Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail.

Day 1

Day 1 of my number 1 reason to visit Peru started at 5am... Just as anything worth doing in this country seems to!  We waited with trepidation and annoyance for the bus to collect us, an hour late.  This disappeared the second we saw our guides beaming smile and heard her gentle voice acoust us onto the warm bus for a quick nap as we drove to our breakfast stop.

It wasn't the best breakfast of my travels but the company was flawless... This continued for the entire trip.  Grace and I got chatting (once the coffee and coca tea started to work) to the many Brits on our trip with us.  Ben, Cath, Jenny, Greg, Helen and Christie... Let me say from the outset how great it was to trek with you; you made us laugh and want to cry and you were all by the far the best group of people we have met on our travels so far so truly we want to thank you.

After our introductions and pancakes we headed for KM88 the starting point of the 500 year old path that 26miles later led to the lost city of the Inca's.

So day 1 was easy, not that we knew it at the time! A few short climbs and some Inca ruins which were framed by spectacular mountains and valleys.  I could liken this to the incredible views available in the Alps or the lake district, but really I just wouldn't be doing it any justice..... This was just the start of what was to come.

So after 6 hours of hiking and making friends we stopped for the night at a gentle 3000 meters above sea level.  A good meal and a few jokes later it was time for an early night before a very early morning.  But not before the last great treat of the day...  Away from the noise, smell and (most importantly) light of the cities, the night sky came alive with a trillion and half stars.  This really seemed to emphasise quite why these celestial objects were so important to the Inca's whose footsteps we were treading.  A beautiful end to a stunning day.

Day 2

Our second morning started with a coca tea kick start at 5am... Everything starts at 5am!  Breakfast was followed by a lesson in how to chew coca leaves, so by 7.30 when we set off on the hardest day of the trek we were experiencing some numbness around the gums from at least one of the 13 alkaloids present in coca leaves.  I was grateful, we had 12 km horizontally to walk and 1.2 km vertically to climb.  Anyone who thought the Inca trail was a walk in the park was about to realise it's a fecking hard mountain pass through the Andes at high altitude!

5 hours of stairs later.... Let me emphasise that this was 5 hours of climbing up steep stone ancient steps and our legs hurt, hearts raced and lungs gasped for every mole of oxygen in the thin air.  As we approached Dead Woman's Pass, the highest point of the trek at 4200m, i wondered if it was named because girls just can't make it: Grace and her chicas started and stayed behind.  But I was put back in my place as I hit the summit second to Jocelyne, a Canadian lady in here 50s!  I gasped only a few lung fulls of air before the views took me breath away all over again.  It was simply awe-inspiring to see the path fall away before me.  Realising I wanted to share this with Grace I went back for her and climbed the killer stairs again!

The afternoon was much much more relaxing with a 400m descent to our camp.  Myself, Grace and girls took our time to soak up the views, while Ben ran down for the loo, Jenny ran down for fun and Greg chased after his new wife... Not for the first time so I heard!

We arrived at our high camp exhausted from the day and dizzy from the 3600m altitude.  After a quick nap we broke out the rum we picked up earlier that day and listened to our guides ghost stories by torchlight.

Tired, cold and tipsy, Grace took me to our uncomfortable roll matt to huddle for warmth.

Day 3
5am... Really everything starts at 5am... And here it usually involves coca tea as well.  Day 3 was the longest days trekking so I held onto every last second in my sleeping bag on a hard roll matt.  Sleeping at 3600m has two points worth noting: it's cold, very cold and it's quite difficult to breathe as well.

I haven't spoken much about the food on this trip so far... This is a true injustice!  We ate like kings three times a day, and a cooked breakfast is a great reason to get up of the cold floor.  This is only possible because of the incredible work of our porters and cooks.  They got up before us, went to bed after us, ran past us during the day with the tents and kitchen, each carrying a pack 2 or 3 times the weight of ours and then clapped us in to every camp site.  They are truly extraordinary and humbling human beings.

So day 3 started with a "gentle" climb to 3900m with more spectacular views over the cloud forest the we saw in Manu.  We stopped to admire more ancient ruins that predate the Inca's on the way up and reached our high pass just after lunch.  Along the way we climbed once more and went through Inca tunnels carved into the mountain.  The rest of the day was a gentle but long walk down hill to our final camp site.  The landscape changed from mountain passes and great valleys to thick jungle and we were told that from this point on the path almost totally original and we were walking in the footprints of the ancients.

By the time we reached our final campsite it was dark, but there were now hot showers and cold beers, our first for the past three days!  Everyone's spirits were lifted to have made it this far and be so close to the lost city we had trekked so hard to reach.

