Inca Trailing

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So i went to bed early as i had a 5.30am start and joy of all joys the new inhabitants of my room were a bunch of teenage or twenty something gap yearers who were hellbent on getting pissed and coming into the room frequently to put the lights on and make as much noise as possible and so i did not have the best ever nights sleep and note to self, when i travel again im having a better budget and its cheap hotels or upmarket hostels as im too old for this bullshit.

So anyway i was up and ready for about 5.35 and i hung around for my transport, forgot to mention i got the sleeping bag the night before eventually and it was so large i had to take my rucksack instead of my daysack.

The transport arrived at about ten to six and i was greeted by one of the guides William who was far to smiley and chatty for this time of the morning.....lol. So i got on the bus and there were the 14 others on my trek and i sat near the front and briefly spoke to a group of three girls at the front from Boston. I was falling a asleep and then i met Ben from the uk living in New Zealand and it was scrabbling on the bus for the lens out of his glasses.

Marcelino the head guide stood up and gave us a brief run through of the morning and we eventually arrived at ollytambo for breakfast, this was not included in the trek and so i went for the americano breakkie as it was one of the cheapest on the menu...hehe.

I sat with the boston girls laura,kirstin and jeez i have forgotten the other girls name, it will come to me and we chatted and had breakkie and then it was time to pile back on the bus via a stop in a local shop for snacks and while boarding the bus we were mobbed by women selling walking poles and various local items like alpacca hats.

We then headed off down hairy dirt tracks to KM82 to start the trek and we all piled off and those who did not have trekking poles brought the local walking poles and me included. The bus park was mobbed with other groups and porters getting ready for the off and we headed down to the river and had our first group picture.

I walked up at the front of the group and chatted to Marcelino the guide and to Ben, The guides pointed out plants and flowers and explained about the locals and the incas extra which was really intresting and before we knew it we were at the campsite for lunch and the porters clapped us in which was funny as i did not feel we had expanded any energy so far and it had been pretty easy going.

The porters are amazing and run up hills with 20kgs or more on there backs and if anything we should be clapping them, lunch was the start of amazing food all along the 4 days of the trek and was also a chance to chat to some of the rest of the group.

It was a good group as it was a mixture of people and not like some of the groups just all made of young kids, i think that would have driven me mad.

Lunch was three courses and as a veggie i was well catered for and starter was avocardo with a nice dressing and salad and then followed by soup and then desert although i can not remember the dessert and lunch time was a good chance to find more about the group and also we had water bowls and soap to clean our hands at each meal and a meal tent and chairs etc....everything was thought of and well it wasnt proper camping...lol.

The porters were able to dissemble the site very quickly and we were on the move again and the porters flew past us at break neck speed, most people had hired 6kgs of a porter but i was carrying my own stuff and the first day was fairly easy going. I managed to chat to other members of the group like Wendy and Richard from Sydney, Richard is a minister and Wendy a school teacher and they have saved up there holiday time for a three month break, the was also Kathrine and Neal brother and sister traveling togther and Brett and Betsy.

We got to camp and all the tents were already set up and i had a three man tent to myself which was great for spreading out but i would have preferred to share with someone. We had snacks and then dinner was at 7 and again a great meal and the snacks earlier even consisted of popcorn.

We all chatted for a while and then headed to bed as tomorrow was a 5.30am wake up and we were doing the highest climb which is dead womans pass at 4200m above sea level,William the other guide woke us up early with one of the porters and got us all tea and coffee and then we had breakkie and i headed up the path with Brett from Reno, he was on the trek with his wife Betsy. also i was trekking and chatting with Ben and his friend Fran and following behind us was Neal and Katerine.

We were told we could do it in our own pace and given a meeting point and we totally missed this area and went to the next meeting point by accident.....lol, we had found out on the first day that we were not going to the last camp nearest machuu pichuu called winnay and so we all discussed walking further each day to go a camp at the bottom of Macchu picchuu if we couldn't do winnay but the guides said they could not do this and so at the end of the trek this was a bug bear with some of us, but not the guides fault.


