Blog 6: Coming Down from a High

16 November 2023

So there I was, at my Holy Grail, the Sun Gate at Inti Punku. I'd dreamed of it so long I welled up as the sun set on the mountain and the shadows started to grow in the valley. I had the whole site to myself for a good half hour. Then an English couple arrived and began setting up camp on the Sun Gate itself. Highly illegal, and very disrespectful, everything I'd read said that was tantamount to camping on Uluru. Still, it was comforting to know there were other people about.

I was now cold and drenched with sweat, and figured it was too windy on the summit to camp. There was no way I'd make it back to the camping ground in daylight, and it was too dangerous to attempt the path at night. If nothing else, there was a good chance I'd have trouble finding it in the dark. There was also no way I would be going back to my tent, as it would mean getting lost again, on the wrong side of the chasm.

There was nothing for it but to bed down on my lye-low and hope that my 'life-saving' sleeping bag would live up to its advertising hype. It was one of those lightweight metallic sleeping bags - super light, super compact and, supposedly, super warm, using your own body heat to keep you warm. I chose a spot in the grass down from the crest of the hill and outside of the sacred area; I'd had a taste of lying in the grass on the way up, and it seemed quite insulating. I used the light in my beanie to get myself some food and have a drink, pumped up my lye-low, changed out of my wet clothes and bedded down for the night. It was about 6.30pm.

It was the most uncomfortable night of my life. Yes, the sleeping bag insulated me a little from the cold, but it also insulated my body breath and sweat, and within 10 minutes I was soaked with condensation. It categorically didn't keep me warm - alive perhaps, but not warm and certainly not comfortable. The only way I could be warm at all was to use my breath for warmth and move my legs about.

Which I did ALL NIGHT. Sleep was not even remotely possible, so I played a game where I counted down 15 minutes and checked on my watch if I was right. I set a target to celebrate at midnight, as then I'd only have 4 hours to wait to pack up and start heading off. The air was sickly sweet with the pungent and distinctive smell of the grass; a smell that remained in my nostrils and affected my taste for almost a week afterwards. At about 10.00 I looked out and saw the stars - the Southern Cross was up there and the stars were bright. But without my breath to warm me, I was soon shivering again, so I didn't look for long.

Later in the night when I peeked out I could see lightening. There was no thunder, just flashes of light as mists and clouds swirled about the mountains. I wondered if it was going to rain. It did at one stage, but only lightly and only for 5 minutes.

By midnight I was so cold and already wet that I put all my drenched clothes back on and got back in the sleeping bag. That helped a little, but the night was getting colder by then, so not much.

Then the mist came. By 2.00am it was so dense I could see the mist inside my sleeping bag! Looking outside with my beanie light, I could only see white, not even my hands.

Finally, 4.00am arrived. I packed everything up in deep mist and wondered if it was safe to start walking. It was. Only a few meters down the track the mist thinned a little and I could see the path clearly. There were no treacherous drops next to the path for the first kilometre, as it was on top of a ridge, so I made my way carefully and safely. A glow appeared on the horizon, and pretty soon there was light filtering through the fog. Dawn had arrived.

I get lost again

I ate my breakfast and drank my remaining water, then found myself at the unmarked section again. This time I used Google Maps to guide me to the path, but it led me uphill through scrub and bush and kept indicating that I was near the path, without the path ever becoming visible. After half an hour of scrambling around, my lye-low fell out of my backpack and tumbled down a rockface. See ya, I said, relieved not to have the weight.

I finally decided Google Maps had no idea, and the best option was just to head down hill, whatever way I wanted. The fog cleared and I could see the valley again - waaaaaay down thousands of meters. I'd wanted the trip down to be easy, but it was a strain on my knees, given the incline and the distance.

Pretty soon I found a path and was relieved when I saw a hiker coming up the other way. He was a Polish guy in his 20s and he had a unicycle under his arm. He told me he was going to unicycle down to Olly from the Sun Gate, and I figured I will never know how that went. Then a little later I encountered a German guy. We spoke briefly and he registered surprise when I said I'd been to the top. 'Most Australians are too lazy to go to the top' he said with German frankness. I left that statement there.

