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Published: September 26th 2008
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(Matt)
We had a full 8 days in Cuzco just to take it easy for a while and to acclimatise in preparation for the Inca Trail Trek to Machu Picchu.
´The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry´ ...how true that is, with one day to go before the four day, 26 mile hike that crosses a 13,750-foot pass ominously named ´Dead Woman´s Pass´we were both lethargic from illness and recuperating in our hostal room watching cable TV, Catherine with the remains of a virus and me with a stomach parasite (a bit like in the Alien films!).
With aching limbs and a preference for watching trashy American TV we dragged ourselves to our tour operator´s offices (Llama Path) for our briefing as to what we could expect over the next four days. To summarise: lots of walking, camping, high altitude, fantastic views of Peru´s Andes Mountains and lots of early mornings. I had to smile that in amongst the promotional photos that lined the office walls was a picture of someone being carried on a stretcher, I assume it was to show how prepared the company was for any eventuality, I was secretly hoping it
was an added service that could be purchased but that turned out to be wishful thinking!
Feeling marginally better than the day before, mostly due to the strong antibiotics we managed to purchase directly from a pharmacy (no doctors prescription needed here!), we were met at 4:30 am by the coach at our hostal, as we got on 21 porters sitting at the back of the coach dressed head to toe in red clothing clapped us as though we´d done something amazing...completely surreal and a bit unnerving. As I dozed off for the 2 hour drive to the start of the trail I was thinking I hadn´t seen a stretcher anywhere!
At the start of the Inca Trail (known as Kilometre 82) we watched as our porters loaded up the majority of our belongings (we only had to carry day-packs) and set off into beautiful sunshine and scenery. Incidentally, we were told that porters were only allowed to carry 20 kilos, because at one time porters were abused by companies expecting them to carry up to 100 kilos, however, I noticed at one of the checkpoints where they weighed the bags (being the nosey person I am) most
porters were carring between 25 - 30 kilos! When I asked our guide he said the 20 kilos only related to our stuff, uhmmm a bit strange and doesn´t tie in with the official literature! It was also interesting to see the checkpoint guardians weigh the rubbish to ensure that nothing is left behind (I think they work it out as 2 kilos per person).
Day one was an enjoyable eight hour stroll with some great views. We were pleasantly surprised that at lunch time the porters had set up a big dining tent and provided us with a three course meal! A table cloth, metal knives and forks, individual bowls of hot water, soap and towels for hand washing...this wasn´t camping as we know it. This high standard was a pattern to be repeated over the duration of the trek for every breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Day two had been on everyone´s mind from the beginning, it involved a 10 hour trek and included crossing the highest point (the aforementioned Dead Women´s Pass) while it was a tough day both of us arrived back at camp near the front of our group, I even carried one of
the porter´s bags (for 20 minutes and almost collapsed at the end!). About 15 minutes after we arrived in camp and comfortably lying in the tent with our feet up, the heavens opened and there was a massive downpour soaking many of the stragglers in our group.
In comparison to the day before day three was a pleasant 6 hour stroll. On the walk I had the chance to chat to our guide Alex who told me many interesting things about his hometown, a village outside of Cuzco, here are some of the things he told me:
-When someone dies in his village they burn all of their clothes because otherwise they believe the person´s ghost will come back to reclaim them.
-When Alex´s wife was ill with backpain conventional doctors couldn´t cure her so they visited a shaman and had to sacrifice a guinea pig as part of a bigger complicated ritual...it worked!
-The women in his village wear a ring on their little finger if they are single, on the next finger if they are in love, on the middle finger if they are married and on the index finger if they are divorced
or bereaved...he told me loads of other interesting things but I digress.
We vistied a couple of Inca sites and arrived at camp in the early afternoon. The campsite had the luxury of a luke warm shower and a bar! In the evening we had to endure the tip giving ceremony our chance to reward the porters, while they did work hard and deserved the money our group gave them, it was all a bit contrived. We went to bed early in preparation for a 4:30am start and the last few hours walk to our goal - Machu Picchu.
Our chef didn´t let us down for our last breakfast at 4am on our last day, as well as the usual bread and pancakes he managed to produce two big iced cakes! With no cooking facilities and all of the ingredients having to be carried for the duration of the trek the question ´How?´only marginally overshadowed the question ´Why?´.
The final checkpoint is about 1hr from the Sun Gate the first viewing point of Machu Picchu, the funny thing is that the checkpoint doesn´t open until 5:30am, so loads of people are hyper keen to get there for
sunrise. It´s like opening the traps in horse or greyhound racing. Our group kept a steady pace but it was funny to watch people flying past us gasping for breath on narrow tracks with big drops...not sure what they achieved really as we made it at a much more sedate speed with time to spare?
After four days of walking it was a fantastic feeling to arrive at Machu Picchu...it really is an amazing sight. Even with aching limbs we spent the best part of a day exploring the place, it´s easy to see why it´s considered one of the modern wonders of the world.
We got a train back to Cuzco from the nearby interesting, and more importantly pizza-restaurant-overloaded, tourist town of Aguas Calientes.
I´ve packed this entry with photos so if you click on "next" at the start or end of the entry it´ll take you to the second page of photos (that was for you Steve!)
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toria
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sky high
chewing coca leaves?! Catherine, is that not cocaine?! Still loving your blog and look forward to new installments. I had a baby! A whopper of a girl, Isobel, weighing in at 9lb 15. I could do with some of them there leaves too... xx