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Wow, last night was a freezing -9 degrees! Day three of the Inca trail was going to be another biggie. A 4:30am porter wake up call and coca tea, quick breakfast and wash then we were on our way by 5:30.
We knew what we were in for - the longest walk today, 16km consisting of two more passes, the highest at 3950m. And if that wasn't enough, then there was to be a steep hill down, only 3000 steps to our campsite! Despite all that, I knew it was gonna be another fun day with the team and it didn't disappoint.
Edwin stopped us a few times to check out some Inca ruins and loads of species of native orchids that were really nice. And of course there were countless piss takes and Monika and myself assumed our positions at the back and took our time.
Once we reached the third and final pass of the trek, we began the descent down the forever steep uneven steps to the campsite. Edwin said if we reached the forking road by 5pm, we had the option of visiting another Inca ruin. So we raced down and got there by 4:15, which was great because this site was huge - big terraces down about 150m of the hill and extremely well preserved. This added about 3km onto our trek today, making the tally 19km. Finally, Monika, Jen and me put in one last effort and visited one last Inca site that overlooked the Urubamba river and a nice waterfall. We sat on the terraces and just couldn't believe how the hell these people managed to build this over 500 years ago.
Wiñaywayna was to be our last campsite. It was huge, and buzzing with heaps of other hikers all eager to get to Machu Picchu tomorrow. I had another icy shower and packed my bag a final time. I was pretty sad to be leaving the trek, after having the best time. I knew that the next day was gonna be something special so I was really pumped. We gave each porter our individual tips in a bit of an unofficial ceremony with Edwin translating Spanish and Quechua for some of them. Our chef gave a wicked speech in Quechua wishing us well and then they went back to their tent and sounded pretty stoked with the amount of money we gave them - 90 soles each ($45nz). Not much to me, but that amount of money to them will go a long way. They made us a delicious cake (boiled in a pot and better than any cake I've ever made!) and decorated it with caramel dulce de leche and a really lovely dinner.
Another early night because tomorrow was to be the earliest morning of them all - 3:20am to get to Machu Picchu by sunrise.
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