Michael Creasy's Blog

Link to the "Day One" entry.

I woke up to a cheery "Hola!  Buenos dias amigo!".  I poked my head out of my tent to find one of the porters had brought me some hot water to make tea with a basin of hot water to wash with.  Washing on the trail is a rather hurried affair.  It's cold in the mornings, so covering yourself with water, even warm water isn't that appealing, but a quick was in the privacy of one's tent isn't so bad.  The tea was essential to start the day, I grabbed a handful of the dried coca leaves and then poured hot water over them in a mug to create some delicious coca tea.  The coca plant is perhaps best known for being the raw ingredient in cocaine and as such is illegal in most parts of the world.  In Peru and Bolivia though the plant is used as a flavouring, as tea and to chew.  A major benefit is that it alleviates the symptoms of altitude sickness and so travelers and hikers consume plenty of it.  Brewing tea with the leaves releases a tiny amount of the cocaine alkaloid which provides a stimulant effect not unlike a strong cup of coffee.  Chewing is a different story though.  To chew you take a small quantity (if you're a tourist and a large quantity if you're used to it) of the leaves and place it inside one cheek, then you add a little ash (a small stone of which is generally included when buying the leaves) and grind the leaves between your teeth.  Once ground you're supposed to keep the pulp in your cheek to allow the various components to have their full impact.  In practice though it's a foul tasting substance and keeping it in your mouth for very long is difficult.  Keep it in long enough though and your tongue starts to go numb which I took as a sign to spit the bright green remains out.  As disgusting as it sounds it really helps with the effects of the altitude and provides a little energy burst to keep you going.

I'd slept surprisingly well, I'd rented a light-weight roll-up Thermarest mattress to use in addition to the provide foam sleeping mat which was rather comfortable.  Combined with a incredibly light and very warm sleeping bag to keep out the cold I had no trouble sleeping.  A warm sleeping bag is essential as it can easily reach freezing temperatures on the trail in the winter which is the best time to visit because it's much more likely to be dry. 

Breakfast was simple but filling with yet more coca tea.  As a group we started to discuss the day ahead.  The second day is considered the hardest day on the trail.  Most of the day is spent climbing to the highest point on the trail - Dead Woman's Pass at 4215m (~14,000ft) above sea level.  We'd all heard stories of people saying it was the hardest thing they'd ever done so there some nervousness in the air.  Jeremy, our trusty guide, assured us that we'd all make it if we went at our own pace and reminded us that it would be very cold at the top and to make sure we were carrying warm clothes to change in to at the top.  Before leaving though it was time to officially meet the support team of porters and chefs that were accompanying us on the trail.

Each person introduced themselves to us, told us their name, age, where they were from and their duties on the trail.  Having a big team like this was great and made things much easier for us.  For a start they carried most of gear, so we only had to carry some warm clothes, water, snacks and a camera while hiking.  I saw many people hiking that were also carrying all their gear and I didn't envy them one bit. 

The introductions over it was time to start hiking.  It was going to be a long day.  We all set off together but it didn't take long to spread out again into smaller groups of two or three.  It's amazing how there can be so many people all hiking together, but apart from at the rest stops you rarely see anyone else. 

Almost instantly the trail headed uphill.  We were at only 10,000ft above sea level and had to get to 14,000ft before we'd start going down hill.  The trail is not really that steep but at that altitude it feels a lot worse.  Trying to climb at the same pace you would at a lower altitude leads to quick exhaustion.  The morning went well enough with most of the trail weaving through cloud forest which provided some welcome shade.  On reaching a large clearing we stopped for a break and to allow the group to get together again.  Behind us the mountains loomed ominously, we still had a long way to get to the pass. 

The next stop was for lunch.  From here we could look along the valley and could just see the trail weaving up the side and up to Dead Woman's Pass.  The pass is not named because a woman died up there, although it's easy to believe that could happen, but because the formation of the mountains apparently looks like the profile of a dead woman.  I couldn't see it myself no matter how much I looked, perhaps if I did a lot more coca I might have done, but I just took Jeremy's word for and kept walking. 

