Race to the Sun Gate! (Inca Trail day four)

Day four of the Inca Trail we woke up the earliest, at 4am to pack up and quickly eat breakfast.  There are about 200 hikers who then line up in front of the last checkpoint on the trail, all waiting for 530am when the trail opens.  We were the second group in line, which was awesome because it means you get to have a few minutes at the sun gate before the hords of people behind you get there.  I have never ever hiked that fast in my life before.  If we could have run, we would have, but our giant packs prevented that.  So we pretty much speed walked for 45 minutes, racing the rising sun to the Inca sun gate.  Then apon reaching it climbed our last set of stairs, and were treated with incredible views of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains.  I was the 6th person there, and our group had about 15 minutes before the other groups caught up, which was almost mystical with the mist risting from the valleys below all aroun Machu Picchu, and the sun starting to break through.  It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

When our guide caught up with us we descended down to Machu Picchu where the tourists were already arriving by bus.  Then a good half hour was spent taking the typical Machu Picchu pictures from up above the ruins.  By that point I had seen a lot of Inca ruins, but nothing is even close to the scale of Machu Picchu.  Its one of those places that you see a lot of photos of beforehand, and then when you actually see it for yourself it is still just as impressive.  We had a tour of the different temples and ceremonial places in the ruins, and then 4 out of our group decided to climb the mountain you see in all the pictures – Wayna Picchu.  Now after 4 days on the Inca Trail we were pretty exhausted, but the ´once in a lifetime experience´ thing made us climb it.  And when we reached the top we were really happy we had, you get a 360 degree view of the surrounding valleys, which to me were almost as impressive as Machu Picchu itself.  I have definitely never seen mountains like that before.

On the way down I decided to spend some time exploring the ruins myself while everybody else went back into the town.  Even though there are 2500 tourists that visit Machu Picchu a day I still managed to wander through it sometimes completely by myself.  Finally the group met up for well deserved pizza and beer before taking the backpacker train back to Cusco.

Hiking the Inca Trail, seeing the ruins along the way, and finally Machu Picchu will definitely be a highlight of my trip.  But it was also a bit of a mixed experience for me due to the working conditions of the porters that make it possible to hike the trail.  Hopefully in the future things will continue to change so that tourists have more respect for these men that make it possible for them to do the trek.

Ruins Galore (Inca Trail day three)

The third day of the Inca Trail is often described as unforgettable, and it certainly was.  Up until this day you do not walk on the original trail, but a path that is close to it.  However, on the third day you actually begin to walk on the original Inca Trail.  The stone path winds through the mountains and the jungle, coming across several ruins along the way.  Sometimes where is a steep drop to one side and a cliff on your other side.  Occasionally you have to navigate through old Incan tunnels in the mountainside.  To hike through the jungle and suddenly see some Incan ruins hidden away in the next valley, and then a couple of hours later actually get to wander through them is an unforgettable experience.  This was definitely my favorite day of the 4, even more so than the last day when the group reached Machu Picchu.  There was something about hiking by myself along a centuries old path while listening to jungle sounds that was a truly unique experience.  Parts of the trail also reminded me of the mountains at home, the valleys along the way sometimes looked a lot like home.

The last part of this day is a bit brutal because you descend 2500 steps to the final campsite at Winay Wayna.  This was very hard on the knees, although you feel silly going so slowly when the porters are practically running down the steps.  How they dont fall on those steep descents I dont understand.

