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The Locked Gate
IT WAS totally dark when we were awoken at four o’clock in the morning. I got dressed and took my gear out of the tent, taking care not to fall off the edge of the near vertical slope dropping hundreds of metres in the darkness to the river far below. The sky was obviously overcast as there were no stars or moon visible.
Early breakfast |
We met in the breakfast tent where the porters provided us with a quick breakfast of toast and tea so they could pack up and run down the hill in time to get their five thirty train back to Cuzco.
Once more Wilbur gave us the invitation to go to Wyanu Picchu, the steep mountain on the other side of the city. I had weighed up my options, and decided it would be a lot better to spend my time exploring the city rather than go on another climb. Marissa and Amanda put up their hands to climb it. If they are lucky there will be a few tickets available by the time we reach the main park entrance, so they would have to cross their fingers and hope to get them. By not going I didn’t have anything to stress out about.
Walting for the gate to open |
Once breakfast was finished, Wilbur and Carlos led us along the dark pathway at the edge of the cliff to the main restaurant which to my surprise was already crowded. Everyone else was waiting for the gate to unlock at five thirty whilst all their porters were doing the mad dash along the narrow path down the mountain to get their train.
Despite the restaurant being crowded, we actually found a table big enough to fit our entire group. Now you would expect the restaurant to be open and someone serving food like there had been at Laban Rata on Kinabalu at two o’clock in the morning when I had climbed it earlier this year. To me this was a missed business opportunity for the owners of this hut. Everyone was therefore just sitting there rugged up in their coats looking very bleary eyed murmuring whatever they could think of to say in this insane hour of the morning. I recalled just a few days ago of telling everyone else in our group that I have been waking up at four o’clock every morning since the start of the trip, but that had stopped when I had arrived in Cuzco. I guess the altitude had increased my desire to sleep.
Queue at the gate |
It was just starting to get light when we left the hut and walked along the track to the gate. The valley below us and the mountains on the other side were very gloomy in the early morning twilight.
There was quite a long queue at the gate. Now I had remembered what Luis had told me a few days ago. If they see that you have a big camera when you go through the gate, then they will charge a special tax on the basis that the owners of big cameras are either very wealthy or working professionally. I had taken his advice in concealing my main camera in my bag, and I made a point of waving my little credit card camera around in a Mr Bean style to make me look like an obvious amateur.
The gate |
The gate opened, and they allowed us all to go through group by group. Finally it was our group’s turn. We entered the small thatched hut without walls. It did have a couple of internal walls with displays, but it was still a bit too dark to see them. We all got through okay, and fortunately the man at the counter didn’t see my huge camera concealed in my bag, so I wasn’t charged the “wealthy photographer’s tax”. As we passed through, I looked behind. There were quite a lot of people behind us, so the track was going to be quite crowded all the way to Machu Picchu.
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