Returning to Peru to spend time with a shaman and his family after a glorious group tour 6 months earlier, I imagine … the sun shining, magnificent ruins, circular terraces, the mountains calling, learning more about the Incan way of life … everything wonderful.
The universe has other plans
Our intent is to walk the Choquekirao trail, a 5 day trek to Machu Picchu. Setting off early from Cusco in an old van loaded up to the gunnels with goodness knows what, we begin a 3 hour drive to our starting point. After an hour’s drive, suddenly we’re stopped in our tracks by a massive landslide blocking the entire road. The scene is surveyed; the shaman decides this might just be a sign from the Gods … to stop! I ask ‘what now?’ I’m told ‘plan B’ and can’t help but see a nervous smile …I sense there is no Plan B.
No plan B!
With panic rising in my throat, I can barely swallow. All I see is rain and mud, squelchy rain and mud. I pray…’please God, let us turn round and go home’. I have no idea where we are and I really didn’t know these people.
Over the next 2 weeks, I find myself sleeping alone in a tent at high altitude wearing every item of clothing I carried, I was cold, afraid, I had to keep warm … I had the shaman teaching me about giving thanks to Pachamama …making offerings to ancestors… I sleep in a cave. How had it all come to this, I asked?
Every day felt like a challenge, a new adventure to tackle.
This was so different to my first visit with a small group when we stayed in smart hotels. This was new, a huge adventure travelling solo, and it was tough.
We drive to Ausengate (one of Peru’s most sacred mountains), the road strewn with rocks …stay at a hostel … the fire made from cow-dung and guinea pig pooh, mamma using a pipe to breathe life into it. We meet children who are dirty and snotty … and beautiful. We meet people who at first sight appear to have nothing and share what they have with an open heart.
At Machu Picchu, the rain forest is an explosion of so many shades of green. We climb Huayna Picchu, a mountain rising high above Machu Picchu. The climb is dangerous, the steps slippery, I find myself gripping a handrail … until there is none. I’m really not sure I can do this, I want to cry, however there’s no turning back. The shaman to my amazement is walking in bare feet. The views over Machu Picchu are misty and surreal, jaw-dropping. We made it!
This was a trip that didn’t turn out how I thought, there was nothing I could control, all I could do was be with the environment I was in and be with myself.
We never know what will happen on a journey. Travel expands who we are as people and, when things don’t go as planned, sometimes you will surprise yourself…you may just find that you’re braver than you think.