By Eric Simons
Fourteen thousand feet above sea level in the heart of the Andes, turning over in the night became a chore. Having overexerted myself rolling onto my back, I lay staring at the black tent roof, sucking in the frigid air, trying to ignore the cold ache in my knees and hips.
While I suffered in my down sleeping bag and jacket, five local men slept just across the campsite from me -- outside, in their sandals.
Twelve language school classmates and I were high in the mountains near Cusco, Peru, about halfway between the sacred valley of the Incas and a tiny hot springs town called Lares. The men sleeping outside were our porters, indigenous men from nearby villages. They had jogged ahead of us as we climbed from 7,000 to 14,000 feet, leading mules with our tents and food, sympathetic to our wheezing and coughing but not particularly bothered by the altitude or the climbing.
When my classmates bundled up in parkas and beanies and gloves and crawled into sleeping bags for the night, the porters, wearing their ponchos and sandals, found a small depression in the ground and lay down to sleep under the trees and the stars. Our professors described this trek as a trip through living history, and these men were a constant reminder of how, over the centuries, the people here have adapted to life in the high Andes.
It is a harsh but beautiful environment. Jagged rocky peaks tower over the valleys, forming a rough, toothy landscape filled in by dry grass and shrubs. Icy streams tumble out of the mountains, creating spongy meadows and flowing into the huge valley where the Incas grew the crops to feed their empire. Deep blue pools dot the highest stretches, glittering under an unrelenting sun like sapphires embedded in the silver mountains.
Best of all, we were able to enjoy it in solitude. Although tour operators in Cusco offer guided treks here, it is far less popular than sacred valley tours and Machu Picchu trips. Even in the tourist high season, we didn't see another tourist group.
We did see locals, though. Within an hour of starting we passed through a faded green meadow filled with stone houses with straw roofs, where sheep and pigs wandered freely and a handful of cows grazed contentedly near a river.
The inhabitants of the houses came out to stare at us as we walked by, creating a comical contrast: Quechua-speaking subsistence farmers in traditional ponchos and worn, homemade sandals, staring from behind old stone walls at a group of gringo tourists in nylon pants, sunglasses and synthetic jackets, wheezing and struggling to carry their cameras on level ground.
The wheezing only got worse as we started to climb. By mid-afternoon we were at about 13,000 feet, and every time we stopped I could feel my heart pounding. Behind us, craggy mountains framed the plains of the sacred valley and vast, wind-brushed meadows, and we used the spectacular view as an excuse to catch our breath.
Ignoring switchbacks in the trail, we hiked straight up, following the path of the river and our porters, who chased the pack of mules carrying our tents and backpacks. They clucked at the animals, rapidly repeating a word that sounded like "kitsch." We could hear them from far away, "kitsch-kitsch-kitsching" up the hill.
At 14,100 feet -- about 400 feet shy of the tallest mountain in the continental United States -- we reached our campsite. The porters, who had arrived several minutes beforehand, laughed and joked in Quechua as they set up our tents. Two of them made the 100-yard walk to the nearest stream for water. I tried to follow and had to stop to catch my breath twice on the level path. When I got back to camp I flopped on the grass and gazed out over the valley, envying our porters and their ability to still be standing, laughing and talking.
It was all I could do to cook ramen -- a skill that may have been beyond several other members of the expedition, who rendered their dinner inedible with a concentrated garlic sauce so powerful that they spent most of the night slyly looking for a tent in which to dispose of their cookware.
My legs and lungs still hurt the next morning, and we started slowly to let our joints warm up after the freezing night. Like the garlic smell, the cold lingered, and although we could see the sun streaking across the valley below our campsite, we were stuck in the shade of a spiny rock face. The ice-covered trail looked like a frozen river, thick enough to skate on.
Somewhere around 15,000 feet, we passed the tree line. Our campsite had been in a thin group of trees pretending to be a forest, but now the earth was darker and the grass thinner. Sparse clumps of brown weeds replaced green, and those were soon replaced by a moonscape of loose rocks and black dust.
We passed a small lake, which was the color of a pine tree in the middle and dark, navy blue where the wind was blocked. The monolithic rock face, which had been growing throughout the morning, loomed over everything now, several hundred meters of sheer black poking into the sky, with a debris trail of loose rocks extending far down the mountain below.