So at the second meeting point we were met by William who had chased up after us as we had missed the first meeting point and eventually the others got up there and we had snacks and drinks there provided by the porters and the cook which was cool and then we set of for another 500mtrs.

Eventually me and Ben got to the top and i was exhausted having carried all my kit rather than others with daysacks and if i do the Inca Trail again im hiring a porter for sure.

Me and Ben chatted and took the obligatory tourist pics and we chatted about how ben is from the UK and now living in New Zealand and Fran is his ex and they are still good friends and he was traveling for a little while with Fran as she is doing a big trip and he just took a little time off. Then Shanon and Nicola and some of the others made it up and Brett and brett is an ex marine and is now into real estate sales.

We clapped various group members as they got up and all the other groups on the trail did this and the are 1000's at a time on the trail as 500 a day start it. Then the weather changed and we followed Marcelinao down and im afraid we did not wait for the others. On the first and second day the morning was fine and the afternoon it rained.

So the cheap tesco ponchos my mum and dad gave me came in handy, rain on the Inca trail in the dry season....lol, the second camp was in a valley and we were surrounded by the chorus of frogs, the tents were set up and we all chilled out for a while and we were up wind from the toilets which was not so great and after dinner Marceliano told us Inca tails and storys and some of us played a crad game with William called shithead and the guy or girl left with cards is the shithead, although it was renamed popie head to make it more polite and i lost the first round and the porters helped me on my second round and i beat William.


We then headed to bed and William would be our earlier morning rooster again and we had had apple pie for pudding and it was amazing, also on the trail they had milo which is an aussie choccie version of ovaltine.

Another early start and i was in no rush as it was another up hill and i hung about the middle of the pck chatting to other members of the group and we saw some ruins on the way up. I spoke to the boston gilrs Amanda,Laura and Kirstin and Amanda is a maths teacher for former drug addicted kids so thts some job and we just chatted about our travels etc.

We got to the top and everyone agreed it was not as hard as dead womans and we went a bit further and had saw another ruin and then eventually made camp and had lunch and we were camped on a mountainside and had amazing views

We all hung out together and decided as it was the last night we would need to sort out the porters and cooks tips and as Amanda was a maths teacher she was nominated with Brett to work it out and make the presentation, below the camp was a ruin and so me Ben,Fran and a handfull of others went out to find out more, while Richard and some of the others decided to rest up, we then had tea and a dinner the cook had made us a cake which was awesome, one of the other nights the others had had alpacaa, the food was amazing and at various stages we had had popcorn,pancakes and porridge etc.

After dinner we made the presentation and thanked all the porters and shook there hands and headed off to bed.

The next morning we were up at 3.30am and out by 4am and it had rained during the night and so we had to go down very slippery Inca stairs and at one stage Katherine slipped and nearly came off the edge as the was a sheer edge and a few others slipped and we eventually made it to the Winnay camp and had breakkie there and then went on to the sun gate and we saw glimpses of machhu pichhu but not great for a piccy and it was 8am by then.

We headed down to machu picchu and the clouds started to clear and we got some good piccys and then we got to machhu picchu and we had to get out visitors tickets and then we were told winnay pichu that only 400 can climb up a day was nearly full and we could either climb it or have the tour and so we stumped for the tour, but some of us were mad because if Peru treks had got us into the right camp we could do both. So we all commented on our feedback questionnaires later in the day.

We had our tour and machu pichu and is amazing and worth the effort and we then headed to agua Aguas calientes and met the guides and eat pizza and drank beer till our train arrived as the train was at 6pm and so we swapped emails and tipped the guides and said goodbye to the guides and played cards and then got the train back and then a bus from ollytambo and everyone had some wheere to go and at 10pm we said our goodbyes and i headed to the hostel and repacked my stuff.

I had a really unquiet room again and so i got having been tired from the Inca Trail and having had hardly any sleep, i got a taxi to the airport and read for a while and then flew 30 mins to Pureto Maldono.

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