Some background:
The Inka Trail is a 45 k, four day-three night hike that climbs over three mountain passes, follows sections of an original paved Incan road, and concludes on the fourth morning at the Sun Gate overlooking the ruins of Machu Picchu. A maxium of 500 people embark on the trail each day, and treks must be booked months in advance.
Machu Picchu City is one of two major Incan cities that were hidden from the Spanish conquistadors. To prevent them from being destroyed, the last Incan King ordered that all the roads to Machu Picchu and the Lost City of the Incas (claimed to be El Dorado) be destroyed. An American archeologist from Yale "rediscoved" Machu Picchu in the early 20th century and began the process of restoring it to the world history site it is today. There are numerous other smaller Incan ruins along the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu, and certainly many throughout the jungle that have not been excavated yet.
Eric and I booked our trek with Peru Treks, a company that was recommended by many guidebooks and has won an award from the Ministry of Tourism in Peru. The company places great emphasis on supporting the local economy, porter welfare, and celebrating the history and culture of the trail and the Incan people. If you're considering hiking the trail at some point, we highly recommend them, as we had an excellent experience. http://perutreks.com/
Our Trek:
Day One
I'm sure you'll all recall that the night before we embarked, I was feeling a bit under the weather and we had faced some unusual challenges during the day. My sore throat decided to develop into a full-blown cold that evening. Between that and worrying about the trek, I didn't sleep much at all that night. We got up at 5AM, to be ready for our pick up scheduled between 5:20 and 6:00 AM. Our guide and a porter met us at our hostel, and we had to walk several blocks to meet up with the bus. We drove for a little more than an hour to Ollantaytambo, where we stopped for breakfast. I was not able to eat much, even though I needed to. I was really questioning whether I would be able to do this hike: I had basically been in bed for the last several days, now I had a new ailment, Could I really do an intense hike?? But we were on our way, so I might as well try... right?
We were in a group of 16 people, all around our age and all English-speaking: US, Canada, U.K., Australia, and one Portugues girl who had fallen in love with the Austrailian when she was studying English there.
Our bus dropped us of at KM 82, the start of the standard Inka Trail. Eric and I had each hired an extra porter to carry about 6kg of our stuff (basically, sleeping bag and pad, extra clothing). I had a small backpack with my sweatshirt, raingear, snacks, and water, and Eric had his big bag with similar essential items (ie, not full). The day was hot and sunny, and the first section of the trail doesn't offer much shade, though it's relatively level. We started out slowly, as our guide, Max, would stop every 20 or 30 minutes at first to let the group catch up and to tell us some history and background about the trail and the people who live in the area.
Then we hit some inclines. Nothing huge at first, but it felt incredibly challenging for me and everyone else seemed to be just scurrying up without any problems. Everytime we stopped, we were the last ones in. I felt like I need to stop to rest and sip water too often. I was getting really frustrated, and I felt really awful with the first day of my cold. Max was worried I was suffering from alitidue sickness, but Eric explained that I was just sick. The assistant guide, Jose, clearly started keeping an eye on me.
The we hit the first big incline of the trek (which after everything else we endured now seems like nothing). By the time I finally got to the top and had to walk several more meters to get to the bathroom and back, it was time to go again. I started to feel very angry that I never got to rest and that I was always coming in last. Day One is described by most as the "Easy" day and day two is touted as the "Difficult" day. If I was struggling so much before lunch on Day One, how was I going to be able to do this? I was having serious doubts.
The guides, Eric, and probably anyone in the world who has hiked, will tell you (and certainly told me) that hiking is 95% pyschological. Of course, that sounds like B.S. when you feel like crap and can barely breathe. Just before we reached our lunch spot, Eric offered to take everything I was carrying in his bag. I didn't want him to suffer just because I was weak, but-of course-he'd rather carry more than turn around. So, I said we could give it a try. I didn't think I had that much, but it made a huge difrrence to just carry my water bottle and my walking stick. Also, after lunch, a British woman named Belinda started to fall behind too. She was traveling with some friends and none of them had hired a porter, so they were carrying all their stuff. She had kept pase in the morning, but now that we were hitting more and more inclines, she was struggling. I started walking with her at the back of the herd, taking breaks as we needed. Eric and Jose stayed just a bit in front of us chatting in Spanish. Between having a lighter load and knowing that I wasn't alone in my struggle and doubts, I felt a lot better.
