"You will have a lovely sleep," said our guide the night before, "this is a quiet place, not like Cusco."
We are serenaded, at various points throughout the night by dogs, cats, ducks, tourists, locals shouting to each other as they load their wheelbarrows and open their street stalls in the wee hours, and a brass band which begins to play, with much in the way of pomp and bombastics and a certain enthusiastic overuse of the drums, at approximately five thirty.
Quiet, it is not.
Joined at the start point by a few others from a different group, we are now twelve. Aside from M, I, the indomitable and already much loved Scott, and the impossibly glamorous and athletic Norwegians (they continue to wear full faces of perfect make up throughout the entire hike despite the absence of mirrors or showers, and barely break a sweat, despite carrying day packs at least four times the size and weight of anybody else's. I salute them. I barely remember to brush my hair), we are now joined by a pharmacist (Helen, pseudonym) who manages to be both immensely solid and practical, and really interesting, a lively therapist working with disabled children, (Sally, pseudonym) who lives and laughs with great enthusiasm and abandon and who I see echoes of myself in - and like it, a ridiculously mature and intelligent 19 year old (Gareth, pseudonym) who can slide a witty comment into any situation with his silken tongue, and who is about as far from me at 19 as you can get, and rather more mature and well informed than I am now at 35, a quiet but impressively multi lingual Swiss student (Terry, pseudonym) and an earnest but fun Australian named Peter (pseudonym) who travels for a couple of months every year.
My concerns that we might not bond with our group across the, then largely Norwegian/English language barrier, evaporate quickly. As we begin to walk everybody pairs off with different members of the group, appears fascinated by them, and by the time we take our first full rest stop, we are a giggling bundle of exuberance, in fits of childish laughter because our guide has tried to say, "I smell skunk" but mispronounced it as "skank".
Yes. It hasn't taken much to melt our prim exteriors. I feel rather sorry for our guide, whose English is basically impeccable, especially as this particular moment sticks, and when we are asked to come up with a name for our group, " the Skansters" is all that anyone can come up with.
Our guide, who has the knowledge that we don't yet have, that the name we choose will be iced as a surprise onto a cake magically produced from scratch in the middle of nowhere on the third day of the hike by our incredible chefs, cannot bring himself to say (or ice) this name. He tries, without much success, to make us take a more sensible name, and in the end forceably rechristens us 'the survivors, S. K. S. T. R', the letters being an abbreviation of our oft repeated, much cackled over, chosen name.
They are rather long suffering, these guides.
Apart from happy conversation (we do talk about something other than 'skanksters', including politics, travel, poverty, stupid things we've done, work life balance, the importance of positive attitudes and food, to name but a few), our walk is peppered with information from our guide, who reveals himself as a born story teller.
He shows us the small parasites which cover the cactus plants, that we saw being used as dyes yesterday, which appear as a sort of white fur on the plant. Encasing themselves in a protective white shell, which our guide crushes casually between his fingers, to reveal their effectiveness as a purple ink. I suspect those parasites have some evolving to do to create a rather more effective protection.
He also points out the Saint Peter's Cactus, a tall thin, phallic looking plant growing nonchalantly at the side of the mountain we are gradually winding our way up. This cactus has hallucinogenic properties, but specifically, makes you remember everything from birth to the present day with absolute clarity. It is used by Shamans and those seeking spiritual enlightenment, perhaps to recall truths they once knew as a child but have forgotten through the inevitable crowding in of life experiences, and also, (ironically) as a therapy for drug addicts, making them remember with brutal clarity both the mess and indignities they may have forgotten as the drug wears off, and how happy and healthy they were before they got hooked.
I can certainly see the benefit there, but I find myself wondering if there is actually anything I particularly want to remember. Happy, key or defining moments I have a tendency to remember with great clarity and colour (albeit potentially some of it is added in over time), and bad experiences I would be perfectly happy to forget, thank you very much. I am reasonably confident I have learned enough from the bad points in my life not to need to recall them. Perhaps that's how everybody feels, how the addicts themselves might feel, initially. But I decide not to break off a bit of cactus and chew it, meditatively, on the way up. I don't think I need it. Except, perhaps to remember the word for that thing I can't remember, that is on the tip of my tongue, or to recall the name of that bloke who was in that film about thingummies...
Animals, we are told, that inhabit this landscape, include a humming bird the size of an inch, known as the 'mosquito' humming bird, actual mosquitoes, reminding me vividly, of South East Asia, a bear which is 80% vegetarian, and a small, cat like creature with a long bushy tail and a long nose, known as a Coati.
