Apr. 30 - May 3 - Inca Trail

We started our four day trek of the Inca trail by driving an hour to kilometer 82 (the starting points are measured by the train track) near the town of Chilca. Here we met our porters, had our first of many group pictures and got our passports stamped to get onto the trail (the Canadian government is going to love that one). At around 10:00 we started our hike up the mountain with the eventual destination of Machu Picchu.

The first two days of the Inca trail, as it has come to be known, actually isn't the original trail. As parts of the trail are still being uncovered, when the trail was opened, they created a connecting trail from the train tracks to the actual Inca trail. The route we took is the most common route and stretches for a total of 43km with an altitude reaching 4,200m and descending to approximately 2,400m at Machu Picchu (a lower altitude than our starting point). For most tourists, this hike takes 4 days, but for the porters it can be done much faster. Our guide for instance did it in one day, and the record is 3 hours and 45 minutes. Considering this is up and down, consisting of thousands of steps and for a distance of a marathon, it is better than impressive (we actually met the porter who holds the record, a local hero since he beat world renowned marathon runners ... good for a local boy in sandals). The average tourist walks only 11km a day, but due to permits, we happened to get the longest hikes, where on one day we actually covered the distance most groups cover in two days.

The first day of hiking was mostly through an open landscape. As it is still quite close to the train tracks, there are shops along the way to pick up some water, and there are lots of local people going about their daily business, mostly farming. For most people the first day is a gentle climb and they all spend the night at the base of what is known as "Dead Woman's Pass". Luckily for us, we still had another two hours of climbing, almost straight up to our campsite at Yuncachimpa, an elevation of 3,300m (after starting at 2,500m). Even though the hike was no more than 12km on the first day, it took us almost the entire day as we stopped along the way to look at various ruins and take many rests. The main ruin we visited today was Patallacta, a semi-circle town built at the base of a mountain that supplied most of the food for Machu Picchu.

The next day we were to have quite an early start as it was going to be our longest day, covering about 15km over the two main mountain passes, Dead Woman's Pass at 4,200m then Runkuraky pass at 3,900m. It shouldn't be too bad except that we had to go down a valley that descended to almost 3,100m. Needless to say it took Sandy and me all day and we didn't arrive at camp until after dark. The trek up to Dead Woman's Pass was mostly through the tundra, but the way the trail was structured, we kept seeing what we thought was the top. Until we made it there did we see that we actually had another 500m to go. After about 6 of these false peaks, and 3 hours of hiking uphill, we reached Dead Woman's Pass. From there it was another 2 hours of going downhill. This was the point at which Sandy started to have problems with her knees which didn't stop bothering her until she went home to Canada.

At the bottom of the valley is the town of Paq'aymayo where we had lunch (and where most people spend the night). The nice thing about the Inca trail is you can't go on it without a tour group and porters. Since they are unionized, there is only a limited amount of weight that they can carry (about 24kg) and you have the carry the rest (my bag was about 6kg ... not much at sea level, but a lot at 4,200m). There is also a formula to calculate the number of porters per group, so in order to make them all useful; they bring all the luxuries of home. By the time you reach the lunch stop, they have set out individual buckets for you to wash your hands and set up the cooking and dining tent (complete with a tablecloth). It makes the entire journey quite luxurious. In order for them to get there so far before us, they actually run along the trail. The hardest obstacle you have on the trail are the porters running by. Sadly today, since those of us in the back took so long, the rest of the group had eaten lunch before we arrived and were heading out when we got there.

After lunch we started our second pass .... about 600m up followed by 600m down - a nice way to finish our day. Yet again we happened upon lots of false peaks, one of which we were so sure was the top, we spent all our energy getting there and had to rest for quite a while since there was still another 30 mintues of hiking left to get to the top. Along the way we happened upon a second set of ruins, Runkurakay. As we didn't have the main guide with us (but we had Marcella ... God bless her. She was great to hike with, even if Sandy did completly freak her out when she had an asthma attack on Dead Woman's Pass) I made up a story that this was a bathroom along the trail and the women had more stalls than the men's bathroom. It turns out I wasn't far off. The Incas had built little towns and check points along the way for those hiking the Inca trail (we met up with the real trail just before lunch) to provide shelter, food and a washroom. This was one of those checkpoints. Not to be outdone, Jim actually found a mountain that looked like an Inca king over looking the valley, and this was probably the most likely of all the stories we heard about carvings in the hills.

We reached the top of the second summit just before sunset, and as we still had about 2 hours of hiking left for us, Freddy (the main guide) sent two porters back to help us and bring us some flashlights. God bless him since there were a lot of steps that we didn't see in the dark. It actually made for an interesting hike. You could randomly turn your head and right beside you was an old Inca fortress which if you didn't turn your head at the right time you would have missed. Who knows what else we missed that night.

The third day was supposed to be our very easy day, but I think for Sandy it was the hardest day. Most of the route was downhill as we only had to go up about 200m in the entire day. It was also only a 5km hike, so we should have been done at around 2 in the afternoon. Well, Sandy and I did make that 2:00 deadline, but sadly for Sandy, there were over 3,000 steps down that we had to make that day. I think it took her about twice as long as everyone else as each step hurt like hell. Yet again Marcella was with us and helped us go along.

The third day was also probably the most beautiful day as we were hiking through the cloud forest the entire day, which made for some lovely scenery. The steps also made for an interesting addition to the trail as some of them were actually carved into the rocks. It's hard to imagine that in 100 years the Incas built tens of thousands of kilometers of trail in this fashion. We reached the campsite at around 2:00 in time for lunch, a shower (yes, the last site has a bar, restaurant, and shower facilities) and a well deserved rest. Before dinner I headed over to Wiñaywayna to see probably the most beautiful example of Inca construction. The hike was quite easy, but I made the mistake of going down the steps to the bottom of the town to see what was at the bottom ... this meant I had to come back up again.

The next morning we had a very early start to the day, leaving at around 4:00am (the bar closed at 10:00pm the night before ... probably the only one that closes that early in the world) so that we could do our last 3 hour hike to Machu Picchu and reach the sun gate in time to watch the sunrise. As it had rained the night before, the sun gate was quite the disappointment as it was quite foggy and you couldn't see anything. The only saving grace were the last 52 steps that were straight up ... you actually had to climb on all fours in order to reach the top of the hill.

From the sun gate it was a gentle walk down the trail where we started to see the day's tourists ... they were walking up to the sun gate in clean hiking boots, Coach handbags and lovely designer walking sticks. Most were very impressed that we had just hiked the entire trail, and to be honest, we felt like they didn't deserve to be there. When we reached Machu Picchu it was still quite foggy, so we went to the entrance to the site to have a drink and wait for the fog to clear. This is where Sandy had real problems. If her knee didn't hurt her before, on this last set of steps she could feel the tendons actually tearing in her knees. When we got to the bottom a few of us found ice for her knee. Sadly for her, this meant she wouldn't be as maneuverable when we visited the actual site. She missed out on the tour, but still managed to see quite a bit of the site at her own pace (I think she only missed the guard house at the top of the hill).

Once the fog lifted we headed out with 3 hours to explore Machu Picchu. This has to be one of the most awe inspiring sites in the world and it can't be described in words. The massive expanse of the site is as incredible as you would imagine. It is an entire town with religious centres, residences, agricultural centre, guard house and other things we could not identify. This rivals any other ruins in the world in shear size and you can't possibly explore it all in three hours without skipping over things or not giving it the time it deserves. Definitely it was the best way to finish the hike.

After we had finished exploring the site, we headed back to Cusco by train and bus. We all were quite tired, but all felt it was the most worthwhile part of our trip.