Machu Picchu Camino Inca Trail Cuzco Peru 1996
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The locals did not seem too worried or surprised, although the porters showed great interest in understanding the flight of the boulder before it obliterated the cooking-shed. Within minutes, they had removed the boulder and had proudly pushed it aside of the cramped walkway for everybody's inspection. The locals brought their hammers and saws and set about correcting the damage. The meal had not been disturbed and its preparation continued regardless of the preceding drama. Sitting beside me, his right hand grasping my left thigh, Salous said, "It was lucky for her that you called landslide when you did. She speaks only Quechua, but over the years I have taught her the word for landslide in twelve different languages." |
The clouds that had tracked us all day began to unload, gently at first and then with vengeance. The temperature had fallen suddenly with the approach of twilight, and the group milled around with distinct impatience as the boulder incident had delayed the pitching of the tents.
Shortly before dinner, Salous announced that the tents were ready on a lower terrace and he stressed the point to be careful. His comment struck me as a little strange until I saw their location. For the second night running, our tents were pitched on a twenty degree slope, but this time Salous had played his joker. The entrance to both mine and Rob's tents were just eighteen inches away from a ten foot drop onto a concrete path, which separated a crumbling cliff face from the high back wall of a house.
The complication of darkness and soggy guide ropes had clearly not come into the tent pitching equation. After a few drinks tonight, we would do well not to kill ourselves on that precipitous slope. But as usual, nobody complained - this was South America after all. The best we could hope for was a night without flash floods or landslides.The dining room was not quite what everybody had in mind, but the incessant rain and windy squalls, brought the group together under the same roof. Unfortunately, the roof was of the flimsy, leaking sheet-metal variety, and it sheltered only five metres away from its battered cousin, the cooking-shed.
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