The Inca Trail- Views on the Trek to Machu Picchu

When I'm in nature and taking in the breathtaking views found on the Inca Trail as we hiked through the Andes mountains, thought leaves my mind and a vast opening and free flowing energy reemerges into my being.

With that in mind, I'm going to keep my thoughts to a minimum and merely allow you to take in the scenery captured in photo and video form below. Enjoy.

the stunning scenery you'll see in the Andes mountains

marking the start of the Inca Trail

Video: A coca plantation + the leaves drying - on the Inca Trail

Video Highlights: from Monkey Thievery to Spectacular Vistas on the Inca Trail in Peru

even more breathtaking when there

Fun video: Crawling up a Steep Cliff with an Amazing Vista - on the Inca Trail in Peru

face painted and high above the river below

fast moving mountain creek behind

that is a manually pulled cable car across the rapids


Video: cable car crossing rapids 

nearing the end of day two's 24km hike

lots of these views

the sheer cliffs add contrast

the river bends to the contour of the mountains

fast flowing rivers and gorgeous scenery along the Inca Trail

traversing the gorge- follow the water

amazing beauty- the Andes

Trekking to a Black Hmong Village through the Mountains

I walk with my Black Hmong guides who have offered to take me to their village. The word “Black” is self-referential as this is the traditional color of their clothing. We stop on the edge of town at a small restaurant, pho is the order.

While I don’t think Vietnamese fare compares taste-wise with Thai or Indian (I find it bland) the diet here is exceedingly healthy, consisting of rice, vegetables, pork, chicken, and some fish, all of it fresh and local. Vietnam has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world standing at 1.7% as of 2008, and that figure falls precipitously in these distant elevations.

My Hmong guide near her village

No Write, No Read

The bit of English my guides know they’ve pieced together from verbal interactions with tourists over the years. In fact, the Hmong tribes have never had a written language of any kind, and last year with the government bringing schools into the region, the current generation of Hmong children will be the first ever to learn to read or write.

Snow the destroyer

We leave town and start trekking up a steep mountain path. I've chosen the worst possible time to visit. Only one week earlier, snow fell in the area for the first time twenty years. While no doubt the children were immensely excited, the trees, not so much.

Many of them lie bowed to the ground, unable to cope with the subfreezing temperatures and snow that recently adorned their branches. Vegetation has perished, unused to such conditions. 

Our path is steep and rocky, but by no means are we climbing K2 in the Himalayas. My guides tell me that the trail is regarded as too tough to traverse by the local tour companies, who prefer the main road on the opposite side of the mountain.

here's what I see winter trekking around Sapa

Hours later, on our descent, I see steps carved into the mountain where in the summer, yellow and green rice stalks spring, adding color and depth to the area. Unfortunately, today there is nothing there but stagnant, muddy, freezing water in their place. Undoubtedly visiting here in the summer would offer more of a visual spectacle.

In this vid, you'll see the rice fields, currently with stagnant water, and a view of a small village nearby

We pass two villages whose pigs, chicken, and ducks are given free reign. There are no predators left in the area to snatch them away, and these creatures won’t run far from the structures which provide them food and shelter.

Economics

Local limestone cliff being excavated for profit

A water buffalo walks by, grunting. I nod at him as he passes. They are used as beasts of burden, helping to plow the fields as they have for thousands of years. Not every family owns one, as it’s an expensive investment of about $1,500 (a year’s salary for some.) Each family works for itself and keeping what it earns, with no mandate to share with their fellow villagers. Vegetables and fruits grown are sold at the Sapa marketplace and their trinkets and clothing are marketed aggressively to any tourist in town.

Building

The path eventually connects with the main road and I see people on motorbikes carrying roofing materials for a new house. Obviously the amount of material a couple of individuals can carry on these roads via bike is a fraction of the total needed, thus making building a house here both labor intensive and inefficient as compared with the machinery and infrastructure available to builders in the west.

