When we walked through clouds...

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The only other time I’d been close enough to clouds was when I went skydiving, when, you know, you expect to be falling from clouds. But that was a 15 second free-fall and all I remember from that experience is pure fear. Coming back to clouds though, we were actually in clouds—not mist, not fog, actual CLOUDS for at least a night and a day in Machu Picchu, Peru.



After our two month training (relatively speaking) for the trek across the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, my husband and I were finally in the city of Cusco on Dec, 21 2014. We went with Gap Adventures for our guided tour through the Inca trail. By the way, we learned during the trek that a guided tour is mandated by the government, and later realized, it was probably for good reasons. We were housed at Hotel Prisma, where we got to meet other hikers in our group. We spent a day and a half exploring Cusco, getting ready for the trip and acclimatizing to the “high” altitude in Cusco. Our definition of high changed when we returned from the trip. But, I digress. Downtown Cusco has an amazing market that carries all sorts of local, freshly prepared foods, aisles of fresh juice stalls, fruits, grains, vegetables and pretty much anything a supermarket holds, except fresher and cheaper. We were really impressed with how well organized the market was. There were designated aisles for fruits, some were solely for grains, etc.



The first day of our trek, we were all up before 6am, and brought out our 6kg duffel bags (supplied by Gap Adventures). We were all told to carry day packs for the trip and a 6kg duffel bag went to the porters, who accompanied us during the entire trail. Yes, it did feel more like a glamping experience before we started on this trek, because we didn’t have to carry our tents, sleeping bags or most of our luggage. However, I think our entire group (and other groups we met on our way) was pretty thankful for the porters. And you’ll see why. After a quick breakfast, we headed out of Cusco to a two hour journey to Ollaytayambo, a tiny town, where we saw our last Western toilet for the next few days. This quaint little town had a number of cafés and souvenir shops we could explore. In this town, we met the rest of our group, who’d been traveling elsewhere in South America and were joining us for the Inca trail hike. Now, fully loaded, our van reached our next point from which we embarked on the hike. This point, popularly known as Km.82 is a checkpoint where we gave our duffel bags to our group of wonderful porters. I sensed the excitement and anxiety of the group as we waited for our porters to get clearance at the checkpoint. We finally began our hike across the Inca trail!



On day 1, we hiked 11kms through the mountain, and was called the ‘training day’ by our guide. In retrospect, it truly was a training day for what was to follow. During our hike, we met with a set of Incan ruins called Lactapata, which were storage areas for grains and crops for the Incans during their hike to Machu Picchu. Because we saw it from afar, we could mostly only see the layout of these ruins. The trek this day was fairly easy, as we followed the Cusichaca river through its course. We had plenty of water and snack breaks throughout the well-paced hike and were feeling pretty good at this point. By 3pm, after a moderately easy hike, we reached our campsite at Wayllabamba, where we camped along with many other groups of hikers. The porters had reached our campsite much earlier than us, had set up all our tents and even had a tent set up for us to dine! Yes, it was a little embarrassing to huff and puff up to the campsite, with everything already set up by the porters. The elevation rise at the end of the first day was about 3000m above sea level, with an elevation gain of 400m—a breeze compared to what was to follow. After a hearty dinner, we all went to sleep in the stillness of the mountains, only accompanied by the sound of the nearby river.