I made it to camp that night, tired and sore, but feeling more confident. Day two still scared me, but I didn't want to turn around. I took some cold medine from our first aid kit and slept solidly through the night.
Day 2:
Our porters woke us up the next morning around 5AM with a tap at our tent and hot cups of coca tea (which is good for dealing with the altitude). I was suprised to find that I was not as sore as I expected to be. Eric and I packed up our tent and joined the others for breakfast, which I ate heartily.
Now may be as good a time as any to note that Inca Treks blew our minds with the quality of food they provided. We had read that they would, but it's still incredible and very appreciated when you're on the trail. Breakfast always involved bread or toast, usually some kind of fruit and a pancake. Lunch always started with a veggetarian soup, sometimes another treat (such as an avocado), and then a heaping family style spread of proteins, pastas, rice, and such. Dinner was much the same. All meals were followed with a cup of tea. One day we were treated to jell-o made in a mountain spring, and on the final day we were suprised with a steamed cake!
As I mentioned, Day Two is typically described as the difficult day since over half the day is an assent to the first (and highest) mountain pass - Dead Woman's Pass at 4200 meters. Without a doubt, this aspect of Day 2 was difficult, but once you get past the pass there is no turning back, and I already didn't want to walk back over where I had come from. I was feeling a bit better having slept through the night and eaten, and we started out the day hiking with the British/Scottish girls who I had hiked with during the afternoon of Day 1. The morning of Day Two is also absolutely gorgeous, weaving through wooded areas over and around mountain streams rumbling below you. Like the State of Wisconsin, my motto was "Forward." ("Slow and steady wins the race" and "I think I can" also bounced around.)
We had a light lunch just before we started the incredibly steep asent to the pass; you´re not supposed to hike to high alititudes on a full stomach. And then we got going.
The porters are all walking along the trail with you, or, I should say, past you. They're amazing. They cook breakfast in the morning, breakdown the tents while you're eating, clean up after you head out, pass you on the trail with about 60 kg on their backs, set up the lunch spot and cook before you get there, clean up after you're done, pass you on the trail, set up all of camp and cook dinner before you arrive, and then horse around with a ridiculous amount of energy whie you're eating. As one of our fellow hikers said at our good-bye ceremony on the last night, "You [the porters] make it look easy, and we make it look... ridiculous."
On the assent to Dead Woman's Pass, we noticed that the porters were also taking regular breaks, which make us feel a bit better. Eric noticed one porter from another company that we were sort of playing leap frog with: He would pass us when we were taking a break, then we'd get up and pass him sitting. Eric started chatting with him when we would pass one another, and when we got closer the top and were passing him, Eric joked that we might win. We never passed him again. Any time we got close when he was sitting, he'd get up and start hiking onwards and upwards again. Who wants to lose a race to a gringo? :)
The top of the pass was beautiful, but very cold. Max had warned us, so we pulled out our hats, coats, and mittens to bundle up while we took pictures and waited for others. The British girls and a few others were quite a ways behind us, but some others in our group had already been at the pass for over an hour. Jose, the assistant guide, arrived about 15 minutes after us, and told us to continue. We were going to meet there and do a group picture, but it was more important to keep moving than to wait for the others and get sick in the cold in the meantime.
Now it was time for down, which, I will argue, can be more difficult than up. When climbing up, you at least feel justified in taking breaks and stopping for water. When going down, your knees just hurt. Porters and Europeans kept running past us, the latter with two walking poles each like they were skiing down the mountian. The whole way down was a stairway, which we thought was the original Incan road, but it turns out was built in the 1990s by order of the goverment, who thought that gringos would need it and that they were very tall, so they had the stairs build to be very tall. The actual Incan travelers of yesteryear followed a road around the summit of the mountain: flat as possible. We had lunch, tea time, and dinner at our campsite, which was still at high alititudes so it was quite cold there. I took more cold medicine before bed, and slept soundly through the night in my cozy sleeping bag.
I had made it past the point of no return, I was holding my own around the late middle of the pack, and I was looking forward to the two more days to come. (And Eric was still carrying all my stuff that didn't fit in my porter bag.)
Days 3 & 4 to come soon!
