9th-12th November: Inca Trail & Machu Picchu

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The day, the big day, the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning was finally upon us and we were picked up bright and early from our hotel in Cuzco. The weeks seemed to have flown by since the 1st October when we had first entered Peru and booked the Machu Picchu expedition from our helpful travel guide Alberto. Being told then that we would have to wait over a month to get onto the official trek seemed like an eternity, so during the weeks that followed we put our pedals to the metal and took in the best of what Peru had to offer. This South American country has everything you could wish for from oxygen lacking, lung crushing mountain highs, to arid, sweltering desert sandboarding lows with nearly every other type of landscape in-between to offer the tourist/traveller, all with colourful character and a local smile. We had certainly taken advantage of its unique charms starting in Puerto Maldonado when we flew to the outer edge of the mighty Amazon Jungle and partook in an Ayahuasca ceremony with the spiritual guidance of Edinson the Herbal Medicinalist. Following on from that trip we had witnessed the ancient customs and traditions of the Uros tribes and their floating island homes on the worlds highest lake Titicaca. We had journeyed across the border into Bolivia for five mad days to marvel at the incredible Uyuni Salt Flats, before returning to Peru’s western desert planes, flying over the enigmatic Nazca Lines and lounging at Huacachina’s oasis idyll. We had been on a non-stop ride with one great experience following another, now here we were on a bus heading to the final chapter, and what was to be the definitive highlight in this beautiful country.

If you have read my blog at all, you will know I have a fascination with the ancient cultures of Central & South America and the legacy of stepped pyramids, temples and acropolis’s they left behind. The craftsmanship in their construction methods using megalithic blocks with precision and artistry that correlated their constructions to the cardinal points and astrological alignments, wove layers of mystical, magic and wonderment into their society, delicacy that we would be hard pressed to achieve today with our modern tools and equipment. The legacy of awe inspiring form and function left from the mysterious Olmec, Maya, Aztec and Incas is something to be truly marvelled at, and the fact that most of it is still being unearthed gives Central & South America the full depth of civilisation and pre-history that the New World of the USA desperately lacks. The earliest chroniclers from Europe could only look on open mouthed at the Inca Trail describing it in astonished tones with its immaculately constructed design, breathtaking length and intrinsic beauty. Whilst us ‘modern’ Europeans were still trudging through dirt tracks the Incas had joined farmsteads and terraced plantations with administrative centres, holy temples and cities dotted throughout the Andes with this elaborate network of roads stretching over 2000km across deep valley gorges and dizzying mountain highs, a feat that even the regimented road builders of the Roman Empire would have been impressed with.

So here we were, the bus was pulling in at Ollantaytambo, our final destination offering modern civilization before we were to embark on the three nights and four days expedition. We had been here before during the Sacred Valley tour from Cuzco but on this occasion we had only 30 minutes to grab some breakfast, savour a delicious cup of fresh coffee, and to stock up on any last minute goodies, chocolate, snacks and drinks prior to us setting off proper. Time was already getting on - it must have been about 10.00am when we eventually hit the Trail from just outside of the town amid the locals who were busy selling walking sticks, bag straps and snacks at the last unofficial shop. The mid-morning sun was beginning to blaze and we were all set to go with our bags strapped, sun hat and sun block on, our group of 24 made up of 11 travellers, 11 porters and 2 guides were introduced to each other. The Inca trail has a maximum daily allowance of 500 people; including porters & guides; which was why we had waited so long to get on the trek in the first place. Our first day was to be a fairly easy affair traversing what was described by Russo (our guide) as ‘Peruvian Flats’ which actually meant rolling hillside - some up, some down - we were to rest up at lunch time before ending at camp around 4-5pm in the afternoon, didn’t sound too bad. We hit the first checkpoint and got our passports stamped whilst the porters had a weigh in, basically the porters are ‘limited’ to carrying no more than 25kg with them on their backs - a rule that has only recently been bought in and enforced - with my pack weighing in at just over 5kg you can but wonder how they could possibly carry more than 25kg… but they do. After a few hours of a relatively sedate pace we rested up for a whopping 2-3 hours due to the fact that one of our porters had been pulled up at checkpoint for carrying too much weight! We idled around waiting for him to appear, he actually had all the food provisions so without him we would all go hungry, he finally caught up and lunch was prepared for us. The afternoon saw us travelling more ‘Flats’ passing some ruins at a junction in the valley before we finally hit the first nights camp. We must have arrived around 4.30-5pm, you can’t really be out on the trail after that sort of time due to the sun disappearing behind the mountains so it was to be a regime of early starts and early finishes and by starting earlier in the day you tend to miss most of the suns intense rays. After resting up for a couple of hours dinner was served at around 7pm, soup followed by rice and chicken followed by lashings of coca tea. Needless to say that sleep came quickly afterwards.

