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Well, over a year after booking it finally arrived!
Hey everyone, after some recent ups and downs we have had a fantastic last four days hiking through the cloud forest, sleeping under canvas and eventually arriving at the amazing Inca site of Macchu Picchu!
We had been preparing ourselves for the Inca Trail here in Peru for a long time and the 27th of May was our beginning....or so we thought! The day before we found out that there was a national strike in Peru on the following (our departure) day which meant that it would be too dangerous to leave the city by road as people would be demonstrating by throwing rocks at any vehicles daring to break the strike. So, we had no option but to leave that night and we eventually made it to our campsite at 2 am, very tired and in the dark, cold and pouring rain and wondered what we had let ourselves in for. After our first sleepless night we were woken early by our guide, Bryan (a traditional Peruvian name.......!) as he handed us hot coca tea to begin the day with. After breakfast and getting packed up we made for
the head of the trail and began our four days of walking the 33km Inca Trail over mountain and through forests.
Day one was the "training day" where we had an easy seven hour hike stopping only for lunch and to check out some of the smaller Inca sites along the way. The scenery was just beautiful with towering mountains, snow capped peaks and hanging glaciers all around, not to mention the dozens of working donkeys carrying heavy loads to the villages along the trail. We also ate cactus fruit at one of the rest points which was prepared by the locals for us. At around 3pm we reached our camp for the night which had the facilities of a hole in the ground and running water in the form of a stream from which we could purify our own drinking water from.
Day two began early and not so bright with the prospect of the hardest day trekking ahead of us. This was actually the shortest distance day but would take the longest as it was severly uphill all day. We covered just 9km in around eight hours and hiked over 1300 meters up and a further
600 down, some of which were giant steps and the rest unmade rough tracks. This was a tough day with the altitude reaching 4200 meters at our highest point and finally reaching camp at around 3600. The day was long and hard and we were only given lunch once we finished at 3pm. our small group of just nine split up throughout the day as we were all different paces meeting at the top and bottom of the mountain! Me, Alice and Goerge (our new friend from LA) hiked together and made a great team keeping each other going and making good time of the hike.
Day three started as usual with a hot cup of coca tea at the tent as we woke and began at around 7 am. This was the longest day in terms of distance, covering around 16 km which was nearly all down hill and hard on the thighs after the previous two days. We stopped at various Inca sites along the way again and made good time hiking for around eight hours and dropping nearly 1000 meters to our next camp site where as usual our porters had already set up our tents
for the night and were preparing dinner for the evening. This was another early night as the next day was our final day of hiking and we were just two hours from Macchu Picchu and it would be the earliest of starts so far.
Day four broke and we woke at 3.30 am in the dark, packed as quick as possible, rammed some breakfast down and headed for the final trail checkpoint which opened at 5.30am. We reached here at 4.45 to get a good start ahead of other groups and while waiting for the pass to open we passed the time by playing a group game of UNO by torchlight! Finally at 5.30 we were let though onto the final section of the trail and hit the ground running, literally! It was a race to the finish line with all 200 of the Inca Trail hikers from various groups wanting to be the first to see Macchu Picchu in all its glory and to beat the tourists (a.k.a. the cheaters!) arriving by bus and train from nearby Aguas Callientes. We hiked for all we were worth and were amongst the first 20 people that day to see the
amazing sight from the Inti Punktu (Sun Gate) and the morning sun rose from above the surrounding mountains spilling golden sunlight down onto Macchu Picchu! What a start to the day!
After four days and nights of trekking and sleeping under canvas we made it and it was worth every single step, stair, stone and stumble. We had a tour of Macchu Picchu on arrival learning some of its secrets and history and were then left to explore on our own for the rest of the day. After finishing and reluctantly leaving we headed down into the valley below by bus where we got lunch in the small town and then caught the train from Aguas Callientes to Ollantaytambo for the final leg by bus back to Cusco where we almost mowed down two sheep crossing the road! And there we were, back where we started four days previous feeling tired but completely fulfilled that we had achieved it all and that it was everything and more that we had expected and hoped for!
We had just a small group of nine people to trek with, all of which were great! We made new friends and shared the
experiences all the way. Our group was made up of two from LA, two from sunny Blackpool, an Argentinian couple from Buenos Aires and a Canadian and we couldnt have asked for a better bunch of people to share it with!
Now we are back we are looking forward to moving on to Lima in a few days for some warmer weather and then on to the USA where it will be another complete change of pace and our final destination of the trip....which seems almost impossible!
Hope you are all ok and enjoy the pictures from our trek, we certainly worked for them!
Ally and Alice xx
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