Peru Parte Tres: Th'Inca Trail

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June 11th 2006

Published: June 19th 2006

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Rod_M

Abby and Stephanie

With native-stylee beetle blood face paint!

Day 1. Despite the trepidation over the Trail itself, we had a good group and Mario, our guide, was also pretty cool. There were 8 in the group: Rod and I, Abby and Stephanie (24 year olds from near Chicago), Jason and Rebecca (from San Francisco), David (an adventure sports nut from the US Midwest) and Antoine (a lawyer who’s lived in all kinds of interesting places but now lives in Oklahoma).

Day one was billed as ‘easy’, but I wouldn’t go that far! After a very early start, our first Inca ruins and several hours of walking (the last few of which were the start of the biggest climb on the Trail), we were all rather tired. The food, however, was great and we all got to know each other over dinner (Mario was working particularly hard on his client relationship with Stephanie :o)

Day 2 is the hardest day by a long way, with two big climbs. We were up at 5am and the day’s hiking began with the ascent to ‘Dead Woman’s Pass’ (4,215m high), which was hard-going even with a brief stop when Mario showed us all how to worship Pachamama and chew coca leaves.

The Sacred Valley

View on day one of the hike (the upper class Incas would have walked straight down the valley - we took economy class!)

We finally made it to the top of the Pass after a few hours and I rewarded myself with a Mars Bar…chocolate has never tasted so good! After a brief stop we began the heavy-going descent to lunch in the valley, but despite being tired at lunch we still had another climb to do and it began straight after lunch. Once we reached the top it was very satisfying to know that we’d done the hardest stuff on the Trail, and we were rewarded on the descent to camp with more spectacular Inca ruins and our first cloud forest scenery.

Day 3 should have been a breeze after the previous day, but by this point we had tired legs (more from the downhill than the uphill walking) and the pace dropped a bit. The scenery was amazing though and the Inca ruins just got better and better. It was a shorter day and when we arrived at the campsite we all felt good knowing that we would finally arrive at Machu Picchu in the morning. We may have relaxed a bit too much and the beer was probably a bad idea given the 3.45am start the next day….

Dead Woman's Pass

Rach sweating it out up Dead Woman's Pass

Day 4. Traumatised at the hideously early start and walking in the dark and rain, we were not amused to finally reach the ‘sun gate’ (the famous first glimpse of Machu Picchu) to see nothing but dense cloud. After 4 days of long difficult hiking, sleep deprivation and no showers, it seemed like a sick, cosmic joke and the whole group was deflated. Being in the mountains, though, we should have trusted that it would clear and, sure enough, the clouds finally drifted to reveal astonishing glimpses of the Inca city. Eventually, the sun beat down and we saw the whole, amazing place. It was absolutely one of the most spectacular things we’ve ever seen and - unlike the lazy gits who’d just caught the bus up from Aguas Calientes - we‘d earned it. Not content with 4 days of work, Rod and a few others hiked up Wayna Picchu (the mountain overlooking the ruins), but I chickened out half-way up!

After a few hours at Machu Picchu, we caught the bus down to Aguas Calientes and said goodbye to our group and to the amazing porters. It was sad to leave everyone after we’d got on so well