Inca Trail and Machu Picchu
Man, I am tired, even though I slept for 10 hours last
night. On Wed night, we went out to this reggae place
called Seven Angels and had a little going away party
with Sam, Jenny, Hannah, Carmen, and others. Jenny
and Carmen left the next day to go bak to Germany and
DIanne and I left to go on the Inca Trail. The last
four days was tough but beautiful. I have soooo many
pictures of landscapes it´s not even funny. I expect
you all to sit for 3 hours while I show a slide show
when I return. ;P
We got off to a rocky start on Thursday morning. The
bus was supposed to meet us in San Blas at 6:15am, we
waited until 6:25 and then walked down to the second
meeting place, Plaza De Armas. Luckily, the hostel
owner lady let us leave a bunch of our stuff at the
hostel so we wouldn´t have to carry it around during
the actual trail. No on showed up till around 6:50a.
In fact this entire trip was a good example of
¨Peruvian time¨ which is kinda of like New Zealand
time where nothing really matters and you don´t REALLY
need to be exactly on time. This drives my punctual
being crazy.
Finally, we get on the bus and we meet
the rest of our group which is only two other people,
Marc, a russian who lives in France, and Ken Chang, a
Korean engineer who lives in Panama. Both were in
their 50s. Our guide, Clayvar, spoke okay english
when he did speak. I´ll just let it out right now
that I wasn´t very satisfied with our guide. He
hardly told us anything about different sites unless
we asked, plus we had no idea what was going to happen
each day and for the most part, he hung way back
behind us so we´d have to wait for him if we wanted to
know about something. When I pay for a guide and a
certain experience, I expect to know what´s in store
for me each day.
Besides that though, the food was
good, the tents were good, and the Inca trail itself
was beautiful. You´d be walking along in the jungle
and turn a corner and see in the distance ruins for no
reason. And they were huge, forboding ruins. Soo
cool.
Unfortunately, I can´t give you clear names of
each ruin cause my mind will not remember names like
Belliquibamba or whatever, plus I forgot to bring the
map to the internet cafe. oops. The first day was
easy. After we got to the start of the trail at km 82
(the whole trail was 42 km, 26 miles), it was
disconcerting how big other groups were and ours was
only 4 but later we found other groups of 6 and 2, so
that was okay.
At the trail head, we waited for like
30 minutes at the controller station before we could
cross the bridge. We found out later that Clayvar had
gotten us sort of thrown onto him. We were supposed
to have a brazilian lady instead of Marc, but Ken had
called in earlier asking how he was supposed to share
a tent with a woman, so they at the last minute
switched her with Marc, who had a different set of
papers then us. But it worked out to our benefit
cause, he was camping at a closer point to Machu
Picchu the last night then we were, so Clayvar was
able to talk the controllers into letting us all stay
at the closer site. It seemed to be constantly
fluctuating though and every night at dinner, we´d
argue about what exactly was going to happen the next
day and where we were going to sleep.
Well, I say we,
but it was mostly Marc. He had a habit of asking a
lot of questions, repeating himself, and making fun of
others, which would´ve been okay if not for his sort
of creepy unsure way he had. And you couldn´t hit him
with a come back; he could dish it out, but he
couldn´t take it.
Anyway, enough of complaints, the first night, we
stayed in a tiny vilalge, built upon terraces, whether
they were incan or modern terraces, I don´t know, but
it was still pretty cool. our three tents were set up
by the porters who traveled with us. These guys are
amazing, their calves are huge and veiny! They carry
loads bigger then they are on these grueling trails
and stairs and almost run across them like they were
nothing.
That night, we ate in a grass covered open
hut and Dianne and I went down to the river to take
some pictures. Our route traveled first through the
Sacred Valley, then we cut across into another valley
and followed the Urubamba river for the next couple of
days. Marc actually got up in the night to use the
bathroom and ended up falling off the terrace and
hurting his knee. It wasn´t bad, but still sucked for
him; inside however, I must admit, I was kinda
laughing, just the visual of him stepping outside his
tent and falling off the terrace made me laugh. I´m
sadistic I know.
The second day was the most grueling day and had us
traveling up really steep steps up to 4215m which is
13,830 feet above sea level. That´s almost 2000 feet
higher then where I jumped out of a plane! I carried
my bag for the 1st, 3rd, and 4th day, but I just had
no idea how that elevation was goign to affect me, so
I hired a porter for US$20 to carry it for the day,
and I´m glad I did, those steps were soo steep and it
was hard to breath, I got a little headache and had to
stop for a minute. Dianne did really well and carried
her bag on the 1st and 4th days. When we got up to
that first pass, it was beautiful to look down and see
how far we´d come and look ahead at the wind blown
mountains and jungle we had yet to cross. We
descended into another valley and arrived at around
1p, they set up camp and we just hung out the rest of
the day playing cards and eating lunch and dinner. I
have to admit I complained a bit that I wanted to
continue on since many people were climbing up to the
next pass to camp on the other side for the night. I
didn´t figure out until that night that our camp
grounds were regulated by the controllers, something i
would´ve liked to know before hand. But luckily
Dianne was there to slap me back into shape and we had
a good time hangin out. Besides, at around 3p, it
started to pour down raining and kept going more on
then off through the night. The camp grounds are kind
of funny cause they´re just clear patches in the
middle of jungle set up along terraces with stone
steps to each level. There are even bathrooms you can
use, although they have no seats, why I don´t know. I
just can´t seem to perfect the hovering method.
