Monday, July 08, 2019

Day 9 - Palccoyo Mountain

I could be a warrior, yes I am a warrior
there's no need to worry love
look around it's glorious
close your eyes and taste the sun
you know where to find me
Warrior - Chloe x Halle

Day 9 started with me being cranky. Like a child, I get cranky if I'm tired and the night before I barely slept and I felt a bit rushed to get ready and have breakfast that morning. I'm so not a morning person. That day we're going to hike Palccoyo mountain. From Cusco you can take a day trip to hike the Vinicunca rainbow mountain. That day trip would start with a 03:00 AM something pick up and the hike up a mountain at a high altitude will take you around 2 hours. I'm positively sure I cannot do that and I don't want to do that also let me stress again I'm not a morning person. I made an exception for that day trip to Colca Canyon because though the pick up was super early, at least one didn't have to hike up a mountain. So anyway if you don't think you can do Vinicunca mountain, you can go to Palccoyo mountain or what they call the alternative rainbow mountain. The pick up time is later, though at 06:00 AM, I still felt it was early. The walk up is also not so steep and it takes you around 40 minutes to go through all the three viewpoints. I have never been to Vinicunca so I cannot comment on the colours. Many people wrote that photos from there are usually enhanced so the colours look more vivid. Actually same goes for pictures from Palccoyo that I put here and the Flickr album. I cannot comment if Vinicunca is more beautiful than Palccoyo or the other way around, but what I can say is that for me this trip to Palccoyo was extraordinary and it gave me so much feelings :)

So anyways, we were picked up quite promptly. First stop was for toilet break and a bread shop if you wanted to get bread for breakfast. We didn't get any because we already had breakfast and I had written in previous posts of how I was getting tired of the bread. I don't know the name of the place we stopped in, but in that place every few metres or so there's quite a number of bread shops that sold home made bread. Then we stopped at a small village called Checacupe where there is a traditional rope bridge. In fact what is interesting is that there are 3 parallel bridges. You have the modern one where cars go through, then you have the rope one, and here in the picture below, you can see behind a stone one behind the rope bridge. You need to pay to walk through the rope bridge and I didn't do that. By the way look at the girl on the right, really the thing people do to take photo are just downright stupid sometime. Dying when taking a selfie or a photo is one of the stupidest thing you can do.
Aside for looking at the bridges, there's not much things to do, so I just stood around. It was then when I heard Indonesian being spoken by one of the lady in our group. I didn't guess that there's an Indonesian in our group though that morning I did see an Asian group but I thought they could be Korean because the guy looked Korean and then the girl in that group was speaking in Chinese at that village when she's making (I think YouTube) video, so I wasn't sure what they were, but then the lady was speaking 1-2 words of Indonesian. It was faint, but it was enough to make me turn and said, Tante, tante orang Indonesia yah? Tante is an Indonesian, Dutch, and French word for aunt and it's a word Indonesian sometime use to call an older lady. What proceeded was something quite funny. The tante looked at the guy who I later found out was his son, then I looked at the son, then back me and the tante locked eyes. We confirmed that I'm Indonesian too and she got excited and started spreading her arms. We were separated by this outdoor seating space and so we had to go around it to hug. I'm gonna admit that it's overly dramatic that we hugged like long lost relative and this is not common for Indonesians meeting overseas but the tante was excited and it turned out that hug was like a gift from God. I needed it even though I didn't know I needed it. During the hug it was like I telepathically told the tante things had been hard with me getting my booking cancelled and I felt like the tante was telling me it's okay and come here let me hug you even though I'm pretty sure it's all in my head since she didn't know what's been happening to me. Throughout all this, Gioia was laughing with the son because yeah it was overly dramatic. She told me later on finally she saw what I meant about Indonesians being best friends and all when we meet each other outside Indonesia. She said that changed my mood completely. That was true. I talked a lot with the tante and learned a lot about her family. So she was there with her son and the Chinese girl was the son's girlfriend. The son and her 2 other children live in Canada now, but she still lives in Jakarta. She's very very nice and really it really did change my mood. To have an ally, to feel loved (again an overly dramatic choice of word), to have that familial feeling, it's a real blessing from God. I know that not all Indonesians will be friendly like this. Even me may not be that friendly, but I do have to say that in general Indonesians will be and I hope we will continue to be that way. This friendliness is a good trait of ours I think. Like I don't know if people from other countries are like this too, for sure there are many who aren't. I hope Indonesians especially the younger one will not be snobbish and continue to be friendly and look out for each other. Really it's just a wonderful feeling to have an ally and to know someone will help you if something bad should happen. I hope I will remember to be mindful and not be snobbish :D