Cash crop + spending

Eventually we reach the village of my guides. We’ve walked almost five hours to traverse these ten miles, I sit down with a French couple who smoke the local marijuana they’ve purchased (cash crop). They offer me some, I decline as always. They tell me it works, but it’s not very potent.

I ask my guides whether the government ever makes problems for them over the mari-j. “No, the government doesn’t care what we do here, we never see any government officials.”

I ask what they do with the money they work so hard for. Well, believe it or not one of their biggest expenses is fertilizer, as she points to the bags stacked in the corner. They also use left-over funds for things like building materials/repairs, and Western clothing.

Video: Cute kids, village, and copious amounts of marijuana

Change afoot

A year and a half ago electricity arrived, and soon after cellular access. My guides boast of the advantages, telling me that when there would be a big event such as a wedding they used to have to walk miles to neighboring villages to invite their friends. Today, they are just a click of the button away. Combine that with the new schools, and it’s safe to say this distant region of the world, is slowly but surely being homogenized. One day, maybe 20 years from now, it won't likely be terribly different than any other location on earth. 

Travel will be very different for my children. 

Black Hmong children at play

Trekking Around Kalaw, Myanmar in a Monsoon

I fall asleep to the soothing sound of heavy rain which continues unabated until 6 AM. I rise, and step onto the soggy, padded earth, which sponges most of my momentum, adversely affecting the physics equation as I attempt to hop over a puddle. SPLASH.

My guide and I trek through town, friendly Burmese people smiling and waving hello; here, no soul is unknown. At the edge of the village, two four year old boys race to us, presenting brilliant, red welcoming flowers, the gesture so sweet it warms my heart on this chilly, overcast day.

green vista, few trees

We start ascending the mountain, 5,000 feet above sea level; mile high, explaining what look like deciduous, evergreen trees. 

The chasm in communication formidable, my guide speaks English- very broken.  I decide to keep my questions to a minimum. Most of the trees have been cut down, used for firewood, housing, and now exported as timber; plantations, mainly tea, replacing. Forests remain only on land where the soil is deemed too poor to grow.  

tea plantation, the small trees/bushes

The clouds burst, the power of the torrential rains shocking; drenching me instantly. I slip and slide across the slick, muddy path.  The vistas here are unspectacular, which isn’t much of a loss since my entire focus is needed on the slippery ground in front of me in an all-out effort to stay erect. 

Ten kilometers later, we break at a tiny village with a Nepalese restaurant.  The hot green tea is welcome, and I down several small kettles.  I fill up on bananas, and a couple chapatti.  A group of four Belgians and a Japanese man stop by.  They are going on a three day trek to Inlay Lake, a trip I surely would have been on had I not uncharacteristically planned out my stay in this country in advance. 

We eat outside, sheltered from the monsoon by a thatched roof. Having barely moved for the last half hour, I start to shiver, my body chilled. I see my breath for the first time ever in Southeast Asia. I’m suddenly feel grateful to have chosen the “less adventuresome route” for once.

I take refuge inside, surrounded by the restaurant’s meager collection of pots and pans.  A small fire burns in the room’s center, I warm myself, fruitlessly attempting to dry out my socks.

drying socks over fire

We head out. The steep road morphs into a waterfall, and I expect a mudslide to sweep us away at any moment.  We veer off the road into a remnant of forest, the vegetation absorbing more of the moisture. 

All wildlife here has been hunted out of existence, you'll be lucky to spot a bird.  We trek through the trees for almost two kilometers before we meet up with the main road.

Mud swallows my leg to my knee, which with great effort I remove from the quicksand.  We trudge 8 km through the deluge; our teeth chattering incessantly. 

I think of the soldiers in Vietnam, their descriptions of being in the jungle for weeks at a time, unable to dry out, shoes eternally soggy.  I shudder at the thought, how uncomfortable it must have been. If you wrung out my clothing right now, the water would flood the Sahara.

