The first day was relaxed enough - I recon I only reached a 6 out of 10 on the wheezing scale and we had a good time getting to know the others in our group - 2 Norwegian girls, 2 older Aussie couples, 2 younger Aussie girls, an American/British pair of honeymooners, an English couple and an English girl on her gap year. We thankfully all got on pretty well and I have to mention that I have absolutely loved meeting people in their early 60s who are willing to rough it on campsites and tough out treks that us 20somethings found testing... So in case you Aussies do decide to read this I'd like to thank you for A) The great company and B) Making me look forward to my golden years!
After the relative walk in the park that was the first day came the real test. The second day of the Inca Trail involves 5 hours of pure uphill trekking - it's enough to make the thought of just dropping of a cliffside a rather pleasant one... Having said that when we reached the highest peak at 4215m, aptly named 'Dead Woman's Pass', the levels of euphoria made the whole thing worth it - and the stunning mountain views certainly helped as well... Unfortunately most of my pictures are on my big camera so I don't have too many to upload at the moment... Even more unfortunately, on the 3rd and supposedly most beautiful day of the hike, it was raining absolute buckets. There's nothing quite like waking up at 5am to hike down what are effectively waterfalls. By 8am I was convinced I had frostbite and would lose my poor fingers and my feet were so wet that when I did finally take my hiking boots off they just looked like white prunes... Having said all that; i do think that one of the trek highlights was when the rain finally stopped after lunch and we walked through the again aptly named 'Cloud Forest'. Even though the clouds completely obstructed the apparently beautiful view, they did give an amazing sense of walking through the heavens in a very green and lush paradise - and we were all spread out enough that we were walking alone for awhile which made it a really lovely and personal experience. In the afternoon the clouds cleared up to reveal an absolutely stunning view of the river and the mountains with some photogenic llamas thrown in just for good measure... Again all the good photos are on my big camera so you'll have to rely on your imagination for this one until future uploads.
The final day was a 3am start and a short but painful 2 hour trek to the Sungate where we got our first overwhelming glimpse of Machu Picchu (this I do have photos of!). The feeling of reaching the Sungate was really indescribable; not only because of the 4 days trekking but also because Machu Picchu for me has always been the major point of interest in South America and its been somewhere that I've wanted to visit for the longest time... So it wasn't really a 4 day journey at all, it was really the culmination of 10 years of dreaming.
The rest of the 4th morning was spent lugging our exhausted muscles and bones around the amazing city of Machu Picchu... Our amazing guide, Rosi, without whom the trek would have seemed impossible, gave us a tour of the site and its major temples. It also happened to be her birthday that day so at lunch time we asked the restaurant to do something special and they brought her some cake and had the house band play her happy birthday which was a really nice end to the whole experience...
I'm not sure if I've sold it or not with my description, but I can honestly say that despite the pain it caused, the trail was one of the best things I've done on this trip and I can highly recommend it to anyone.
I also want to acknowledge our porters who I mentioned in passing. Most of these amazing men are farmers earning extra cash for their families between harvest time. They woke up earlier than us to prepare our breakfast and bring us tea and hot water, they carried up to 20 kilos on their backs and even though they stay behind to pack up our tents, managed to rush passed us during the hike each day to get to camp before us and have our tents and our food waiting for our arrivals. Then once we are tucked up they would clear everything away to get ready to do it all again in the morning. I'm really grateful that at the end of the 3rd day we had a 'tipping ceremony' where we each got to say a few words of thanks to them because they were truly amazing and I'm not sure they would know how impressive and appreciated what they do is if we didn't get a chance to tell them ourselves. During this ceremony we were also taught a Quechua word which I quite liked and I think is useful for travelling as you meet so many people - 'Tupananchiscama' is a Quechua word meaning 'until the next opportunity' whether that be in this life, or the next. When you travel you meet so many people from so many places and you never know if or when you'll meet them again so I think I'm going to adopt that word into my every day vocabulary to replace less optimistic and less flexible 'goodbye'.
Key info: Tour booked through G Adventures. One day before the Inca trail was spent visiting sites near Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley including a Planeterra weaving project where we learned about the whole weaving process, from spinning and dying alpaca/llama/sheep wool to making the final products.
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