Ascending Dead Womans Pass (Inca Trail day two)

We were woken up at 5am by porters with tea at our tents, then at breakfast our guide asked us who would like an extra porter to carry their backpacks up the pass.  Again I managed to distinguish myself by being the only person to not request an porter to carry my bag!  I guess it was a combination of pride to carry my own backpack, and feeling uncomfortable to pay somebody almost nothing to do it for me.  Also I have done enough hiking that I was fairly sure I coud make it, although at 4000m the altitude starts to make breathing much harder.  I had acclimatized a bit in Cusco, but it was still very hard.  So we began the toughest ascent of the trail, its 1200m almost straight up with a lot of steps.  By about half way you really start to hate the steps.  The last quarter of the ascent is the most brutal, its very steep with no switchbacks.  The entire way I kept looking about 20 steps ahead and would tell myself to make it to that point and then take a break.  When I finally reached the top though it was an awesome feeling, the entire group had waited (almost an hour) at the top for everyone to make it.  Having a bunch of people cheering you up the last 10 minutes of the pass was incredible.  We spent a few minutes congratulating ourselves, but quickly begain the descent down to the campsite because the weather was turning bad.  When we reached the campsite at 2pm I promptly fell asleep for 4 fours due to exhaustion.  That evening we ate dinner ridiculously fast we were so hungry.  Meals with the group were an interesting experience.  Mostly everybody would speak Dutch, and occasionally translate for me.  But I got used to this by the second day, and even though I couldnt understand 90 percent of the time, the group loved to make jokes and have a good time so I still really enjoyed meals.  That evening the guide, two younger guys from Holland and myself played a Dutch card game while betting Peruvian soles, and I won!  Dutch card games are very odd, a lot of them only use half the deck from the number 7 and up.  We had also had a good lauch because the translation of diamonds in Dutch to English is literally windows, which had me very confused for awhile. Then went to bed at the late hour of 9pm.

The lone Canadian (Inca Trail day one)

My Inca Trail experience began with me waking up at 5am to wait for the bus. While waiting some friends at the hostel were just coming back from a night out in Cusco … we had a good laugh about the fact that I had just gotten up and they were just going to bed.  Finally the bus arrived and I met my group.  I immediately managed to distinguish myself as everyone else on the trip was from either Belgium or Holland, and I was the lone Canadian.  This became a continuing theme over the next 4 days.

So we were off to the beginning of the Inca Trail!  It began with us getting off the bus and being inundated by things to buy for the hike.  Walking sticks, gloves, hats, gatorade, snacks – if you needed it, somebody was selling it (at a ridiculously high price of course).  As I was packing my bag a group of women selling these rubber bottoms for metal hiking poles (like mine) kept asking me to buy them.  I started getting really annoyed as they would not leave me alone.  Finally one of them got my guide and he explained to me that you were not allowed to hike the Inca Trail with metal poles and the rubber bottoms were required!  In retrospect this was not such a big deal, but at this point I was getting tired of being constantly overcharged for things, and felt taken advantage of because I had brought my own poles instead of buying theirs, yet was still being forced to purchase something.  So I chose that moment to make a big scene and argue with the women and the guide in front of my entire group, which ended in me being forced to buy the rubber bottoms anyways, otherwise I wouldnt be allowed to continue.  So at this point not only was I the lone Canadian, I was also the person who was argueing with the guide before we had even started on the trail, Im not really sure what the group thought of me at this point.

The first day of hiking was fairly easy going.  We stopped at one Inca ruin down in a valley on the way, and otherwise it was just up and down through semi-desert like terrain.  The group chatted and got to know each other, we had a very mixed group from young couples, to an older pair of brothers, and a few others.  Then I again managed to distinguish myself because I had taken the bottoms off my poles, and when the guide noticed he got really angry with me and we had another arguement which ended in me refusing to use my poles for the rest of the hike.  What a way to start off on a 4 day hike with 10 other people I have never met before.

Eventually we reached camp and I was amazed to find that the porters had already set up our tents, and the eating tent, and dinner was almost ready.  The porters on the Inca Trail are incredible.  They carry all the food and group gear, and practically run parts of it to beat the group to the campsite so everything is ready when you arrive.  I definitely wasnt used to this kind of luxury while camping.  And I also was not entirely ok with the usage of human labour to keep me more comfortable while camping.  You dont have a choice in how the hike the Inca Trail, you are required to do it with guides and porters, but this was a continuing issue for me along the way.

Inca Trail Pictures!

The start of the Inca Trail!

On top of Dead Woman's Pass at 4200m

Machu Picchu

On top of Wayna Picchu