The Lares Trek

Days Ten, Eleven, & Twelve - Peru - 2022

Probably the most candid travelogue I’ll ever write.

1. Lares Trek #1

Denial.

Not but an hour into the Lares Trek and I wasn’t having it. I was moving, I was certain of it -I could feel every muscle and sinew do its job- but it felt like I was standing still.

What the hell was going on? I’m not the fittest guy, I’ll admit, but I hike … actually, quite a lot. Like, a couple hundred kilometers a lot. Despite it only being early spring where I live, I had already hiked a hundred kilometers or so already that year. So preparation wasn’t the problem.

Was it the sickness? I was back to eating solid food, but the fact remained that I had a stomach virus and I was fighting from behind on calories and fluids. I spent an uncomfortable amount of time in the, frankly, revolting restroom of the Mercado Modelo market in Calca that morning. This was no doubt a factor. But I was moving well, I felt pretty good, and I didn’t have any signs of dehydration.

Was it the altitude? We started the trek in Lares at 3,200 meters / 10,500 feet. But we had acclimatized for several days now -to include time in Cusco, which is actually higher up!- and I was on altitude sickness medication. I wasn’t breathing hard, either.

Very quickly I fell to the back of the pack. And as we climbed gently up the river valley outside of Lares, I’d periodically catch a glance of the group leaders as I crested the small hills the trail was draped upon. They were ahead. Like, really far ahead.

By this point, I had one of the trekking guides along side me as a sort of minder.

2. Lares Trek #2

Soon, my minder was really getting on my nerves. I realize that you need to have someone at the back of the queue to make sure you stay on track, but … it literally was a dirt track, surrounded by a mountain on one side and a river on the other. If you went off the trail here, it would be quite an accomplishment. So why was this guy riding my ass? I felt like a prisoner in the yard with the warden.

3. Lares Trek #3

Before long, my minder grabbed a stick from the scrub alongside the trail and began swatting it against his leg. I realize this was probably to swat flies away, but damn was it demotivating. It really kept my focus off the scenery around me, which -despite the heavy fog- was stunning. I’d stop to snap a photo every now and then, much to the chagrin, I’m sure of the guide.

Soon we arrived at a home where we ate a very pleasant warm meal and had a chance to fill our water bottles. There was even a flushing toilet, which -thankfully- I did not break.

I looked at my comrades who didn’t even seem remotely phased by our walk. Our pre-trek briefing said the hike to the lunch location would take about three hours; I did the stretch in about two. So I couldn’t help but wonder: how fast were they?

4. Lares Trek #4

After lunch, we had about 4 kilometers / 2.5 miles remaining until our overnight campsite in Cuncani. We had two hours to make the trek. After setting off, I settled in at the back once again. I thought I was going at a pretty good pace, and I still felt pretty good. The path was well-maintained and well-worn dirt without many obstacles, and I felt I was moving at a pretty good pace. I really couldn’t understand this at all.

Probably the worst thing I could have been told was that I had taken an hour-and-a-half to reach the campsite. “You were moving at a good pace,” the minder said as we came into Cuncani. “But they are very fast.”

The rest of the squad was fast. I knew it, and he knew it. So why was he busting my balls? Maybe I wasn't the problem. Why should I be held to an unrealistic standard?

5. Lares Trek #5

After settling in and washing up, I purchased a beer from one of the locals selling cold ones nearby (prescription medicine-induced liver damage be damned! I earned it!) and enjoyed it in the campsite’s dining building along with my fellow trekkers. Soon it was dinnertime, and we had another amazing meal prepared by the trek’s support crew. Shortly thereafter, I retrieved the small bottle of scotch I packed into my portered bag and settled down to play a peculiar card game whose rules I can’t begin to describe. For the first time in many days, I felt relatively normal. No, today was a hiccup and by the time I’d wake up in the morning, everything would be fine.

The evening weather in Cuncani was moody, with the thick fog diffusing the light from the nearly-full moon across the landscape to create a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in a film-noir. I did my best to capture the mood of Sirihuani mountain on-camera, and I think it is very telling this photograph is not in black-and-white. I soon settled into bed and got some restful sleep, no doubt courtesy of the scotch.

6. Lares Trek #6

Anger.

