Round the World with Us

Anna is a filmmaker, who helped found Round the World with Us to make a difference in the world through video. You can read more about Anna’a adventures at: www.annadavis.wordpress.com.

We walk.

After an hour we start passing tourists on the same route as us, desperate to get back to Cusco this evening. Woman in white parka pulls off her boots. Bald man drinks a beer. It’s 8 a.m and I haven’t noticed much of the scenery, all efforts are on the stones and railroad ties underfoot. It is a horizontal ladder across rivers, through tunnels and over dusted ground. Black gravel is hard to hold with the shoes. Peruvians pass us, running.

Three hours at a good clip, we rest. Jose buys some rice and pasta with an egg on top from a woman selling her goods next to the track. Five other guys are eating the same meal. “Is it good?” I ask. I notice he didn’t offer to share.

“No,” he answers. “Some women, they no cook well. I need to fill my belly, you know?” After this break, Jose walks slower. I am glad for the bad cooking.

At mile 18, my feet are not moving the way I’ve known them to move. I feel the strike in Cusco all the way into my own toes and swollen fingers. Hips bruised from the weight of the pack. I think about Ben and what he is endearing with his chemotherapy back home. Jose reminds me of what he tells trekkers when they start to cry on the mountain. Just keep walking. We hiked longer than this on the trail, six hours is nothing. But we had views, we had breaks, we had mules carrying our bags.  Hiking on railroad ties feels different than crossing mountain moss. Sleeping in the jungle feels different than making camp in the highlands. But with each way there is a rhythm, a chance to adapt and adjust without attachment. This chance is bliss. I vow to live in this equanimity forever.

After six hours, we’ve reached the end. Now we wait in a small plaza with other travelers, local families, bags, begging dogs and bundles of small children. People carry large bundles of grass. “Jose, what’s that grass for?”

“Gineau pigs,” he says.

A man in a Beatles shirt and a little arm sits next to me on the curb, we watch the scene as the sun begins to move further west. He buys me a beer and shares his Oreos. I trade the Oreos for beans with a local woman next to me.  She enjoys the cookies, I love the beans with a hard, roasted shell.

Two hours we wait, no buses. They tell us the roads are blocked.

Finally a van comes and Jose pushes for seats. There is no order to this process but if you climb in first, you ride. We climb in first, then ride to the next town where another bus has to be fought for. The roads are winding and covered with rubble, large roots, boulders and small fires. Finally, almost 12 hours after leaving Aguas Calientes, Cusco lights sparkle over the next mountain pass.

Jose walks me to the hostel, our trek is over. What are guides good for? Back up snacks, pace keeping, hauling extra bags, knowing the cheapest place for internet and the safest ATMs, ignoring drunk hecklers in the city center, bargaining for taxis, short cuts, customs, Inca stories, historical references, having an ear to the ground. Not abandoning me when the plan changed. He said it’s been seven years since he’s hiked with such a mujer fuerta. And it’s time to tip Jose. What’s the cost of my life?