The third day was long and I had my pack. The first
bit up was just as hard as day two, but not as long.
There was a bit of up and down after that, but nothing
too bad till the very end where there was really steep
steps down; scary steep steps might I add. We got up
and started walking around 7am and didn´t get to camp
until 6p, that´s 11 hours of hiking, but that´s
including stops for lunch and ruins. There were ALOT
of ruins to see the third day. One of the most
impressive was Payucharata or something or other,
which was huge and stuck up out of the jungle on the
side of the mountain. The Incans never seemed to
build anything in the valley, always on the side or
the tops of mountains. We ran around there for a good
hour.
Apparently, all these ruins were stopping point
for runners between the different Incan cities. But
this one had to be more then just that. Their
irrigation systems were amazing as well. There were
channels starting at the top and moving down through
the stone walls and coming out at fountains and baths
going down the ruins. Before we arrived at camp,
there was a place we could veer off and see some
additionaly ruins, so we did , adding an extra hour on
our trip. They were worth it though. SImply more
agricultural terraces, but so amazing in their
immencity and amount. Plus, you could still see the
houses where the farmers might´ve lived, storage
houses, and other structures. Plus the endless stairs
that continued to ascend and dissappear into the
jungle.
Descending down into camp, we found ourselves
more or less back into civilization. There were power
lines going across the valleys and to our camp site
which contained in it a bar and discoteque in one.
There were lots of people drinking beers and smoking
and we had dinner in the building. It was weird to
see it there and Dianne and I agreed that it kind of
took away from the jungle experience, but the food was
plentiful and good, so we weren´t too upset. Plus it
rained off and on the third day, so a little shelter
was nice.
Oh and as of the end of the second day, I
began to develop a cold which I still have, so I wan´t
feeling the greatest for the rest of the trip but I
still had fun. Besides I was prepared and I had
brought Zicam with me from the states.
We agreed at dinner, that we´d get up early, like
3:30a and head out so that we could get to the Sun
Gate (Inipata), which was about 6 km away, intime to
see the sunrise over Machu Picchu. There was also a
great controversy over ho wmuch we´re supposed to tip
the porters and guide, which I wasn´t aware of. After
much discussion, we finally decided on an amount and
split it evenly among the porters, cooks, and guide.
Anyway, morning came after 5 to 6 hours of sleep, we
got up , got all of our stuff together and were on the
trail by 4:30a, only to stop 10 minutes later at the
controller station which doesn´t open until 5:30a.
Now by getting up early, we were able to get a good
spot in line to go early, but it would´ve been nice
for Clayvar to tell us that there is a controller
station we would be required to wait at.
Communication people! I was talking to some other
groups, asking if they knew about it and they said
yes. Some girls I had been talking to earlier in the
trip, “Oh, sounds like you´re still in the same spot
you were on day 2.” This is also where I learned you
can get your passport stamped with your camp location
from each controller station. Would´ve been nice to
know, but I got it stamped at this one and at Machu
Picchu so that was cool.
We went as fast as we could and the walk was just
small ups and downs but mostly flat and easy.
Finally, we arived at the ruins of the sun gate to
find a valley full of fog. So we didn´t get to see
the sunrise over Machi Picchu, but to be honest with
you, I think that´s a myth anyway, cause even though I
couldn´t tell since the fog was so thick, I think the
sun was already out before we even left the controller
station. if the station doesn´t open till 5:30a,
there´s no way you can make it 6k before the sun
rises. Regardless, it was still pretty cool. And
after many people had continued to walk on, the fog
finally cleared for a bout 30 minutes to offer some
breathtaking views of Machu Picchu.
Oh, something I forgot to mention. We were all pretty
disatisfied with the explanations of Clayvar and as we
walked, decided that we´d try to tack onto another
group. I had noticed some other groups whose guides
were pretty good and we happened upon one of them. I
was talking with a girl in the group who said her
guide prolly wouldn´t mind. His name was Carlos and
after speaking with him, he had no problem with us
listening in. He told me where he´d be and at what
time he´d begin his tour, he also gave me a lot of
other additional information like bus times and train
times. I told him he´d just given me more information
in 5 minutes then our guide had in all 4 days.
Oap, I need to wrap this up pretty quick, much to do
tonight before we leave for Puno. So we made it to
Machu Picchu and ditched our guide for Carlos during
the tour of Machu Picchu. He was really good and gave
us sooo much info on the history of the Incas and why
Machu Picchu even exists. We wondered around the
grounds for 3 hours and then Dianne and I along with
an Australian named Brad from the group we´d judt
joined, climbed up WaynuPichu (Young Mountain), which
offered anbother vantage point to view Machu Picchu
and some really staggering ruins at the top. It was a
hell of a climb, like a ladder in some spots. At the
top gave some great picture opportunities including
standing on stepping stones not even 6 inches thick
that were hanging above nothing. That really freaked
me out.
We took the bus down from Machu Picchu to Agua
Calientes, the town below it and had lunch together.
Then Dianne and I took the 4 hour train ride back to
Cuzco, took hot showers (whoo hoo!!), changed and
arrived at Indigo just in time to meet Sam and other
friends to hang out. Then we slept a much needed
sleep.
No I must go, fare the well!