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Published: January 13th 2012
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After arriving back from the Amazon, incredibly early, as I mentioned before we had a restful day, on the evening prior to our Inca Trail Trek we met at the Llama path office to get information, meet our group and guide and go over last minute details. We were in a great group with 2 other couples - Kate from usa, and her husband Adrian from Australia/NZ/USA and Carolina from Brazil and her boyfriend Robin from Germany. Our guide was Javier, who walked us through the trip, reminded us what to bring and prepared us for the days to come.
The next morning we met at 4:30am to just on their bus to head towards kilometer 82, the beginning of the Inca Trail. After breakfast in Ollantaytambo we reached the beginning of the trail and popped on our rain gear as it was slightly raining. After passing the first check point and getting the official passport stamp (yes!), we started on the hike. Day 1 was fairly easy with a bit of flat and up hill but nothing challenging. Even on the first day it was easy to see the porters were super human. They started the trek after we did and flew past, by the time we reached the lunch spot they had a lunch tent and kitchen tent set up, hot water to wash our hands and fresh juice. After an amazing 3 course lunch we continued on the track for a few more hours until we reached camp at around 5pm. The porters of course were already at camp fully set up with our gear in the tents, hot water and juice. The first day was about 14k or 9 miles. Unfortunately once we reached camp it was Kaity´s turn to hug the toliet, or should I say squat hole in the floor. Who knows what was eaten but the first night of the Inca trail was spent spooning a baisin in the tent. The next morning I felt better, but unfortunately not for long.
The second day, being the hardest, lived up to its name. We hiked over 2 passes ascending 900meters, descending 500 meters and re ascending 400 meters...whew. The first pass was the hardest, with the highest altitude just about 4,200 meters, not to mention Kaity felt like vomiting every 5-10 minutes. Elliot found a good pace and was the first in our group the the top. Getting to the top made everything seem great! The hardest part was over. We then descended to a valley for lunch and ascended the second pass in the afternoon reaching camp about 4:30pm (16k day), where we immediately took a nap. Unfortunately another uncomfortable night for Kaity, but in the morning the bought of food poisoning was over. Sadly I missed 2 dinners on the Inca Trail, this being super sad as the Llama path cook was top notch and made delicous meals.
On day 3, supposedly our easy day, we were hit by a rumour that a land slide had made it impossible to walk from our campsite to Machu Picchu on the 4th day. Instead the tour guide diverted us to another campsite near to Machu Picchu, just outside of Aquas Calientes. This added quite a few kilometers to the trail. We ended up hiking down from the campsite we should have stayed the night at and reached the river, where we followed the train tracks and passed Aquas Calientes and camped the night near the trail to Machu Picchu. Another 16 k day, quick cold shower at camp, great dinner and some jokes around the dinner table. Javier the tour guide surprised us with a bit of wine before we headed to bed early as we had a 3:30 am wake up call. After farewelling the porters, tipping well and giving our speech of thanks we headed to bed.
Day 4, 3:30 am wake up, followed by a quick breakfast and packing up. We left camp at 4:15am and waited at the gates until they opened at 4:30 am to begin our climb to Machu Picchu. The climb was straight uphill for over an hour, leaving us all exhausted and sweaty by the time we reached the entry to Machu Picchu just before opening at 6am. We were one of the first groups in and got great pictures! After a city tour by Javier, we were able to explore for the rest of the day until about 12:45 when we needed to catch the bus back to Aquas Calientes. Elliot and I got hard core and walked to the Inca Gate and the Sun Gate which we missed due to our diverted inca trail trek. This added another hour and a bit of walking. After exlploring as much as we could we were sweaty and exhausted and headed down the hill by bus to meet Javier, get food and jump on the train back to Ollantaytambo. In town we treated ourselves to some pisco sours, food and chocolate. The train ride followed more beers, and once we jumped on the Llama Path bus Robin pulled out a hidden bottle of Pisco, so a bus party followed...about 45 minutes into the bus ride we were all passed out in the bus sleeping until we reached Cusco. We checked into our hostel, took a shower, and had arranged to meet some of our trail group at a local pub, which we did and farewelled them before heading to bed.
Today (12th of Jan) we woke up early again (6am) and jumped on a bus to Puno, on Lake Titicaca, the bus trip took us past a few Inca and pre incan sites, buffet lunch and pre incan museum. We arrived in Puno at 5:30, checked into our hostel and wandered around the main city sights. Tomorrow we will head to Uros and Taquile Isles, followed by a bus trip to Bolivia the next day...'
updates to follow!
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