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Back in December you may remember that we interrupted our RTW jaunt to return to the UK for a wedding and Christmas. This meant we spent New Year's Eve in an English country cottage having a very drunk conversation with our very good friends Rachel and Joel. Some of the best things in life happen because of these drunken conversations and guess who has now joined us for three weeks in Peru to walk the Inca Trail ... Rach and Joel
The trek was absolutely incredible one of the best things we´ve done on the trip by far. The scenery was fantastic and diverse - on day one we were walking along side cactuses and desert type plants and by day three we were deep in the jungle - with Inca ruins along the way and trekking that was hard enough to be challenging but not so hard that it killed us.
Our group was a sturdy collection of Brits, Ozzies and Americans tourists led by Marco our fearless Peruvian leader and guide. Now no one really knows much about Maccu Piccu, what it was for or why it was apparently abandoned, because the Incas rather forgetfully never got around to writing anything down! So Maccu Piccu remains one of the world's great mysteries ... at least to everyone that is except Marco.
As we would trek we´d stop two or three times a day and Marco would tell us about the environment or the history of a nearby ruin. Each time adding an extra layer to Maccu Piccu´s history, explaining to us his version of what happened and why. Marco explained how Maccu Piccu was an important religious site for sun-worship and that only the most important Inca´s knew about it. In other words it was a big secret (claims Marco). It was built because the King´s advisors believed that the empire was under threat from a warrior tribe from far away (the Spanish as we now call them) and MP was built as a safe haven. These ´story time´ breaks were a really highlight of the trek. A trek that Marco maintains the Inca King himself undertook twice a year in pilgrimage. So it turns out that in undertaking our trek we were in fact following in the footsteps of kings!
As well as illuminating our trek with stories about the Incas (his "ancestors" as he called them) Marco would punctuate his stories with modern day observations on South American geopolitics. For example walking over ´dead woman's pass´ (a 4200m high mountain pass and the hardest bit of the walk) was in Marcos opinion ´easier than conquering a lady from Chile´. Genius. Asking Marco what his favourite bit of the trip was was met with the answer ´The amazing views ... of all the tourist ladies in the shorts´. A real character (if slightly pervy). I think the favourite bit of Marcos trip was when Rach started feeling light headed (due to the altitude) and Marco could rub smelling salts on her neck. Joel's face was brilliant.
As well as Marco, us modern day kings were assisted by a team of robust hardworking and dedicated porters who dressed in the bright red uniform of the company and walked in a line. So we would carry only a small backpack whilst our tents, clothing, sleeping bags food and kitchen (!) were carried by our red army. It was a little embarrassing to be overtaken each day by these men carrying your belongings ... and going much faster than us. To make matters worse they would each night clap and applaud us as we arrived at camp. I couldn´t decide if this was patronising or not! As much as we didn´t appreciated the claps, we loved the phenomenal food that each lunchtime and evening our porters would produce for us. Not only did it taste fantastic but it looked great too. It felt a little odd that not only would these men carry our belongings put up our tents and cook us great food but they would also spent time carving aubergines and carrots into intricate little models of llamas and Condors. Honestly talk about being spoilt.
One additional advantage of being joined by Rach and Joel is our game playing potential has been expanded from two player games to four player games. Our latest favourite and a great one for when you are next our hiking is the SongQuestion game. It basically works like this. You walk along and take it in turn to ask each other questions such as "Polly what is your favourite city in the USA" and they have 5 seconds to reply in song e.g. "viva Los Vegas". "Pete where do you work" "At the car wash" So the answer has to be delivered in song. A simple game that kept us amused for hours.
On the morning of the fourth day of our trek we made it to our goal Maccu Piccu. Now the site was amazing and Marco was in his element explaining the importance of different areas (the prayer room, the mummy storage, the bedrooms) but Polly somewhat ruined his final showpiece: Marco very proudly showed us a large rock that had been placed with its four corners pointing North South East and West. This Marco maintained showed that the Incas understood the planets and the earth and were therefore very clever. Polly however wisely pointed out that with this many rocks it would be rather strange if one didn´t point north! Marco brushed over this observation with a gag about Chileans.
Maccu Piccu was great and I´m sure that the 3000 tourists who also visited that day loved it as well. However we 4 all agreed it was the trek that made it for us. The effort we´d put in and the extra things we´d seen I think made us feel a little superior to those who had got a bus.
Next stop Lake Titicaca
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