The Inca Trail & Machu Picchu

What can I say about the Inca Trail, well it was a LOT of fun! The Inca Trail is the original route the Incas used to reach Machu Picchu. A bus came to pick us up from our hostels at 5am before being taken to Ollyantytambo for breakfast. Importantly we needed to purchase the vital provisions of coca leaves, charcoal and walking sticks here as well.


The route...

We got to the start of the trek with 15 tourists, 2 guides, 1 cook and 20 porters, yes that's 20 porters! Regulations mean that porters can only carry 25kg on their back as apposed to 60kg they were sometimes being made to carry previously. Those these guys were pros and they carried everything from the tents we slept in to the food, kitchen equipment and seats. Occasionally on the trail you would hear the shout of 'Porters' and you had to move to the side of the path as they shot by to set up for the next stop.


At the beginning of the trail

Day 1 was a series of undulating walks to reach the first campsite. The walking was not tricky or too tiring so it was a fairly easy day. The weather was a mixture of cloud, sun and rain which is what it would be like for the whole of the trek. Around 2pm we reached our lunch break and we were immediately struck by the food we were passing down the table. The food was the tastiest and best presented that I ever had in Peru and this was a trek! We were treated to the most amazing food for the rest of the trek. Around 4.30 we reached the first campsite. There is a football pitch at the first campsite and we were challenged a game of football by another group of travelers to which we lost sadly. Playing football at 3000m asl is kinda tiring!


How is a souped up Avacado as a starter for you?

Day 2 - we were told that this would be the longest and hardest day as we were climbing 1200m up to 'Dead Woman's Pass' before descending another 1000m to the next campsite. Breakfast was served at 6.30pm and we were on our way by 7am. To help us on day two we had Coca. Simply get a bunch of leaves in your hand, add some coal to the middle as a catalyst, fold up the leaves, put them in one side of your mouth, chew and wait for your mouth to go numb. Coca leaves are COMPLETELY different to cocaine and act as a mild stimulant and help with altitude sickness. They are an integral part of the indigenous culture in Peru, Bolivia and other countries in South America.


Coca

The walk was very impressive, we were climbing paths next to a fast flowing river with semi jungle vegetation around us. This eventually opened up to a path between mountains towards the Dead Woman's Pass at the highest point of the trek. Before this we were treated to a second breakfast (awesome) and a chance to refuel on Coca. The trek was a lot of fun and I found I was able to walk ahead of everyone and make it to the top first. On the way to the top our guide Freddy asked us to take a stone up with us to give to Pacha Mama (Mother Earth) as an offering at the top. Once everyone had arrived we had a ceremony to Pacha Mama in which we gave Pacha Mama the stones, coca leaves and rum to give thanks and for good luck! We also enjoyed a couple of shots of rum before heading down the other side of the pass.


On top of Dead Woman's Pass, like the masks?

On the way down I had a great conversation with my tent mate who as it turns out was a Green Berret (elite US special forces) who saw service in Kosovo and Somalia, trained Colombian forces to fight the Farc in the jungles, and now works as an organiser of security for high profile government personel in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh he also reports directly to the US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, does the occasional 100 mile run and is one of the nicest guys you could meet!

Day 3 - we had another 7am start. The day was not meant to be as difficult as the last but we had a lot of descending to do which takes its toll on the knees. Each day along the walk we would stop to see a lot of Inca ruins which are dotted along the path to Machu Picchu. Some of these were terraces for growing crops, others Tambo's which were living quarters for people to stay in along the trail and others were larger and watch towers as well.


A Tambo

I really felt it on the third day as I had not had a lot of sleep the night before and you really feel your knees shaking. We could look forward to a shot shower upon arrival at the third campsite though (yes this is a trek)!


The route down

The night was also a time to say farewell to the porters and thank them for their work. Geoff as the eldest member of the group was asked to write a speach and it was a nice send off. Shoepikey Wikey means thank you friend in Quechua and this is what we shouted out to them. It was an early night for us as the next say involved a very early start to get to Machu Picchu.


The porter crew

Day 4 - we were woken at 3.30am to pack up and eat. We needed to be one of the first groups to get through the gates of the campsite when they opened at 5.30am. We made it to be the second group. There was some confusion as the doors did not open as planned at 5.30am. The gate keeper got wasted the night before and turned up 15 minutes late prompting anger from the guides. We were surrounded in cloud but when the gates opened our group stormed through at a fast pace to in order to get to the Sun Gate and the path down to Machu Picchu. It was very lucky we did this as whilst hurrying along the path we heard the sound of what sounded like an explosion above us. From behind us the guides shouted at us to 'RUN'. We did not know what happened at the time but a landslide had crashed down the slopes behind us blocking the route for every group behind. Luckily no one was hurt but all the other groups would take 3 or 4 hours longer to reach Machu Picchu. We made it to Machu Picchu around 7am with site still partially shrouded in cloud. Most of us were also wearing the 'I survived the Inca Trail' t-shirts which were more truthful now than we had thought they ever would be! Machu Picchu may only be roughly 500 years old but the site is still amazing. It was principally built as a site of worship to the Sun, which, the Inca's revered as a god and the giver of life.


The obligatory Machu Picchu 'I was there' photo

The most impressive area of the site is the Sun Temple which has walls built of amazing smoothness and precision. There are windows in the sun temple that on the Summer and Winter Solstices precisely align with the sun to capture the first rays of sun above the mountains.


The Sun Temple

Machu Picchu was only full at these times of year when the Inca king and priests would arrive and young girls would be sacrificed to the gods. The site was also never fully completed and its paths were hidden by the final Inca King when the Spanish arrived so it would not be found. It was an amazing achievement to build and its importance lies with the fact that it represents one of the final achievements of pre Columbian (pre Spanish) culture before the Spanish arrived. It was an amazing experience to have seen Machu Picchu and gone on the Inca Trail. Altough it does all feel a little over commercialised now with the amount of people who visit it is definately an experience I will keep with me for my life.