The Inka Trail and Machu Picchu

On Friday, 18 September, we follow the Inka Trail!

It is an ancient path that the Inkas had constructed in order to establish communication between the numerous cities of their empire. We had the chance to do THE Inka Trail: the traditional trail to Machu Picchu. The access to the traditional Inka Trail is controlled and we had to book from February in order to be included in the group of September! Especially after Machu Picchu has been declared as one of the new seven wonders, the Inka Trail has become extremely popular. Some years ago the access was free and the trail would flood with tourists on a daily basis. This created risks for the preservation of the natural and acheological beauty of the trail, and thus now the access has been restricted: only 500 visitors are allowed every day, who have to book with specific authorised agencies. This means that one can hope to have good chances of doing the Inka Trail only if he books six months in advance!

However, the path is amazing and beyond description, and thus we cannot but agree with any effort to preserve its unique beauty. Words are not enough to describe it and even photos cannot depict the impressions and feelings that cross our soul as we walk along this ancient path of the Inkas.

We started in km 82, which is at the altitude of 2,600m. (Aa! we forgot to mention that in the city of Ollantaytambo where we had breakfast just before, we lost the rest of the group because we were 5min late and the bus had left! We freaked out for a while (especially a corfiot person) at the idea that we were left in the ugly and dusty Ollantaytambo square while the rest of the group was heading for the Inka Trail... But luckily, our guide, Will, had stayed behind and found us 10min after! :-)) As if it was not enough to delay the group one of us fell while getting on the bus. First impressions made!

After preparations with water supplies, warm clothes, climbing sticks and cereal food (we had heard rumours that the food prepared by the Inka Trail operators is kind of inedible, but luckily the food by our operator proved to be even better than that cooked in the best Cusco restaurants!), we start walking the 12 km of the first day. It was a generally easy walk with few hills and several stops. Our porters were carrying most of the heavy stuff (cooking equipement, tents, etc...) and we only had to carry our personal stuff! This made the walk even more pleasant. The landscape of this first day was mountainous, with cactus and low plants. However, vegetation was becoming more and more dense and high as we entered the great canyons of the trail. In the evening we stopped in a camping site near Wayllabamba (3,100m) where we slept in the tents having a breathtaking view of the canyons in front of us!

The second day (10km) was supposed to be the most difficult of all, because most of it involved walking up steep hills. Suprisingly, we did really well and we were amongst the first of our group! We reached the hard point of the "Dead Woman's Pass"(4,200m) and we had already gone up 1,100m in some hours! Then we went down to our camp site at 3,500m.

The third day the path was full of ancient Inka sites (viewpoints, temples, cities). It was amazing!!! We took a stone from the first Inka site and we placed it in the top of out first pass at 3,950m making a wish, as the custom has it. We also started entering the jungle (the last resort of the Inkas against the Spanish Conquistadores) so vegetation became extremely dense and high and the area was full of forest clouds. We even got a bit of rain but it stopped just when we arrived in the place where we could have the great views of the jungle valleys below us! We camped in Winay Wayna at 2,700m were we even had the possibility to buy a beer (after avoiding the bat that was flying lost in the main living room!).

The fourth day we woke up at 3:50am, ten minutes before the other groups, which allowed us to be the first ones to enter the last path towards Machu Picchu! That way we would enjoy it and take photos without the disturbing masses of tourists. And there is was: we had our first contact in the Sun Gate and it was an experience hard to describe!! Then we came closer and we had the whole day to discover the marvels of this lost Inka city!

Hard to describe with words! Check out the pics!!!

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Part of trip: DIARIOS DE AMERICA LATINA

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