Jacks birthday

A trip to Pisac and the Sacred Valley

My 28th birthday started on the dance floor of a salsa club, just off the Plaza de Armas, opposite the cathedral in Cusco. The lights were off, the lazers were on, had the club procured a smoke machine, my memory was certainly hazy, and the DJ was blasting “Gasolina” by the venerable Daddy Yankee. All pretence that we (certainly I) had been putting on for possessing a sense of rhythm and style was replaced by jumping up and down and madly pumping arms with reckless abandon along to Spanish language club bangers. It was a memorable start.

The next morning, after stooping under the door frames and boiling some water for a morning cuppa in the slightly pokey Cusco airbnb, we split off for the day ahead. The early risers, Hocko, Laura, Hamish, Teancum and myself were heading off to a breakfast spot I had been eyeing off since my run around Cusco the morning before, with a lovely balcony over a cobblestone street near the aqueduct. Stella, Ella, and Daniel would grab a taxi and meet us on the other side of town to get the Collectivo for the day’s activity.

After walking across town, we found that the target coffee shop had a broken coffee machine, so after taking in the balcony view for a fleeting moment, we headed off in search of another place. The place we found had a lovely courtyard tucked in off the street, and we enjoyed a decent cappuccino and debriefed about the night before and compared how little sleep we each had - a familiar ritual by this point of the trip. I had a brilliant Peruvian take on smashed avo with poached eggs (call it Peruvian because the avo had some spices on it).

We then walked another 30 minutes across town to our rendezvous point, a collectivo departure area to Pisac. I knew that we were at the agreed meet up place when I was accosted by very animated lady on the street asking if I wanted to go to Pisac. As we hadn’t seen Stella, Daniel, and Ella at this point I turned her down and kept on walking. No sooner had this happened then a taxi rolls up with our remaining crew inside and without breaking stride, our collectivo hawker gets Daniel out of the taxi and into the waiting collectivo on the other side of the road. Talk about converting the sale!

Our collectivo took around 45 minutes to get into the town of Pisac nestled in the “sacred valley” formed by the Urubamba River. This river was considered sacred by the Incas, and the area is rich in agriculture and the accompanying Incan ruins. One such ruin was the mountain fastness we were visiting which looms high above the modern town of Pisac, 500m above the valley floor on a knife-edge ridge. Now most tour groups take the road up the valley and around to the back of the archaeological site. But not us. It was my birthday wish that everyone should climb the 500m on 2km to the ruins.

Like all sensible hikers we began our climb at midday after purchasing our tickets at the office at the bottom of the hill. Spirits were high after I dangled the possibility of getting the taxi owing to my lack of sleep and general lethargy after getting off the collectivo. But no, we weren’t going to half arse it. We slowly made our way up.

“We love and respect your ideas, Jack”

“I am so glad that I am halfway up the hill and cannot wait to do the second half”

Once we reached the top, we were treated with some really awesome ruins, and we were the only people there! Good things come to those who slog up 500m hills.

The first emergence of my pose of the trip. Patent pending.

We stopped at the top to enjoy a much needed water break and to get stuck in to some bread. It wasn’t just any bread though, it was sweet potato bread that we had picked up from a bakery down in Pisac. Ella had then had the magnificent foresight to buy some butter and Daniel had bought some local honey. Together it created the greatest hiking lunch I’ve had, and I’ve had my fair share. Maybe it was just the effect of the 500m climb.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking back along the knife-like ridge toward the mountain that it came from. We stood posted above the entire valley, surrounding us on three sides. You could really feel the power of control from inhabiting these fortified towers and temples of incredibly fine masonry shaped to such perfection that you couldn’t pass a piece of paper through the joins. We dominated this valley, just as the Inca had 500 years before.

We ended our walk after passing some enormous semi-circular terraces, each higher than a man so that the peasants from the valley could not storm the heights, we arrived at the carpark. Now our idea was that after walking around we could get a taxi back down the hill into town. However, after walking around a bit there really was only the ubiquitous sprinter vans of organised tour groups in the carpark and a few local cars that certainly weren’t going to fit 8 Australians. I sat out the subsequent negotiations in linguistic impotence - my Spanish could not hold up to the scrutiny of a response consisting of more than what the price is - as more confident speakers tried to convince a man to drive us down to the bottom. After about 5 minutes and much confusion half of us went off with the guy while the other half waited for him to do a second run.

Seconds later our wait was interrupted by Daniel flagging us up the hill to the car. New mission- fit 5 adult men and 3 adult women into the back of a small MG SUV with 7 seats. Challenge accepted. We piled in, three girls in the boot and 4 boys in the back, with Daniel taking shotgun. We lurched off down the hill with seatbelts out of the question as our arms were stuck by our sides, like sardines in a can - if Sardines had arms I guess. Calls of playing corners were shouted down due to the real risk of being crushed to death. We made it down, uneventfully, in about 20 minutes.

Finally it was time for the formalities of the occasion. According to my wish, Ella had done a spectacular job in adverse conditions to make a mars bar cheesecake in a country that has no mars bars. We sang happy birthday around the table and enjoyed the delicious and slightly frozen cheesecake - the airbnbs fridge was dodgy and this no bake cheesecake needed to set.

We then went to a restaurant down near the Plaza, Yaku. I went ahead and met with my new friend Laura who we had adopted as a group the day before. Dinner was fantastic and I had a whole baked trout on a hot clay dish and a fantastic punchbowl sized Pisco sour.

We finished the day as we started, dancing the night away together in a Salsa bar. Sense of Latin American rhythm far in the rear view mirror of the night.

As I had stared wistfully out into the Peruvian countryside on the way back from Pisac, tired after another day on 5 hours sleep climbing mountains and spending hours in a bus, I had thought that there was nowhere else I’d rather be than out here with 7 of my closest mates.

Thank you all for making it so special.