At the risk of making my retelling of the events of the second morning more complicated, I’ll give you the short version. The trekking crew was concerned that I would continue to lag behind the rest of the group and insisted on taking the bulk of the camera equipment I had brought along (which -to be clear- consisted of a wide-angle lens, a spare battery, and a small case of SD cards) to porter. While I tried to impart that not carrying these items -which maybe weighed a kilogram / two pounds- was not going to make any appreciable difference, I relented. As it turns out, I had dropped a second spare battery I intended to carry on my person in the tent, and my primary battery -which I had left in the camera overnight- was, unbeknownst to me, dead from the cold.

Flash forward to our departure after another wonderful meal (I cannot praise the trek’s cook staff enough!), and I was again tracking behind the group. This was the longest and hardest day of the trek, and we had to make it over Abra Pumahuancajasa (Pumahuanca Pass), the high point of the trek at 4,750 meters / 15,600 feet, and I knew the pressure was on. Trust me, I was pushing about as hard as I could.

Then my minder said it. “You’re going to have to try and keep up with the group today.”

Man, this shit really teed me off. “Try?” The fuck he mean, try? Was he implying I wasn’t?

I stopped, turned, stared, and said plainly: “I’ll get there when I get there.”

Some people are motivated by little pep talks like this, but he had me confused for someone else.

After saying to myself, “Fuck it, I’ll take my goddamn time if I want,” I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the broad valley before Sirihuani. I removed the cap, flicked the switch, looked through the viewfinder only to see … nothing. I looked down at the camera pointlessly, as I already knew what had happened. I then patted my shirt pocket where the spare battery should be. Nothing.

Not thirty minutes in and I was already done with the day. Bullshit battery nonsense, bullshit pacing, bullshit motivational speeches. The words from the pre-trek briefing a few days prior filled my head: “On the Lares Trek, you can go at your own pace.” A wave of rage hit me. I’m sure it was the sum total of being frustrated looking up at my peers gliding up the hill in the distance, being frustrated at my body letting me down over the last week, being frustrated at myself for losing a battery … and for handing over the others in the first place (“I’m better than that!”)

The word came out as loud as I could scream it. “FUCK!” surely filled the entire valley. If the town of Cuncani wasn’t already awake, they were now.

The only silver lining: at least the crew who had my camera batteries would surely catch up to me soon! A comforting notion….

“Sand bagging” isn’t one of those phrases you find in Webster’s Dictionary. That’s some straight Urban Dictionary shit: to deliberately perform at a lower level than you are capable of. And, boy, was I in the mood for some sandbagging until I got my battery back, which -obviously- I did not far away from Cuncani.

7. Lares Trek #7

Anger is perhaps the ultimate emotion because it can be an absolute motivator and absolute demotivator at the same time. Put less colorfully: rage takes energy.

Before long, I was passed by the trekking support crew and the donkeys. So then it was just me and my minder at the back of the queue once again.

I saw in the distance the lead guide and the frontrunners of the group coming to a stop for a rest at an overlook of Sirihuani. Before too, too long I joined them. And what happened?

8. Lares Trek #8

The group was instructed to take off immediately….

9. Lares Trek #9

I’m not blaming my cohorts for wanting to move on, and honestly I feel bad they were being held up at my expense. But the more I thought about it (and, when you are alone with nothing but your thoughts, you have lots of time to dwell on things), this was a dumbass strategy. And there’s a reason every sensible trekking group lets the slowpoke set the pace: there is no risk to the group’s collective pace if you let the slowest member lead as everyone will arrive at the terminus at the same time; however, if you try and push the slowest person to keep up with the fastest, that person -and by extension, the group- is just going to increasingly get slower and slower.

The higher I climbed out of the valley, the more this idea weighed on me and the more vexed and sullen I became.

As I stared off joylessly at the Terijuay Massif now peaking out in the distance, I realized:

“I just want this to be over.”

10. Lares Trek #10

Bargaining.

This was no longer a quest for fun, to crib a line from National Lampoon’s Vacation. This was now a matter of mental and physical survival. Everyone’s dream vacation….

I became convinced: all I had to do was to reach the top of the pass and everything would be fine. “It’s all downhill after that, isn’t it?”

11. Lares Trek #11

Upwards I trudged, every fiber of my being dedicated solely to the task of reaching the top of the pass. But when you become hyper-focused -particularly when your brain is deprived of oxygen- you lose perspective. I realize now that I was walking through one of the most beautiful landscapes I had ever walked through, and I am thankful I had the wherewithal to use taking photographs as a built-in excuse to take a breather.

I won’t belabor the point any longer, so here are four additional photographs from my walk up the pass.

