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Published: August 27th 2006
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We´re back from hiking the Inca trail for the last four days and are still basking in the beauty of it all. We started our trek at kilometer 82 and hiked 16 km the first day stopping at various Inca sites along the way. The first part of the trail was quite dry and arid, but had us walk through many farms and villages on our way to the cloud forest. The camping spots along the way took a bit of getting used to...squatting toilets only! Our first spot had llamas as our neighbors and we both slept in four layers of clothing. Day 2 was the biggest challenge...wioth us taking on the elements...wind, rain, snow, sore tummies and the altitude. The highest altitude we reached was over 4200m and had us dipping into the local coca (as in leaves not cocaine) to prevent any onset of altitude sickness. Humming birds were a daily sighting and we even got to see the largest humming bird in the world. Orchids grow practically like weeds throughout the upper part of the Andes, not surprising considering it gets rain 220 days of the year. 3,000 of the worlds 30,000 types of orchids can be
Peruvian kids are too cute..one more shot
This picture was taken at a Quechua village we visited. The porters that helped us on the Inca trail were from here. found in Peru and we saw one of the worlds smallest and one of the latest discoveries as well. Our group consisted of 14 travellers from all over the globe...3 Americans, 2 Australians, 3 English, 3 Irish, 2 crazy Canadians (us) and 1 Maori from New Zealand!!! We may be the only people in the world to experience traditional Maori ceremonies in the Andes of Peru-amazing! The Maori began day 2 of the trek with a special ceremony to honour Pacha Mama (mother earth) and to give our porters strength. They are the real heros on the trail. We had 22 porters that carried our rugsacks, sleeping bags, tents, propane tank for cooking and food. The government has limited the weight for each porters load at 25 kilos, still a heavy load, especially when you´re 5 feet tall and are doing multiple trips in a month wearing open toed sandals...and we´re talking the $10 Walmart special at best. These guys could put a lot of professional athletes to shame. All of them were so kind and friendly and every night we could hear them giggling away in their tents. One was also the ¨Cheff¨-Juan- who had the tent set up
Feeding the alpacas
While the men work on the Inca trail, the women in the village knit various goods from the alpaca wool. and the food ready daily when we arrived at our lunch spot and camp. Ian enjoyed the food a little too much, experimenting with Alpaca meat and chicha (corn beer which apparently is made from chewing the corn first and then spitting it out and letting it ferment). Unfortunately, his stomach didnt accept it as well as his eyes but that couldn´t stop him from enjoying the trail.
The last day of major hiking took us through more cloud forests. The mountain side looked like coral reef...we were expecting to see sea urchins growing from the rock that was the home of many colorful lichen, moss, flowers and shrubs. Just beautiful!
On the fourth day of the trek we woke up at 4am to be at the Machu Picchu entrance before the other groups. We arrived at 4:30am and there was already 15 or so people ahead of us. Once the gates opened at 5:30am it was a race to the top of the Sun gates...one guy actually fell off the trail and down about 6 feet into the bushes! Once we arrived at the Sun gates at about 6:30am, the view was spectacular and it was nice to have
Kilometer 82
The start of the Inca Trail. Machu Picchu to ourselves for a short while before the ¨lazy people¨as Cesar called them, road up on the bus. Machu Picchu is everything we expected, post card perfect and truly a sanctuary. We toured around the ruins for a couple of hours and sat down for a while enjoying the view of the Andes and taking in the surreal moment that we were actually there. While enjoying the view about 20 red and green parrots flew by us. It was incredible!
As for a brief history lesson on Machu Picchu...Hiram Bingham re-discovered for the west Machu Picchu in 1911. It is estimated that about 800-1000 people lived there. Almost every Inca site is comprised of a urban sector, agricultural sector and religious sector. The knowledge of these people was quite evident with the astrology behind the intricate stone work, i.e. they were able to determine the winter and summer solstices and equinoxes. They were agricultural experts, each terrace had its own micro-climate. Machu Picchu is able to grow coca despite being 1500 m above the altitue coca normally grows. All in all, the Inca trail was worth not taking a shower for 4 days straight, the squating toilets (Ian
Campsite - Day 1
Every day when we arrived at our site, the tents were already set up and warm water would be waiting for us to wash our hands...they were way too good to us! didn´t quite master the squatting, so he ended up OD-ing on Imodium), sleeping in tents on a incline and staying up while the Irish slept peacefully, snoring away. We would do it again in a heart beat...well atleast once our legs get a bit of a rest!
Today we´re going to a ¨futbol¨match..Lima against Cusco. It should be quite exciting.
Tomorrow we leave for the Amazon jungle. Our trip got rerouted slightly since the were some problems at the Bolivian border with police control. As such, we´re going to Manu Wildlife center instead.
Hope all is well back home.
Mucho amor Kasia and Ian
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Artur
non-member comment
coca leaves ''not cocaine''
sure sure....hello from amsterdam, where it's just grass..... not marijuana