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Day 1
So I'm 4 days behind on my blog due to the Inca Trail!
After an early start we got a ram packed mini bus for 2 hours up to Ollantaytambo. It had our guide, 7 porters, a chef and 7 of us with all our bags and kit!! There was a dodgy smell in the bus but then I thought I'll smell worse than this by the end!!
We stopped in Ollantaytambo to buy water, ponchos and have a coffee! We then had another 45 min journey to our start point.
We had a little misunderstanding on the weight of our bags as the hotel said they were under 5kg but the porters were saying they were over 5kg - so we ended up carrying a lot more in our hand luggage than expected. (I ended up carrying a plastic bag with 2 litres of water in - which was not fun)!
After passport control (we got a stamp in our passports) we crossed the Urubamba River to begin the Inca Trail!
Today was labelled the 'easy' day with 15km's and 300 meters uphill.
At first the trail was flat and dusty with lots of farming families living along the path and using it lots. If porters wanted to overtake us we would stand to the left for them to pass on our right.
Our guide - Ruben (he has one arm from a car accident and is a legend and a fab guide) showed us the flora and fauna along the path including a fungus that the Peruvians had introduced to a cactus - which the bugs (when squished) provided red that is used to colour materials and make lipstick for us westerners! There were also lots of animals along the way including cows, donkeys, horses, sheep, Lama, pigs and dogs! They were either farming for the locals or just wondering around eating grass!
The first Inca site we saw was Patallacta. We saw it from the hill. Throughout the trail we learnt how the Inca's lived, what they believed and how they made things. It took 3 generations of Inca's to make all of the sites, cities and trails we saw. Every site grew crops which also worked as retaining walls for the mountains they were built upon. Every Inca site also had pipes that brought water down from the mountain streams into the cities do they could have water to drink and wash with before flowing down to the crops. A lot of these water pipes were still working perfectly and fresh water still flows in a lot of the Inca cities. Their houses didn't have glass windows or wooden doors but you could still see holes in the bricks where they would have tied reed doors to when the weather was bad. Also none of the houses had roofs anymore - but they would have been thatched roofs.
After this the path started going up and became a bit harder. We would stop every 30 mins for water and a snack. The path was still surrounded by villages and streams flowing down the mountains.
We stopped for lunch to find the porters had set up a big blue tent which was divided in half with a sheet. We sat one side with a table and they cooked the other side. The tent was usually warm from the cooking. It rained whilst we ate and stopped when we finished! Lol. We soon discovered how amazing our catering would be for the next 4 days! We were always given 3 course meals that usually consisted of soup to start. A main of pasta/rice, vegetables (sometimes in a kind of queesh ) and a meat/fish in sauce followed by Coca tea! But only after we had washed out hands with soap in the bowels outside!
We walked for another few hours to our camp for night 1 - Wayllabamba. It had a beautiful view to the mountains. The Porters had set up our tents, and our was more like a 4 man tent with 2 sleeping mats! Luxury! After another fab 3 course meal we were in bed by 8.30!
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