We were treated to yet another three course meal and, please don't ask me how, our chef had even managed to bake us a cake in a campsite for desert.  We were sad this was the last night we would spend with our porters who had looked after us so well and we enjoyed exchanging sayings and lessons in each others language before dinner.

So after a few beers we hit the sack for another early night, the aim was to reach Machu Picchu for sunrise.

Day 4

Guess what time we got up???

Wrong... They had us out of bed at 4am to leave by 5.  My body clock had adjusted by this point and I actually felt quite spritely and happy to be on our way.

There was 2 hours of hard trekking with shear drops of more than 100m to one side and it was still dark. But as light crept into the valley we were crossing it was clear why many people consider this walk to be the most mystical and beautiful of the Inca trails.

Finally by 7am we reached the Sun Gate.  Half a mile uphill from Machu Picchu and the perfect place to watch the sun climb over the mountains that encase the citadel and bathe it with the dawn rays of sunlight.  It was magical.  We all broke out our "I survived the Inca trail" t-shirts and had group photos to commemorate our journey together.

Having reached the city at a very comfortable 2400m, we checked in our bags and those with more delicate skin covered up in sun tan lotion, for a scorching day was starting.  Our tour round the city was beautiful and very informative, it was clear that our guide Cesar really kept up to date with the with the historical evidence about Machu Picchu.  After a quick rest of our weary legs in the sun we jumped on a bus and headed for the town of Aguas Calientes for lunch and a chance to celebrate our achievements.

Grace and I decided to stay another day with our new friends and explore the city and surrounding mountains in more depth.  So we changed our train tickets, got a hotel, thanked our guide over a lovely lunch and headed for the bars.  We spent the afternoon drinking in the sun and generally enjoying ourselves with great company, the first time we had had the chance to do this since arriving.

That night we ate, drank and stayed merry before yet another early night, before yet another very early start.

Day 5

How early this time I hear you say???

3am, I got up at 3!  The queue for the coaches to Machu Picchu starts even earlier than this.  We got in the long lines by 4am.  This was necessary because we wanted to climb Huayna Picchu, the smaller of the mountains that overlooks Machu Picchu.  Tickets are limited to 400 a day and they are allocated on a first come first serve basis.  Huayna Picchu means young mountain, but pronounced as "Pitchu" (like many westerners do) it means "young willy".  I'm sure even the least imaginative of you can picture the innuendoes that kept us in good spirits whilst we waited to climb all over the young ............. mountain.

We spent the early part of the morning walking to see the Inca bridge that gave access to Machu Picchu by following a narrow path with a vertical drop in excess of 500m to one side.  The draw bridge itself is closed off and it's impossible to in visage how it could have been built in the fist place... Many people must have died in it construction.

So after we gorged on a Machu Picchu burger for breakfast (the best South American burger so far) we set off to begin our climb.  These stairs were treacherous and on weary legs it was a tough climb, with more dangerous drops at every turn.  Grace's reputable fear of heights was nearly non-existent by this point, her pace was still her own though.

The views from the top were simply spectacular.  Please check out the photos that we added, these ones are worth seeing.

After a slow and careful decent of the mountain we had a break and our little group decided to split up and do the various activities that took our fancy that afternoon.  Grace and Cath went for a wonder with a guide book to better explore the lost city.  Greg and Jenny went to have a well earned massage and hot shower, it was their honeymoon after all.  Whilst myself and the newly recovered Ben (who had done the Inca trail with a stomach bug because he is hard enough to) decided to tackle one final monumental, mental, accent.  This time we took on Machu Picchu mountain itself.  The "Old Mountain" was not going to give up it's views without a fight.  An hour and half of solid steep stairs with drops that made everything we had done look like a puppy in a tutu, was going to finish off what had already the been the hardest weeks trekking I had ever undertaken.  But like they say, no pain, no gain, and we really deserved the summit when we hit it.  Not only was the city of Machu Picchu an epic site from up here, but every direction in which we looked was a valley, a deep one, with a mountain the other side just smaller than us, but still a big one!

We all met up again for a beer (and several Sangria's in some cases)  and Mexican food with live street music, before we had to catch a train and mini bus back to our hostels in Cusco.

The trip was amazing, the best bit our travels so far and I can't suggest that you all get out here and do it enough.  It's really tough and at times it hurts but to see the thing I saw and meet the people I did was a truly life changing experience, one I will hold onto until my final days on this earth.  So if you want to have memories of this wonderful world in which we live, get off your backsides and start seeing it: it's beautiful. Xxx