Hiking Off the Beaten Path to Huchuy Qosqo

“How high is this hike again?” I requested as I panted up the mountain path, the highest seeming to date off within the distance.

“12,0000 feet,” our information Efrain mentioned cheerily as he and the others from the Amazonas Explorers workplace glided up the path. “But it flattens out soon!” he added as a little bit of encouragement.

I used to be skeptical.

When I first reached out to Amazonas relating to my Machu Picchu hike, I requested them to select a route that was a little bit off the overwhelmed path and may very well be executed in a day. There are heaps and plenty to select from within the Sacred Valley in any case; the Incas constructed over 40,000 kilometers of roads via their empire, and plenty of of them have change into mountain climbing trails.

The full-day hike chosen was much less traveled than others and would take us to the archaeological website referred to as Huchuy Qosqo (“Little Cusco” in Quechua). Starting an hour exterior of Cusco within the small village of Taucca, it goes over some mountains, via deserted villages and a pleasant ravine filled with Incan ruins, and winds over a ridge earlier than attending to our closing vacation spot: Huchuy Qosqo.

Beginning within the village, we hiked straight as much as our first waypoint. We had been on the highest altitude I had ever been in my life (larger than Machu Picchu), and, regardless of having been within the area for every week, I used to be feeling it, needing to take frequent breaks whereas I wheezed my manner up the mountain. Thankfully, the sky was overcast and hid the solar whereas the light wind saved me cool.

But the frequent stops solely made it simpler to understand the panorama round me. The larger we went, the higher views we received of the land beneath and the mountains round us. At this altitude, not a lot grows, and the barren, arid panorama form of jogged my memory of the plains of Wyoming and New Zealand’s Tongariro hike. Craggy mountains unfolded so far as the attention may see and beneath us had been villages and farms.

“The lake in front of the town is part of a hydroelectric dam,” Efrain mentioned. “Most people here are farmers, mostly for the local market and potatoes. The bigger farms that export the food you buy in the States are elsewhere in the valley.”

After the primary path marker (is actually only a phone pole marking our first cease), the path flattened out a bit and I received right into a deep dialog about meals with Patrice, one of many Amazonas workers. She had a lived within the States, so we mentioned the standard of meals in Peru versus the United States. (She discovered the meals in Peru higher as a result of it was much less processed. It was arduous to disagree.)

“All the foods you call superfood and spend a lot of money on, we just call food. We’ve been eating it since Inca times.”

As we made our manner throughout the arid expanse, it grew extra mountainous, although the path adopted what appeared just like the remnants of a ravine. The path started to softly slope downward, whereupon bushes and flowers started to appear, in addition to historical Incan partitions and foundations to constructing lengthy since gone. Soon, we got here throughout a largely deserted village made from collapsed mud constructions and caved-in straw roofs.

Villages like this are frequent all through the area, the place folks reside a subsistence life-style. But as younger folks transfer to the cities, they die off, and many of the constructions are left in varied states of disrepair. Efrain mentioned there have been only some households left on this neighborhood. The solely folks we noticed all the time had been two ladies in conventional apparel herding some goats.

At the tip of the village, we got here throughout what Efrain described as an outdated Incan guardhouse, the place we stopped for lunch close to a small waterfall and watched as the ladies’s goats grazed in entrance of us, all of us having fun with our respective meals.

After we ate and had a vigorous dialogue about Westerners coming to Peru for ayahuasca ceremonies — and the way they don’t at all times incorporate the non secular essence however simply wish to get excessive — we continued on via an historical Incan doorway that led to the ultimate a part of our trek to Huchuy Qosqo.

“This was probably a military guardhouse,” Efrain defined as we handed via it and descended a sequence of steps down right into a canyon. “Structures like this were used to protect the people inside the canyon as well as keep track of their numbers to ensure they had enough food for everyone. The Incas were great counters and took detailed censuses to ensure the food supply.”

As we adopted the trail and the small river that originated from our lunch-spot waterfall, I couldn’t assist however be overwhelmed with pleasure. I used to be having the most effective time out of my complete journey to Peru. While Machu Picchu and the trek there have been very particular, this one felt far more so. The surroundings was spectacular, I received a peek at rural life and conventional apparel, and we had been the one folks on the path, which made the trek really feel additional particular.

Efrain identified age-old Incan stone terraces as we made our manner alongside the path, which finally widened, giving us a view of the beginning of the Sacred Valley — which shocked me, as a result of I had not observed that the “canyon” we had been strolling via instantly steeply dropped off. While I believed we had been slowly descending to the bottom of the mountain, we had been nonetheless hundreds of toes above the valley ground!

After gazing on the valley, we continued throughout the Incan terraces that lined the mountain partitions towards Huchuy Qosqo. I’m at all times amazed at how they remodeled this place, including in underground watering paths, irrigation programs, and stairs to maneuver between terraces. The meals grown right here would have fed the encompassing space in addition to Huchuy Qosqo.

We entered the ruined metropolis via an outdated gate. Little is thought about Huchuy Qosqo however, in keeping with the information we do have, it was house to the Inca ruler Viracocha, who was exiled right here after his youngest son, Pachacuti, gained a decisive victory in opposition to folks rebelling in opposition to his father.

After the battle, Pachacuti declared himself king and his father spent the final of his days in Huchuy Qosqo, which was additionally one of many final settlements constructed with mud-covered stone partitions (Pachacuti determined to start out constructing the famed stone-wall Inca constructions we’re acquainted with right now). After the collapse of the Inca Empire, it was finally raided and utilized by the Spanish, who destroyed many of the buildings in 1534.

Like the remainder of the path, we had been the one ones on the website in addition to the guards. We didn’t keep lengthy, as the location wasn’t as spectacular because the journey there, and I used to be drained and able to head again to Cusco.

We gathered our fellow hikers and began our descent down the mountain, via a sequence of steep switchbacks that did a quantity on my knees to the precise backside of the canyon, the place our driver picked us up.

“What an incredible hike!” I exclaimed on the trip again.

As I stared out the window at passing villages, I had a large smile on my face. This hike was my favourite expertise I had in Peru and, with solely two days left within the nation, I used to be content material to depart feeling like I received to do one thing so particular.

How to Hike to Huchuy Qosqo

You can go along with a information or by yourself, although I wouldn’t advise the latter. While you may simply take a cab from Cusco to the start line and seize a bus again on the finish level, the path is difficult to search out (and typically, particularly at the start, it disappears) and there are completely no indicators anyplace. Even at Huchuy Qosqo, there are not any indicators describing what you’re looking at, the panorama, or the historical past of the ruins. If you need any context, you’ll want a information. Like for Machu Picchu, I went with Amazonas Explorer.

Note: Take sunscreen! I got here again to my lodge burnt to a crisp. Lobsters aren’t at the same time as pink as I used to be. I forgot to place sunscreen on as a result of it was cloudy and wet and I didn’t really feel the solar, however at this altitude, the UV could be very sturdy and I paid the worth for it. Don’t be like me!