Movement: Climbing Machu Picchu
- Themi Alexandra
- Apr 26, 2019
- 13 min read
Updated: Apr 30, 2019
THE OFFER
Machu Picchu is on a lot of people’s bucket lists. Machu Picchu was never even on my radar. So when my friend Bijou reached out to me in August and asked if I wanted to join her group trip I gave a soft no.
Bijou happened to email me the day I broke my ribs in Lisbon (see Falls So Hard). My pain aside, I didn’t know if I would be healed in time for the November trip. I also shared that there were several other factors that made me question my ability to complete the hike, such as the camping component, which would be no good for my back or stretching needs.
The next day she had an update: there would be a hotel stay and two more people along for the ride. As she put it, there would now be four people willing to give me a hand if/when I needed. She also reiterated that she was not doing this for speed, so taking our time was the name of the game.
She deftly wrote to me with encouragement and zero pressure. Yet, her best work wasn’t written, but found between the lines: if you want to, you can do this, and you will have plenty of support and patience along the way. And in doing so, she allayed my biggest concern, my disability. Thankfully, Bijou has known me long enough to see what I am capable of, even when I can’t.
By email number three, I was in! I bought in knowing that I might not go with my ribs being the literal make or break deciding factor. It was a chance I was willing to take because if I was ever going to do Machu Picchu, this was my golden opportunity: to do it with a supportive friend and group of people. I would already be in Peru that month, so if I was ever going to do it, this was my time!
Time was on my side. Months go by and my ribs heal at the end of October, two weeks before our hike. My concern then shifted from healing to preparation: would I physically be ready for such an endeavor? I was in the worst shape of my life. I hadn’t worked out in over two months while bones nine and ten on the right side of my rib cage reset. I joined a gym as soon as I got to Lima. I figured two weeks was better than nothing and I got moving.
I was feeling positive and more confident than ever about our trek by the time Bijou and company arrived in Lima. Bijou and Emily were back for their second visit (see Can I Get a Witness for more on their Valencia visit) and it was so good to see them again! Rounding out the group was Bijou’s fiance Alistair and her cousin Jimmer who I had never met, but had heard plenty about over the years. After a great week in Lima together we were Cusco bound come Friday.
As we sat at the airport waiting for our flight to Cusco, I noticed several sexagenarians in hiking gear. I remember telling myself at the time, “If they can do it, so can you.” Comparison is a slippery slope. It wasn’t long before karma came to get me for that one. But before I regale you with tales of sexagenarians putting me to shame, let’s start at the beginning of the journey, that is getting to Machu Picchu.
GETTING THERE
Our unofficial journey began the night before when we met our guide Daniel who would be leading our two day trek. He is ebullient, warm, and immediately familiar. “Okay, family any questions?” he would ask. That first night I chalked up his repeated use of family to amiability, but in hindsight I see the genius of his ways. He knew firsthand just how important the sense of community would be for the challenging journey ahead.
The word journey has been diminished by the Bachelor franchise and the “journey” that each lead takes to find love among a curated pool of social media savvy single ladies. The literal definition is “a traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time.” Let me underscore that last bit and replace rather with really: a really long time.
Day one of our journey began in Cusco with a 5 a.m. pick-up. Two hours in a van, a pit stop for breakfast, and then a train transfer for the last two hours of transport. Although I slept through the majority of the train leg, I still can’t say enough good things about Peru Rail. Plush, comfortable seats, exceptionally clean bathrooms, and unforgettable skylights that gave some incredible views of the countryside. I could have rode the rails all day, but Machu Picchu was calling.
Before the climb even begins, you have traveled for over four hours by two modes of transportation. I was tired and I was at step zero. The train stops and leaves you in the middle of seemingly nowhere. No platform, no signage, lots of vegetation. You enter the nature reserve of Machu Picchu by a set of uneven descending wood planks. The fact that I needed a hand just to enter had my internal alarm bells ringing!
THE CLIMB
I started to panic, thinking “What did I get myself into?!” The fight or flight instinct is very real and my first instinct was to bail. I tell Bijou I’m not sure I can do this and that I might wuss out and take the train instead. Bijou tells me that is not an option at this point. And just like that I went from ready to bail to ready to fight. The realization was crystalline: I am my only way out. In that instant, I reset my mind to positive reinforcement. I can do this. I will do this.
And for the first half of our eight hour hike I was proving my mind right. I was doing the damn thing and feeling pretty good about it. I’m not saying it was easy, but it was manageable. Fortunately, I did not experience any altitude sickness. I also had the helping hands of Bijou and Emily whenever I needed.