We stop frequently, to learn these snippets, and to gaze at the view, green mountainsides and cold, jagged, ice covered peaks beneath a yellow and blue sky. It's actually, at this stage, slightly easier going than M and I have found on walks of our own. We never allow ourselves quite so much slack, and tend not to pause or rest on the way.
"This is nice," we say to each other, selecting another packet of chocolate biscuits from the bulging snack pack with which we have been provided, "we should walk like this more often."
We stop at another Inca ruin and marvel at the length of time that the existence and whereabouts of Machu Picchu had been kept secret from the conquering Spanish, with Inca men and women never breathing a word of it, even those who had married with Spanish partners. A feat of integrity it was (I could not do it), but considering the destruction generally wreaked by the Spanish over Incan settlements, particularly those with religious significance, the melting down of gold statues and erection of churches on top of what remained, I can't say I am actually all that surprised.
Our guide tells us that there are two ways to Machu Picchu. The easy way, down through a pass between two mountains, and the hard way, up and over the imposing mountain currently towering over us far in the distance. The ancient people travelled to their religious centre only by one way, the mountain. It was a pilgrimage, a sacrificing of self and comfort in honour of the mountain, which was considered a sacred being to the Incas, a manifestation of God. It was important to suffer, to subjugate oneself to the majesty and power embodied by that mountain, and to do so, the people would carry large rocks to enhance the difficulty of the path they were choosing. It is a metaphor made physical, and it makes a lot of sense. Many world religions, including Christianity, include an image of a narrow, versus a wide path, the former being the only true way to their God.
"This is your moment," says our guide, "to choose your stone. Find one that speaks to you, and we will carry it with us and lay it at the top of the mountain, as part of our pilgrimage to the sacred city."
I spend some time choosing my stone. Eventually I find one, a largish reddish, uneven form with white flecks, which is smooth and warm in my hand.
"This one," I say, "it feels right. It just feels like my stone. I think it's the one I was meant to have."
M is equally earnest, holding reverently a huge pinkish rock the size of a brick.
"It chose me." He says.
We realise suddenly that everyone else, having chosen the smallest pebbles they could, is looking at us with some incredulity.
I have a practising faith, and am familiar and comfortable with the metaphors of sacrifice and reverence, of effort as worship, of the mountain as a work of fine art by my God. I don't know what M's excuse is.
We put our stones carefully into our bags and continue our walk, breaking for a delicious and freshly cooked lunch, before finally reaching our camp for the night.
We have been walking on relatively gently inclined paths for a total of six hours. It's been fairly easy. The views have been beautiful, and remain beautiful from our camp. Tomorrow will be a tougher climb, only four hours walking but up steep and narrow paths to over four thousand metres above sea level. Tomorrow we will earn our status as pilgrims, and our stones will seem significantly heavier.
Before bed though, it's time to meet the porters.
We have twenty two porters, roughly two per hiker. They carry twenty five kilogrammes each on their backs, composed of gas cylinders, food and cooking equipment, eating tents, sleeping tents and our individual luggage which is capped at 6 kilogrammes per person. They carry this load, which is bulky and uncomfortable, all the way through the hike, and they do it at a speed which ensures they arrive at camp or at our lunch venues before we do, whereupon they proceed to set up tents, help the two chefs to cook lunch, boil water and then take it all down again when we are finished with it. It is a gargantuan and seemingly superhuman effort, requiring a fitness, especially up hill and at altitude, which I am amazed at any normal person possessing. Our guide tells us that every year there is a marathon, composed of this track which was won, last year, by a former porter. If anyone is suffering for the mountain, it is the porters. Even M's stone seems puny in comparison. Half way through the day the porters pause once, to drink Chicha. Normally far more alcoholic than this, because it ferments for longer, the Chicha drunk by the porters on the Inca trail is only 4% alcohol, but is required for its sugar content.
Now, already amazed and humbled by the work undertaken by these slight looking men, (who, unbelievably, clap US as we enter camp), we learn each porters name, age and occupation (nearly all are farmers, who do this work in the months when they are not needed to carry out seasonal work on their land.) We introduce ourselves to them, those of us that can, in Spanish, and then fall like comparatively undeserving vultures, on our dinner.
I float towards a suitable bit of foliage in which to brush my teeth before bed, under a beautiful clear, starlit sky, loving this trip, this trek, this landscape and wondering at how lucky I am to experience it.
And then I stop suddenly, give a little squeak of surprise - and throw up violently all over the grass.
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