If there's one thing that I can recommend that makes the hike easier (other than coca) it's to take regular short breaks.  I'd hike for about thirty minutes then take a five minute break, have some water, get my breath back and perhaps chew some coca before setting out again.  That combined with bigger breaks at spots designated by the guide every ninety minutes to two hours made everything quite bearable.

When climbing up to the pass every corner looks like it might be the last one, but it always seems like there's more to go.  Finally, though you round the last corner and can see the last few steps up to the pass.  The relief at having made it is extreme and then if you had any breath left from the ascent the view soon takes that away.

From these photos it's hard to get an idea of just how far we'd climbed, but if you look to the lowest point in the valley, that's where we had lunch.

At the top it was surprisingly warm, even our guide was surprised and commented that it was normally much colder and could easily be below freezing up there.  Not wanting to tempt fate and knowing that we still a good distance to go we started going down the other side.  From that point on it's all downhill to the camp for the night.  Shortly after you start the descent there are a set of toilets that are surprisingly well maintained for their location, so if you feel the need, it's a good place to stop.

The descent is pretty easy going, it's just long with the occasional steep section which requires some care - you really don't want to fall and get hurt here.  By the time we reached the camp site it was starting to get dark.  The camp site was crowded, every flat surface had a tent on it, but of course our porters had secured a quiet spot away from the main crowd and as usual greeted us with a round of applause.  Unlike our previous camping spot the night before there was no private facilities, instead everyone was sharing a limited number of locations which lead to queues forming and unpleasant odor.  Everything is cleaned regularly, but that can't really cope with two hundred plus hikers, a reasonable percent of which are likely suffering from the altitude, a change in diet and a touch of food poisoning. 

The camp on day two is located in a valley and gets pretty cold when it gets dark, so we were all eager to have dinner and get to bed - there are no late nights on the trail!

It's easy to get to Machu Picchu.  You just get on a bus from Cuzco, then a train and then a bus up to Machu Picchu.  Easy.  The more adventurous though spend three and half days hiking up and down mountains along an old trail to get there.  Although there are a number of trails the "classic" approach is along the Inca Trail.

With a small army of porters up to two hundred people a day can set out on the trail to make this traveler's pilgrimage to one of the new seven wonders of the world.  Machu Picchu was built by the Inca Empire around 1450 and was never discovered by the Spanish.  In fact it wasn't even really known about to the outside world until 1911 when an Hiram Bingham "discovered" it.  Check out the Wikipedia article for the full history.

Armed with cameras, water and our walking sticks this small band of merry (for now) adventurers set out on the Inca Trail.  The first day is considered the easiest of the four days on the trail.  The trail is fairly flat with only limited climbs with plenty of places to stop and rest.  Our guide did a good job of keeping us together as a group and scheduling good places to stop for breaks.  Local people along the trail sell drinks and snacks which we tourist easily gobble down.  Most people take the first day fairly quickly and exhaust themselves in the process.  That's a good thing though as it means you take it easier for the rest of the trail and realise it's not as hard as you thought it might be.

It's not long before you discover on day one that there's no sign of life anywhere around you.  Even though there are five hundred people on the trail you don't really see many of them most of the time.  It's only when you reach the camp sites or lunch spots that you get an idea of how many other people are hiking along with you.  Once you start walking it's rare to see anyone other than a porter running past you.  The porters are amazing it has to be said.  Each one carries no more than twenty kilos (plus his own gear) and they run along the trail wearing very basic sandals and no walking stick for support.  A few years ago a race was run along the length of the trail; athletes from around the world competed, but it was a local porter in his regular clothes than won the race.  In three and a half hours.  OK, he wasn't carrying anything, but three and a half hours compared to the three and a half days that regular people take...  That's amazing.  He wants to do it again as he thinks he can beat his best time - he won't stop for fifteen minutes to have a cup of tea next time.

The morning passes pretty quickly, after a climb up what we thought was a steep hill re reach a lookout point and can see the river we started off following winding through the valley and past some Incan ruins beneath us.  From our vantage point we can see how over the years huge boulders have come crashing down off the mountain and smashed through the ruins, coming to rest on the terraces below.  We don't stop for long, there's a lot of ground to cover and we haven't had lunch yet.

