Peru, culminated

April 12
8:00 pm
Today is our 1st day of the Inca Trail. 13 total on the trip + guides. 4 US, 2 New Zealand, 4 UK, 2 Aussie, 1 Irish. All of the non-US are part of an organized tour traveling Quito, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile. Fun group, interesting, and fun accents.
Left Cuzco this morning at 6:00, bus to Ollantaytambo where we picked up this group, then bus to trail. 1st half today was level, then up up up to this camp. Passed by large Inca ruins – was a town and market.
Porters are amazing. Their load is wrapped in blanket, then tied with rope, then another blanket is rolled and formed into shoulder straps. They wear sandals or light tennis shoes, carrying 25 kg, and are often jogging up trail.
Food is amazing – as good as any I’ve had recently and huge quantities.
To sleep now, long day tomorrow.

April 13
Warminuska (aka Dead Woman’s Pass) 4215 meters above sea level
10:00 AM
Personal highest place in life! At home this would be glaciated, but is sub-alpine here. A few snow-capped/glaciated peaks in the background. Fairly warm (50s?), overcast. Spectacular scenery!

April 13
Inca trail night #2
8:15 pm
After pass descended stairs/trail to this camp (3-4 hours more). Camp is across valley from a large ruins called Sayacamarka (?). Lots of nice yellow flowers. Most of today’s trail was on stone paths – very little trail. At camp some members of the group invented a new game called Inca Sticks. 4 m circle (drawn in dirt), use walking sticks to touch opponent’s foot. Quickly gathered a large audience and got one (of the porters) to play. Beautiful glaciated mtn peaks seen from camp, hopefully good alpenglow tomorrow morning (note – no alpenglow happened).

April 14
Aguas Calientes – SAS Viajeros Hostel
6:30 pm
A landslide occured (months ago) on the last leg of the Inca Trail. So after Winaywana, which is usually the camp for night 3, we descended into Aguas Calientes and are staying tonight in the guiding company’s hostel. Boys room and girls room only (note: they ended up overbooking the rooms, so all of our group eventually ended up cramming in together). We get the option to bus up to Machu Picchu in the morning (30 min) or walk (~1 hour). I am going to walk, just because I feel that I’ve come this far, so why not. Most of the group will bus – of the 13, I’d say about a third hike for fun and the rest are doing this for the novelty of the Inca Trail.
Today was only about 3½ hours of walking, mostly downhill on steep Inca steps. Quite treacherous in some places. The porters were amazing, especially on this. Where we would inch down, one step, then matching with the other foot, they would run down, with 25 kilos.
Passed two Inca sites today. First was Phuyupatamarca (“Cloud Level Town”). The trail skirted around the side and then below the ruins, but 3 of us ran up to the top platform (terrace) to see it from the top. This site was especially interesting because you could see how they used the natural terrain in the design of the constructions.
There were a couple tunnels in the trail, where they had carved out natural fissures in the rock. Very impressive.
Mostly foggy but occasionally views opened up and you could see the Rio (River) Urubamba far below, the mountains on the other side of the river, and glaciated peaks beyond.
2nd site was Winay Wana: very beautiful terracing, temple at top and habitations near bottom. (Note: the site’s name translates to something like “forever young” because of the type of orchid that grows in this region blooms year-round)
Dinner soon, then probably sleep because wake up at 3:30 am to walk up.

April 16
On plane from Cuzco-Lima (then with connections back to Medellín)
9:00 am
No entry yesterday because we got back so late. Woke up yesterday in A.C. at 4:00 am. By 5:00, 5 of us + Victor (guide) were walking up trail to Machu Picchu. Pouring rain, but hot because climbing stairs. At top we had our passports stamped and sat for 30-45 minutes until they opened. Victor stayed out all night because he had nowhere to sleep (hotel screwed up). So he was very tired and slow. Still raining when we entered, and very soaked and cold. However, very nice to be there without hordes of tourists.
M.P. is so hyped, I wasn’t amazed while there, but it was quite large and interesting to explore. Especially interesting: Condor temple (natural rock looks like condor’s outspread wings); working sundial with broken corner from TV camera falling on it; attention to buildings’ and windows’ alignment with solstice sun, cardinal directions, and important mountains.
Done with guided tour by 9:00, went outside park to get hot drinks. Rain stopped and entered again to explore and photograph. Ran into Mike and Jo (Kiwis in our group) and I went to climb Huayna Picchu with them (note: this is the steep peak you see behind the ruins in every postcard picture of M.P.). Heather stayed in the ruins to photograph. Had to sign trail register to climb. Many stairs, hugging cliff, cable handrails for support (1st we’ve seen in Peru). Steep but not slick because made of granite and sees lots of use. It was impressive the number of people on trail, given its technicality. Good views from the top, but more worthwhile for the hike than the views. Large boulders on top, along with ruins, terracing. Very exposed. I wonder how may people died building these on such steep cliffs. Descent was a bit scary – 1st an exposed slab with thin foot placements, then very narrow steps down with wall on left and terraces on right. Had to place foot on (the) step sideways and sidestep down. A bit vertigo-inducing.
Met Heather at entrance and took bus to town. Lunch, then left via train at 3:50 (others in our group would leave 1 hour later). Annoying passengers sitting across from us, and with ~30 inches legroom between the facing seats. Arrived in Cusco at 8:40. Met the group at Jack’s Café for dinner. Nice conversation with James, Leann, Chrissy. Bed at 11:00, woke today at 5:00

April 16
Overall impressions
Tour groups – good or bad depending on group…Sacred Valley tour poor to OK, Inca Trail hike excellent, lots of fun.
Inca Sites – arrive early for no groups…Exploring Cuzco by Peter Frost in excellent and had more info than Sacred Valley guide…guides on site are sometimes helpful, especially Javier at Puca Pucaru (He gave us the entire tour in Spanish, very pleased with ourselves on how much we understood, and when we didn’t we were able to use sign language to Spanish to clarify).
Inca Trail – felt a bit weird with catered meals and sleeping, but I’m glad we did it. I’d like to return and see less touristy sites without a tour company (you are required to be in a guided group to walk the Inca Trail). We had porters carry sleeping bags and mats, and felt fine over entire trip (note: however, we were somewhat acclimated due to living in Medellín, at altitude).

As always, you can visit our Flickr site, or more specifically, our collection of photos from Peru, to see pictures.