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Published: December 7th 2009
After the long bus journey I relaxed in Cusco for a couple of days before starting the Inca trail (the only thing I've booked apart from my flights. It was great just wondering around Cusco looking at all the colonial buildings (some of the buildings were built on top of Inca ruins) although I had to fend off all the women offering "massage, manicure, pedicure".
For the Inca trail there were only 10 of us in our group although there were also 2 guides, 15 porters and 2 cooks! The first morning we set off to the Sacred Valley to get a taster of the Inca ruins to come. The first stop was a local village where we learnt a bit about the indigenous culture and then we went to see the Inca constructions in Pisaq and Ollantaytambo. A few of us hiked up the hill opposite the Inca site in Ollantaytambo to get a good view of the ruins, we had visited earlier, and to warm up for the hike to come. I also got to try Chica (a weakly alcoholic drink made from fermented corn) in Ollantaytambo, the houses where it was brewed had a red flag outside.
I wasn't too keen on it as it had bit of a sour taste.
The next day we woke up to rain but the weather soon cleared when we got walking. Our guide talked us through the ceremony with the coca leaf just after starting the walk. He took three coca leaves and talked of the Andean Trilogy dedicating one leaf to each of three worlds: the upper level heavens (apus, or volcanos), middle level earth (Pachamama, or mother Earth) and lower level netherworld (humanity). The leaves are pointed in each direction and blown on, then you ask for a wish and secure the leaves under a rock. Once you have shown this respect and asked permission from the mountains and Pachamama to let you pass and for everything to go well, you give thanks. Then you can leave on your trip.
We got to the campsite at about 4pm to find the porters had already set up our tents. After tea and a few games of cards we had a three course dinner!
The second day of the trek was the biggest challenge of the trek as we hiked up to the highest point, Dead Womans
Pass (4200 m). This involved hiking uphill for 5h when we arrived at the top we had time to admire the view for 10 minutes before we were driven off the top by rain and hail. Needless to say the porters started after us, hiked past us and had our lunch ready when we arrived in camp and they do it in sandals!
The third day we had to get up at 5.30 and we woke up to rain - not exactly enticing us out of our warm sleeping bags. This was the longest day of the trek but also the most diverse. We started off surrounded by mountainous peaks (unfortunately alot of these were obscured by the clouds), visited a few ruins and in the afternoon hiked through the cloud forest. That night our campsite had hot showers which I took full advantage of and beer which we were too tired to take advantage of although our cooks did reward us with cake (I'm still stumped at how they cooked that!) and jelly.
The next morning we were up at 4.30 and were off on our final leg of the trek to Machu Picchu. This was the
first time that we were really hiking with all the other people as the gates opened at 5.30 and everyone started at the same time. There was a bit of a rush as some people wanted to get there before everyone else but we soon spread out. After about 1.5h we arrived at the sun gate and got our first view of Machu Picchu. It took a while to get to Machu Picchu from here due to the numerous photo breaks. After a tour by the guide we were free to wonder through the ruins and take in the atmosphere. Finally tired and slightly achy but having had an amazing time we nade our way to Aguas Caliente for lunch and then the train back to Ollantaytambo where we caught our bus to Cusco.
When I got back to Cusco I visited alot of the sights including the cathedral where they have a picture of the last supper with a guinea pig on it, the Inca museum and I walked up to the Cristo Blanco statue and the Inca site Sacsayhuaman. On the last day I finally sucumbed and had a massage!
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