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Published: January 21st 2011
Me eating cuy
That smile on my face was wiped off pretty fast!First of all, I finally ate cuy, which is guinea pig. It was ok until my stomach decided that the process of eating an animal roasted whole like that was no good and protested. I will not likely eat it again, but it was a good learning experience!
We left the hostel pretty early in the morning on the 17th to catch the bus out to the starting point for the Inca Trail. We loaded up our gear, clothes etc. that we had brought, as well as the sleeping bag and sleeping mat the trek company provided, and started the hike. In the first day we hiked through some pretty incredible scenery. We saw some ruins, lots of tropical plants because it was the rainy season, and we went through a few small areas where people were still living on farms.
There was one point where you are hiking along the edge of a ravine that was really steep, maybe a few degrees off vertical, and we were going across an area where the rocks were wet from a small stream and I slipped on the edge, with my backpack I was really unbalanced, and fell off the trail
into the ravine. Luckily though my foot caught on some shrubs on the slope and I was holding the rocks on the edge of the trail and hung out until our guide and another guy who was nearby hauled me back up. I did not realize how bad that could have turned out until I was standing on the trail again and looked down and saw how close I was to seriously falling far and probably really hurting myself. All I did was scrape my knee which I cleaned up then carried on up the trail.
The first day we hiked about 12km with only a 400m elevation gain. It was pretty hot on that first day so I got kind of dehydrated, but we had a good nights sleep and were up early the next day since it is considered the hardest, and I would be inclined to agree with them!
Day two we started hiking at about 6:00 a.m. because they wanted us to get going before it got too hot. Luckily it was cloudy and overcast so I actually wore a long sleeve shirt the whole day and did not get dehydrated or anything from
Where I almost died
See the dark area of bushes? Yeah, that is it right there... the heat. Day 2 involved a 9km hike uphill with an elevation gain of 1,200m, as a reference that would be like hiking the Grouse Grind twice in a row with very little oxygen because of the altitude. At the top of this section we reached Dead Woman´s pass, which is the highest point on the Inca Trail. After the pass you go downhill about 2km with a 600m descent to the second campsite. We got there about noon and I pretty much just passed out and took a nap. It started raining that afternoon which was nice becaue we were already at camp. We had that whole afternoon to just hang out and nap and rest after that killer day.
The third day we didn´t get started quite as early since we were all (mostly just me) moving pretty slow after day 2. It started with a 1km 350m climb to some ruins and then another couple hundred metres up to the second pass and then a bit further on to the lunch spot. Our trekking group consisted of Amy and myself and since there were only two of us they had combined our group with another one
that had three hikers. They were quite a bit slower than us, so on the third day we had to wait 1.5 hours for them to reach the lunch spot and we were soaking wet and got very cold waiting. As soon as we had eaten we left to hike to the the next campsite which was about 12km away and mostly downhill. The first part was really neat and was very much a cloud forest/jungle. We saw lots of birds and flowers but didn´t get the best view because it was pretty cloudy. We went through two spots where the Incas built "tunnels" to pass through the mountains. Just after lunch was also where the original Inca Trail surface began. The trail surface before (stones, gravel etc.) had all been rebuilt by the Peruvian government, but in this part it was the original stones from 700 years ago. Pretty cool.
Anyways, after a long, wet, cloudy descent of about 1,000m we reached the third and final campsite. There was a bar there so the atmosphere was generally pretty jovial because everyone was stinky, tired and feeling pretty damn proud of themselves for having gotten this far.
On
the final day we were up at about 3:30 a.m. to pack, eat and be at the checkpoint by 5:30 a.m. when they open the final part of the trail into Machu Picchu. We hiked about 3km to the Sun Gate which gives you an amazing view of the ruins from up high, but there were some clouds so it kind of blocked the nice view. We then did another 3km hike down to the actual ruins. We finally made it to the site at about 7:30 a.m. or so, and the tourists were already coming up from the town below. So we took some photos and then our guide took us on a tour of the site and we learned a whole heck of a lot about the Incas and their culture etc. By this time the clouds had burned off and we had a really nice day exploring Machu Picchu.
We then took a bus down off the mountain to the small town of Aguas Caliente for lunch and to hangout until our train left that night to take us back to Cusco. We had some time to kill so we went to the hot springs which
the town is named after (aguas means water, and caliente means hot). None of the backpackers were there just yet so we had an awesome time soaking away the trail grime and showering and generally stretching some pretty sore muscles before it got really busy with the other backpackers coming down off the mountain.
Our ride back to Cusco was pretty uneventful but both Amy and I were exhausted since we were up since about 3:30. Finally got back to our hostel in Cusco at midnight and pretty much just passed out.
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Kelsey
non-member comment
This is the exact hike I want to do next year so keep your notes on it. Looks like a great journey to an awesome end. And top it off with hot springs and I'm there. Also can't believe you almost didn't survived Dead Woman's Pass! Phew.