Bundled into the back of a “van” (it was actually a station wagon) at the crack of dawn set the pace for what was to come over the next four days. In our car was our driver, our chilled-out cook Mario (not Italian, but Peruvian) and our guide Renato. The drive to Chacora, not far from Abancay where we had come from a week before took over 4 hours, due to the traditional hazards of driving Andean roads – cattle, chickens, “death-wish”dogs that hurled themselves at passing vehicles smaller than a lorry, tuk-tuks, Aymara farmers laden with bundles of vegetation twice their size, fallen rocks and boulders, and extreme hair-pin bends that presented a challenge to the machismo of any driver to take as fast as physically possible.
Church in Chacor asquare as we set off
Arriving at Chacora we met our horseman, who would be in charge of the two mules we travelled with in the coming days, then once we’d off-loaded our main packs we set off through fields and eventually climbed into the mountains, oddly for me through eucalyptus groves which messed my head up a little bit. Andean mountains are incredibly bio-diverse, and the types of vegetation and fauna changed constantly, as did the temperature (hot and sunny in the valleys, cold and misty in the high passes and mountain-tops).
Renato shares his knowledge of the Apurimac Valley
The rest of the day was spent chatting with Renato who was a wealth of information about not only the surrounding vegetation, but a lot of the Inca history of the area too. We lunched on the side of the road, chuffed to see that our cook Mario put on full chef’s garb of puffy white hat and apron. The food would be consistently excellent throughout the trip, and introduced us to a number of Peruvian stapes (including about 10 different types of soup made with wheat, quinoa, maize), incredible considering that the cook and horseman were doing the same gruelling walking as us – and then on arrival cooking, cleaning, setting up camp and tending to horses while we kicked off our boots and I moaned quietly.
Mario dons his chef garb in the middle of nowhere
The first day ended in a cool valley at dusk, with the awe-inducing sight of the mountain we would have to climb tomorrow the last thing we saw before dropping off to sleep.
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