This last weekend spent in the Andes Mountains was perfect in every way. Not only did we accomplish our goal, but we met some wonderful people along the way and learned more about the fascinating Incan culture. In total, the trip lasted four days and three nights.
Last Saturday, October 22nd, we headed out early from Cusco to head to the Inca Trail. Our tour company, SAS Travel, picked us up from our hostel around 5:00am and we set off on a bus with our group of 16. With our group were our two tour guides, Javier and Oscar. We had no idea what to expect, but were all excited to reach our destination, Machu Picchu.
The bus ride took approximately three and a half hours stopping for breakfast along the way. We arrived at Kilometer 82, the entrance to the Inca Trail, and registered with our passports and tickets at the first control gate. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were surrounded by the Andes Mountains, the perfect start to the trek!
Kilometer 82
The first day we hiked for approximately 10 hours, mostly uphill, to our first campsite. Being rainy season, we were all thankful for the beautiful weather and were in high spirits. We passed a few communities and said ¨Hola¨ to all the passing locals. The people who live in the Andes Mountains are allowed to use donkeys and horses to transport their goods so we saw many of them on the first day. That being said, you had to be very careful where you walked because the animals used the trail as their private bathroom too!
Javier was our main tour guide - he stopped along the way to teach us about the local plants, ruins, and communities. He was very passionate about ¨Pachamama¨ or ¨Mother Earth¨ and explained to us how the Incan´s lives were focused around Pachamama and was also the main source for their religion. We came across a cactus plant and Javier took some white parasites off of it. After squishing them in his hand, he showed us the dark red color that they produce. Incan´s and current Andean people use these parasites to dye their wool, for lipstick, and for many other purposes as well. He squished a few more and began spreading the dark red across our cheeks, our warrior paint for the first day! It was a bit strange smearing parasite guts across our faces, but at the same time a great experience because where else in the world would we do this?
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| Warrior Paint |
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| Warrior Paint |
We continued on for about an hour to a beautiful Incan ruin site that sat at the base of a mountain and was mainly used for growing crops. There, we were able to take photos before sitting in a semi circle around Javier. Overlooking a huge valley, Javier gave us another Incan lesson about why they chose this location, what the site was used for, etc. It felt as if we were in the most surreal classrom ever in the Andes Mountains. After some hydrating, we got our packs on and started the uphill trek again.
Incan Ruins in the Valley Below
We stopped for lunch before continuing the trek - we had four more hours to go. We continued climbing and the trail began to change from a dry, dusty surrounding to a cloud forest feel. All of a sudden, there were lush plants and trees, rivers, and wildlife everywhere. Towards the end of the day, the thunder and clouds began rolling in and before we knew it, it was pouring rain! Luckily, we were within five minutes of our campsite and were able to get to our tents before becoming completely soaked.
Whenever you arrive at a campsite, you are welcomed by the porters and your tent that has already been set up. We were assigned the tent O2 for the trip which was equipped with a rain fly and all! We quickly got settled in, changed out of our wet clothes and did our best to dry some things off. A porter brought us hot water to wash our faces, which felt great! Soon after, Javier started yelling, ¨Popcorn, cookies, tea!¨ so we quickly put our boots back on and went to the dining tent. Now, we´ve had a lot of popcorn in our lives but for some reason this was the BEST popcorn ever! Warm, salty and a bit buttery too. We all sat around the table eating popcorn and drinking warm tea while the heavy rain continued outside.
Dinner was served at 7:00pm every night and all were delicious! A soup always came out first followed by some type of potatoe or rice, meat stew and many other local Peruvian dishes. We definitely did not go hungry during the trip; the Chef and the Porters did a great job preparing the meals in such difficult conditions.
That night, the rain let off before we went to bed. The next morning, we were woken up at 5:00am by Oscar saying, ¨Good morning, how are you feeling?¨, and were given some hot Coca Tea to help with the altitude. The second day is known to be the most difficult lasting ten hours and hiking two mountain passes - you are either going straight up or straight down the entire day.
Meeting Our Wonderful Porters on the 2nd Day
That morning was fairly foggy and cold as we climbed higher into the mountains. We had all heard about the difficult ¨Dead Woman´s Pass¨ and were anxious to get our first glimpse of it. After arriving at a rest area, Javier pointed up to show us where we were heading. A steep trail led you to the top of the pass before we would descend back into a valley. We loaded up on Snickers, took a deep breath, put our packs on, and started the ascent step by step to the top.
