As expected, the morning of day three was a cold one. We sluggishly woke to a frost covered ground and started to prepare breakfast, eventually noticing that two of the three trekking poles we had stored in our vestibule were missing. We immediately set out to blame the large squirrel-like rodents seen romping around the night before, but soon realized the poles were nowhere to be found. Shock set in as we settled on the thought that someone must have been brazen enough to reach into our tent to pull off this “take at the lake.” After some curmudgeoning on my part and Mel’s compassionate plea that, “whoever it was must have needed them more than we did,” we left the poles in the past, and prepared for the hike back down the mountain.

Just when I thought I was over it, we heard the sound of faint music wafting across the river and my mind rapped back to the poles. I readied myself to confront the cavalier convict curiously announcing his return to the seen of the crime like a wayward piper, when what over the rambling ridge did appear, but a couple of shamans with fluttering flutes for our ears. (I apologize for that…Mel’s listening to Christmas music, and its obviously affecting me.)

The men casually strolled up as if on a walk through the park playing a harmonious tune on hand-whittled flutes, wearing long ponchos, lama hide sandals, and beanies saturated with color and intricate beadwork. After greeting us with huge smiles and wide open arms, they invited us to join a ceremony set to unfold beside the lake momentarily. Mel and I looked at each other almost wild-eyed as they continued quietly on, followed closely behind by a tour group of six. We introduced ourselves to the other travelers, two of whom were from my birth town of Highwycombe, England (a rare find), packed our bags, and met them by the water.

Our motley crew sat facing one another on large stones encircling a woven ceremonial cloth where the Shamans began explaining the event in their native tongue, Quechua, which was translated by a man sitting at their side. “The Inca religion sees everything of this world as duality. There is the sun and the moon, the night and the day, woman and man. In this ceremony we pay respect to the earth mother and father; Pachamama and Pachapapa.” They continued breaking down Incan concepts which emphasized cycles of the cosmos, plants, and other natural systems, while purposefully piling various items onto the cloth. Seeds, sugars, confetti, rice, silver and gold threads, cotton, corn, amaranth, and quiwichi, among others. Each offering representing something such as abundance or prosperity.

They handed each of us a ceremonial hat woven from alpaca called a Chullo, and three Coca leaves which were to represent our wishes. One by one we stood up, stated our name, where we were from, and a significant natural feature near our home like a mountain or river, as the shamans blessed our wishes and added our leaves to the pile. Finally, they carefully folded the offering, wrapped it in twine, and announced they would be burning it after a cleansing ceremony that night. Truly grateful for the experience, Mel and I paid our respects to the shamans and to the others for inviting us to join before climbing over a nearby ridge riddled with cairns to reflect in this place of incredible beauty and experience.

 

After a second dip in the basin, we descended through the switchbacks, and traversed the river which now overran its rocky edges due to a number of small avalanches breaking from the glacier earlier in the day. Once safely across, we went off-trail to follow a narrow spline which grew sharply out of the back of the mountain and carried us all the way back down into the valley.

Just outside of Soraypampa the trail split widely out of sight, one side wrapping smoothy around the mountain to our left, and the other, up and over a ridge to our right. As a result of the poor downward decisions of day one, I motioned that we go up this time. So, up we went; over a difficult, dry, and rutty incline that, unbeknownst to us, would soon join the shunned lower trail. From that point forward I forfeited my navigational nods to Mel.

Our arrival to Salkantaypampa (the grasslands of the Nevado Salkantay) was heralded by a large boulder on which the name of the region was crudely painted red. The high plateau was riddled with stones felled from the surrounding mountains, and relentlessly ravished by frosty winds whipping through the open valley. Slivers of a swiftly-moving river spread like gnarled fingers over the pocked pasture making it difficult to find a flat or dry place suitable for our tent. When we spotted a short wall of small stones previously used as a break, we set camp and took refuge from the howling winds, finally drifting to sleep as darkness settled on the valley and the night sky filled with the suns of other distant someones’ days.