The Inca Trail

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Well its a week now since I finished the Inca Trail so now the pain has gone Ill probably reflect on the experience more positively! The first morning we were told to wait in our hotel lobby at 4am to be picked up, when we were still waiting at 4.45 in the freezing cold reception I started to doubt my decision to tackle the Inca Trail! Eventually we were on our way, clapped on the bus by our porters (this was to be the first of many times we were clapped by them, in fact they pretty much did it everytime we left, returned, finished breakfast etc!) We arrived at the start of the trail and had our group photo and got on our way. The first mrning was fine and we stopped for lunch where the porters had set up camp for lunch and produced the most food we´d ever seen inone sitting! The afternoon hike was Ínca flat´ which meant a fair bit of climbing, our first real challenge! We made it to camp by dusk and were fed again, afternoon tea then dinner then supper!

The next day was the big one, two high passes including the dreaded dead womens pass! We were woken early by coco tea weilding porters at the tent door, we´d slept remarkably well so were in a positive frame of mind to start the hike. Soon the positivity wore off with the relentless climbing! After many hours climbing we reached the summat and had fantastic views over the valley. It was then disheartening to climb steep step after steep step all the way back down. We were certainly ready for luch that day. Unfortunatly by this point at least 4 members of the group were sick so they didnt even manage to eat which made the afternoon so much more difficult for them. So again we climbed up the second pass with very tired legs, I have never been so glad to see the red tents of our camp for the night, we quickly fell asleep after another huge feast!

We were very excited about the third day as we finished in the afternnon and got to have hot showers and beer! It was still a 7hour hike downhill first, with very tired legs every single step down was painful. After lunch and letting my legs seize up I realised that I could barely walk. Still I hobbled for my luke warm shower, which was well worth it and enjoyed my beer looking out at the amazing views. We also saw two amazing Inca sites. We had our last supper where we thanked the porters who wereso fantastic and always had smiles on their faces despite working so hard!

Fourth day we queued at the entrance in the dark and then raced to the sungate to get our first glimpse of Machu Picchu at sunrise! Although everyones legs were tired we managed to get there in time to take our place at the sungate. It was very cloudy and we accepted the fact we wouldnt get to see Macchu picchu from there but just as we were about to leave the skies cleared and for a few minutes we had a fabulous view of the site, well worth the suffering! From there we continued to explore the lost city of the Incas where we had a great tour round by Flavio and really got to understand the history, it was amazing place! It felt so rewarding to have hiked all the way there, we felt very smug when the buses turned up with all the day trippers and we were ready to go back! We had our last lunch together as a group then returned by train to Cuzco. It was Lauras birthday so myself, Jon, Lisa and Shaun joined her and Dan for a birthday meal and a well deserved cocktail back at Cuzco!

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