Inca Trail to Macchupicchu!
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2008
1
10
23
Trip End
Sep 22, 2008
Cusco,
Peru
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Spent the day in Cusco haggling at the many tourist stalls, trying to find bargains and generally just look around and practice spanish/haggling skills with the people. That was quite fun, I found that they would usually settle at half the "original" price... Sat got his shoes shined and that was funny because he got hussled like a beehutch. The Inca Trail was the next day, so I stocked up on energy food and powerades for the trek.
inca
I have a lot to say about the Inca Trail but I'll keep this short and sweet. You can always google shit up anyway. Basically the trek was 45km over 4 days and 3 nights. We carried a daysack and the porters carried EVERYTHING else, we were allowed a duffel bag up to 7kg, and the porters carried all the food, tents etc etc for the duration of the trail. They were limited to carrying 20kg each.. previously they carried up to 50kg! The trail leads to MacchuPicchu, a place for only noble people (like the king, priests, and virgins) and was unknown to the majority of the world. It existed in the 15th century, where the Inca (King) would retreat there and hold ceremonies to sacrifice things to the gods. It was discovered by several people, though made public by an explorer called Hiram Bingham in the early 1900s. There are many different theories into what the history behind it all was, people are just infering things from the artifacts and evidence at the archeological sites, but nobody really knows.
Now this trail isn't easy, the paths were about a metre wide and usually on the edge of a mountain, often uphill. The terrain varied, but usually involved uneven rocks with plenty of uphill and downhill stretches. I got a wooden pole which helped a lot in distributing my body weight, as did msot people, though some people had really fancy ones
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. Though there were many times where I nearly slipped, tripped or fell, and points where I remembered that I'm a bit scared of heights! To prevent damage to the site, only 400 people can do the trek each day including porters, which is why you have to book months in advance. The trek was amazing. You could go at your own pace, and the point that was most physically challenging was "dead womans pass", a steep uphill bit to the highest point of the trail, 4200m. That day we started at 3000m so it was a 1200m uphill. To put that into perspective, the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis, is 1300m.. so that day was kind of equivalent to climbing the highest mountain in the UK. SO the second day was tough, but the view from the top was amazing.. and it was inspiring to see a family doing it, the youngest being a 7 or 8 year old girl, who had a big smile on her face as everyone applauded when she reached the top.I took my time and enjoyed the views over the trail, usually finishing each day quicker than expected. The porters, even with such heavy bags on their bags, would be running past getting to the camp quickly and setting up.. how they do it I dont know, they're very strong and fit! We were treated like royalty, the tents and stuff would be up by the time we got there and we had three course meals by an amazing chef.. definitely not what you'd expect, but much appreciated after a long day of walking for hours
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. The guides were great too, very knowledgable, motivating and funny guys. I learnt a word in the local language, Quechua, something along the lines of "coo-che-wa-too" which means Žladys manŽ, and we'd say this to the porters and guides to make them smile. In brief, the first day wasn't too bad, only a few hours of trekkage to ease us into it, and a few ruins. The second day was most demanding due to the steep uphill and altitude (I was breathing amazingly heavily) but at the same time most satisfying. The third day started off with an uphill stretch up another mountain which was challenging, but then most was downhill and I enjoyed the views at a leisurely pace, getting explanations for a few more archeological sites. The final day was a 4am start then 2 hours to Macchu Picchu, as the sun rose and the tourists weren't there. No wonder it was dubbed as the "lost city of the incas" and not found for so long... it was such a long way and hidden away, but it was great arriving at the sun gate and seeing the traditional sight of Macchu Picchu as in the photos. Got a tour of Macchu Picchu, explaining lots of historical stuff which was quite interesting, and got to see some llamas, one of which nearly attacked me. I went through the whole trek without showering, as I was told there's a t shirt which says that, though I haven't found it yet. Thus I'm washing allll my clothes! I really really enjoyed the inca trail and am annoyed that its flown by so quick! I've never really gone hiking before so its all new to me, it was good. I chewed on lots of coca leaves (where cocaine comes from) and had lots of coca tea with lots of sugar which apparently helps with altitude! It seemed to work. This is me heavily summarising, probably missing out plenty, cos I can probably talk about this all day! I've got the rest of today in Cusco, then we head to Puno tomorrow. I'm probably gonna meet up with Dan as he's in the area too, and maybe buy some souvenirs. Ciao!
Comments
Good to hear from you!
I don't know how you can survive the altitude and the loooooong walks but I'm very proud of you and highly envious of your continuing adventures :o)
The blogs are great and the pics are super. It's great knowing what you've done, seen and lived soon after its happened.
Good luck with your onward journey!