Camino Inka-Inka Trail

We arrived in Cuzco on the morning of the 12th, giving us a couple days to acclimatize prior to our trek to Machu Picchu. The dry season just began this month, so the weather was great when we arrived. When the sun is beating down in the day, it is warm enough to wander in shorts, tees and sandalls, but as soon as the sun sets, the temperature of this city situated at 3300m gets mighty chilly.

Hanging out at the Horny Llama Bar

We checked into the Point Hostel, which is a party hostel for backpackers, by backpackers. It is a pretty sweet set up with a bar on site, great food available and a lovely yard with hammocks. Also, the best showers in South America! It is a bit more expensive, but you get what you pay for and the parties are pretty crazy most nights. Being that we arrived to this mountain town from sea level, we rested up to get acclimatized and set for our trek. We even met up with Dotan from our apartment in Salvador, Brazil, and Karen and Steve from our time in Colombia.

Wednesday, I bought a new camera, Matt found a gym to work out at and I went to do some laps for the first time since January. Later that evening, we had our trek briefing with our guide Hipolito then proceeded to purchase some snacks for our trek. WE FOUND PEANUT BUTTER!!! It was a great find.
Thursday morning, we were up at 5:30am to be picked up at 6am and made our way to kilometer 82, where the inka trail trek began. Also, the copious amounts of photos to be taken started.

And it begins...

Day 1 was about 10 km of walking mainly flat terrain, with plenty of informative breaks regarding flora, fauna and Inka history. At 1pm, we had our first amazing meal of the trek. I didn´t think that it was possible to have such amazing food on a camping trek. The food was not only delicious, but it was more variable then the expected rice and beans with meat. During the 4 days we had everything from oatmeal, to omletes, to chicken wings, soup, stuffed peppers, potatoes, quinoa and llama. Also, we had coca tea about 5 times a day to help with the altitude and digestion.

Some fellow trail users.

Night 1 was spent at about 2800m under a super starry sky in tents. It got a little cold, but we slept pretty good anyway. After 8 hours of sleep, we woke up to coca tea in our tents then had breakfast, introduced ourselves to one another (trekkers, guides and porters), then began our first pass at 7am. We were to climb 1200 vertical meters up the ´Dead Womens Pass´ and then descend 600m to our 2nd camp. It was meant to be approximately a 5 hour ascent and 2 hour descent, but Matt, Travis of Golden and I held a quick pace and did the entire hike in 5 hours. We got to the summit in 3 and a half hours, where we stopped for a snack break. We were sweaty of course and had to bundle up while we enjoyed the fantastic view and ate some snacks in the cold air. An hour and a half of steady walking down steps, we arrived at our camp just after noon before most of our porters even.

Another amazing view could be observed from our camp site, as we did while we waited for the rest of our posse and as the porters set up the tents. Lunch was at about 2pm, followed by a nap by most only to get up at 5 for tea and popcorn. At 7 we had dinner, played some Yaniv (an awesome game) then bundled up for sleep. I didn´t have a sleeping bag, just a sheet and fleece blanket but I was able to borrow Travis´ bivi sack to add warmth and Matt helped me score the table cloths for even more.

In the midst of the 2nd day climb.

The view from our 2nd camp.

Day 3 started much like day 2, with 5am coca tea followed by breakfast and setting off by 7. This day was a cultural day, where we were to visit 4 Inca sites: Runkuracay, Sayacmarca, Phuyupatamarca and Wiñay Wanya. To show respect to the mountain, we were told to bring a rock from Runkuracay to the 2nd summit. Some grabbed small stones to fit in their pocket, or a stone the size of ones fist, but Lito suggested that Matt bring a small boulder up the mountain and being the champ that he is, he complied. At the top of the second summit, our tour group (team yan-$%*&) made a cairn out of all of our stones, with Matt´s as a great base.
In total, it was a 10 hour, moderate paced day with stops for tours, snacks and lunch. Matt, Travis (Golden), Josh (Calgary) and I stuck together most of the day, sharing riddles, jokes and taking shifts counting thousands of descending steps. The tours were very interesting and each site we visited had it`s own purpose, depicted in the way it was constructed.

Our group of trekkers and the amazing porters.

We reached our last camp at about 5pm, had some drinks and played cards before an amazing dinner, then said our thank-yous and good-byes to the porters. Because we had been trekking all day and the wake up call was at 4am on day 4, we pretty much went to bed asap. The next day was to be so early so we could be some of the firsts to get to Machu Picchu, because as many as 1000 people go there each day in the high season (think off all the pictures!). The control point didn't open til 5:30am, but we arrived to wait at 5am and still had 50 people in front of us! The last stretch to the sun gate, overlooking Machu Picchu, was narrow, fast paced and competitive. Most people are going at a fast pace but it is tricky to pass the sloweres on such a narrow path. I took a bale at one point, then almost took Matt out by stepping on his shoe lace, but apart from me getting some bloodied up fingers, all was good and we made it to the sun gate before the sun.

Yeah we beat the sun to Machu Picchu.

Now, we were extremely lucky with the weather. Apparently it was meant to rain for our 4 days, but the first day was sunny and windy, the second day was mostly clear to observe the incredible vistas, the long 3rd day was cool and cloudy with some spits of rain (great for the 10 hours of walking actually), and the day at Machu Picchu was clear & sunny. Unfortunately, Matt and I were pretty trigger happy on the cameras, thus Matt ran out of memory and I ran out of battery.

Within the lost Inca city on a sunny morning.

Hipolito led us to the Wayna Picchu ticket booth immediately after we checked in to the control and checked our bags for the day. It was before 8am and apparently we were still too late to buy tickets for the 10am climb. They only allow a couple hundred people at a time to climb the little extra for another beautiful view. Matt and I weren´t too torn; our legs were tired, we had seen plenty of nice views and we wanted to check out the Aguas Caliente hot springs.
Our tour guide for Machu Picchu was Hipolito with Matt and I as the only 2 in the group. It was two hours long and quite informative. We got to visit the temples, different sectors, house of the high priest and the dozens of agricultural terraces. At the end of the tour, we had some snacks involving peanut butter, grabbed our tickets for the bus to aguas caliente and made our way to the hotsprings. To get there meant more walking with our packs up from town a few minutes. The muscles appreciated the warm water but the water was luke warm and some pools reaked of urine.
After a dip at the baños termales, we made our way to a restaurant where we said good bye to our guides and fellow tourists before hopping on a train part-way back to Cuzco. In Ollantaytambo, we boarded a mini bus for the last portion of our return journey. Arrived at our hostel close to 7pm, got cleaned up and went to the Horny Llama Bar. It was Steve and Karens last night of their 12 month trip around the world. We enjoyed a fabulous bbq dinner at the Point Hostel and proceeded to party.
It is nice to have done that trip we booked back in February, because now we can just chill here in Cuzco. There is plenty to see and do, and Matt would love to take advantage of the great deal at Empire Gym.