclimatize in the historic Inca capital of Cusco, which, at 3,500 metres, is considered one of the highest cities in the world.

I’m functioning, but I feel light-headed and have to fight the occasional bout of nausea. I’m doing all I can—taking slow deep breaths from the belly, eating small meals regularly, drinking coca tea and sucking on candies—to adjust as quickly as possible. After all, I’m only here for one week.

One week—it seems so brutally short a time. How much can I experience? How much can I learn? But a week is all I’ve got and I was recently reminded of just how important it is to make the most of whatever time life affords you.

Before I left Toronto, I discovered my Uncle Steven was very sick, possibly dying. His time has run out. “Travel while you still can,” I was told by my father—an inveterate trekker who had taken me to Peru with him 23 years ago. So that’s what I’m doing and as my journey commences I begin to appreciate that up in the thin air of the Andes, a week can seem like a blissful lifetime.

Day 2
It is the day before our departure and our host, Enrique Umbert, goateed and sporting an alpaca hat, brings together a small group to show off his family’s latest venture, Mountain Lodges of Peru, a lodge-to-lodge trek to Machu Picchu. The only catch is that the lodges are just now being built, so we’ll be camping along the route.

Beneath the shelter of a dining tent, my trekking mates gather to eat. I quickly learn that I’m in good company. Sitting across from me is Graham Hoyland, who climbed Everest in 1993 and has been to the Himalayas numerous times to film documentaries for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). Graham’s great uncle, Howard Somervell, attempted Everest in 1924. After failing to reach the top, he handed his camera over to the most famous climber of his day, George Mallory, who vanished from the slopes; his frozen body was discovered in 1999.

Another travel companion, Denise Cooper of Vermont, hiked nearly 2,400 grueling kilometres of the Appalachian Trail in the eastern United States before coming here to realize her dream of trekking to Machu Picchu.

And then there’s Diego Castro Hemala, a Peruvian who has never done a multi-day trek and who has just quit smoking. He confesses he’s a bit nervous on the eve of our four-day, 35-kilometre hike. I wonder, should I be nervous too?

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.