The trail wound up to the shoulder of the peak, alternating between switchbacks and straight, grueling climbs. My heart and lungs, which had felt pretty good to start the day, lodged fervent protests with every step. At 16,000 feet, the trail broke out of the curves and went straight for the ridge top. Behind the castle wall of rock we could see only blue sky. Below me, stragglers appeared as bits of red and yellow over the last half-mile of gray switchbacks. Several were clearly toughing out severe altitude sickness -- arms hanging limply, head down, swaying from side to side like zombies. A few took turns riding on the mules.
We climbed the last few feet, felt the ground flatten out beneath us and saw, straight ahead, the lurching, stomach-twisting drop into the valley beyond. The pass, at 16,100 feet, was only about 20 feet wide, rising sharply behind us and falling away below us. We now stood on the shoulder of the peak and could look up at the twisted wreckage of a series of rockslides and see the face, still in shadow, silhouetted against the sky.
We stopped for snacks and pictures, while the porters let the mules take a break. Then we geared up and headed down, quickly. We would descend a knee-busting 8,000 feet in the next four hours.
From the pass, we could see layers and layers of pointy, chocolate-brown mountains, split by rivers and glowing green lakes. A few more stately peaks, covered in rock and snow, rose above the brown and stuck out like thumbtacks over a thin, smoky cloud hanging over the valley.
In an hour, we were out of sight of the peak, walking a narrow dusty trail past a series of lakes. I saw two medium-sized trout in one, and caught a flash of pink as one of them changed direction and exposed its underbelly to the sun. We stopped at another lake to rest, and a professor told us a bit if local lore held that anyone who could stand in the lake for five minutes, would get good luck. I made it for about 30 seconds before my feet went numb, then hopped out and let them dry. The air started to feel thick again, the sun warm on my neck.
We hooked up to a river and followed its twisting path down the mountains, scrambling down next to waterfalls, taking long switchbacks as it turned and led us back into a world of green. The mountains on both sides tapered down, until by midday they had disappeared.
In their place a gigantic rocky peak reared up, with a lump of snow hanging over it like a wet sock. The green hills in front of us dropped off into a sharp canyon, where the river forced its way down into a verdant L-shaped valley cut out of the nearby smaller, brown mountains.
Stone walls, the farm fences of the local farmers, popped up among the grass. As we descended further, we could see a network of stone etched into the valley floor, then horses, sheep and goats, then children running alongside the river and then farmers out standing in their fields.
Further down, we came upon a girl making an alpaca shawl out of incredibly brilliant crimson wool. The girl was glowing with color, wearing a bright red poncho over a pink sweater, and an elaborate, sequined hat with yellow tassels.
Our professor, who spoke some Quechua, stopped to ask her some questions, and we gathered around in a semi-circle like we were looking at a museum exhibit. It was awkward, but fascinating. The girl understood some Spanish, also, but when the professor asked a question in Spanish, she wouldn't respond, flashing a faint smile from underneath the shadow of her hat, a quick up-and-down jerk that looked like she was in on some inside joke. Then, when the professor would try to ask in Quechua, she'd answer in Spanish, and correct the professor's Quechua in a soft, playful voice.
She told us that she was 20 years old, sitting where she was because that was where she liked to sit while knitting, had been working for a few days and had a few more to go, and the shawl was for herself (the professor asked if it was for her husband, and, giggling, she said no, it was just for her). Finally, someone asked if we could take a picture. The girl gave us the up-and-down smile again, looked a bit embarrassed, and said OK.
At the bottom of the hill, 8,000 feet and four hours after we had sat at the summit, we stopped for lunch in a schoolyard in a tiny native village split by the river. Unlike previous villages, this one had electricity, although the houses were still stone with straw roofs. In the schoolyard, curious locals, all dressed in traditional dress, gathered to watch as we ate our lunch. Our professors gave candy and fruit to the local children, who stumbled away looking pleased and clutching their oranges and chocolate.
From the village, it was a flat 8 kilometers to Lares, another small village with a natural hot springs. The thought of a warm bath drove us quickly along the valley floor, past llamas and alpacas and the occasional farmer. We arrived late in the afternoon and paid our porters, who set up our tents and then disappeared.
We would take a bus home. They set off across the mountains, walking.