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Published: November 10th 2008
We were picked up from Cusco, the belly button or center of the Inca world. We each had an allowance of a five kg kit bag, to be carried by the porters stuffed with sleeping bag and a few changes of clothes. I also took a back pack with about seven kg of stuff that I thought I would need including I-pod, plastic mac, firstaid kit, energy bars and perhaps the most valuable of comodities on the trail - toilet paper.
The Inca trail starts after a day visiting some other important Inca ruins, including Sacsayhuaman which overlooks Cusco itself and a night in a small village near the first Inca trail check point. We have to show our tickets and passports as tourism on the Inca trail is controlled to help preserve them.
Our guide, Julio is extreemly knowledgeable. He looks a little like an Eddie Murphy with Incan ancestors. He is also witty and good humored.
The first day we walk for arount four or five hours in bright sunlight on a gentle graidient through a faily hilly area that is not disimilar to the Peak district on a very hot day. There are many more runins along the way. They typically consist of terraces cut into the steep banks that Incas would use to grow crops on and as defense. There is usually a store built above the terraces and some dwellings. If there is a temple on the site it is fairly easy to spot as it is contruction is entirly without mortor the stones cut and fitted together beautifully and with great artistry conpared to the rest of the walls.
There are some stunning views. I play Jimi Hendrix and Aphex Twin on my I-Pod striding through Andes in ore of their magesty and in their great pressance I feel tiny yet awsome and without a care in the world. I am alive and free living in the moment.
We arrive at the first campsite which has already been set up by the porters. A couple ot the aussies and my self accopany Julio and Jenny (another guide) a little further up the mountain where there is a small football pitch. The surface dirt and loose rocks with free standing metal goal posts at each end. The locals and porters play fifteen minutes or first to two, which ever comes first five-a-side games. Julio, Jenny, Max Ben and Myself form a team and watch while we wait for our turn to play.
The porters are generally small and compact and wirey. All muscle with thick legs built from carring huge backpacks up mountains all season. The tackles are a bit tastey. They blast the ball from one end to the other. Dust flys as the crash together and battle for possesion. It´s not the ´beautiful game´ it´s a gritty and passionate scramble. I fear a little for my ankles and wonder if playing is a good idea considering that we still have three long days walk ahead of us.
We´re up! I take up a midfield position with Ben in Goal, Julio at the back, Max on the wing and Jenny (super striker) up front. We´re off and I´m surprised at how much energy I have. At first we try and keep the ball on the ground and link together a few passes the ball bounces unpredictably across the uneven surface and I change direction with a skid kicking up dust. Ben looks like he´s playing aussie rules in goal relishing the opportunity to leap into the air somehow taking man and ball at the same time. We win the first game two - nil thanks to a brace by super striker Jenny. I hit the post and head against the cross bar. We stay on and play another team it´s one all in the last minute Max has swapped with Ben in goal. Ben has the Ball in the left back position and I´m shouting for it in space on the left wing when for some reson he opts to pass back to Max in goal. The ball rolls gentally towards Max but as he stoops to pick it up it hits a rock, changes direction and bobbles comedically passed him into the goal much to the great amusment of the other team and small crowd.
I had a great time and got to play football with Indians in the Andes which is definitely a tick in a newly created box of things I wanted to do before I die. The international unifying language of football isgreat stuff.
Day two we are woken with coca tea and breakfast. The porters chew coca leaves all day it´s mild stimulat helping them up the mountains. Day two is the hardest days walking up to four thousand two hundred feat at a steep gradient. At first it winds through an area thick with trees that occasonaly break revealing stunning views of the surrounding mountains and a village far below. At the halfway point their are toilets, the standard hole in the ground type that you find on French campsites. They are heavily used and it´s taken it´s toll. Using the loo is not the most pleasant experience and by day three I am fanaticising about clean toilets with seats and pleantiful quatities of soft quilted tolit roll.
People lazy around on the ground outside, take in the view and try to regain some energy. We drink Gatoraide bought from some local women and eat a banana. From where we sit we can see the pass that we are heading for and it is a long way up. We set off in bright, hot sunshine. About half way up Louise starts to suffer a little from altitude sickness and or perhaps exhaustion. I try and coax her on reminding her to breath properly and drink regular sips of fluid. We take about fifteen paces at a time and rest for a minute inbetween the incline seems like it is a moving walkway, the pass never getting any closer. People around us are also suffering and shuffeling up the hill in slow motion and it all seems a quite surreal. Eventually we make it to the pass at the top and rest. The remainder of the walk is all down hill across rocky bolders and steps. We fly down Louise recovered and revilaised with the end in sight. We finish the days walking in a respectable seven hours and fifteen minutes and camp in higgeldy piggeldy windy pathed campsite on ledges only half a foot wider than our tent. Humming birds hover colecting nectar in the bushes just below us as we look out across the valley and up at the snow capped peaks once again left speachless by the view.
Day three starts as usual with a coca tea at six followed by breakfast. We walk up to the next pass at three thousand six hundred feet I carry Louises back on my font and my own on my back as she is finding the climbs quite difficult due to the altitude and sore legs. I put on some Jimi and motor up the mountain loving every step, seriously loving every step. If there is a heaven, the abode of gods, then for me this is it. I´m here right now once again in the moment. My heart full of joy surrounded by these snow capped mountains, in pure, clean air, under a blue sky and warm sun. A cool breeze kisses my face and I am here in the midst of this indescribable beauty.
After lunch the rain comes. Wow when it rains here it rains. Hail pelts our plastic ponchos as we negotiate a ledge that winds around the montains. The legde is about a foot and a half in places with sheer drops down the side of the moutain. The clouds have come down and visibility is low. Peaks appear through breaks in the clouds and as I look down on the soaked lushus grees valley below it is like someone is moving the focus of vision one side of the vale moving forwad the other back. Again I am breathless with the beauty of it.
We start a decent of a billion and one slippy, slimy and treacherous steps that we neverously negotiate. The porters bound down huge load and all. They are very impressive. The decent takes us an age but we make it in one peace. I take a cold shower. I don not think I have had a warm one now since Cusco a week ago.
On day four, the final day we get up at three am and walk down to the final check point by torch light. We are the first there. The sky is clear and black and million stars shine down on us as we wait with sore tired eyes. I feel like I am at an out door rave with people huddled around torchlight. I listen to some techno as the sun rises over the mountain. The checkpoint opens at five fifteen and it´s a bit of a race to the Sun gate that over looks Machu Picchu four of our guys get there first unsurprisingly the ultra competative Aussies Max and Ben and the Two Irish guys Dave and Paul. We walk down and around Machu Picchu the sun relentlessly baking our tired, grubby aching bodies and then return to Cusco via train and bus looking forward to hot showers and sleep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu
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Steve
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Sweet, Dude.
Bin looking foward to this installment of your great big fat fun adventure for the last couple a days. Sounds like you are in your element. Top stuff.