Hard trekking following Inca footsteps
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2008
1
21
101
Trip End
Jun 2009
Machu Picchu,
Sacred Valley,
Peru
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Bus trip up the hill to collect our 8 other fellow hikers. Seems that Ems and I (My fault) are carrying the biggest and heaviest packs... I need the exercise to get my my love handles down to XXL from superlarge!
We hit the small town (Olytitambo - or something that sounded like that) whcih was pretty much shut apart from our "tourist breakfast spot" Up some smll stairs, past the Guinea pigs into a very brightly coloured and decorated cafe....
The English Breakfast, I kid you not, is Trout and Chips... Never had that before, so gave a skip, the others seemed sombre so we all ended up having pancakes which were fine and then bought the stash of Coca leaves which smelled really strong, infact my bag still reeks... Yummy!!
Taylor was complaining as usual as something seems to have happened to him since arriving at altitude....
We jumpled back on the bus and preceeded along the river to the official starting point of the tour. We got our passports stamped and our park docs checked. Onto the Suspention bridge and the adventure begins........
First 4 hours were what they call "peruvian flts" well if up and down is your idea of flat then behold you may have some incan blood in you !! We frog marched our way to Lunch whcih was all set up and ready by the time that we got there due to our Porters... these are the local chaps who may look small and weak but can carry 30kgs each of tents, food, water, general supplies that make up our trip. Man these guys are very fit... all through the next 4 days they come sprinting past us even when we have left camp an hour before them, they still manage to beat us to the next lunch or camp site by an hour..!!
Our tour is slightly different to many of the other Inca Trail itinraries..... in that we are to do a "Difficucult 1st day" which means that we will walk for about 10 hours on the first day to ensure that we camp at high altitude, as apparently this helps alot with the rest of the trip...
GT and I decided to keep each other company as he walks slowly up hills and we let the girls go on ahead... WOW... what should "apparently" take between 1.5 and 3 hours took us 3.5 hours!! Man we were stuffed... I dont think either of us anticipted big steps, unrelentling for so long and to climb 800 m finishing up at 3800M above sea level... Now, I hear you saying that sounds easy, but let me assure you the altitude is NOT funny...!!!
After that I think we were all very aware of just how tough this trek is... Dont get me wrong, it is awesome and spectaular but at some point over the 4 days we all managed to have sense of humour failure, which now, looking back was great !!!
Watched some llamas chase a fox and had a lovely sunset and dinner and we in bed before 8!!
I can proudly say that GT , Ems, Alanna and I are collectively 20KGs lighter after the trip, despite the super food that was provided by the team at United Mice...
I will cut the rest short as I think the pictures say more than 1000 words...
Day 2 great.... We had a shot or Peruvian rum at 4200m to celebrate before the first killer downhill. Spent the evening playing the memeory game and Alanna was devestated when she only came second. That night it poured with rain and we we nervous our tent would not hold.... luckily it did.
Day 3... Very sore legs and the downhills did not seem as easy as we had expected... Ems looked like a hobbling hunchback getting down the inca stairs with her walking sticks. We please to arrive at camp for hot showers.
Great Ruins at camp 3 (Winaywyna - again sounds similar...)
Tips: Buy walking poles... despite my mocking and abuse to GT we found them very useful!! If you are thinking about the trail, it is brilliant but get fit first !!!
Day 4, Woke early to try and be the first out of camp... Waste of time, everyone thinks that they should RUN to the Sungate, which is silly cause you miss the best part of the trek as the scenery is amazing. Also the stupid people who think it is necessary to try and push you off the final 53 steep stairs to the top where the sungate is should note that the fat tourists who do not do the Inca trail get to the gates an hour before anyone is able to get there as the bus from Aguas Calientes gets there at 6AM. So no chance of photos of MP without other tourists there... Still it does not detract as everyone will get great pics.. The ruins themselves are beyond description!Hopefully these do the place some justice.
Stupidly I asked Sol our super uber guide to order me a Guineapig for lunch down in Aguas Calientes which came highly recommended.. Now I will eat just about anything once... and I can honestly say once is enough... See the pics.... It tastes like dirty tangy rubber with not much meat and tough as nails!! Aguas Calianted was a horrid town in a stunning setting.