Carrying on, the trail starts going down hill.  That's not good at this stage, because every step down means we have to take a step up again.  The altitude isn't too bad at this point but the air is definitely thinner.  Having a walking stick makes things much easier, it takes some of the load and makes covering the rough ground simpler.  Wooden sticks with a rubber bottom are sold at the start of the trail very cheaply and are a great investment.  Metal walking sticks are supposedly banned, but many people use them anyway. 

Lunch time arrives and one of the porters is waiting by the edge of the trail for us to guide us to where they've set up camp.  Water is waiting for us to wash our hands and cold drinks are quickly handed around.  The food on the trail is quite amazing.  The chef with very limited resources prepared three tasty and nutritious meals a day.  There was always plenty of food so we were never left hungry.  Everything was prepared using water collected from a stream and then boiled to make it safe to drink, but all the food was carried in by the porters.

After lunch we carry on along the trail, mostly in silence as the group soon breaks up into smaller groups.  Jeremy, our guide, has described a place where we'll stop for a break, but otherwise lets us walk at our own pace and time.  The scenery is spectacular all around us and mostly untouched as hikers are required to stick to the trail and not wander off.  There's a good reason for that, much of the trail is on steep cliff faces and stepping onto what might look like solid vegetation can send the unfortunate off the edge of a cliff.  With vegetation so dense and few people around it could be quite some time before you're found and rescued and the only way out is back or forward along the trail.  There are no helicopter rescues here.

Eight miles pass by and the sun begins to set behind the high mountains as we reach the end of day one.  It was great to arrive at the campsite and have the porters waiting for us with a round of applause.  Every time we reached camp they'd break into applause to welcome us, even though they'd been there probably for hours before hand.  Our tents were already set up and waiting for us.  We'd been lucky and the porters had secured a great camp site for us, further up the hill than everyone else with a great view into the valley and the rest of the campsites.  We even had company, a turkey stalked our tents but eventually hid up a tree out of the way.  Who knew turkeys could climb trees?  We certainly didn't.

Day one left me pretty tired, but I sat outside to watch the sun go down and the stars come out and contemplated the day ahead.  Day two is the hard day.  The long hard climb to Dead Woman's Pass - the highest point of the trail at 4215m (~14,000ft) above sea level. 

Continued in day two.

Near Cusco is the Sacred Valley of the Incas.  This highly fertile area was a major source of food for the Incas and so was treated as sacred.  Many people still live here and I got the chance to visit a small village where local people still practice traditional handicrafts.

The local people in this small village mainly survive by farming, but the growth in tourism to the area has provided additional opportunities for them.  The woman of the village use the wool from their alpacas to weave traditional items to sell to tourists and then men work as porters on the Inca Trail.  In fact some of the men from this village would be in my team of porters when I hiked the Inca Trail a few days later.

Near the town of Pisac are some Inca ruins with this huge area of terraces.  The Incans terraced the land to grow crops and make the best use of the land.  Our guide led us around the ruins on a short hike to make sure we were up to the task of hiking the Inca Trail the next day.  The altitude certainly made it interesting and left us short of breath, but it certainly helped prepare us for what was to come.

The Incan masonry is amazing, each stone was carved by hand to fit perfectly with the stones around it - no mortar was needed to keep these buildings standing - just precision workmanship.

Leaving Pisac I headed to the start of the Inca Trail at Ollantaytambo - another Incan city.

Looking at this mountain it's hard to imagine trying to climb it, but the Incas did and build a number of buildings on it.  That alone is pretty impressive, but if you look closely you can see two faces carved into the rock itself.  To see the first, imagine a line between the two buildings, about half way along that line is a face looking to the left.  The second is smaller and harder to see, it's on the top of the mountain on the left, you can just see a face in profile, with the nose sticking out from the side of the mountain.

Climbing around Ollantaytambo left everyone tired and short of breath thanks to the high altitude, but it was just a warm up to hiking the Inca Trail so after buying a walking stick we all went to bed early, because tomorrow was an early start and a lot of hiking.