Moving on, after this village we made our way to the start of Palccoyo mountain hike. When I got out of the car, it was cold and I was breathless. A thought came that perhaps this would be much harder than I thought it would be. I had my worry about the altitude and if I could make it so I took one of my coca candy. Again I don't know if it helped, but at least there's something to distract the mind. The guide was giving a general explanation of the hike and we just started walking without waiting for him and the rest of the group. I also left the tante here, I know it was bad of me for not waiting for her, but hey even her son just walked on and left her and his girlfriend :D I was just worried that I would be slow, so I better got going, that's what in my head. I even left Gioia behind, but at some point she overtook me. I stopped a few times during the walk just to pause and check myself if I was okay. Then I took picture during these stops. The trail was not very hard, but it's at altitude so your breathing may be a bit laborious and it's also cold and windy. Here's what some parts of the trail looked like.
This colourful mountain is the mountain near the parking lot. So you can actually see some colourful mountain nearby even without walking too far.
From one side of the trail, you can see this open plain with red earth. The colours were striking and there's some llama and alpaca or perhaps both or perhaps sheep grazing.
On the other side of the trail, you could see the Stone Forest high up. It looked really interesting, but I didn't climb up there because by the time I arrived at the start of that trail, I realized I wouldn't be able to do it and also I didn't think I would have enough time. Now that I think about it, I wished I could have done it because when I see the pictures now, it looks so cool. From some angle, the stones looked like spikes of a dragon.
Some of the trail to the 3rd viewpoint was quite steep and treacherous and I have to say that Gioia was more graceful in tackling it. For me, there were times where I just crouched down and extended my leg out - I just couldn't do it standing up. Anyways upon reaching the third viewpoint, I was just so blown away I wanted to cry. I know this would sound ungrateful but from all my travels, these days I don't get blown away much anymore. Yes I saw beautiful things, but I hadn't been shaken for a long time as I was that moment. The view was extraordinary that it's like God was telling me there are still things to see on planet Earth. Also for God to be giving me that, I was just so humbled in gratitude really. His blessing was beyond, beyond what I could imagine. I thought about my life journey that brought me there at that moment. Growing up we're not rich so a lot of things felt out of reach and to reach something that the young me couldn't even start to hope for, I was just feeling a lot of things. I don't think I can explain well what I felt, I don't have the words. I felt so much emotion that I wanted to cry, but I didn't. I forgot if I said a prayer, but really what I felt then and now is just gratitude. God brought me somewhere that I couldn't even imagine and that blessing is just beyond words. I know that I still complain a lot about my day to day life, but perhaps I should just remember that God would still show me unbelievable sights and give me indescribable feeling? If only that understanding can overcome my negativity. Anyways so what did I see? Towards the last viewpoint, the trail opened up to show this beautiful Ausangate snowy mountain range. It was so unexpected. Then there's also another section of a rainbow mountain. It was just too beautiful.
Here is also where the trail to Stone Forest starts. As you can see below, it's a winding path up. My heart rate was actually okay at that time, but walking with less oxygen was really not easy. I just didn't want to get into trouble forcing myself up.
I think no one from our group went to the Stone Forest. Maybe if we had more time we could do it. I think it took me and Gioia around 50 minutes to reach the third viewpoint. Gioia went back first. It's not just the altitude we're dealing with, there's also the cold air and the wind. By the way, the tante didn't make it all the way but it's alright because you don't have to go all the way to see nice views. So if you're in Cusco and planning to see rainbow mountains and don't want to suffer too much, I suggest you go for this one. I also heard Vinicunca is very crowded. While there were more people in Palccoyo than expected, it's not super crowded.

After the mountain, we then made our way for lunch. The van stopped a few times when the guide and driver saw the local kids and they gave them some snack. Some ladies in our groups also gave them snacks that they had with them. One time the guide received some potatoes from the local farmers who were eating their lunch and I was given one. I was hungry and that potato tasted good. I think they cooked it by burying it inside hot soil. For lunch we had a buffet lunch but the options weren't great and I didn't have a lot of appetite. I wasn't feeling well at this time. It's not the altitude. I felt like I was coming down with flu. The throat felt funny. In Cusco I was again having the same problem as the one I had in Arequipa and now I had another issue :( I was feeling worse by the time we're back Cusco. During dinner I couldn't finish my quinoa soup (because it wasn't so good) and I had to leave Gioia and went back to the room first. My body was breaking down :( Rest was really crucial and I wasn't having enough of it :( Still I kept pushing my body and I only have God to thank that I was still standing.

:) eKa @ 10:30:00 PM •