Machu Picchu

---

Heya

We made the Inca Trek. Yippeeee!

We were picked up by SAS Travel Peru at 5am Tuesday morning. Our tour guides Fredy and Jose were amazing, extremely entertaining and bent over backwards to make sure we all had a great time.

In total there were 14 of us, a mix of canadians, americans, english, irish, germans and a handful of aussies. We arrived at kilometre 82, the starting point of the trek by about 8 or 9 after stopping for breakfast along the way.

The begining of the trek follows the Urubamba River pretty closely for the first hour or so before we headed up into the mountains. The scenery, as I´m am sure you could guess, is absolutely amazing. Surrounded by ginormous green mountains in every which direction with the Urubumba river weaving its way inbetween the mountains.

For the 14 of us trekking we had 21 porters - 2 chefs, a head man (poppy Pasillas) and 18 porters to carry all of the equipment. The porters are unbelievable - all of them about the same size as me but shorter and they each carry 20-25kg in bulky camping equipment on their backs. Most of them only wear old leather slip on sandals - I really don´t know how they manage it! All for the amazing wage of about $100US a week - and I bet they all have about 10 children each!

When you arrive at your campsite for lunch or dinner, the porters are already there to greet you with a warm bowl of water to wash your hands, a communal tent with tea and coffee (and MILO which was amazing - it's been years). The meals were amazing pancakes, porridge, omlettes in the morning, and amazing lunches of salads, veggies, soups, meats. For dinner there was soups as starters every night, beef curries, chicken, rice, pizza and pastas salads, veggies, potato cakes, corn (potatoes and corn being the main source of agriculture for the Incas) and desert every night. I ate my weight in food for 4 days....seriously!

The second day of trekking was the toughest. It's where you reach peak altitude (4200m) after a 4 hour steep climb named appropriately Dead Womans Pass - could have been us quite literally! The altitude was crazy - taking like 20 steps and losing your breath. It's called dead womans pass as you trek between 2 mountains which resemble breasts and between it kinda looks like there is a naked woman laying on her back. Fredy also said something about when Hiram Bingam first trekked through that he found a lot of female mummies at the top of dead womans pass - certainly wouldn't suprise me. All found in the fetal position which is important for the Incas in resembling you leave life the way you enter. It was great to reach the top anyways!

We saw loads of ruins along the way but I'll let the pictures do the talking as I would prob spend the rest of my holiday on this blog if I were to explain! Although I tend to waste a lot of time trying to put pictures up unsucessfully 😉 I know you all think I don't try but Spanish formatted computers aren't the easiest to navigate...Puuhhlleeaasse!

Hmmm... So day 3 was where things started to get really pretty! After the previous night I actually thought Nic might be airlifted off the mountain - she woke up VIOLENTLY ILL at 3 in the morning (very understated I might add) after we all shared a bottle of warm Pisco sour (in a nutshell whisky with lemon and sugar). I still think it was the chicken, who eats a pink bit of chicken day 2 macchu picchu, she makes me laugh. But in fine form as always she soldiered on and we made it to the lodge. I'm sure a part of the motivation was the warm shower at the end of it all! Lots more ruins and the descent into the lodge were pretty cool as you enter the Amazon basin and you can really tell the difference, it's warmer, wetter and much prettier in terms of trees and stuff!

The lodge was great - we ate inside in the warm and had a farewell for our porters - who left us the following morning. They are all so quiet, polite and are always smiling! They made us a cake with Welcome to Macchu Picchu written on it - aaaawwwwwww 😊 The lodge is the hub for everyone trekking to Macchu Picchu the following day and it´s the first stop to buy beer so the vibe is really cool! Apparently it used to stay open until 3am but they had to start closing earlier, closes at 11 now, people used to get completely wasted and then fall over the edge on the way to MP the following day. Hehehehe...Stupid!

On the last day you are woken up at 3 thirty to start the trek to the Sun Gate. The gates open at 5 thirty but we were lining up by 4 thirty to make sure we were one of the first groups in. Of course, we were the only 2 people who stupidly forgot to put our passports in our day packs which meant instead of a stamp in our passports saying Machu Picchu we got one on our hands instead hehe. Once you are through the checkpoint it is on for young and old. I started with 4 layers and 45 minutes later was in a singlet. It was hilarious powering through the jungle, trying to take in the amazing views, get some snaps, make sure no one over takes you and not fall over the edge all at the same time! The last stairs up to the sun gate are well named, ¨Gringo Killer¨ and by the time you get to the top you are sweating like a pedophile at a Wiggles concert!

It was a little cloudy when we got there so we didn´t get the sunrise but nonetheless the view was amazing! We got some cool shots in our Loki La Paz 4th Anniversary T'shirts!

Then it´s about another hourish down to the city of Machu Picchu. I didn´t know that Machu Picchu was a place for the elite of society only. Random! It was like a university where students go to learn about the Sun, the stars, engineering and agriculture. It all fits together nicely when you get the guided tour and see the various landmarks within that represent the inca philosophy of life.

Apparently when the Spanish took over there were only 180 Spanish with weapons to defeat something like 15 thousand Incas. But the secrets the Incas are so well kept. And even though our guide knew a fair bit I get the feeling that no one really knows the true story. There are MANY theories though most of which are written by the Spanish - about the people and the way they lived, about what happened to the gold and silver within Machu Picchu - who took it. It was really interesting to hear all of the theories! I guess thats the beauty of Machu Picchu!

It is definitely as beautiful as the pictures though - probably even more so.

Sooooo... Machu Picchu, definitely on the top of my best adventures list since I have been here. Sorry it has taken so long to get it up for you. I´ll probably post some photos up in September! Hehehe!

XXXX

---

Photos

The top of dead womans pass
Aaahhhhh!

Machu Picchu
At first glance. Cool eh!

Comments

[Mumsy]

WOWWWWWWWWWWWWW
I have waited FOREVER for this post!!!!!! Can't wait for the pics!