You may have heard of the famous Inca trail in Peru that leads to Machu Picchu... However "The Inca Trail" is only one of thousands that connected the entire Inca Empire together.... The empire stretched from Colombia in the north and down to Chile in the south and as they had no horses, nor the wheel, all communication was done by runners on a series of paths through the mountains. Not a mean feat when you consider the rugged terrain of the Andes. Most of these paths are still in use today by local campesinos (farmers) and about one year ago Felix, his brother Fredy and I met an old bloke who pointed down a path and said it lead to the ancient city of Choquequirao. Actually, Felix and Fredy were talking with the old fella in Quechua (the language of the Incas) and they then translated this to me. I didn't believe them - after all - if that unassuming track led to an ancient city, why weren't there more people doing it?

After some thinking about the route, Judy, Felix and I realised the dream - in 18 days we crossed the entire Vilcabamba range! For two non walkers (one nearly sixty) it was a bit of a feat, considering that before we went we never saw a map of the region and no one in Cusco knew if it could be done!

The plan had been to first visit the ruins of the city of Choquequirao, then to continue onto more ruins at Vitcos, finishing up in Espirtu Pampa, the last refuge of the Incas from the Spanish conquest.

This route took us from the high Andes deep into the Amazon jungle, and in going to Espirtu Pampa we would be crossing through some pretty untouristed terrain. It a fierce and harsh landscape that is so difficult to traverse the Spanish weren't able to penetrate it for 50 years or so!

The problem was that in crossing a series of ranges there are many river valleys, and so one day will be spent climbing a pass to 4000metres and then the next day descending to a hot steamy river valley with an altitude of 1000 metres. Guided by our indigenous muleteers, whose hardy little mules carried all our gear, we traversed hot dry canyons, right through to snow capped peaks and even spent a night just below the snowline with it snowing! It was tough, tough, and tough… but also awesome... some days we were doing over 20 kilometres, and when it's a narrow rocky track, this is pretty hard on the legs.

Half way through the trip, as planned, we got a new muleteer... a chirpy fellow who said he said he could take us to an Inca site named Puncuyoc. Nobody really knows what it was used for, but it's this tiny little building is perched at 4000 metres in a cleft of a mountain in really spectacular scenery. As its almost rock climbing to get there, the site was never discovered by the Spanish which means it is considered to be the most perfectly preserved known Inca ruin in existence. (Most of the well known ruins such as Machu Picchu have been quite heavily reconstructed - something that's not promoted a lot by authorities.). On our muleteer's prompting, we decided to head up to Puncuyoc, and then cross-country to Espritu Pampa... The little campesino lady who lived near where we camped said the last foreigner to pass on this route was an American explorer who is famous for all his work on out of the way Inca ruins! We were well and truly chuffed... everyone said that no foreigners (apart from the explorer) had ever been on this route! (There is a much easier route to Espirtu Pampa that most tourists follow!)

After 18 days we arrived in a tin shack town and were lucky to catch a truck buying coffee down to another town. Lucky to catch the truck because there are maybe 2 or 3 vehicles a week (we had imagined we would have to take our mules and walk onwards until we got to a vehicle.) However the coffee truck turned out to be somewhat unlucky
as well because there were coffee fleas in the coffee and somehow they thought that Judy had rich blood, because by the end of a four-hour trip (where we covered 30 kilometres) she had been eaten alive. For two days she look liked a space age alien with measles and was in excruciating pain!

It was unbelievable, with no accidents on a tough, slippery trail... only one blister... when we got to civilization; I fell down a drain! (Occupational health and safety wouldn't have liked it, the open drain!)

Back in Cusco now, but our visas are about to expire and so will head to Bolivia and have decided that we might as well continue the couple hours from the border to La Paz to feast on Mc Donalds!!! After nearly 3 weeks on the trail eating rice, instant noodles and porridge we are craving something that resembles Australian food!

After the border run, we are heading up to the jungle region of Puerto Maldonado, where we will be volunteering for several weeks... again fairly remote so if you don´t hear from us for a while then its because we are miles away!

Copyright Ariana Svenson, 2005 - Comments and enquiries, please email us.