Time to Reflect

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Well it has been 2 days since completing the Inca Trail and I am still buzzing from the experience, I am unable to put my feelings and incredible experience in words, it is something you must do yourself, to understand the emotions that I am feeling from this journey. I can tell you what I saw and the people who shared this with me though,

Day 1 started at Otalyatambo when we meet the other 11 people who were travelling with us, we were introduced to them on the bus, and there was a great silence, we thought this group were very unfriendly at first, but later realised like us they were unsure of what lay ahead of us the next 4 days, as we started hiking we discovered that we were travelling with a family from Manchester England, and a family from Canada and 2 crazy Norwegians, a guide Carlos and 2 assistants, also 17 Porters and 2 chefs.

Not to bore you with all the details of every day, I will just tell you about a few of our highlights, The hike was extremely difficult in places, not only were parts of the climb very steep and seemed to go on forever, you also had to cope with the alttitude and cold, which makes simply walking a task, most days we covered between 12kms - 17kms which doesn´t seem much but, never has a hike been so difficult, we were very lucky with the weather, not once did it rain, I have got a fantastic tan from the trip, The nights were very cold being so high and close to the Andes, and the views from the tents were incredible with snow capped mountains all around.

At nights we camped in tents which the porters had put up before we arrived at each camp site. the porters managed to pack everything up after we left each site, and pass us on the way with 25kgs on their backs and miraculously set up camp and cook our meals at each rest point before we arrived. every morning the porters would wake you with what they called room service, and pass you a cup of coffee into your tent, And at night when you went to bed they would zip you in and make sure you were OK. .......thought they were going to tuck us in and read us a bedtime story.

The last night our porters stood guard at the check point to Machu Picchu to make sure no other group would beat us to the entry, as soon as they saw any movement they woke us and packed all our gear for us, so we were the first group to enter the Sun Gate, Some of us had only had 3 hours sleep from the celebration the night before, which we had put on for our guide and any porter that would take themselves away from work to join us. without these kind, wonderful, caring porters this experience would never have been possible.

Will add photos to this blog at a later date.

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