Choquequirao Trek Day 1

Day 1: Start at Cachora (290 0m / 9514 ft) hike to Mirador Capuliyoc (3000 m / 9842 ft) down to Playa Rosalina (1550 m 5085 ft) and then up to Santa Rosa (2125 m / 6971 ft).

Leo decided that he wanted to go to Machu Picchu for our 15th wedding anniversary which I happily agreed to.  And then I basically planned it all. I did go over everything with Leo and he was good with all my plans and helped narrow a few things down.  One of the things I suggested was hiking to Choquequirao instead of doing the more traditional Inka Trek to Machu Picchu.  Mostly I just liked that there were so few tourists that went there and that it was one of the last Inka cities.  Leo was all for fewer people around and so we booked it.  We went with Llama Path--they carried most of our gear, made all the meals, set up the tents, and provided clean water.  It was nice because it was a crazy hard hike.  Our guide, Rosalio, asked us why we picked that hike when he was briefing us about it the night before, and we said less people yada, yada, and he responded, "Are you sure you didn't pick it because it's the hardest one?"  We saw another couple from Belgium on the trail who were backpacking through multiple countries for 5 months and they were carrying everything and the lady was dying. I'm not even joking, I felt bad for her.  We chatted in the evening and she said she would never do it that way again.

Anyway, we got up at 3:30 AM to get on the bus at 4, and then drove to a little town and had breakfast and we were at the trailhead by 8 AM.  The first day was really foggy, and we couldn't really see much, but it was beautiful weather for hiking.  At the beginning Rosalio had a do a Inka ceremony thing with him with coca leaves.  He was kind of intense.  But we went with it.  

And Bronco (the dog) joined us from a store at the trailhead and stayed with us most of the morning.  Later that day he joined another couple and stayed with them the next three days.  







Kind of annoying that Rosalio would take pictures for us but then would tell us to pose like condors or do "sexy llama" hands.  Not mine and Leo's thing after like the fifth time.  I sound kind of sour, but it really was fine, only by the end Rosalio was getting on our nerves a bit (he kind of had a jock attitude--literally started doing push-ups out of the blue in Choquequirao "Got to work my arms since all I've been working hiking here is my legs." etc) It would have been better if we had been in a group tour instead of a private (we asked for a group but Choquequirao doesn't have many tourists....so you win some you lose some) and it was way too much attention for me and Leo.  Awkwardly having to make conversation that long is tiring.  Luckily by the second day we hiked by ourselves mostly.  Yay! 



Rosalio and Leo. 



The food was really good, but there was a ton of it and we felt compelled to try a little of all of it.  We always had a soup and then four plates of food.  It was way too much food for us and with the exertion right after was way too heavy of food.  By the end we were less polite and ate very little.  But it wasn't because it didn't taste good.  









After the bridge on the first day was the hardest part of the trek for me.  I don't know if it was mild altitude sickness but I felt like my lungs and heart were bursting.  I would pause and catch my breathe and four steps later I felt like I couldn't breathe again.  It was not pleasant.  But we made it and I never felt that way again.  Rosalio had given us coca leaves to try chewing which Leo thought was disgusting from the start and I was more indifferent about.  When we started up from the bridge Rosalio gave me more and then I choked on them and felt like I had them stuck in my throat for the next hour which may have contributed to me not feeling so great.  We still had coca tea every morning though.  It tastes just like any other herbal tea, tolerable but I don't understand why people like it.




Our campsite the first night.  There was two little kids that lived in the house (the blue tarp below is a wall of their house) and Leo and I spent happy hour playing with them.  



This is where we had dinner and is also the kids' school.



See, yummy yummy food.  That night we took a brief freezing cold shower in a outdoor bathroom/outhouse where we tried really hard not to let our clothes or ourselves touch anything.  Gosh, I sound so priggish, but it was pretty primitive and I was kind of paranoid after being so sick in South America last time.  And then we collapsed into bed and were sound asleep by 8 PM.