My Favorite Inventories
Everyone will tell you the only authentic way to get to Machu Picchu is by the Inca Trail, a grueling four-day trek over Andean mountains and through verdant jungles, guaranteed to make your nose bleed, your knees ache, and, eventually, your pride swell.
Unfortunately, you have to make a reservation some four to six months in advance, as access to the Inca Trail is limited to something like 2000 people per day. Otherwise, in high season, you'd be standing in line all the way from Cusco to Machu Picchu, and it would take far more than four days.
Well, this reporter is not capable of purchasing a ticket to an event in another country six months later: as it is, I have little knowledge as to where I'm going to be later today.
There are, for slackers like me, a few "second best" ways to get there, including the Salkantay Trail, rated as more difficult than the Inca Trail, or the Inca Jungle Trek, or a combination of mountain biking and hiking, or bus and hike, or taking the train and the bus, eliminating hiking altogether. (Actually, if you wanted to go via skateboard and kite-surfing, a travel agent in Cusco will no doubt arrange that for you.)
According to a friendly Argentinian fellow at my hostel, who became my adviser in all things adventurous, the only way to go was a three-hour mini-bus ride would take me to a little village named Santa Rosa, from which I could hike two or three hours to Santa Teresa, overnight there, then a pleasant two or three hours to Aguas Calientes, the staging area for Machu Picchu, which I could tackle the following day. This route, promised the Argentine, would be inexpensive, easy, and completely independent. This sounded like as good a plan as any.
But first, the minivan: I had to be at the bus station by 6 am, and hustled to get into place in time. Of course, I had forgotten the golden rule of all parts south of the US border: for god's sake, don't hurry! We spent the first 45 minutes of the journey stuffed in the unmoving van, waiting for enough people to want to go to Santa Rosa that day. I thought that since there were already more people than seats, we were adequately filled. I was wrong...
Once we got going, the driver tried to make up time by driving as fast as humanly possible. He made sure the route was cleared for him by honking almost constantly throughout the five-hour trip. I guess his theory was that everyone on the road - other cars, bicycles, pedestrians, cows and alpacas, etc. - would be able to gauge the distance and speed by counting the honks. And get the fuck out of the way...
In order to make the ride more pleasant for the 15 people in the 9-passenger van, the driver blasted his favorite CD on the speakers. And I mean blasted. I dug out my earplugs, which reduced the volume down to 100 decibels or so. The chosen music was of a variety of indigenous music that consists of a three-beat rhythm, a female singer shouting her ass off, and a sort of list. The first song, the shouted lyrics included: "Lima!", "Cusco", "Arequipa!", "Bagua!" and on and on, the names of cities and towns in Peru. Somewhat enlightening, I guess, if you were studying for a local geography test.
The next song, three beats, shouting "Peru!", "Argentina!", "Bolivia!", "Panama!", "Ecuador!", and so on. Again, if there was a test coming, we'd all be ready.
The next song, I swear, three beats, and it was "Cuba libre!", "Pisco Sour!", "Tequila sunrise!", "Martini on the Rocks!" and on and on and on.
I kid you not: shouted inventories in three-beat stanzas for five hours. Even when we took a break on the side of the road, the driver was kind enough to leave the engine running and the music blasting, so that we didn't miss a list.
This helped us take our minds a bit off the furiously fast, reckless driving, on the curvy wet cliffside roads. As a further diversion, I talked the guys in my row to bet on when the woman in front of us, obviously road-sick, was going to begin vomiting. I had "within the hour", the guy to my right had "one to two hours", and the guy to my left had "two plus". (Careening off the cliff was grounds for cancellation.)
The woman kind of cheated, however, when she disappeared into the bathroom for twenty minutes during the rest break. I couldn't convince anyone in my row to ask if she had tossed her cookies in the bathroom, and if so, if she had noticed the exact time...
Hours later, we arrived in the quaint little shithole of Santa Rosa, where the rosa had bloomed long ago, if ever. Having missed breakfast in order to get to the bus on time, I had to eat something, so tried to decide: do I pick the place with the least flies, on the theory that there was better hygiene there, or the place with the most flies, on the theory that the food there must be delicious?
Say what you will about packaged, processed foods, but I would have given my left nut for something in shrink-wrap at that moment...
I ended up picking the place with the quietest music, the shortest inventories... "La Paz!", "Quito!", "Montenegro!"...
After lunch - by the way, I'm no longer a vegetarian or pescetarian, I'm a flyatarian - I was told that in order to get to Santa Teresa, I need to take a ride to the trailhead, to avoid long hours on a narrow dusty road. So I put my fate into the hands of the local Transportation Broker - every little town has one - and she eventually put me with a family in a fully-loaded station wagon. Remember station wagons?
Given that there was no more space in the seating area, I was directed to fold myself into the back with the weekly grocery haul, and to be careful not to squish anything. Sandwiched with the fruit and vegetables, pressed against the window, rocked by every gut and rut in the nasty, rocky, dusty road, I began to wish for the minivan: "Avacado!" "Tomatoes!", "Green Beans!"...
Abruptly, we came to a stop, in the middle of nowhere. I was pried out of the back of the car, trying to hide the squashed grapes and tomatoes stuck to my feet and ass. The driver kindly drew a somewhat complicated map of the trail to Santa Teresa in dust on the back window. Then he wished me luck, got into the car and drove off, the map and any sense of where I was to go disappearing in the dust...