After an eternity I rounded a bend and realised the valley floor was still hours away. And I couldn't see Ollantaytambo. Clearly I was on the longer path that the hotel owner had saved me from on the way up.

By now the sun was coming out and the fog was rolling away, creating magnificent scenes in every direction. I heard singing and cowbells ringing around the hills Hedie-style and realised that the herdswomen (the job seems to fall to women up there) were droving their cattle around, possible collecting them for milking. I never saw them close up - they would disappear or hide, then reappear in the distance after I'd passed.

Scenery to take your breath away

I was thoroughly enjoying the scenery, but steadily getting exhausted and dehydrated. Then I hit the Incan Quarry site, which I knew was a feature of the longer path up to Inti Punku. It was interesting for a nano-second, but I began to get annoyed when I realised the path was taking me up and down and out of my way to all the different quarries. I still couldn't see Olly, and I still felt a long way up. I'd been walking since 4.00am and it was now 8.00am.

OK, so the Incans invented the wheel, I was saying to myself at this stage.

Then I hit the stairs. Hallelujah I thought, at last I'm going to lose some elevation.

I was right, but the stairs were made of stone, roughly knee-height all the way down and there were thousands and thousands of flights of them. I navigated down using my walking sticks and walking around them where I could, thinking there was no way I would've been able to climb up this many stairs the day before. After an hour or so the stairs petered out a little and I was down closer to the valley floor. I still had several hundred meters to go to get down, but at least I could hear cars and the river and human sounds again.

But I still couldn't see Ollantaytambo. It took another hour of walking on a fairly level path to get to where I could even see where Olly was, over the river rapids that separated the town from the side of the valley I was trekking on. I was now seriously dehydrated.

By the time the town DID finally come into view, I was almost hallucinating for want of water. But despite everything there were a couple of hurdles yet to go.

The valley floor. Nice view, but how to get down there. I walked for hours at this level.

Pablo and his pick

When I finally drew level with Olly on the other side of the riverbank, about 50 meters down, it suddenly occurred to me that the Incan Bridge, the start of the Inti Punku trail, may not actually be in Ollantaytambo. I couldn't see a river crossing anywhere near the town, and I sat on a rock and began to seriously despair.

It was at that point a middle-aged Spanish man emerged from somewhere. He was carrying a pick and was followed by a small dirty mutt. I said Hola and he began talking to me in Spanish. I asked as best I could 'Where is the Incan Bridge', and he gesticulated along the river and somehow let me know it was 2 kilometers away. But he was quite aggravated, he was trying to tell me something else. I heard the word 'cascada'. I thought maybe he was going to kill me with his pick in which case I was ready and just wanted him to get it over with. He grumpily followed me along the path, unhappy that I had no Spanish.

Then we turned a corner and I realised what he was on about. There'd been a landslide across the path. He was coming along to clear it. The good news was that I could also see the Incan Bridge in the distance.

At this stage we exchanged names. His name was Pablo, his dog's name was Chiqua (or something). He got me to sit on a tree trunk with Chiqua while he picked his way through the landslide. It was mostly light grey shoal from the moraine deposits in the area, and it wasn't particularly hard work for him to improvise a path over it. When he had finished it and tested it, I walked over it easily. We then chatted happily all the way to the bridge, neither of us understanding a word the other said. I gave him some coins for helping me, he did a fist pump and a handshake and wandered off smiling.

Then I walked triumphantly over the bridge, rang the hotel and got a tuk tuk to come and get me. I was delivered to the hotel, where I drank 2 litres of water, went to my room, took all my gear off and slept for 6 hours.

Pablo and his pick. He asked me to take quite a few action shots for HIS phone as well as mine. I noticed that he had no other photos in his gallery and the phone appeared to belong to someone else. But hey, not for me to ask questions.