El Camino del Inca / The Inca Trail - Peru 2012

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A very early start again and this after a night of sleeping on the ground in a tent for the first time in a number of years. Night time temperatures of around 7 C.

As it works out this is the most complicated and longest day. One of the things I was not (sufficiently) aware of before I started the Camino, was the fact that about 70% of the whole Camino consists of uneven rocky stairs. These Incas had a great talent for making stairs. Stairs going up and coming down. They make sense due to the great amount of water that crosses the trail (melting water from the snow covered peaks) and the amount of rain that falls during the rainy season. Without the stairs there probably would not be a Camino. Nevertheless walking some 10-12 km of chairs in a day is heavy. The length covered the second day is 16 km and the highest peak reached (first pass) is 4.200 m high. Taking into consideration the altitud of the first camp of 3.000m, that is an altitud difference of 1.200 m in stairs. Taking 25 cm for each step up that gives you some 5.000 steps (hello....).

I admit that I had some difficulties along the way that I resolved by taking between 30 and 50 steps between breaks of 30 seconds to 2 minutes. One of the worst points during the ascend is a place where you can see the last 500 m going up, only stairs. It gives you a great satisfaction getting to the top, only to find out that you have to go down to the next camp Pacaymayo that is at 3.600 m, and, yes you guessed it, again by stairs. Starting the descend it began to rain lightly, but lasted only for half an hour or so. Rain makes the stairs a lot more interesting.....

Once you finally arrives at your next camping ground you (at least I was) are done and want only one thing: lie down!

In previous treks at a certain altitud, I have had problems with eating. The same problem occurred to me on this trek. The first night I had eaten very little: lunch and dinner at the second day became disastrous. Except for a little soup, I was unable to eat. I went to bed early and slept for about 14 hours.

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Photos

All the way up
Just see how far down you can look.