Slogging slowly through the muck for several hours, at last we make it back to base. I tip my guide and bid him adieu. I remove my dripping shoes and socks, take a warm shower, and throw myself, still shivering, back under the blankets, darkness fleeting, my room being lit by flashes of lightning as I listen attentively to the symphonic monsoon still playing outside.

PD'ing my Princess in Myanmar

Trekking Through Rice and Steep Mountains in Northern Laos

A Japanese nurse unable to identify a prominent leg infection, a woman from South Dakota (where??!) who grew up speaking to the U.S. Presidents on Mount Rushmore (literally), and a tiny, nearly deaf Laotian guide who couldn’t hear thunder if he was struck by lightning, were lucky enough to have me as a last second addition to their trekking group to anchor down the crazy.

Florence Nightagale, Rushmore, and Bellview on the hillside

 

If you were to choose a crack team to head out into the jungle with, we would not be that team.

 The Rice Fields of Asia

A twenty minute boat ride down the river takes us to a trail head. We meander through some trees and enter into a large clearing, a rice paddy that has displaced acres of what was once forested land.

We remove our shoes and begin walking through the muddy water which rises to just below my knees, my feet sinking deep into the sediment at the bottom. I am unable to see below the surface, so I pray there are no water snakes, aqua-spiders, or evil spirits who might become aggravated if stepped on.

Check out the rice paddy, and the big $$ you make working them

We start back through the jungle. Forested land outside the national parks (and sometimes in) are often cultivated, and not just via rice paddies. Blending into the forest are often small teak plantations, generally owned by the country’s wealthier citizens. Teak reaches harvesting maturity at fifteen, the current going price for a tree of this age is an entire $24. Obviously it costs less to transport the trees by car than carrying them out of the forests, which is why the “progress“ of roads will be the death of the few remaining wild lands left on earth.

Lindsey "Rushmore" Pooka amidst the emerald foliage. note the huge leaves

Uphill

The forest re-grows as the incline of the surrounding mountains steepens; removing the hardwoods  becoming unprofitable. Appreciating the surrounding beauty becomes a dicey affair as your entire focus must be your next step, lest you slip and fall on the slick rocks. I’m carrying a heavy backpack, our team’s mule, and my climb becomes especially arduous. I stop and wipe the sweat off my brow in the humidity, gaining a new appreciation for US Marines climbing for days with seventy pound packs.

My shoes offer little grip, the lowlands are no easier as I slip and slide through the mud, my concentration solely on keeping my balance. We come to an impenetrable bamboo forest, thicker only in mosquitoes. There is no choice but to keep moving, as offering them a sedentary target is an invitation for malaria.

Check out the difficult and muddy trek we had!

There is little if any wildlife here, most of it having been hunted out out of existence, just a few birds and a whole lot of bugs. My dream of seeing a wild tiger has worse odds than winning the lottery. Suddenly, a large rustling in the underbrush. We all freeze except for our deaf guide who plods ahead. "Dude, what was that? A tiger?" I shout hopefully after him, but he walks on, the sound waves not recognized by his ear drums.
"So much for seeing a tiger," I lament to my team as the animal hurries away.

Air Rich crosses a stream

The sun is starting to go down, our guide implores us to hurry so we make it to the village before nightfall. My leg above my knee is becoming swollen and hard, an open cut in the jungle having invited in bacteria, my body the host. Florence Nightangale of Japan assures me it’s not an infection. Either she's horrible at her job or she's doing triage, and considers Crazy Lindsey the bigger threat, who's mumbling something about missing her Presidential friends back on Mount Rushmore.

Our guide. This is how we traversed some parts of the jungle

Tired and haggard, we eventually we make it to the village where we’re spending the night. Seventeen and a half kilometers through mountainous jungle, with me carrying a thirty pound pack. I’m exhausted, the only thing I need to sleep comfortably is a mosquito net; fortunately that’s the one thing they have. Darkness falls quickly, there are no lights, and the sounds of the jungle slowly melt together as I drift off into a heavy, and much needed sleep …

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Tiger Trails if you want a guide through Northern Laos these guys were ours.