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Published: August 1st 2008
When we decided to travel for a year, the top of the list of things to do was the Inca Trail, which is a 3 night/4 day hike of about 42km to Machu Picchu, and after many years of dreaming, we were here and about to start! We had to book the tour months in advance as the trail is so popular, and they limit the numbers to about 500 a day, but that number includes the porters so only about 200 tourists. This still seemed a lot of people, but before they put in the restrictions sometimes 1500 people would walk each day! We had read that the trail is still packed and there are many other trails to walk, but this is the only one that ends at Machu Picchu so the only one we wanted to do.
We left the town of Ollantaytambo early in the morning and travelled by mini bus to the start of the Inca Trail at Km 82. We were in a small group of 5 people who we had been travelling with across Peru which was nice, most other groups seemed to have up to 15 people in, which seemed a lot.
We met our guide, David, and joined the queue to the checking station where we had our passport checked and stamped and they made sure we had the correct permits, we then crossed the bridge and started the trail... The trail starts by following the Urubamba river and we watched as the trains going to Machu Picchu went past. We passed a few little villages dotted along the trail, and then stopped for a break high up on the cliffs above our first Inca ruins on the trail called Llactapata, and learnt about the Inca's history from David. After our history lesson, we set off again up another valley away from the Urubamba, stopping briefly for lunch and then continuing our ascent towards our camp. We were really lucky with the weather, it was sunny and not too hot, perfect hiking weather... that was until about 5 minutes before we walked into camp when it started to rain! But we were still on a high from starting the Inca Trail so nothing dampened our spirits! The first day was pretty easy going... we walked about 12kms and had great views along the way of the valleys and a snow capped
Mount Veronica in the distance. There were a few steep inclines but nothing too bad. Our camp site, Wayllabamba, was just outside a village and the porters had already made it to camp and set up our tents so they were all ready to climb into, and we had time to relax before afternoon tea at 5pm. Yes, that's right afternoon tea, although it was coca tea, not English tea, and popcorn! We then ate a huge 3 course dinner prepared by the chef as the temperature dropped outside, so we needed our hats, gloves etc. and then settled in for our first night in the tent, trying to comprehend that we were actually camping on the first night of the Inca Trail!
Day 2 on the trail started early, we had a morning call with a cup of coca tea, ate breakfast and headed out of camp while the porters took down our tents. This was the day when we climbed about 1km up in just a few hours, all the way up to Dead Woman's Pass. This was supposed to be the hardest day on the trail, especially the last section up to the pass itself... and
it certainly was! Right from leaving the campsite in the morning we started to climb, first slowly up the side of the valley, before heading into the forest, this wasn't meant to be the hard bit but this was steep! We stopped for a quick snack before entering the cloud forest, and true to its name we walked through the cloud and the rain started coming down, making the path pretty slippery! It took well over an hour climbing up the path through the forest, slow going in the rain! We finally got out of the forest and after a quick energy boost snack, we made the final ascent to the 1st pass. By the time we'd finished our snack the rain had thankfully stopped, and we made our way up the hardest and steepest section, step by step, to the top. While it was hard, climbing constantly for 3 hours was never going to be easy, it wasn't as bad as we thought... mainly due to us being at high altitude for a few weeks now so we weren't finding the breathing as tough as we could have done! The last few steps up to the pass seemed to
go on forever though, but when we finally made it and looked back down to how high we had climbed, the feeling was just amazing! We were both so excited about making it up to the highest point on the Inca Trail, about 4200m. We waited for the rest of the group to arrive, and took the obligatory group photos, plus a few more too! We could probably have stayed up there for ages, but it was pretty cold and we could see the cloud moving into the valley below us where we were heading so we couldn't afford to stand still for too long, so after we all caught our breath again, we started the long descent down to our campsite and a well deserved lunch. It was a steep descent down, with lots of uneven and mostly steep steps and slippery slopes, sometimes you really didn't know where to put your foot, all made even more slippery due to more rain falling. It didn't help that we got chased by a pack of llamas either that decided to come running down the path after us!
It took a good couple of hours but we finally got into
camp where we were greeted by the porters and a delicious lunch. We had the rest of the afternoon to relax and try and dry off, which was pretty difficult as it was still raining every now and again and quite cold too. Again, we had afternoon tea followed by another fantastic 3 course dinner, so all we really did was eat! After a few card games, it was another early night, as the next day was going to be the longest in terms of walking so we needed to get our rest! It was also really cold, the days are not to bad temperature wise but the evenings were cold, especially as this was the highest campsite we would sleep in. We definitely needed the thermals and hats this evening, as the temperature had really dropped once the sun went down, maybe to below freezing... luckily we had nice thick sleeping bags!
We got up early on the 3rd day to find the sun shining and the clouds had disappeared, so we had a fantastic view of the snow-capped mountains in the distance from our tent. We had a good 9 hours walk ahead of us, and even
though we were not climbing as high, we had 2 passes to make followed by 3 hours constant downhill... but along the way we did see some fantastic Inca ruins which helped break it all up a bit. We started by climbing up hill towards the 2nd pass stopping on the way to see the ruins at Runkurakay, seemingly perched precariously on the side of the mountain, before climbing up to the 2nd pass. Before we made it, we had to go past 2 'false summits', which from the path below looked like the top of the pass... until you made it and found out that there was still more to climb! When we eventually made it to the real pass, we had fantastic views of snow-capped mountains of the Cordillera Vilcabamba, which, against the clear blue sky, looked amazing.
