By now even I am forgetting my portuguese...
Now, the Inca Trail was one of the best experiences we had in this trip so far! It's at the same time an outer and an inner trek, absolutely unique and special in so many ways. For starters, it is done in the same way as the Quechuas did it in ancient times, following the trail they built and that is now kept by park rangers. Only 500 people can start the trek per day, although the earthquake last August has scared many tourists away from Peru so we mostly had the trek for ourselves. Then it is a religious trek, at least for the lucky Quechuas which were allowed to go in pilgrimage to the holy city of Machu Picchu. Also we were lucky to cross it with people filled with good humour and positive energy: Nacho, which provided infinite entertainment and was as usual a mental challenge to handle, and Sol (literally "Sun") our guide, which turned out to be a "soul-mate" of ours, that kept building our knowledge of the Quechua culture, and in particular of the Quechua sense of humour. The rest of our group was formed by six porters, which carried each up to 25 kilos of stuff with an amazing speed. They are local farmers that do the trek to get a bit of extra money. The oldest porter with us was 54 years old but the oldest in the company is more than 60! In camp they always managed to read our minds and provide us with everything we needed before we realised we needed it. They pitched and packed the tents, cooked our food and carried all the common stuff. Finally, there were the Andes, in all their spectacular and changeable beauty. During the trail you are emersed in them, they wonder you, exhaust you and remind you of the timelessness nature of the Trail and of all you see and do along it.
The Trail starts 45 Km away from Machu Picchu. At the start there's this big map of the Trail, so you can get a preview of what awaits you. Since the Quechuas believed in respecting nature, the trek follows the shape of the mountains. I.e, if the mountains are steep, the trek is steep. And these mountains are steep! On the first day we started at an altitude of 3200m. For the first few hours the trek was easy and flat, on a relatively bare but still beautiful landscape. I actually thought it was easy. But then, we had to climb up to 3700 m where our first camp site was and the trek was so steep that it took me three hours! Blimey!! Nacho, aka Fast Pepe, did it in less, closely followed by Tom. By the end everything hurt: arms, legs, back, abs, everything! Except my head, which was experiencing a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction and a bit of lightheadness or blissfulness, but that might have been the altitute sickness again...
The next day I woke up wishing for a nice trek downwards to which Sol replied by pointing at the top of the nearest peak, where the Trail crosses the mountains at 4500m. AHHHH! Right... OK... There we started climbing again, after a brief stop to ask Tom whose bright idea it was to do this trek only to be reminded that it was mine. What was I thinking off!?! Three hours later I finally reached the peak, where I found Nacho, Tom and Sol laughing hysterically and surely delusional from the altitude. It turns out it was the peruvian rum... If you zoom in at the photo with the four of us, you'll see the highest point of the trail was actually at 4512m, so Sol tricked me by 12 painful metres! But then she gave me rum and I stopped complaining.
After a big climb you deserve a big descent and so we did for 2h. I definitelly prefer this kind of trekking, although your legs are shaking at the end. As always, a sumptuous meal waited us in camp. After that much exercise we would be happy with anything that came our way but we were always surprised by the creativity of the cook!It's pretty amazing the kind of things he managed to prepare for us up there, including pizza, pancakes and fruit in the morning!
The third day was shorter as we did most of the trek over the first two days. This time the landscape had changed dramatically and we were now walking through a cloud forest. There were tiny orchids and inca lillys along the way, while hummingbirds zapped past us constantly. By our camp site were the ruins of Wyniwayna, the prettiest of all the ruins we saw along the Trek.
That night we said goodbye to our porters and went to bed dreaming of Machu Picchu...
Bye for now,
Vania
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