Trek to the last inca city – Vilcabamba, Peru

I set out with a local guide and a mule and a mule-lad to trek to Vilcabamba, the last and lost Inca city located in a distant, hidden valley, a full 3 days of walking remote trails.

First day up a ‘Kashmir’ valley to the Collpaccasa Pass of 3690 metres. There at the top and watching the snowy horizon appear partly but mostly vanish, (unlike views the day before at Vitcos), sat on this pass of sierra tussock, sheltered from freezing wind, smoking sweet weed, path dipping down thru another gorgeous green valley of huts and pastures, ravines and rivers, always those peaks.

First night stayed in a stone-hut of an old woman with tribes of cheeky, food-foraging chooks that she had to constantly shoo-out of the cooking hut, with a fury that said she was tough and insane.

Got drunk the second night, well, in the afternoon, actually as it was pissing down (although it’s winter – the dry season, here), so sheltered in a shack on a hillside, with the grubby owner and my lads, drinking bottles of beer and white rum which we’d fastened onto the mule (cos I wasn’t going to carry litres on my back …). After drinks, the mule’s load got 3 litres lighter. He also carried food, a tent, and packs strapped to his sides.

The mule had that stubborn trait. Whenever we encountered a waterfall, a river or a steam – often, we’d either cross the swing bridge, or a narrow logged-shaft of trunks, or jump rocks; the mule wasn’t able to cross the logged-plank crossings – I admit that I had to crutch on all fours for the crossing of one wobbly one – so the mule needed be urged thru the rocky, rapid-rushing torrent, going steady, very slowly, balancing, then stopping in the middle, before being coaxed by stones from the mule-lad on this bank, only then it would wander across the river to the far side, then stop when it found a suitable snack. He’d many culinary delights: not just lush grass but juicy, crunchy sugarcane and bamboo, and exotic forest stuff. He was full of manic energy, feeling fresh every morning, and after each lunch break, wild, a little uncontrollable at first, raring to go like it was going to sprint the next 10 km uphill … Nutrients, chemicals, drugs; they do strange things to us animals.

Eagles soaring on invisible powers. Shrieking falcons in large, circling flocks. Cicadas ripping the dusk air around me …

Three young girls in dirty, tattered, clothes prepared dinner that second night, boiled cassava, rice, fried eggs as it continued to rain (- their mum was away). Stayed with locals – campesinos, traditional peasants – the entire journey, sleeping on or above – on hammocks – the hard-dirt floors of their stone and later, wooden huts. No hotels; no roads; no electricity.

The sisters, whom whose family I stayed with the second night

Bought tropical fruits from isolated farmsteads as the trail descended into fertile rainforest gorges: yellow-skinned passionfruit, papaya, banana, pineapple. Purified all river/stream water for drinking.

Occasional mule trains laden with sacks – of corn, cocoa, coffee beans – passed us, as we stood aside on the banks of this narrow track on this ancient highway, their neck bells clanging, this caravan of a dozen beasts and a colourfully-clad peasant family heading for market (some days away).

Was walking in a dreamy daze of dope and the significance of the history here, wandering cautiously, below the forgotten Inca forts of Tambo, situated on a razor-edge ridge overshadowing the serious ravine-path drop; here once, Inca soldiers ready in ambush above, with large rolling stones and sling-shot rocks. For for this was the exact route which the Conquistador expedition followed in 1572, on it way to destroying the independent rebel Inca state of Vilcabamba.

What followed was the capture & later the execution of the last Inca (king), 40 years after the initial Spanish arrival in 1532. These actions finally ensured complete Spanish authority over Peru.

The third day was solid up and down again, branching cloud forest, steep rivered ravines – often to cross as we undulated the rainforest slopes, muddy, paths as streams and rock, then a track of dry scrub to shady plateau overlooking Espiritu Pampa (the Plain of Spirits), dark forest hiding the ruins of Vilcabamba, scene surrounded by mountains, valley pierced by biblical late afternoon light.

Espiritu Pampa - Plain of the Spirits - and site of the Vilcabamba ruins. Sessioned there with that last-light-view.

Espiritu Pampa – Plain of the Spirits – and site of the Vilcabamba ruins. Sessioned there with that last-light-view.

Explored the ruins of Vilcambamba the following day, bright-red birds, jungle, some stone terraces and main plaza cleared, but mostly huge trees and greenery over walls of ruined, stone-chunk buildings.

Another joint and a second beer encouraged some – frantic but short-lived – machette clearance action by MRP … later, several bushes and small trees mutilated, a few fresh dings in the blade where I connected with stone, but no, no new ruins found, no lost statues nor no snakes spotted … No ticket office, no rubbish bins, no tourists. No one. (I was alone – but actually, that’s a lie, a young American history student couple who we – me & Rogga, 31, my Quechua guide/cook/smoking partner & big band vocalist – shared a morning joint fwith for 20 minutes of shared-situation-appreciating).

The recently-cleared ruins of the platformed-central plaza of Vilcabamba

The recently-cleared ruins of the platformed-central plaza of Vilcabamba

Truly a lost city, lost from tourism, that is (until they build a road or a heli-pad and by then, I’ll be able to return in my autopilot wheelchair, accompanied by a young, adorable nurse, and slug down cold ones from the nearby panoramic restaurant and reminisce about how it was …).

Next day continued to walk to the nearest road-linked town, Chuanquiri, AKA San Miguel – demanding, as the mule had returned the other way and I now carried my well-loaded daypack, all day, on a sweltering, and undulating trail to finish the trek that evening, having walked some 70-odd km in the last few days.

Fountain spout / water drain within the walls

Stayed in this tranquil town of adobe (mud-brick) houses set around a central field/plaza, on the floor of a simple restaurant, and drunk alotta beer until the next transport out, in the back of a crowded truck the next afternoon that bumped and banged to the lowland town of Kiteni, and all evening more beer, and then the next day came a cramped speedy mini-bus following the wide river back to Quilabamba and eventually, my first shower in a week (icy water on route meant that face and hand and foot washes were really about it but in steamy Quilabamba a cold shower was just fine).

Chatted lovingly with a delightful – married with child – Peruvian female English teacher across the much-delayed bus trip of travelling the snaking snowy high passes back to Cusco, capital of Inca world.

When I returned to Cusco the guesthouse owner said that I needed to accompany him to the Police Station the next day.

Apparently he’d reported me ‘missing’ after 3 weeks away from Cusco (having left my main backpack at his guesthouse and said that I’d be away for a week hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, plans changed and I continued hiking down the valleys and thanks to luck and patience I got further than expected and achieved my Vilcabamba trip). There wasn’t a problem at the station: I spent 15 minutes in the Homicide Section signing a form so that the Police could verify that I was still alive.

Apparently, I am.

MRP experiencing conquistador delusions

> more pics of the trek to Vilcabamba

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