Losing it in the Clouds: The Inca Trail 8th - 12th April

We had a lovely few days to discover Cuzco, and also had the pleasure of helping a few Peruvian students out with a couple of interviews to practise their English. Our departure for the Inca trail was somewhat traumatic. Having gone to bed early looking for a good, strength-building night’s sleep we quickly discovered that the nightwatchmen/security guard in the street had the most annoying habit of forcefully blowing his whistle approximately 3 minutes after we fell asleep. Everytime we fell asleep. And with frustrating regularity until 4.30 when we had to get up, pack the bags and head off in to the dark and our bus to the trail. Despite leaving at 5am we did not actually get walking until 10am. The whole process of collecting the 17 other people in our group took over an hour, and another 2-hour journey to the start of the trail where we had to stop for breakfast and last minute toilet paper stock up (perfumed - more about this later!!) at Ollantaytambo.

The weather was beautiful and hot, and Mount Veronica looked over us from behind as we set off on our journey (see photos). The trail starts of largely flat so the going was easy, although being the mountains means there were a couple of steep hills thrown in. Lunch, a full-on meal was set out in a proper dining tent with tables and chairs, and bowls with water and soap were even set out so we could wash our hands. Our first challenge faced us after lunch as we headed steadily uphill, eventually to our first campsite although this would be nothing compared to what we were to hike the following day. With no shower to look forward to, it was a lovely surprise to find flannels and bowls of hot water put outside our tents, an unexpected and welcome substitute.

The next morning was cool, damp and misty and, with the ominously named Dead Woman’s Pass to climb, spirits were mixed. A long, progressively slower viewless trudge through the mist, eventually led to the pass at a lung-testing 4200 metres. But it wasn’t over there, as we still had a steep knee-crunching descent to our lunch spot, and then another breath-taking ascent to a second pass. It was when we were making our way down from the second pass that the mist finally cleared to give us a fantastic view to reveal just how majestic our surroundings were. Huge peaks punctured the clouds as the sun’s rays forced their way through which made arriving at Sayaqmarca all the more surreal. We’ll let the camera do the talking for this one!

After inspecting the ruins, we were very relieved to hike our first flat path for over a day, and extremely thankful to the Incas, as it wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for their excellent building skills. Things got even better when we arrived at the campsite and found ourselves with an excellent view of the snow-topped Andes across the valley. A lie in wasn’t going to be possible the next day either as we were to watch the sun rising over them (see photos), with tea brought to our tent doors by the hard-working porters to warm us up in the very cool mountain air.

One of the major and, for some, traumatic experiences that one encounters on the Inca Trail are the loos. N was greatly relieved to see that most of them were squat toilets (holes in the ground), something that many others eyed with grim dread. Let’s face it, it’s a hell of a lot easier to go about one’s business squatting than it is trying to aim hover over a filthy toilet seat. Indeed, it’s exactly in places like this that toilet seats fail to serve their purpose because everyone is too frightened to sit on them and they become extremely dirty. However, even the squat toilets can become unusable, especially as one poor soul was so scared of the hole that their mess ended up all over the foot pedestals, rendering at that point, only two of the six loos utile.

Our third day saw us hiking for only half the day, and admiring some more ruins and fabulous orchids on the way. Two big treats were in store for us when we arrived at the campsite: hot showers and beer, both of which we had to pay over the odds for, but worth every penny. Despite being absolutely exhausted, after a few invigorating bottles of Cuzqueña we found the extra energy to go and check out Wiñawayna, a very impressive set of ruins 10 minutes from the campsite and equally as impressive but not nearly as trampled as Machupicchu, mainly for its water system which still functions after 500 years. The channels are not only designed to get to each and every household, but also the type of stream (sticking out or flat) which one requires can be adjusted merely by moving your hand across the stream of water! The beer continued flowing into the evening as Carl, one of our fellow hikers, had a birthday to celebrate , but not too late as we had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 3:30, to be one of the first groups in the queue to go through the check point at half past five (45 minute wait) and almost literally run to the Sun Temple an hour away to get our first glimpse of Machupicchu in the morning sun. As it was light before the sun rose we saw it before the sun graced it with its powerful rays, but it was glorious to get our first glimpse all the same, especially as it marked the end of our adventure, and happily the rest of the way was all down hill. As we strolled down towards it (nobody seemed to be in such a rush anymore), the sun eventually did cast its rays down to show off the Incan site in all its glory. Being so exhausted the experience was utterly surreal and, unfortunately, with sleep-deprived brains resting from the early morning exertion, little of what we were taught about the place sunk in (hence our inability to provide any detail in certain photos), but we would not have arrived any other way. And we’ve left plenty of Macchupichu to explore for the next time we come. For some reason that morning, we decided that the best thing to do was make our way up the near vertical climb to the top of Waynapicchu, the mountain that gives Machupicchu its spectacular backdrop; where the energy came from we have no idea, but again it was well worth it and nearly killed the camera with the quantity of photos we took.

In the evening, we caught our train back to Ollantaytambo, the conversation during which was dominated by American values and politics. We were most impressed with Jessica’s (who works in a law office) story about the woman who was driving her RV somewhere in Florida, put the thing on cruise control and went into the back to make a cup of tea, and successfully sued the RV company for the resulting damages. We eventually found our bus back to Cuzco, although our driver didn’t make it too easy. The journey was made irritatingly longer when he went zooming past the hotels he was supposed to drop us off at, and we had to go around the whole one way system again. On arrival at our flat, we bumped into the night watchman and begged him to go and blow his whistle in another part of town, which he promptly ignored. Luckily we were so exhausted we slept like logs.

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