The Age/Sydney Morning Herald
16 August 2008

Lee Mylne leaves a little of her heart in the Andes after a high -altitude spell of work experience with a difference.

Under a clear blue sky, as we marvel at the fortune bestowed upon us by the weather gods, our trekking guide Javier imparts a piece of wisdom.

“There is an old Peruvian saying,” he says solemnly, but with a repressed twinkle in his eye. “Never trust a woman's tears, a dog who limps, or an Andean sky.”

We are optimists, however, and our second day's trek continues in brilliant sunshine, as has the first. It is a day later that we wake and find that the adage might have some foundation after all: our tents are cloaked in overnight snow.

It is just one of the many rewards on an Andean adventure which never fails to exceed my expectations.

Our trek has started in the ancient town of Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. I am part of a group of 15 undertaking this trip to provide the labour and finance for building a small foot-bridge and a pipeline to bring fresh water to some of the households in a remote Andean village inaccessible by road.

Part of the cost of our 14-day World Expeditions Community Project Travel trip – which includes sightseeing in the historic city of Cusco and a visit to the fabled Machu Picchu - will buy the materials, and we will work alongside the villagers to complete the projects.

The first day of trekking at higher altitudes than my body is used to proves harder than I'd anticipated. The pace is slow, but my heart rate is increasing. I quickly learn that trekking is not for the unfit or the faint-hearted.

“If I stop puffing, turn around and check that I'm still behind you,” I tell the trekker plodding in front of me. Despite a few days in Cusco to acclimatise to living at above 2500 metres, I'm finding the going tough.

Vincente, the 12-year-old son of one of the porters, keeps pace with me for a while, smiling shyly and silently, then trots ahead, well-used to the conditions and the altitude. Vincente and the porters are from Qelqanqa, a village of about 80 families in Peru's Urubamba region, and our ultimate destination.

Our three-day trek takes us over mountain passes of up to 4670 metres and through sweeping valleys punctuated by lakes and scattered with tiny wildflowers. It is wild and barren, starkly beautiful and full of small surprises.

As we walk, we slowly get to know each other. It's a mixed group, mostly Australians with a few Britons and Americans. The youngest is Jenny, 15, from Oregon, who is travelling with her mother Joan; the oldest is Evan from Pennsylvania who is “72 years and three months” and leaves some younger ones – including me - far in his wake on the trail.

At our first camp, the tent flap opens to a view of the sun's last rays on the snow-capped tip of Mount Veronica, also known, says Javier, as “the holy teardrop”.

Each day we rise at 6am and after breakfast and packing up we're soon overtaken by the porters and llama carrying our tents, the kitchen tent and its contents and all the other gear. I'm acutely conscious of how ridiculously small and light my day pack must seem to them.

I become used to looking out for the large kettle – carried by hand – passing by on its way to the designated lunch or camping spot. By the time we arrive, our camp cook Enier, his kitchen tent adorned with a Peruvian flag, has already produced a midday meal.

Enier is a widower with three children. Each day, with the help of his assistant Carlos, he creates meals for our trekking party, three guides and a team of 20 porters, all from a one-burner gas stove inside a small tent. The meals are, without exception, nutritious, different and delectable.

On the morning we wake in snow, we don wet-weather gear and gratefully down hot porridge and coffee and are off again. The snow cover adds another dimension to the trail, and we barely notice the cold. A ghostly herd of wild horses appears through the mist; we pause to shelter at a pass in a tiny stone chapel adorned with simple crosses. Some high-spirited snowball fights punctuate the walk.

As we approach Qelqanqa, we are greeted by the eerie blast of a conch shell and a party including the village head man, school children and their teachers welcomes us with flowers, confetti and unexpected hugs. I look at the others and see some eyes are moist with tears. There are speeches, music and dancing and an escort of villagers as we walk for the last hour to the village.

The houses, like others we have passed in these valleys, are stone with thatched roofs. Toddlers peek shyly from doorways, pigs snuffle behind stone fences, and dogs race around in circles. Everyone wears colourful traditional dress and headgear, but it's not for our benefit; this is everyday life.

On arrival, we camp on the school football field and explore the work sites. Split into two teams, we will spend two days working on our projects. I'm on the bridge, a river-stone-and-cement construction designed to allow some of the children to reach the school in safety when the river rises. The other group will work on replacing the water reservoir and extending the pipeline.

At the site for the bridge, the river has been diverted into another channel to allow us to build the rock ramparts, and over the course of the first day, it gradually and miraculously takes shape as we hand-haul rocks alongside the locals, including an 80-year-old grandfather who soon becomes a favourite with us.

We've donned disposable blue overalls, rubber gloves and woolly hats to keep out the cold. We're keen to get stuck in and get dirty, and that wish is very soon fulfilled.

We work chain-gang style, either with pots of rocks or sizeable boulders, passing them along as a bridge takes shape before our eyes. In the afternoons, the mist swirls around us, streaming up the valley from the Cloud Forest.

The second phase of the bridge-building is the concreting. It is hand-mixed on the river bank, the cement relayed short distances to the bridge. The plastic bucket soon splits and is replaced by battered cooking pots brought from nearby homes by smiling children who gather on the banks to fulfil their curiosity about the strangers in their midst.

Communication with the locals is limited. There is lots of pointing and lots of laughter, and the foreman, Freddie, the only one who speaks Spanish, English and the local dialect, is our go-between.

Our fellow trekkers have toiled to build a reservoir about 3km from the village, while the villagers dug trenches for the pipeline. By the time we leave, water has been delivered to the nearest house where a concrete “fountain” with a tap, decorated with streamers for the occasion, is ceremonially turned on to delighted cheers.

On the last night, we celebrate with a feast, a traditional pacha manca , cooked in three stone and earth ovens built on the hillside behind our campsite during the afternoon. We dine on two alpacas and two sheep, marinated in garlic, lemon, salt and pepper, and several varieties of potato, one of Peru's staples. The whole village turns out for it, and the women take the chance to sell some of their colourful weaving work.

Replete, we sit around in lamplight and hear stories of the Andes from Javier and his assistants Jairo and Admil.

It has been an unforgettable experience. As we prepare for the walk out of Qelqanqa, we all believe what Javier has told us as we started out: we are “trekkers, not tourists”.

And that, along with our names written in wet concrete, a little bit of us all will be left behind under the Andean skies.