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Published: February 2nd 2007
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The Start!!
notice how we are smiling now.... We will start at the beginning,
On the 9th we had to find Inka Wasi ( the travel company that was guiding us on the Inca Trail) but no, not so easy. We were given a street name that did not actually exist and also that day the elections were on and most things were closed so it proved to be quite a challenge. We were supposed to check in with the company the day before the trek, so it is easy to see that we were getting a little stressed that it was closed. We went back to place they were supposed to be 3 times and as they say, third time lucky. They were open at 5pm and apparently the admin guy had been waiting outside since 8:30am for people like us, but he didn’t have a sign or anything to identify himself....
Once we had checked in we had to go back at 7pm for a briefing on the trail. Here we met the rest of our crew. We had 3 Americans, and Spaniard and an Italian. We managed to strike up a rather good friendship with the Americans.
So on with the tail.
WOW,
Where we were heading to
Hmm did i bring enough warm clothes? the Inca Trail was amazing. We spent 4 days and 3 nights in the Andes and I have to say it was the most wonderful, painful, exhilarating experience we have ever had and probably will ever have!
The first day was just a 5 hours and was pretty flat in Andes terms. Still, we managed to be pretty tired by the end of it. Nothing much to report of the first day though we did see one archeological site.
Second day,
Ahhh shit!!!! What an awful day!!!!
We started at 3000m and had to climb to 4200m over 12kms and 6 hours. The first hour was pleasant, beautiful scenery and fairly easy going. The next 4 were hell. We climb stair after stair after stair. You get the picture, but these were not your regular stairs. They were tiny and practically vertical. We would get to a corner in the stairs hoping that the next lot would be flat but no such luck.. they kept going. At about 4000m we really began to struggle from lack of oxygen, we would get up 10 stairs and have to take at least 10 deep breaths to get up the next
10. It was painful, not on the body but on the lungs and our heads. We kept getting dizzy and I personally felt like I could have fainted a couple of times. Though, at the top mountain we felt wonderful and we had achieved so much. Looking back down to where we had come from we realised why we felt how we did. The view was spectacular. After resting for about 10mnins we had to go over the other side of the mountain down the same sort of steps for about an hour to our campsite which made our legs feel like jelly. Good sleep.
Third day,
We walked for 10 hours over 20kms and this tramp was undulating although we did climb to 2 high points of 3900m and 3600m. This day was the most enjoyable cause we got to actually look around us and see the wildlife and the plants etc. It was just so easy compared to the day before 😊
After lunch we were told we had another hours walk to the bottom of the mountain before walking along the railway tracks to Machu Picchu village...but Josh and I took that as a challenge and
ran the whole way down in just under 30mins, the Americans close behind in about 32mins..the other 2 took the whole hour and some so we (the Americans and us) played cards on the side of a raging river till they arrived. We then had to walk for an hour to Machu Picchu village to set up camp for the night, well a variation of it anyway. When we finished walking we went to the hot springs to ease the pain of our stressed out muscles, interesting hot springs, they had sand and stones on the bottom of the pools and we just had to whistle and a waiter would come out and take our orders for drinks, how fantastic is that!!
The Sun Gate (which is the main reason I did the trail) was closed due to a landslide so we had to miss that part out which also meant that we had to find alternative accommodation.
Willy, our guide, told us he had a friend that had a restaurant that we could sleep in, so we agreed. Stupid. The restaurant was right next to the railway tracks and the trains kept going at all hours of the night
so we all got about 2 hours sleep and had to get up at 4:30am to get the bus up to Machu Picchu ( the archeological site). To say the least we were cranky and it made it difficult to enjoy the amazing history and beauty of the place cause we were so tired. Even so, there are no words to describe the feeling of being there and the utter beauty. There are rules for being on the site, the yanks and us managed to break 5 of them. Willy had taken us in another entrance so we didn’t get to view the rules. Luckily we did not cause too much offence.
So, the Inca Trail is done and dusted. One thing we can tick off the long list. So glad we did it and recommend anyone to do it.
Love you all
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