The second day of our hike was needless to say challenging. As you may have read in other blogs, the second day of hiking involves a steep and rapid climb to 4200m (close to 14,000 ft) above sea level. We expected the hike to be difficult, but it is one thing to expect a difficult hike and another to hike the dang thing. Our group was mostly silent as we watched out for each other while hiking and taking breaks. I think our group was amazing at really caring to wait for others who may be having a hard time during some parts of the climb. It also started raining on and off during this day, which made things harder in terms of visibility, walking carefully so as to not slip and being too hot in our raincoats. We finally saw the dead woman’s pass at what seemed like a great, great distance. After 10,000 feet (yes, that’s the height at which others skydive), we had to take breaks every 100 meters, and finally made it to the pass. And that’s where we were amidst clouds, and I am not going to describe what was beyond words. We all celebrated to have finally made it! After the continuous climbing up for what seemed forever, we started our hike down, and when I say, down, it was all only downhill for 2 hours. But we made it to our campsite (with some of us with altitude sickness, some with wobbly knees, all of us raggedy and tired) called Pacamayo around 3pm. It was beyond nice to have lunch cooked, ready and waiting for us in tents. I slept until dinner time and was still groggy and sore when I woke up. But right outside our tent, we saw what seemed like mist coming towards our campsite. I made a remark about how beautiful and misty the area was, when our tour guide corrected me saying they were clouds. I was in awe the rest of the evening and spent hours just staring at clouds going past our campsite. I think my favorite point of the entire trip was this, mostly because of how one with nature we could truly be—no screens, no work, no running around, just the simplicity of nature.



I was looking forward to the third day mostly because it was supposedly a much easier hike compared to the second day. However, when we started the hike, it was not easy compared to the second day. In fact, it wasn’t easy at all. We were climbing up the mountain once again, and just kept climbing. Right about our first stop, I almost had a breakdown thinking that was it. All my fears had come true. I wasn’t going to finish the Inca trail, and someone would have to rescue me (not dramatic at all!). Both my husband and the tour guide were nice enough to stay back, comfort me and assured that it wasn’t doomsday and that we were going to make it after all. After this stop, things did get better. The hills weren’t quite as steep and the route itself was very scenic. We walked through areas that were covered in vegetation (very rainforest-y) and cool tunnels on this longest hike of our trip, when we walked about 15kms in total. The tour guides had mentioned that there were going to be rolling hills on the third day. However, the rolling hills were much steeper than we imagined and the running joke in our group was ‘Is the hike easy or is it Inca easy?’ Our tour guide informed us at lunch that if we speed the hike a bit, we could make it to one of the more secluded, but beautiful ruins that not many groups get to see. And, speed we did to get the site before 5. In the hurrying process, my husband slipped and almost fell off a cliff, but no big deal right? Anything to get to the Incan ruin. Our efforts were well rewarded when we reached Winaywayna, an Incan site that was used for growing crops. The cool part about this site was that there were plantation terraces on this site. Supposedly, each of the terraces had different sub-climate and could house a different type of crop due to changes in temperature and pH of the soil! The scientists in me and my husband were both really excited about this fact (okay, okay, we are nerdy). After a hearty dinner that night, we all went to bed very excited about the prospect of reaching Machu Picchu the next morning. Oh and did I mention they chef who accompanied our group baked us a cake. Not brought a cake, but made us a cake on the mountain top. Don’t ask me how, but here is the cake.



We all woke up at 3:45am the next morning and the campsite got busy very quickly. We left the campsite by 5am to get to the final checkpoint, after which our group and others moved at an amazing speed to get to the Sun gate called ‘Inti Punku’. After hiking for about an hour, we reached Inti Punku. To get to this point, we had to climb an interesting set of very steep stone steps. Climb is an understatement. We more or less crawled up the stairs to Inti Punku. We were supposed to see Machu Picchu from the Sun gate. However, all we could see were clouds. Slightly disappointed, but not discouraged, we trekked along to Machu Picchu. Finally, one of our group members sighted Machu Picchu, and yes, we were going to get there, finally. We started seeing people who had taken the train to Machu Picchu (why yes, there is a 2 hour train we could have taken to Machu Picchu). I think getting to Machu Picchu was a celebration in many ways. Some of us in our group celebrated being able to use an actual toilet, some of us, soap and running water. While others celebrated being able to have French fries or coffee. Machu Picchu was incredible and there are other blogs that talk about the site itself.



For me, I think it was more about the journey, than about Machu Picchu. I know, I know, it is cliché, but it really was about the journey. Some parts of the Inca trail we were awestruck, some we struggled and others we detested. But, I am glad we did the trip, hiked the Inca trail and got up to 14,000 feet above sea level. And, of course, the most memorable part of the trip for me was when we walked through clouds…

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