Daybreak, a pig from the farm homestead was snuffling around the tent, rousing us from sleep as the cockerel crowed to the misty break of pre-dawn. It was still dark when we were offered a brew of coffee through the open flaps of our tent and we pulled ourselves out of our sleeping bags and prepared for the early morning start. Everyone had been trying to avoid using the ‘toilet’ that was by the nearby stream as it was most unsavoury. Breakfast was served and was eagerly wolfed down, so watered and fed we slung our backpacks on and began the 2nd instalment of the trail - we had been warned that it was going to get tough today, and that is no word of a lie.
We left the camp as the porters were still tidying up after us and dismantling the camp. A word about the porters: these guys are the real stars of the Inca Trail, without them the whole experience would be intolerable, as it is this assortment of superheroes wake before you, prepare your breakfast, wash up after you, pack away the tents, then they steam past you whilst you are struggling with a 5kg pack on your back (they are each hefting impossible looking loads on their backs strung together with rope around their foreheads, chewing coca leafs), they then set up an eating area, cook lunch, wash up after lunch, pack away, steam past you again, set up evening camp and prepare your dinner before finally washing and tidying away - to repeat the process the next day. They are the ones doing all the hard work on the trip and yet they receive only a pittance from the tour companies who employ them, we found out that on average they receive a paltry $5 USD a day! Bow down to the porters and what must be one of the hardest jobs in the entire world.

We had been told by previous Machu Picchu trekkers that day two was the mother of all slogs up hill, and so with this insight we knew to take things nice and easy and to just savour the time and take it all slowly, slowly. It started off quite reasonably enough with a steady incline, then steps, lots and lots of steps up, and up, a bit of flat, and further steepness. The midday sun was sweltering overhead and the trail was still heading up, up, up, I was struggling, Claire was really struggling, but whenever it got too much you just had to sit down and breath it out. Dead Woman’s pass was the name of the prominence we were heading up to, after that we were told it was down hill… some kind of incentive. Your lungs just can’t handle the thin air and although your legs have the energy to propel you forward and upwards you find your breaths getting shallower as they are not taking in enough oxygen to maintain a decent steady pace. The porters as previously described literally run, hum and skip past you, each with a house full of equipment strapped to their backs, all you can do is look on in pure admiration, as you sit their sweating profusely and wheezing like a 50 a day smoker, trying to regain composure. You start to think that you are just totally unfit, and we generally gravitated towards the rear of the party, old folks in complete hiking gear would pass us, but then you would re-take them further up as they had time out, but then younger and fitter looking people would be struggling as much as we were which makes you feel a bit better. We even spoke to some Irish guy who had ran the marathon back in Ireland a month or two before and he confirmed that the Inca Trail was by far much harder! Anyway we finally, and exhaustedly reached the highest point of the entire trek, namely Dead Woman’ Pass, named due to it’s resemblance to a reclining lady from further away (very hard to make out to the untrained eye). To the top of that trek the steepness levels had gotten so acute that I was limited to short bursts of energy, trekking about 50-100 meters then taking a 5 min break, but when you do break you have the glorious panorama of mountains to take in with the wispy white clouds swirling around the rocky peaks. After savouring the highest peak of the journey and watching other folk struggling; the way we had; we were glad to be descending the other side, although what you don’t realise is that the downward trek works out the other muscles in your legs, so when we finally reached camp later that afternoon our legs had undergone the most thorough work out imaginable, from trudging up, to jarring down.

Day three turned out to be a tough day, but luckily nothing was going to be as hard as our previous days slog, so with that knowledge in mind, we knew things could only get better. Yet it was still not a walk in the park, after all you have been on the trail for a couple of days and when you wake in the morning your legs and body aches, blisters are appearing and chaffing your feet (despite the anti-blister socks) and your general shabbiness through lack of a descent wash or bath begins to get to you. Starting out in the morning to a gradual incline again, the legs begin to ease out of pain and into autopilot, knowing it is the final real day of the trek gives your spirit a much needed lift too, plus we knew that the final camp would have HOT SHOWERS - something my body was crying for! The day turned out to be a good taster for the ultimate experience that tomorrow was going to bring, we started off by climbing to one final ridge where we made offerings to the gods of the mountains, thanking them for looking after us on the trail, we prayed to the cardinal points and shouted the mountains names out before placing the three coca leafs under a stone for good luck. Following this we took in some decent Inca ruins and carried on through a semi-tropical area continuing up before we finally descended to the organised final campsite, complete with electricity, hot showers, bar and beer. Our final meal was emotional and as is customary on the Inca Trail we had been asked to organise a big tip for the porters and our guides, a little token of our gratitude for all their hard work and patience. I only wish we had done the trail earlier in our trip when I actually had more money to offer, as it was with only a few days left before returning to the UK my available funds had been severely depleted, and my new bank had happily cancelled my old current account when they took them over in August, which had left me up shit creek for the final month of our journey - thanks Barclays! As it was we all contributed a reasonable amount between us and the porters were eternally grateful for our support. Although it would have been good to celebrate the beginning of the end with a few more beers, Claire and I were determined to see the next day through without any bleariness or a heavy head, so it turned out to be a couple of beers and then bed.