We got into an easy rhythm of hiking as a trio. I took the middle position with Bijou and Emily alternating between lead and rear. Whoever was in front of me would help me up any stairs since they were always uneven and usually came without a railing. I had a great balance system in place between their steady hand and my trusty walking stick in the other. Whoever was behind me would be there to spot me in case I lost my balance or I needed that extra tush push up a particularly steep step. They were my safety nets.
The first pass of the hike was filled with lots of switchbacks as we made our way up from base elevation (7,400 ft) to our first stop (8,600 ft). I quickly learned to look straight ahead and not down when those switchbacks included a corner wrapping set of stairs. Coming around the corner reminded me of the incredible power of the human mind: instantly zeroing in on taking each step and not what would happen if I missed said step.
All in all I was feeling pretty damn accomplished as we finished the first half of the hike and stopped for lunch. After lunch I had my first experience with outdoor plumbing or a closet with a hole in the ground. Granted I needed Emily to hold my hands since my quads were too weak to hold a squat after four hours of an uphill hike, but I did it. If you’re thinking to yourself, who is this woman who will hold your hand literally anywhere...I’ll tell you, she’s a damn saint.
As great as it was to get a short physical and mental break at lunch, the stop was a sucker punch to my momentum. Getting the old body moving again was rough. The stop was just long enough for lactic acid to build up in my muscles and for my body to get the memo that it was sore: a message I was blissfully unaware of for the first half.
I started the day not knowing what to expect, so I prepared myself to be ready for anything. I went into lunch thinking “that wasn’t so bad.” And everything after lunch was the opposite. I had mentally let my guard down and after lunch it was just as hard to restart my mind as it was my body.
We had four hours to go. The second half is broken up into two one-hour increments and a final push of two hours on the decline. I mistakenly thought these factors would make for an easier second half. And foolishly I lowered my expectations on the level of difficulty, after confidently finishing the first half.
Any confidence I had built up was immediately erased as we hiked the one hour from Wiñay Wanya to Sun Gate. In my opinion, there is not an easy set of stairs along the Inca Trail. It is simply a question of do I need to take them standing up or crawling up? Several staircases are so steep that they require a hands first approach, which I dubbed “monkey style.” I was traveling with the a group of low flying angels who had devised a system for me to conquer any such stairs.
I was hiking with two bags on my body: my daypack (graciously on loan from my girl Rockow) and my lunchbag. My family would take my bags up any monkey style stairs so that my balance was solely based on my body weight. Did I mention that my boy Jimmer is a forest firefighter? Well he is and I highly suggest hiking Machu Picchu with one if the fates allow. Jimmer was not only chewing up this hike up and spitting it out (along with my boy Alistair) but he also has beast level strength. He would strap my daypack to the front of his body while keeping his own 50 pound bag on his back.
My daypack secured to Jimmer, Bijou would take my lunchbag and lead the way up with Emily bringing up the rear. Stairs were always lead by Bijou, who has a future in coaching if she ever wants one. She would talk me through each staircase: calling out steep or uneven ones, and encouraging me along the way. My favorite motivator was hearing “T, two more to the top.”
It was going to take more than words to get me to the top of our next set of steps. Daniel pulls us over on the trail and asks us in all seriousness if we’ve ever heard of the gringo killer. Turns out the gringo killer is not a person, but the name given to the stairs ahead. Gulp. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Truth is their name is not far from the truth. Head on they don’t resemble a staircase because they look vertical. I put my mind on positive and doled out my bags. You don’t look up. You don’t look down. You keep your eyes straight ahead. There are many gringos to climb.
I’m slowly, methodically making my way up, when Daniel appears next to me like a spider man. I start to think I’m hallucinating when I hear music, “Dun. DunDunDun. DunDunDun. Dun Dun...Dunnnn...Rising up, back on the street.” He’s got a speaker up his sleeve and he’s blasting “Eye of the Tiger.” I burst out laughing. Turns out the sheer absurdity of hearing Survivor at 8,600 feet was just what I needed: a release of tension. I can see why it worked for Rocky, the beat moves you.
The Rocky staircase high of getting to the top of the gringo killers was short lived. The one hour hike to Sun Gate felt like the never ending journey. My mental game shifted into survival mode: lying to myself with every internal pep talk of “You got this. You’re almost there.” By the time we came up on the Sun Gate, I was ready to sob. Physically and mentally exhausted, I touched the stones and held my mind and my body up with that one hand. I willed myself not to cry. I knew that if I gave in to the tears it would be game over. My mind wouldn’t come back from that admission of defeat.
So with some steely resolve and the support of my family we began the hour long hike from Sun Gate to Machu Picchu. I had wised up by this point. I knew this pass would take longer than an hour and the fact that we were starting our descent wouldn’t make it any easier. It never felt so wrong to be right. It wasn’t easy getting from Sun Gate to Machu Picchu, but it was worth it!
