The Trek.

The Trek.



By Ryan Mobilia

For two weeks during May 2007 my father Andrew, 56, ventured from his office, in the study of our suburban Melbourne home, to embark on a trip to South America that would culminate in a four day, 47 km trek along the Inca Trail, to the Inca ruins in Machu Picchu. "We flew into Santiago, which is the capital of Chile. Then we flew from there to Lima, which is the capital of Peru. We flew from there into Cusco, for the start of the trek.” He has only just come back. I sat down to discuss with him something that I am proud he achieved, and fascinated by the fact he attempted in the first place. But travelling with a friend and two others, there was much more to overcome on this trip than just the gruelling walk. Which covered the distance between 'Kilometre 82', their starting point for the trek, and their ultimate destination in Machu Picchu.

“When you get to Cusco, because, I think it’s about ten thousand feet above sea level. You’ve got to acclimatise, and it takes about two to three days.” He went on to explain the headaches and general fatigue that were symptoms of those struggling to adapt. “Some people found it difficult to just walk in. I didn’t have that problem. Then again others did.” When I suggested he was perhaps just fitter than the others, he played it down in his usual modest way, “No." he said flatly, "Even Olympic athletes suffer from it.”

The terrain on the trek was of the type he had never come across, but with a laugh he leans back into the comfort of the couch, savouring the fact that it is now over. Safe in the knowledge that what he is about to describe is now behind him, rather than in front.

He recalls, “the walk started off 3 ½ to 4 hours which wasn’t bad.” He described the path on the first day as well maintained. “The second day was 7 hours. And that was hard. Because you had to get up to 14 1/2 thousand feet. That was very difficult. The track is just rocks laid down.” The absolute toughest part overall? “Just stepping up. Stepping up. You’re doing this constantly stepping from rocks to rocks, up!” And you’re doing two or three days in a row.”

It seems at least one variable worked in their favour, the weather was ok, “around twenty degrees during the day. Quite good actually.” Although he continued “because of the altitude you’d have, the UV was very high.” And at night the sleeping bags kept them warm enough, in fact it was "often too hot."

As part of the trek, local men were employed as 'porters' to help move the group from camp to camp. He was clearly impressed by them. “They weren’t muscular, more wiry. No taller than 5’5 any of them.” These men carried the tents, cooking equipment and gas bottles. Dad said they were only supposed to carry 25kgs, but was sure they were often carrying more. Admiration for these men was clear in his voice; he now had a sense of what they endured each day. Much more than was expected of his group. “They had to wait till we left in the morning. Then they had to get past us, so they could set up at night. Moving, if not jogging, at a very fast walking pace. Most didn't wear hiking boots, they were wearing sandals."

My dad is certainly not a fitness fanatic. I’ve never seen him go for a run, he leaves walking the dogs to us. He worked in an office his whole life; his exercise came in the garden and other roundabout ways. I struggled to think of anything that something like this could be compared to, trying to grasp the enormity of the task he completed. When I asked if this compared to anything he did in his days in the Army, some 30 years earlier, he shook his head at the thought. “Nah, nothing like it. First off it wasn’t that hard. Nothing in the Army was that hard! Never at that altitude.”

“(It'd) have to be one of the physically most demanding things I've ever done, because it’s just so consistent.” I asked if it was rewarding to finish, and once again in his way, he played it down. “You couldn’t stop, you couldn’t turn around, you had to keep going.” He massages his thighs, appearing to remember the burn in his muscles after hours of stepping from stone to stone. Perhaps it still hurts now?

Obviously it took a toll on the body? “Yeah, our legs were sore.” And the others, I enquired? "We were all the same. It just would’ve been very difficult to train for that, because you don’t have the atmosphere.”

I pressed him on his impressions of the trek and what he got out of the effort to place himself at the top of the Andes mountain range in Peru. Were the ruins at the end of the four days worth the physical punishment? Some of his photos are spectacular, but as he explained, "There were ruins on the way. All along we saw ruins. We were almost ‘ruined out.''

But clearly he did understand what made Machu Picchu so amazing. “It’s very impressive how they dragged those rocks right up the valley, from the quarries right down the bottom.” Machu Picchu was constructed around 1450, at the height of the Inca Empire, and was abandoned less than 100 years later, as the empire collapsed under Spanish invasion. "All of this was achieved in a relatively short time. So yeah that was impressive.”

Finally I asked if he thought he would undertake anything like this again? “I don’t think I’ll ever do that again.” But he did concede that he was open to the idea of something more local as "There is no where like that in Australia, so anything here has got to be easier!”