My initial response to hearing that we’d be hiking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu through heavy rain, mud and all the way up to 4200 meters altitiude was let’s do it!
Four days later my calves and thighs would tell a different story...
Our Gecko’s tour group which consisted mainly of Aussies started the trail early on Thursday morning. Apart from our group walking the trail there was a tour guide, an assistant tour guide and fourteen porters. The porters have the physique of any other Peruvian, but the stamina and fitness of any world class marathon runner. They carry 25 KG+ each and practically run the whole trail so they can set up camp and cook for the group which arrives later on. Once we’ve finished eating they do the same thing, run ahead, set up camp and cook. The porters are primarily peasants/ farmers, who speak Quechua as their first language and only do the trail to earn an extra bit of money for them and their families.
The first day was mainly reserved for acclimatizing and therefore was reasonably flat or at least ‘Peruvian flat’ which means an equal amount of climbing up and down. That day we hiked past the ancient hilltop fort of Huillca Raccay, and the beautiful archaeological site of Llactapata. For the first three days of the trail it’s mostly a build up to Machu Picchu. Each day the ruins and scenary becomes more impressive. All my energy needed to be reserved for the second day for the ascent up to ‘Dead Woman’s pass’ at 4200 meters altitude. They say it’s named that because the mountains at the pass form the shape of a woman, however, I tend to believe that it got its name from the numerous female tourists that have come short of making the pass at the last 100 steps.
It was raining for the most part of the second day and a combination of that and the altitude led to many people from other groups breaking out in tears and complaining. I honestly don’t know how people can do so when they have the porters jogging past them with 25 KG+ bags on their back, wearing sandals and with a smile on their face. That night we set up camp at Pacamayo (3600) m to prepare ourselves for the third and longest day of hiking.
The third day brings you through a spectacular cloud forest full of orchids, ferns, flowers and hanging moss. Perched upon a hillside in the cloud forest are the unique Sayamarca ruins which were supposedly used as a ceremonial site by the Incas. Even through we were at a lower altitude on the third day I really started to feel the effects of being up high and was relieved when we arrived at Winyawayna our third and final camping site. This camping site boasts all the luxuries of a five star hotel with hot showers, proper toilets and beer for sale. I thought it was a bit of a tease being offered all these things when we still had hiking to do before arriving at Machu Picchu.
By day four everyone including myself is well and truly ready to arrive at the Mecca of Incan Ruins ‘Machu Picchu’. It’s a 4 AM start on the final morning and a bit of a race to make it down to Machu Picchu before the bus loads of tourists arrive with their freshly washed clothes and deodorized armpits making us hikers look and smell more like llamas in comparison. After hiking for three hours that morning we emerged at Inti Punku or ‘the gateway of the sun’. On a clear day people having completed the trail are blessed with a panoramic view of the ruins and Huayna Picchu, however we on the other hand were blessed with a thick white mist, so thick that you couldn’t see further than ten meters in front of you.
Although our tour guide did assure us that Machu Picchu was down there so we hiked down further and were rewarded with what we’d hiked four days to see and oh my God was it worth it! Already having colossal expecatations from all the stories, photos and postcards I’d heard/seen, I wasn’t the least bit disappointed. It’s not only the culture and history attached to the site which make it so incredible but the sheer rock faces, dense forests and low hanging clouds which surround the ruins.It’s a mystical place which takes even the least spiritual of people into another world and without a doubt probably one of the more amazing places I’ll ever see in my life.
