Chris' Adventures My highly anticipated trip to the America's...

Cusco - Post Soph's arrival!

So Soph arrived at the Cusco airport early on the morning of Wednesday the 19th of September. After spending the last 10 days on my own in Cusco it was a welcome addition and it was awesome to see her again after 2 and a bit months apart. We spent a couple of days looking around Cusco before we would begin our gruelling 4 day trek through the Andes on the way to Machu Picchu.

The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

The Inca Trail was one of the best things I’ve had the pleasure of doing. A 4 day trek amongst gorgeous scenery finishing with a beautiful ancient abandoned inca city on the top of Machu Picchu mountain. We set off with our group of 16 (5 paying customers, 10 porters and a guide). The porters were amazing, they had at least 20 kg’s on their backs each and they were faster than us! Every morning we would wake up to breakfast waiting for us, eat breakfast and then take off. The porters would then pack up all the tents, put them on their backs, overtake us and then set up camp for lunch, make lunch, pack up after lunch, overtake us again and then have our tents and dinner waiting for us at the next campsite. They did so well and we constantly felt so guilty for all the work they were doing and the small amount they were getting paid.

The first day of the trek was quite easy and gave us a false sense of security about the rest of the trek.. We began it 46 kilometers from Machu Picchu and trekked about 10 km’s on pretty much flat terrain.
About halfway on the first day we came across a small (compared to Machu Picchu but at the time it seemed huge) farming and living area used by the incas. It was strategically placed in a valley between mountains and had towers all around it.  We looked down on it from an inca trail resting place about 50 meters above it which also served as another lookout tower. We walked for a couple more hours after this and then set up camp on this beautiful little grassy area which was surrounded by mountains.

The second day was quite a test. 85% of the day we were going straight up hill and we ascended 1400m in about 4 hours! It was easily the hardest day of walking ive ever done. Sophie found it especially hard as she had only flown in from Adelaide three days earlier and hadn’t acclimatised to the altitude yet. The highest point was at 4200m above sea level and after reaching about 3500m it was extremely difficult to catch your breath, you would walk for about 30 seconds and then be completely out of breath and then you stop for 5 seconds and you get it back. The altitude did some weird things to your body! So after reaching the highest point at about 1pm it was about another hour downhill to our campsite. Upon arrival the porters clapped and cheered us, although we didn’t really feel that accomplished as they had arrived about 3 hours earlier!

The third day was kinda in-between day 1 and day 2 in terms of difficulty. However there was a lot more to see than on the first two days. We got to see 3 awesome inca ruins, if you look in the photo gallery you can see photos of all of them. The day ended with a two hour downhill section which was almost as bad as going up the huge hill on the second day! Well for me it was anyway as I had a really sore knee and had to go sideways down every step on the way down!

The last day was Machu Picchu day! We woke up at about 4am so we were ready to leave as soon as it got light and we walked about 2 hours until we arrived at Machu Picchu! First sight of Machu Picchu was amazing! We were probably about 1km away and the whole Machu Picchu ruins looked like this little thing on the top of a hill in the distance (once again, there are photos of this in my photo gallery). Unfortunately, when we arrived at Machu Picchu Soph got sick (She had been feeling sick all morning, most likely due to the different kind of foods we had been eating during the four days, and she didn’t get to look around the ruins because she didn’t feel well. It was a bit disappointing because we had both done so well to walk for 4 days to get there and then when we got there she got sick. At least we made it there tho!

Although there were a billion tourists there when we arrived and it felt like a fairground, it was still awesome to see. Its hard to believe that a civilisation could build such an intricate city in such an awkward position over 500 years ago. Apparently it took them around 100 years to build it and they never actually got to finish it. When the Spaniards arrived around 1500, the Incan people living in the unfinished Machu Picchu got word of this and they abandoned the city.  The city then went undiscovered for over 400 years until discovered in 1911 by Hiram Bingham who found it hidden away under trees and vines... History lesson complete.

After finishing the inca trail we then caught a bus down the hill to Machu picchu town where we had lunch and then visited the hot springs just up the road which was awesome after the four days of walking! That night we caught the train back to Cusco and then early the next morning we had a flight from Cusco to Lima and then straight through to Buenos Aires, Argentina!!