Following another early night, we arose for the grand finale of our journey. Today we were going to see the legendary and now newly crowned seventh wonder of the world, Machu Picchu. Just a couple of hours trek and we met a final wall of steps, which led you to the mouth of the solar gate - the entrance to this magnificent site. All our aches and pains disappeared when we reached the top of the steps and gazed out across the mountain range and caught a glimpse of our prize enshrouded with early morning mists. I felt my pace quicken as we began to bound along the final roadway leading to the ruins, with them clearly in-sight we passed through the crowds and got ever closer to our goal. One final corner and its all their in front of you… a spectacular sight to behold, still enshrouded with mist, all adding to its mystical appeal. This mountain town sculpted into the rock, made from the rock, with a truly amazing vista of the mountainous locale, terraces leading down the mountainside, so harmoniously in keeping with its surround as to be spiritually uplifting, awe inspiring ‘insert amazed words here’. There is nothing really to describe the feeling of accomplishment on finishing the trek and viewing this Incan stronghold in all its glory in the days breaking sun, the three days hard work prior to standing in its beauty certainly adds to the emotion, something that day trippers certainly miss out on. Completing the Inca Trail trek gives you this level of ownership on the ruins when you finally reach them and as such this was my day, my ruins, it made you feel that the hoards of tourists arriving and milling about didn’t have a clue, didn’t appreciate it as much as you, they hadn’t paid their dues to the mountains, they missed the experience, and as such I found myself battling through their fresh faced masses with nothing short of contempt. Rushing around the site, taking photos of everything before the whole site was awash with new arrivals, pushing people out the way who were just stood their like planks in groups of thirty - hearing things like ‘is this it?’…

After I had calmed down and our group had done the full tour of the site, we were basically left to our own devices for a few hours to explore at will or to do fanny all and relax. Now although Machu Picchu is an amazing site the big mountain peak behind all those pictures you see actually has another even more spectacular Inca site on top - namely Waynapicchu. Out of our group of eleven only Ron & I decided that we were stupid enough to endure more punishment, and headed out at a frenzied pace up the steepest, most dangerous climb yet. We were racing against time as well due to the fact that we had to be back in the nearby town of Aqua Fuentes to get tickets for our return journey to Cuzco in about three hours time, and we were informed that it takes at least two hours to get up and down this beast, heh - me likes a challenge! British health and safety would have a field day up here, clambering up steep rocks, hanging, pulling yourself up with wire rope, then looking down at where you just climbed up, made the heart beat wildly. All the time we were pushing on at a break neck speed, taking photos, clambering up to its dizzying heights, through a cave, up a wooden ladder then when you get to the top - oh boy! No hand rails, no guides, just you and hopefully common sense keeps you from getting to near the edge, because there is nothing but open skies and thousands of feet of mountain to fall down should you be too stupid up here. The ruins here, although nothing spectacular, are spectacular in the fact that they are here at all, built on a near vertical incline of a mountain - how theses people even considered building anything here beggars belief but here it is - and atop of the ruins affords you with a glorious birds eye view of Machu Picchu. Truly exhilarating and scary at the same time is all I can say about this peak, and due to the fact that there were already a fair few people just chilling out around the summit didn’t really leave anywhere to stand, or preferably sit - so a few pictures then we began the slow, careful descent. With the pace we had set ourselves we actually managed to get up and down Waynapicchu in about an hour and forty-five minutes, giving me time to snap a few more precious photos of this majestic site before hurrying to the entrance, finding Claire and getting to our meeting point with time to spare.

We all gathered for one final meal in a restaurant in Agua Fuentes, where we were given our return tickets. The trials and tribulations of the trek, had bought our group together, the trail being the glue that bound us all for that special time. We found the age range and shared experiences of our fellow travellers made our journey all the more memorable, so without further ado a big shout goes out to all: Kentucky Ron and his lady, Swiss Michael & his new bride, and the Brazilian contingent that made up the rest of the numbers (sorry can’t remember names) everyone actually got on and we all shared some choice moments - times I will treasure always.

All things come to an end and with this section of our journey drawing to a close it just left us a couple of days to get ourselves over to Lima in time for our flight back to the UK for Christmas. Adios and so long ‘Lamerica’ - I’ve had a ball over here and vow to return to tick those other countries off the list sometime in the near future…

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Comments

[monkeycopilot]

Jeanie
Hi Jeanie, I cant honestly remember the company, we just flew into Cuzco and booked up through an agent there... They all seemed to offer the same sort of deal. Be aware though to book well in advance - we waited 6-7 weeks for our place (that time we spent travelling the rest of peru) - We travelled independently throughout central and south america - its so easy