12. Lares Trek #12

13. Lares Trek #13

14. Lares Trek #14

15. Lares Trek #15

16. Lares Trek #16

Depression.

It took about five hours to make the climb from Cuncani to the top of the pass, the last two hours of which I spent as a man possessed, trudging upwards a couple dozen meters at a time, endlessly. Upon reaching the top, I could see the broad expanse of the Sacred Valley beneath me. I was on top of the world, and I felt. I felt.

I felt nothing.

No real sense of accomplishment, no elation, no joy. I should have been thrilled, but … I wasn’t.

17. Lares Trek #17

A very dark feeling crept over me. I had overcome obstacle after obstacle after obstacle to get to that exact moment and that exact place. And somewhere deep inside I knew this was a spectacular achievement and I should be content to have done it. And, yet - nothing. What did it all mean?

18. Lares Trek #18

As we began our way down the mountain, we walked further and further into the deep chasm; one rimmed by perpetually growing slopes but itself never seeming to grow shorter. Time didn’t even really matter anymore. The end of the journey had no significance to me any longer.

Arriving near our lunch spot well past lunchtime (the shed in the above photograph), I made across the boggy meadow and ever closer to much-needed food for my tortured stomach and absolutely-needed water for my long-past-empty water bottle. Within striking distance of these comforts, my hiking pole fell into a particularly deep but well-hidden patch of peat and it sunk about halfway up the shaft. Simultaneously, my foot came down into the bog, and -with my body weight transferred from the pole to my leg- my ankle rolled about 45-degrees. Thrusting my body weight forward again, the pole bent to about a 30-degree angle; fearful it would snap, I let go of it and fell onto my side … and into a gigantic pile of camelid shit.

“What a perfect metaphor,” I thought.

19. Lares Trek #19

After lunch, I crept onwards. I didn’t have to tell the trekking staff about my ankle - the guides, the porters, and the cooks all watched it happen. In near-constant pain, I somehow managed to move even slower than I did uphill, much to the chagrin, I’m sure, of the staff and my cohorts. The path on this side of the pass was covered in rocks, and I winced each time my foot came down on one. Death by hundreds of thousands of pebble-sized cuts.

I could tell the guides wanted to pass me up. And, thankfully they eventually did, finally leaving me to move at my own speed.

20. Lares Trek #20

21. Lares Trek #21

22. Lares Trek #22

I finally reached the campsite just after sundown. I don’t know how far behind I was behind the rest of the group, but telling by the fact that most of them had changed and unpacked their gear by that point, I’d venture an hour.

I don’t have much recollection of what happened after I arrived, admittedly, but I can only imagine I was distant, sullen, and generally unpleasant to be around.

I do remember this much: one of the members of the trek asked me during tea time before dinner, “You set out to do something and you did it - don’t you feel a sense of accomplishment?” I don’t think I gave an answer.

But, honest truth was … I didn’t feel any sense of accomplishment at all. I stuck a mental pin in this thought as my survival instinct kicked in and said, “Go eat, shit, and fix your ankle. Preferably in that order and certainly not at the same time.” I obliged.

23. Lares Trek #23

Acceptance.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a big astrophotographer, so anytime I am someplace dark I can’t resist the opportunity to snap some photographs.

Moonlight complicates astrophotography and obviously traveling to South America around the Blood Moon made my nighttime hobby a bit complicated. The first night of the Lares Trek was cloudy, as mentioned, so imagine my elation that night two was relatively clear and would remain moonless for about an hour.

I figured I’d just start snapping pictures and when I got back I’d layer them all together and see what I got.

Astrophotography is catharsis for me. It is mechanical, intellectual, technical, emotional, and -most of all- peaceful. If you ever want to have an honest conversation with yourself, go to the middle of nowhere in the dead of night in a void of light and sound. And, so I found myself, alone at the far end of the grassy field at our second night’s campsite.

I wasn’t too far removed from the guide’s bombshell revelation that the tourist train that was to transfer us the following day from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes was on strike and we’d have to walk about eleven kilometers / seven miles from some place called Hidroelectrica to Aguas Calientes. When the rest of the group reacted dejectedly to the news, I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

This meant we’d need to get up an extra few hours early, take an extra circumlocuitous route to Hidroelectrica, and then slay this bonus hiking experience. I have a theory the guide and trekking team already knew of the closure (or, at least the possibility) as we had hike about an hour further than planned to a campsite nearer the terminus. Good news for me, this valley would be excellent at blocking out the moon and we had the whole place to ourselves. Sometimes, things just work out, I guess….