The climb up was difficult but do-able at a steady pace and we eventually made it to the top with an elevation of 13,781 ft. We all gathered for a group picture, before heading directly down the other side into the valley below.
Dead Woman´s Pass
We stopped for lunch at the bottom of the valley - at this spot, most groups usually camp but our guide suggested that we continue on for another four hours or so to make it to a campsite with greater views and to also shorten our trek for the third day. Unfortunately, at this point, our camera lens got jammed so we were unable to take anymore pictures for most of the afternoon. The rest of the day consisted of one more mountain pass, a beautiful mysterious ruin, and some jungle like trekking.
Arriving at our second campsite, I tossed the camera onto our backpacks dissapointed that it had jammed during our Inca Trail trip. To our surprise, that little bump to the camera opened up the lens so we were back in action taking pictures! That evening, we had some more popcorn, a great dinner and a celebratory drink, made with fruit and cinnamon infused tea, for finishing the most difficult day on the Inca Trail. Our guides told some great stories and we all had a fun evening together before heading to bed around 8:00pm.
On the third day, we woke up early again around 5:30am to our Coca Tea and great views of the snow capped mountains in the distance. The third day was only a half day of hiking, which we had all been looking forward to. We had a large breakfast, packed our packs and headed out to start the day.
Morning View from Our Second Campsite
That day we walked through the cloud forest and a few caves. All the hillsides were covered with lush plants, bamboo, and moss. The trail was mostly downhill on the original Inca Trail with extremely steep steps most of the way. At times, we felt that going up would have been easier than going down because it takes a lot more concentration and our legs were exhausted at that point. But, we took it one step at a time and slowly made our way down the mountain. The day was mostly overcast, which felt great while hiking. We passed through two Incan Ruins that day taking some time to explore each one.
Arriving at our campsite around noon, the sun came out and we all were able to change into shorts and sandals. We got situated in our tents before eating another great lunch together. Nearby were some more ruins, which we decided to go check out. The ruins were perched on a hill overlooking a valley and the Urubamba River. We explored for about an hour before heading back to the campsite. Here, we were able to take showers for 5 Soles, which most of us took advantage of! The shower felt great followed by a nice siesta before waking for our final dinner on the Inca Trail. To our surprise, Ronald presented us with a homemade cake that they had been cooking all day. It was so impressive that they were able to make the cake in the mountains. We saved plenty to share with the Porters as well.
Celebration Cake!
That night, we gathered with our 22 Porters and 2 Guides to give thanks to each other and to provide them with their well deserved tips. It was such a special night with speeches given in Spanish and the indigenous language of Quechua.
The Whole Group
It was hard sleeping that night knowing that the next day we would be at Machu Picchu! However, the morning came soon enough at 3:30am. The early wake up was to ensure that we were one of the first groups at the control gates that open at 5:30am. We ate a quick breakfast, put our headlamps on, and started down the trail to the control gates where we waited for a little over one hour.
Ready for Machu Picchu!
After passing through the gates, the sun began to rise and we could see the perfectly blue skies and sun shining! We were so fortunate to have this great weather on the day of Machu Picchu. We climbed for approximately one hour through the Gringo Killer steps and up to the Sun Gate where we got our first glimpse of the breathtaking Machu Picchu.
We took many pictures before continuing the forty minute descent to Machu Picchu. In total, we were at the site for a little over four hours and were thankful to get there early before the swarm of other tourists arriving by buses. Javier gave us a two hour tour of the site which was so interesting - the Incan´s had a purpose for everything that they did, which always revolved around Pachamama. Machu Picchu is more amazing than words can describe so here´s a picture to sum up the day...
Machu Picchu
From Machu Picchu, we took the bus back to Aguas Calientes. After our last lunch together as a group and quite a few beers, we boarded our train back to Ollantaytambo before catching our bus back to Cusco. Those four days were absolutely perfect and we could not have asked for a better group, guides, or experience! Thank you to SAS Travel for making the trip so special for us.
We are now back in Cusco and will be here until tomorrow evening before catching a bus to Bolivia. We will most likely spend a few weeks in Bolivia before heading south to Argentina.
Also, to those who have asked about commenting on the blog, we think that the problem has been fixed and the comments should be working now.
All the best!
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