Inca Trail!!

Thursday March 12 2009

SO the story begins on a rainy thursday morning last week. (March 12) We were picked up at 6:30 at the house by this bus that was like an airplane it was sweet, it had pneumatic doors and this cool stair and everything... Anyway I realized 4 seconds after we got on the bus that I had filled up my water bottles and definitely left them sitting on the counter. Of course I would do that right. At least it wasn't anything important. So we drove around Cusco for a bit picking up people from different places (we were picked up first). We then drove about an hour to Ollantaytambo which is near Km 82, the start of the Inca Trail. We stopped here to pick up last minute things such as water for me, walking sticks for some, snacks, ponchos etc. We continued to drive to the trail head where we checked in with our tickets to the trail and our passports (yes i got a stamp!!) and then began our walk. The first day was leisurely compared to the rest, it was just nice scenery and such, on dirt paths not quite the stone paths like the rest of the trail. We stopped after a couple of hours for a lunch of soup and tea and a rice dish with chicken or some sort of meat I can't quite remember. We had soup every lunch and dinner which was actually quite nice, it was great to have something warm to start off. We continued to walk after lunch, and now started to ascend a little bit. It was a beautiful day, we stopped at our first ruins, Llactapata, just after lunch and it was a perfect day. Before the end of our day we definitely passed a little shop that clearly specified its acceptance of Visa and Mastercard. I thought it was hilarious. We reached camp at about 5 or 6 I would say, it was just getting dark. We then had 'happy time' hahaahahah which basically was appetizers of tea and popcorn. It was so great after a day of hiking. A few hours later after we had settled into our tents and such we had our dinner which consisted of soup and another rice slash some sort of protein and veggies dish. That night we all were partiers and headed to bed about 8:30 or 9:00, I mean man what can you do when it gets dark? It just hits you. Plus we were getting up at 6 the next morning.

Friday March 13 2009

Believe me I had no trouble waking up, with about 5 roosters wandering around the campsite and loudly announcing sunrise. So funny. We had a breakfast of some pancakes with this like maple spread stuff on it and some tea, and set off for a grueling 3.5-4 hour hike. And by hike I mean it was all climbing. All an ascent. It started off pretty gradual, meaning they didn't find the necessity for stairs yet. We took 2 different breaks and two campsites along the way. Our campsite that we started at was at an elevation of 3000m above sea level and our highest elevation, at the top of Dead Women's Pass or Warmiwanusca, was 4215m. So a lot of vertical that day. I think it was over 6 or 7 km that we climbed 1215m. It was a very interesting process, we went relatively slow but you just had to keep going. Stopping was like not a good idea you don't want your heart rate to go down. It was a strange feeling I never knew I could go that long while breathing that hard. But it was different from like cardiovascular exertion where you can feel it in your lungs you know, it was just like.... taking more breaths. It was strange. Anyways we started our hike at about 7:30 and got to the top shortly after 11. After resting for a bit and talking some pictures for proof, we started down toward our campsite for the day. This was in terms of hours the shortest day, we got to the camp at about 1pm and had lunch at 2. Between lunch and dinner we basically got our tents ready and rested some, we couldn't do that much exploring because it was raining. After happy time and dinner, we walked out of the dining tent to see a completely clear sky above us, and clouds in the valley below. It was very cool to be above the clouds. The stars where incredible but I was so disoriented because everything is flipped around down here!! 

Saturday March 14 2009

Day three was the longest day. We started hiking at about 7:30 or 8, and got to camp about 4:30. We saw a bunch of ruins that day too. Shortly after leaving camp, we reached the second big ruin of the trip, Runkuracay. Here we were instructed to pick up a small pebble to carry to the top of the second highest pass, Runkuracay Pass. It took us probably about 45 minutes to get to the tope of this second one, it was teensy compared to day two. We had quite a lengthy break up top and then continued down toward our lunch spot after briefly visiting another ruin, Sayaqmarca, which was basically a resting place for people traveling on the Inca Trail back in the day. We got to our lunch place at about two and had some fantastic noodle soup and CHOCOLATE PUDDING which I was extremely stoked about. The rest of our walk that day was basically all going downstairs which was actually pretty tough!! My calves were definitely feeling it. The scenery was beautiful, day 3 was definitely the nicest scenery. We passed some more ruins on our way to the last campsite, Winaywayna. At this campsite there is a building with a restaurant type thing and bathrooms with hot showers. I did not shower because I didn't feel like hauling my towel and shower stuff around the entire trip. We had our happy time and dinner as per usual and tucked in at an appalling 10:30 pm as we were getting up at 3:45 the next morning! We also spread Audrey's space blanket over our mattresses because they were damp from the rain that day. It was the greatest thing ever but very crinkly. (I need to get myself one of them!) 

Sunday 15 March 2009

It was definitely an early morning and the night's sleep felt more like a nap than a real sleep. We woke up to a semi cloudy sky but the sunrise was s pretty!! We headed down to the building to use the bathrooms and fill up on water and such and then waited in line for the actual gate to the Machu Picchu part of the trail to open, which opens at 5:30 am. After the gate opened we literally power walked for about an hour and scrambled up staircases to make it to Intipunku, the Sun Gate, for when the sun was rising. I am pretty sure that's impossible unless you actually run. So we got to the sun gate at about 7 am, saw Machu Picchu from a distance, which was amazing, and then continued our descent from the Sun Gate to the actual ruins. Intipunku is actually about a 45 minute walk from actual Machu Picchu. We raced down to the gate and checked our bags (no bags allowed in the ruins) to run to get a ticket to climb Huaynapicchu. Only 400 people are allowed per day to climb it, and you have to check in and check out so they can make sure you make it out alive. We got our tickets (YAY MORE CLIMBING) and then got a couple hour tour of the ruins. It was incredible! I just can't even believe how long it would take. And it's not like it's built near ressources such as a river, where normal people build establishments. It is because they worshipped the mountains and the sun and wanted to be as close as possible. After our tour we decided to climb huaynapicchu... man that was so steep it was insane. You had to like cling on to cables attached to the mountain side and crab walk down the stairs as to not fall off the mountain. I understand why they have people sign in and out! The view was amazing from up there though, a great view of Machu Picchu and then also a 360 view of the mountains and countryside surrounding. After taking some pics and hanging out up there for a bit we climbed down and headed down to Aguas Calientes, the town just below Machu Picchu. We met our guides there around 2 where we were given our train tickets to return to Cusco: 6 pm. With some time to kill, we checked out the actual 'aguas calientes' or hot springs after which the town is named. I didn't bring my bathing suit because once again I did not feel like trekking with it, so I just went and stuck my legs in. It was heaven after hiking for four days. We caught our train back to Ollantaytambo, on which everyone pretty much passed out, it being 6 pm but we had already been up for 14 hours! At Ollantaytambo we transfered to a bus to Cusco, which is apparently faster than just staying on the train. We finally got home at about 10 on Sunday night, absolutely exhausted, but I managed to fit a shower in before crashing :) Overall a fantastic weekend and I am so glad I had the opportunity to do it!!