Regardless, I knew I wouldn’t have much time for photos because sleep was going to be a valuable commodity. I set up shop and fired off a series. I don’t know what I was photographing (I don’t know the Southern Hemisphere sky at all), but the valley only pointed in one direction which made my decision making real easy.

I had the opportunity to ponder the events of the last few days. I recalled what had transpired, and as best I saw it I had 1) let my trek mates down, 2) let the trekking crew down, and 3) let myself down. I don’t like letting people down, least of all myself, and I considered that I let this frustration manifest into an unhealthy anger that was ultimately depriving me of the joy of exploration.

Clouds began to move into the frame. “Oh, well,” I thought. “I’m not in charge of the clouds.” After all, why should some clouds ruin my evening? Clouds come and go, in time.

But why don’t the clouds bother me, but yet I’ve spent the last few days letting things I can’t ultimately control -a stomach virus, a twisted ankle, rocks on the trail, falling into shit, my age, the zeal of my travel companions- get the better of me?

I am what I am, and -just like this photograph- I am filled with flaws. In both cases, some of these flaws are the result of things I can control, and some of them the result of things I cannot. But in the aggregate, even imperfection can net positivity.

I was done concerning myself about the things I could not control.

Sometimes life needs to kick your ass to teach you a lesson.

———

The following morning, we woke before sunrise to collapse camp and rendezvous with our bus in Pumahuanca. We had an exceptionally narrow window to get onto the dirt road which connected the main highway with Hidroelectrica and if we were late, there was no Plan B for getting to Machu Picchu. The pressure was on.

Like a man possessed, I took off down the valley. I could feel my ankle straining under each errant step upon a rock, but as there was nothing to be done about it I pressed onwards. I am proud to say that the group arrived some twenty minute before the bus, and -for once- I was not last.

The bus ride to Hidroelectrica was interesting, to say the least. The highway section -from Pumahuanaca to the town of Quintalpata- was a switchback-filled jaunt on a road with steep drop-offs on either side. To make matters worse, a blanket of fog filled the entire valley and there were points the driver couldn’t see but a few meters in front of him. Still (still!) stricken with my stomach virus, the whiplash of the bus navigating the corners of the roadway at speed was too much for me, and -rather than share with the group what I had for breakfast- I put my head down and tried my best not to think about it.

The second part of the journey was on a dirt road which had strong Top Gear Death Road vibes to it. Okay, it wasn’t that bad … but still, it was a dirt road with no guardrails and a very steep, very long drop down to a river on one side. The road was under construction (ironically, the reason for the train strike as the road is being reengineered to provide an alternative route to the monopolistic tourist railroad to Machu Picchu), and there was heavy equipment moving and parked everywhere. The frantic caravan of buses to Hidroelectrica -who all had been given a one-hour window for passage by the construction crew- complicated the situation by throwing up a blinding wall of dust - how our driver navigated through this, I will never know.

I loving referred to the experience as the “Bus of Death”.

Arriving at Hidroelectrica, we were given very simple instructions: hike along the railroad tracks until you see the warning sign for the underground tunnel, then stop.

I took off, not ceasing (even to take a photograph, uncharacteristically) until I reached the sign. I was content having reached the peace with myself the night before. I reached the sign in just over two hours. And for once I damn near enjoyed it.

Stumbling into Aguas Calientes, we checked into our hotel and I took what can only be defined as an epic shower. Regrouping for dinner, we were informed that the train strike had not been resolved and there was a very real chance that we would have to hike back to Hidroelectrica. We instantly realized this meant that we wouldn’t be getting back into Cusco until at least 11PM, if not later.

But we were showered, in clean clothes, had a restaurant meal in our bellies, and would sleep on a proper bed that night. My thoughts turned to our Inca Trail cohorts, likely unaware of this possibility. They’d be getting up at 3AM in a tent the following morning, hike to the Sun Gate, visit Machu Picchu, then hike eleven kilometers more, and then not even be able to get a shower until around midnight. Bummer.

After being fucked by fate the last few days, I saw a golden opportunity to put it in a no-win situation - a Kobayashi Maru of destiny, if you prefer. “If we don’t have to take the Bus of Death tomorrow, I’ll buy everyone a round of drinks at the bar.” My thinking was simple: I could get screwed by a gigantic bar tab, or I could get screwed by having to deal with the hike and (more alarmingly) the bus. But not both.

Your move, predestination.

Comments? Recommendations? Questions?
Let us know.