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After booking the Inca Trail more than 5 months ago, the time had finally come to start our four day trek to Machu Picchu - and as you can imagine not even the 5am wake up was enough to dampen our excitment!
After an interesting three hour bus journey we arrived at the checkpoint, bought snacks and walking sticks for the journey and were off - 11 gringos, 2 guides (Victor and Bernardo), 1 cook and 15 porters (who somehow managed to run along the trail in sandals with 30kg of our things on their backs)...
The first day was a fairly gentle 9km introduction to the trail, following the winding Rio Urubamba through the mountains, passing a few smaller Inca ruins on route and eventually arriving at our first campsite at the foot of the next day´s 1200m climb up to Dead Woman´s Pass ready for a hot drink and popcorn, delicious dinner and an early night.
The second day proved somewhat tougher, especially for those members of our group who were not acclimatised to the altitude. Waking up at 6 and setting off at 7, we embarked on a 5 hour climb, up to the top of the Dead Woman´s Pass (which recieved its name beacuse from a distance it looks like a dead woman with boobs and face!). This was the first time we were actually walking on the Inca trails and as we got higher and higher the view became more spectualar until we finally reached the top and were greeted by 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains.
After waiting for the rest of the group to reach the summit it was then time to descend 300m to our second campsite which had quite spectacular views overlooking the Urubamba Valley. Once again we were greeted by erect tents, tea and popcorn and a wonderful dinner.
We were promised that day 3 was the most beautiful walk and we weren´t disappointed as we set off at 7am once again to climb the second pass, at the top of which the views were simply breathtaking, looking across the valley with glacial peaks in the background. Thankfully what goes up must come down and after a fairly gentle decent we reached another very impressive Inca ruin (Sayaqmarka) - a small complex that was used as a stopping post and storage on the journey between Cusco and Machu Picchu.
Sadly after lunch the clouds lowered and the heavens opened as we climbed through the rainforest to the third pass, making walking slightly unpleasant. Thankfully the rain cleared and the clouds lifted as we reached the next beautiful and well restored ruin of Phuyùpatamarka, which, as its translation implies, was a "town above the clouds". From there on in it was a very steep trail down the side of the mountain to our third campsite. Watching the porters run down these steep, uneven and slippy steps was simply incredible. More amazing was hearing the record for doing the whole 45km trail was just over 3 hours!
After a sllightly damp night it was time for a VERY early start (3.40 wakeup) on day 4 to make our way the final few kilometres to Machu Picchu itself. The checkpoint doesn´t open until 5.30 but we were in the queue by about 4.45, playing cards and waiting for our turn to pass the checkpoint onto the path leading to the sun gate and then on to the city itself. The walk was along a very narrow path, mostly through jungle as the sun was rising so we were treated to some beautiful colours over the surrounding mountains and then had a final climb to the Sun Gate which is positioned so that sunrise on the morning of the 21 December shines directly through the gate and on to the city. We thought that, if we were quick enough, we would make it up to the top for sunrise over Machu Picchu. Unfortunately we were wrong and ran up the 4km path in vain but were treated to a beautiful view at the top before the hordes arrived!
After a quick pause to catch our breath and take the obligatory photos we headed down towards the city to take our guided tour around all the ruins. It was just incredible learning about all the techiques the Incas used and the ways they were able to track the progress of the sun and stars throughout the year and determine the calendar. It´s difficult to describe or capture in pictures but some of the highlights for us were: an exact copy of the Southern Cross constellation (perfectly aligned with north, south, east and west); a carving exactly replicating the shape of all the mountains surrounding Machu Picchu; and the Temple of the Condor which a huge carving representing a condor across one wall. It was also amazing to hear about their approach to town planning: from above Cusco is in the shape of a puma (representing power) while Machu Picchu is in the shape of a condor (representing spirituality).
After our tour was over we had the rest of the day to explore before catching the scenic train back to Cusco which followed the river through the mountains. Unfortunately the train line still hasn´t been repaired since the landslides at the beginning of the year and so after about an hour and a half on the (very slow) train we had to transfer into minibuses for the rest of the journey which made for a very eventful final stage of the journey complete with mad driving and overtaking round blind corners in true Peruvian style! Fortunately we made it back to Cusco in one piece very ready to crawl into a real bed for the first time in a four days!
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