Sacred Valley photo gallery

Peru has been rattled by a few earthquakes this week causing massive amounts of damage with reports now saying that over 500 people have been killed.  The earthquakes have been centered in the Ica region and close to the town of Pisco which I visited a little over a month ago.  It seems like Pisco has been pretty hard hit with the church in the main square now a pile of rubble, it's amazing to me to think that I sat in that same main square drinking Pisco Sours and now it's in ruins.

Relief efforts are underway but there's been major damage to the roads which is making it difficult to get supplies to those in need.  It's also the middle of winter there making it get very cold over night.  World Vision are responding by bringing in supplies of warm clothes and medical supplies.  I've made a donation to their efforts this morning and if you're able to I encourage you too as well.

Update: New York Times photos of the destruction in Pisco.

On Monday I announced that I'll be leaving Microsoft on the 31st of August.  I've been working at Microsoft for over six and a half years. 

I started off in the Speech team working on the speech recognition components in Office XP and then the text-to-speech components in Windows XP.  At the same time I also worked on the Speech SDK (SAPI 5.1).  After XP shipped I stayed in the Speech team and worked on Microsoft Speech Server for a couple of years.  That was an interesting project, I spent most of my time building little speech applications, deploying them on a test server and then picking up a phone to call the server and interact with the application. 

After the Speech team I moved to work on Windows Media Center, mostly on the SDK.  Media Center was a fun place to work, not least because I got to watch TV and call it work!  I worked on three releases of Media Center over three years, with the final release being part of Windows Vista.  I'll still continue to use Media Center with an Xbox 360 as an extender after I leave Microsoft, I still think it's a great product.

The next step was moving to the Zune team.  I can't talk about what I've been doing though...

So the question is what am I doing next?  Well I've accepted a job in the Bay Area for a very interesting company.  I think that's all I'll say for now...

I've moved my website hosting from ASPnix to Webhost4Life, most stuff is working ok, but there are a few things still to fix.  ASPnix dragged thier feet over giving me the backups of my databases so I've had to move stuff by hand.  Unfortunately blog comments got lost upon the way along with all the tagging which I'll slowly recreate.  Preserving comments was just too much work for it to be worthwhile unfortunately.

Now I can get back to documenting my Peru and Bolivia travels.

Moved to a new host and getting data ported over.

This blog is unfortunately hosted with ASPnix.  Once upon a time there was good service, problems were resolved quickly and servers stayed up and running.  Now things are different.  Things started going bad earlier this year, complaints started filling the forums on ASPnix.com, but support replied things would get better May 1st, when they'd roll out a new website and pricing plans as well as improve support.  May 1st came and went with no changes.  The support team of one person started deleting all negative posts on their forums, anything that might prevent a new customer from signing up was deleted.  Any complaints about things getting deleted also got deleted.

Fast forward to the more recent events.  On July 20th it was announced that the new website and plans would be rolled out in a "few days".  At the same time the forums were shut down, removing all the customer complaints and the ability for customers to discuss the issues.  Of course the website didn't get updated and the forums didn't get restored.  Instead a message appeared that the forums were only down temporarily due to a software upgrade and would be back online August 6th along with the new website.  Well now it's August 13th and still nothing has changed.

Last week the anti-spam software ASPnix runs stopped working and my mailbox started getting flooded with spam.  I emailed support and eventually got a reply that they would "check it seriously".  24 hours later and it's not fixed so I email again and get told that the issue has been forwarded to "system ADMIN" and "he will be fixing the issue on priority basis".  48 hours after the ticket was opened I email again asking what's going on and when is it going to be fixed and get told that I'm the only customer facing the problem (can't tell if that's true now the forums have been deleted), and they are "trying to figure out and fix".  After three days I email again asking for a status report and ETA for the fix, support doesn't bother to respond.  On the fourth day I email again with the same question and get told "we are working on it and will get it fixed ASAP".  Now it's been five days and it's still not fixed.  Support is claimed to be 24/7, but if I get a response, it's always from the same person and always during regular business hours.  Support also claims to use a Windows Live/MSN Messenger account for support, but the account is never signed in making it impossible to contact them. 

Now to find a new host that supports Community Server.  I imagine getting a backup of my database from ASPnix is going to be difficult.