Salkantay Trek Continued: Land Slide, Coffee Making, and Llactapacta

DAY 3

The rain started again in the middle of the night and continued into the second day of our trekking (3rd day of the trip). Today we had another 18 km to cover, but with less ascent. The downpour was starting to take a toll on the trail. Mudslides turned into landslides. Navigating through the mud was slightly challenging, but trying to go through landslides was something that none of us had experience of doing.

Starting off day 3 with the rain ponchos again!

One of the many river crossings. Due to the rain, the rivers were a bit strong than they were the week before.

The gloominess continued

Luckily, Javier and Jose knew what to do. Recruiting some of the Alpaca expedition workers nearby, they cleared the trail using shovels and grubbers.

Motivated by the news that there is a hot tub at the end of the trail which was only half an hour away, I walked through the landslide section first. 45 minutes later, our hot tub was just in front of us.

Not to be outdone by the night before’s celebration, this night we capped off with some beer to celebrate our main guide’s, Javier’s, birthday.

DAY 4

An exciting day for us ahead. Today we are visiting the coffee plantation area and camp in front of Machu Picchu. Today is also one of member, Jessica’s, birthday. Chef Moses knew exactly what to do. Not only did he bake a delicious cake for Jessica, he baked another dairy free cake for the two of us who couldn’t eat dairy! Who makes a cake without milk? Moses certainly was a magic worker.

Now on to coffee plantation. Coffee bean plants are found all over South America. We often hear about the amazing coffee beans from Columbia, but Peru coffee can certainly hold its own too. To experience the entire process, we started from picking the coffee beans fresh from the trees.

• Step 1: Pick the beans! We were probably the worst coffee bean workers ever…

• Step 2: Separate the beans from rest of the outer layer.

She had a handy machine that helped her to separate out the coffee beans.

• Step 3: Dry it. It takes 3 days to do this. As much as I want to stay here for 3 days, I need to move on to Machu Picchu. We skip this and progressed with someone else’ “work in progress” instead.
• Step 4: Cook it!

• Step 5: Grind it!

  

  Again trying to help out with the process!

• Step 6: Make your coffee and drink it :) My favorite step.

There you go! Now you can make coffee too! Don’t forget to share your wealth with me when you earn your first gold from the coffee you cooked up!

After the delicious coffee and lunch, we set out for a 600-meter ascent across the Llactapacta pass to the ruins of Llactapacta and our campsite overlooking Machu Picchu!

Sunrise over Machu Picchu and the Llactapacta campsite

Photobombed by Jose at the Llactapacta Ruins.

Day 5:

Today we are heading toward the hot shower, souvenir buying, and lots of Cusqueña beer; Agus Calientes. This will be the place where we stay the night before heading towards Machu Picchu.

Much easier terrain.

Checkpoint to enter the greater Machu Picchu area.

The road towards Agua Calientes from Llactapacta is mostly downhill and flat. The afternoon part of the trek consisted of three hours of walking beside the train tracks from Ollantaytambo; perfect way to clean out the mud on the bottom of my shoes.

At 2:15pm on the 5th day, we arrived at Agua Calientes. After washing myself and all my never-dried laundry, we briefly toured the town and went to sleep with bellies full of beer.