Day 4: Camp Punkuccasa

Today the real adventure begins! Our next four nights will be at tented camps along Explora’s curated hiking route thru the Vilcabamba mountain range. One problem. It has been raining since the middle of the night, and the usually sunny Explora cornfields are draped in clouds and mist. We are told this is unusual, considering it is the middle of Peru’s “Dry Season.” Apparently, we are good at bringing the unusual weather.

After filling up on our usual breakfast (eggs, avocado toast, fruit and yogurt, and of course espresso), we partially checked out of the hotel. We turned in our room 10 key, left our main luggage for safe-keeping, and packed our camping/hiking necessities with us in the Explora-provided Patagonia 55L Black Hole duffle bags — which DEFINITELY weight less than 10kg. We then joined the rest of the expedition team at the big map for the big send-off.

Intrepid Sacred Valley Exploration team #2

We drove through Urubamba again, which has a lot of stray dogs. They seem generally well taken care of (not skinny or sick looking), but today was trash day, and the dogs were very excited to have piles of trash bags to sift through. It was very Isle of Dogs-esque. Luis told us that he is trying to start a local campaign to spay and neuter the strays to reduce the number of new stray dogs in the area. He has three dogs of his own at home — Mango, Mulatto, and Pillie.

The drive to the trailhead took about three hours (and Jo was awake for some of it!). Along the way we stopped for some coca leaves and some “bathrooms,” which were so bad that using the Inca toilets would have been much better. The last part of the drive was up a dirt road for about 30 minutes. We stepped out of the van at 3400m. It was still raining.

Rollercoaster of a drive there

Upon arrival to the town of Misquiyaco (more like MISTY-aco, amirite?!?) we saw a portion of our support team consisting of humans, horses, and mules. We immediately put our rain gear to use. We also applied sunscreen (in blind faith, mostly) followed by some insect repellant — since we are starting the hike in the rainforest zone. Before heading out, we made a Coca-Cola offering to Panchamama (hopefully for better weather!).

Expedition staging area

Once everyone was ready, we headed north into the Misquiyaco Conservation Reserve. The name Misquiyaco means good or sweet Earth. In our case, it also means wet earth. We started hiking up the trail. And up and up and up some more. The terrain was pretty muddy from the rains overnight but we made it just fine. The rainforest was beautiful – dense with trees covered in moss and lichen, plants all along the ground brushing our legs as we walked past, and branches hanging down low.

Into the wild selfie

A brief reprieve from the rain

Misquiyaco Mushrooms for Mica!

While the majority of the support team travels separately to get to the lunch spot and our nightly camp before we do, we did have two humans (Laura and Alex) and two horse (Crespo – meaning curly, and Chumpy – meaning brownish red color) hiking with us in case of an emergency. We could use the horses to ride if altitude sickness was an issue, or they could carry our bags if they got too heavy.

Chumpy, Crespo (barely), Laura, and Alex

As we ascended, we quickly moved out of the rainforest zone and into the Puna zone. Big trees and tweeting birds were replaced with rolling grasslands and mooing cows. We continued our journey, moving off to the side a few times to let the horse team pass. Turns out you can do a lot of things with the grass in this area (if your name is Laura).

Brai is legally obligated to say the rain is good luck

After some breaks and snacks, we made it to the lunch spot. This is no ordinary backpacking lunch break. This is the full Explora experience complete with multiple plated courses. To start, we had a trout appetizer, then semolina soup (which is basically cream of wheat), and causa de pollo, with passion fruit mousse for dessert. Oh, and don’t forget the rosemary bread. The worst part was not being able to eat too much since we still had more walking to do and couldn’t afford a food coma. It was still raining on and off while we ate, but it seemed to stop as we finished and got ready to start hiking again.

Lunch spot reached

Lunch finished, let’s go, maybe the rain won’t notice!

We continued our way up through the puna. While the rain seemed to be done (lol), clouds were still passing above and below us, occasionally allowing spectacular glimpses of the surrounding mountains and the valley.

Clouds rolling thru

We also had some cows follow us for a while. Apparently Laura (one of the horse guides) owns these cows, so they were looking for her to give them some tasty salt. Laura also revealed that she had lit a candle and done a ritual to ask for rain a couple days ago to help her farm and livestock. So… she basically cursed us. She is going back home tonight (someone else is coming to lead the horses). We kindly asked if she would blow out that candle.

About an hour and a half after lunch, we closed in on the location of our first campsite, and the rain subsided long enough for some of the natural landscape to shine.

Last pit-stop before camp

The campsite appeared out of nowhere as we crested a ridge. The name of this site is Punkuccasa (the pronunciation of the two Cs indicate this is a Quechuan word) and sits at 4200m. This campsite was not the original planned site (Spoiler alert: more of that to come!), but the original site was flooded due to all the recent rain in Peru’s famous “Dry Season.”

Punkuccasa, home sweet home

What is that bright light???

Hike to Camp Punkuccasa details

But no complaints! This site was great and it was getting pretty close to sunset. In addition, the clouds had cleared and we spend some time enjoying the view and taking pictures during golden hour.

Flag series continues

Luis and Brai tolerating the guests

Group shot

We were shown our ginormous tents and settled in. A bonkers addition to our hiking team are two masseuses. Matt took advantage of the offer and got a full body massage (along with Luis) before Happy Hour. It was amazing.

By this point, Nan was really feeling the affects of the altitude and was resting in her tent. Wilderness First Aid Certified Brai and Chio spent some time assessing and checking on her. The rest of the group gathered in the dining tent for some snacks and tea for Happy Hour and then a full dinner of Pumpkin soup, carrot bread, trout with rice and potatoes (Brai says every meal in Peru is rice and something or potatoes and something, so this is double Peru-ness), and chia pudding with strawberries. Brai was not a fan of the pudding until we let him know the strawberries were hiding at the bottom. Another bonus in the dining tent are the power banks we can use to charge our electronics.

After dinner, we were all pretty beat and went off to our rooms (hard to call them tents) to sleep.

PS. Animal antagonist of the night: the horses.