After a quick rest and leaving our offerings of coca leaves under a small rock to the Pachamama (Mother Earth), we headed down more steep, uneven steps towards another Inca ruin at Sayaqmarka, again built impossibly high up on the mountain side! After a walk around the ruins, it was another quick descent across the valley to a campsite
for another huge lunch. As the sun was still shining the porters set our table outside and we got to rest with a great view of the mountains around us... before we knew it, it was time to set of again though for the final push up to the 3rd pass. We stopped at the top again to catch our breath... but with an added bonus that from here we could see down the valley and see the top of Wayna Picchu and Machu Picchu mountains... the Machu Picchu ruins were just the other side! However, we still had another 3 hours down to the 3rd camp and another 2 hours walk the next day... so close but yet so far, but it certainly spurred us all on! Just after the 3rd pass was another fantastic Inca ruin site called Phuyupatamarka and after a talk about the site we made our way down towards the 3rd camp, via yet many more steep steps as the porters ran past us to set up camp. They really are remarkable people... we struggle to step down these Inca steps with our 5Kg day bags and walking boots and they literally run with their
flip flops and over 20kg on their back! Yet when we made it into camp they are there with smiles and clapping us as we walk in! It felt like it should be the other way round! Each year there is a Inca marathon where a lot of the porters have a race along the Inca Trail, the quickest is a staggering 3 hours 45 minutes! Our guide, David, used to be a porter before becoming a chef and then finally a guide... he once managed it in just over 6 hours, which we all thought was very impressive as it was taking us 4 days!
The 3rd campsite at Winaywayna really is a 'luxury' site, as it has a bar where we could buy and enjoy a beer and showers so we could finally wash after 3 days!! So we enjoyed a bit of luxury while we could, and then ate our final huge dinner on the trail... with jelly for dessert! As it was our last evening already, we said goodbye and big thank you to our fantastic porters and it was then time to sleep... the next day we would finally make it to Machu Picchu!
The forth day arrived, far to quickly... we woke up just before 4am to leave camp in time to join the queue to be one of the first to get through the control gate. We weren't quite 1st, but by the time the gate opened at 5.30, we walked as fast as we could along the trail. It was still dark, as the sun had not risen yet, but the fear of heights seemed to leave Elaine as we walked as fast as we could past the narrow ledges, which probably in daylight would look straight down to the valley below! We approached the famous stairs which led to the Sun Gate, which can only be explained as near vertical and the steps not much wider than our toes, let alone enough to place your whole foot on! Not looking down, we climbed up the stairs and walked through the famous Sun Gate... the feeling was just indescribable, especially as it was a perfectly clear day so we had our first magical glimpse of Machu Picchu in the distance! The sun had just risen over the mountains by then and our plan was to be at Machu Picchu to
see the sun light it up, but we didn't have long as we could see the sun beams moving down the mountain. Forgetting about the fear of heights yet again for Machu Picchu, we all literally ran down the path in a little over 20 minutes, which was supposed to take at least 45! We all made it to the Gatekeepers House to see the sun first lighting up Winya Picchu, then Intihuatana (or the Hitching Post of the Sun) and finally down to the Sun Temple. It was just an incredible experience to sit and watch this, especially on such a perfect day!
Their were 5 other people in our group who we were traveling with through Peru, who had completed one of the other treks around Ollantaytambo, and we all met up for sunrise which was great after 3 days. We also had a celebration as it was Gary's birthday (one of our friends on the tour)... can you imagine having your birthday on the day you are at Machu Picchu! We had carried some candles up with us, which we lit as the sun rose!
After the initial excitement of seeing the sunrise over Machu
Picchu, we had a tour of the site from our guide who explained all of the current theories as to what the various temples and buildings were used for. It was incredible to see some of the temples, that are apparently so perfectly aligned with the sun, that at the summer and winter solstice the sun lines up perfectly with windows and sacred stones. After the tour finished, we decided to walk round to the Inca Bridge, which used to be an alternative entry point into Machu Picchu that the Incas could control by raising a wooden platform. The wooden platform is just a replica now, but to see the bridge hug the side of the mountain just filled us with awe thinking about how they must have built it in the first place. On the way back along the narrow path, we got stuck for a while behind a llama chewing on the grass! We couldn't pass as the path was too narrow and there was a massive vertical drop straight down to the valley floor, so we just had to wait patiently until it finished it's breakfast. After we got back to Machu Picchu, we just sat on
the terraces overlooking the site for a while, enjoying a snack in the sunshine and trying to soak it all in. We then wandered around in amongst the various buildings, trying to capture some of it on camera and taking a closer look at some of the architecture. It was a lot bigger than we had anticipated, and also a lot different. You normally only see the postcard picture of Machu Picchu with Winya Picchu in the background but there is so much more. Its very hard to describe... there are houses and royal enclosures in amongst the temples, and lots of Inca terracing surrounding almost the whole site. We think the pictures probably describe it the best...
Unfortunately, it was soon time to head off... we had been at the site for about 7½ hours but it felt more like 30 minutes as time had gone so fast! We reluctantly headed down by bus to the town of Aguas Calientes for a late lunch, and then caught the train back to Ollantaytambo and then onto Cusco.
We sat on the train looking at our hundreds of photos, remembering the fun we had on the trail and how
amazing Machu Picchu was. It had a lot to live up to and it did not fail. Maybe we were lucky but we did not encounter the hundreds of people on the trail, most of the time we just saw porters or we were on our own until we got to camp. Also, normally hundreds of people pile off the train at 11am to Machu Picchu from Cusco, but even though it did get busier than when we arrived at 6.30, it never got too busy and we always had chance to walk around by ourselves, enjoying the ruins. It is very hard to sum up our experiences on the trail and at Machu Picchu, our guide and porters were amazing and all 4 days were simply fantastic... it was perhaps the hardest, but definitely the best thing we have ever done!
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