Approaching the postcard view of Machu Picchu was breathtaking. On the one hand my body was wiped and on the other my eyes couldn’t quite register what I was seeing (that or I was straight up delirious by this time). One thing is for sure, I have never seen anything like it. So many times along the Inca Trail the majesty of the land blew me away. Looking back on the hike I am sorry about one thing: I wish I could have paid more attention to what was around me instead of my body or the steps ahead.
We made it to the promised land, but we still had two hours of trail ahead. I’ll give it to you straight. The final pass was unbearable. The decline was hard and the terrain even harder. There were less stairs, but no less of a challenge. Albeit flat, the path was consistently uneven. Read: a sprained ankle waiting to happen.
This required me to be deliberate with every step. I kept waiting for Bijou to turn her head back and say “T, freestyle.” Freestyle was our code word for any flat terrain that allowed you to simply walk. There would be no freestyling to the finish, which meant there would be no mental break either.
My mind was constantly moving while my body was slowly shutting down. My body was struggling to keep up with me for the first time in my life. Six hours into our hike and my legs were lead. On a couple particularly steep steps I would put my first foot up and my back leg would drag behind me like dead weight. My mind was telling my leg to move and my leg was not responding.
Everything post Sun Gate was taking longer than expected. I was slowing the group down. So now we were running the risk of missing the last bus to Aguas Calientes. The family could not have been more patient or understanding, but it was hard for me to not feel bad. Luckily the Inca Trail doesn’t suffer fools. So I let my feelings go and got back to strategizing our exit.
Our exit strategy was simple: survival of the fittest. Once again, it came in handy having a forest firefighter in the fam. We nominated Jimmer to sprint ahead and hold the bus. Before Jimmer bust a move, he looked me in the eye and offered to “fireman carry me out of here.” A seductively tempting offer and equally tempting rescue fantasy. But the reality was I had come this far and I was going finish on my own two feet. And practically speaking, I wanted Jimmer to catch that damn bus.
Nothing like losing the light to inspire some hustle. The sun started to set as Bijou and Emily helped me to the finish. They held my hand, kept my spirit up, and never gave up on me. Together to the end, we finished!
And equally as exciting, we caught the bus. I was bursting with pride as I boarded. I made it! I did it! I finished! Sweet relief kicked in at the prospect of sitting down. The bus dropped us at our hotel and we went into town for a family dinner so Daniel could take us through the itinerary for tomorrow.
That’s right. We had one more day to go. Another 5 a.m. pickup and off we went. We started our day with Daniel guiding us through the ruins for a couple hours. After the tour it was time for the final hike: Alistair and Jimmer chose Huayna Picchu and Bijou, Emily, and I had permits to climb Machu Picchu Mountain, which is said to be the easier of the two.
Well if I had learned anything the day before, it’s that easy does not fit in the same sentence as Machu Picchu. Daniel gave it to me straight: I was looking at three hours of stairs. I decided to opt out. It was the right choice for me and my body. And the icing on the cake is it gave Bijou and Emily a chance to hike on their own. I went to catch the bus feeling 100% confident in my decision.
COMING DOWN
I questioned my decision to say yes to hiking Machu Picchu many times along the trail, but I wouldn’t change it. I went in confident in my ability and ignorant to just how hard it would be. For if I knew how hard it was going to be, I wouldn’t have challenged myself. I wouldn’t have put myself in the uncomfortable or pushed myself past the unthinkable. And I couldn’t have done it without my hiking family!
I am forever grateful to my family. It was a true team effort and like true ohana (family) no one got left behind. I am humbled by the help they gave me and I get emotional thinking about the way in which they gave it: unconditionally, willingly, patiently, and warmly.
I wasn’t ready for the level of emotion that came with the hike both during and after the fact. Simply thinking about the family and their help had me tearing up on the elliptical at the gym in the weeks following. I will never forget the ease with which they helped me, every time. Jimmer had only met me that week and there he was offering to carry me around his neck like a human scarf. Or my ever present shadow of safety that was Bijou and Emily, with me, every step of the way.
Hiking Machu Picchu is the hardest thing I’ve ever done physically. Mentally one of the toughest. It was exhausting on every level and more emotional than I ever expected. The terrain was humbling and made me question my ability with every step. Most days I can almost forget that I have a disability. I carried the thought of it at the back of my mind the whole way and was reminded of it repeatedly. I got down on myself every time I missed a step, took a fall, or slowed the group down. Yet, the feeling of pride and accomplishment that came with every pass completed, every stair climbed, and every group effort brought me higher than I’ve ever felt.
I walk away from the experience grateful that I could. Finishing reinforced my faith in my ability. It also reminded me of the limitations your mind put on your body. For when I put that dis in front of my own ability the only person I’m dissing is me. I got by with a lot of help from my friends and the determination to never give up, for you never know what’s waiting for you at the top.
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