Look what I done got myself into this time…

So the next day we got ourselves up at something like 4am…as my alarm went off I could still hear some of the clubs in town pumping.  We got our things together and waiting out ont he cold dark street for our transport to pick us up.  Finally it came. We got on, picked up our porters on the way out of town and headed off toward the trail.  Of course, I slept most of the way there.  We stopped in the local town before the trailhead and had some breakfast (where we were the last ones to be served…please, please just bring us some coffee).  We bought some walking sticks from the locals and jumped back on the bus.  Finally we made it to the trailhead, where we took our obligatory group picture in front of the “Inca Trail starts here” sign, waited in line to get our identities checked and passports stamped, and then we were off…walking the Inca Trail.

The trail started up, ever so slightly and I could feel the extra weight from my backpack in my legs.  I decided to carry my own stuff (there was the option of having a porter carry our things for a little extra money).  While the majority of my things were left behind in the hotel, the sleeping bag (which was rented) was bulky and weighty…it wasn’t too bad, though, and I was determined to carry my stuff the whole way.  I don’t carry that backpack for nothing, anyway.

We walked a long way until we finally got to our lunch spot, stopping periodically along the way to eat a snack (which was provided every day), and to look at some Inca ruins.  The porters, carrying about 50-60 pounds each, ran past us on the trail, while we made sure to pull over on the side of the trail to allow them to pass.  We were all thoroughly impressed with their pure strength and stamina; there were 13 tourists in our group and 22 porters – amazing.  When we got to our lunch spot, a huge tent was set up with tables and chairs (which are carried along the whole way), and porters greated us with refreshments.  We plopped down on the grass and saw huge black clouds overhead.

Just as lunch was served, it started raining, and then hailing, pretty intensely, which we all agreed should provide for an interesting afternoon walk.  The lunch was good enough to take our minds off what awaited us…an avocado salad to start with fish, rice, and, well, there must have been other stuff, too, but I can’t remember.  With some great luck, the weather let up as we finished our lunch and the remainder of the afternoon was clear skies.

We walked for a few more hours, the last part entirely up, until we reached our camp for the night, which was already set up for us by the porters (in the time we were walking, the porters packed up our lunch camp, ran ahead of us, and set up our night camp…they were simply amazing).  We did an introduction with the porters before dinner.  Everyone gave their name, age, where they’re from, and marital status; our porters ranged in age from maybe 18 to about 45.  I took this opportunity to tell everyone that it was my and April’s birthday during the trip, which was fun for me, although April was maybe not as amused.  But hey!  That’s the reason we were there!  And anyway, they should all be prepared for the onslaught of Happy Birthday! wishes that were about to come…

After dinner, we pretty much went to bed, making sure to slather on a good layer of Tiger Balm on our legs.  We were tired from the day, but the next day would be the worst one of the hike.  We got a peek at our first destination for the next day – Dead Woman’s Pass (named so due to a woman’s profile in the mountains…her head and a breast; the goal was to get just to the left of her nipple, according to our guide).  This would be the hardest and highest point of our trek, at 4070 meters (13350 feet).  We read the summary of what to expect for the day ahead of us…it started out talking about beautiful, lush scenery then, as I turned the page, taking a natural pause in my reading, it warned of scorching sun and fierce winds, which immediately took us out of our little fantasy into the reality of the elements.  We laughed, re-read the beautiful, lush scenery part again, and went to bed…

The next morning we got a tent-service wake up call at 5:30am, with fresh coffee served to our door.  We got our stuff together, ate a hearty breakfast, and were off before 7am.  The whole day was up, and the walk was beautiful.  At one point I remember walking by a beautiful waterfall area with llamas passing us, and April excitedly commented that this was the best day of her life – something that she would later take back…

As we kept climbing up, the air was getting thinner of course, and breathing became more rapid and deep, and less satisfying.  The last hour or so was pretty hellish; the weight of my backpack was getting heavier and my breathing harder.  My stomach was extended so far out every breath I took, and I had moments where I felt mildly ill (but I never did throw up).  I was chewing coca, and the guide said that the catalyst I had can sometimes make the stomach ill as well, so maybe that was it.  Finally, we made it.

At the top, the winds were pretty strong, and clouds had just come in covering the sun, so it was pretty chilly.  We took our photos and headed on – the trail continued very steeply down, with irregular stone steps.  Eventually, my left knee started to get bad, bringing back memories of the hiking in Honduras.  Shelley’s was bad too, and neither of us ever had had any major problems with the knees.  The good thing was that breathing was much easier going down.

In the valley, lunch was ready for us when we arrived; they served so much food, and I was hardly hungry after what my body had been through that morning, but I knew I had to eat to give me fuel for the afternoon.  We had already completed the normal second day’s hike; however, because of a mudslide near Macchu Pichu, making the final stretch impassable, we were going to complete the entire hike (taking a diverted route to the nearby town) in three days instead of four.  Because of this, we still had a good amount of hiking left to do that day; continuing up again to a slightly lower mountain pass, and a little beyond to the campsite.

We were so exhausted; I could hardly believe we were gong to start climbing again, but we were off again after lunch.  We stopped about halfway up to talk about some ruins along the trail, but I was so exhausted I didn’t even care what our guide was saying.  As we continued up, there were vicious lies spread that the steps stopped and the climb got mellower.  This never happened.  I did, though, feel like a get a major wind of energy in the final stretch up to the pass.  Arriving at the top felt like the bigger accomplishment of the day – we knew there would be no more ‘up’ that day (although we did now have to go down, which had its own downfalls, given my bad knee).

The last stretch was not as bad; we were in a cloud forest, which made for some pretty cool views.  We stopped at some more ruins just before our camp for the night; we couldn’t have been happier to be finished with that day.  During dinner, talking with the guides, we got a rundown of the next day (our last hiking).  It was pretty much all down; we would be walking mostly original Inca Trail (the majority of what we had been walking since then was not original).  There were a lot of original Inca steps along the way; the guides called it the Gringo Killer, due to the large amount of gringos (maybe mostly female gringas) that would be in tears by the end of the day, due to all the steps.  I was not excited to hear that – it would be my birthday, and the last thing I wanted was to be walking the Gringo Killer on my birthday!  With that news, we left the dinner table, slathered on the Tiger Balm and went to bed.

We once again got a tent-service wake up call at 5:30 am with coffee served to our tent door.  Happy Birthday!  April and Shelley shouted out first thing in the morning; I got other birthday wishes from nearby tents.  We opened up the tent door, and the mountains and the clouds were beautiful in the morning sun; such a beautiful place to wake up on my birthday.

After breakfast, we started off.  The walk was beautiful all day; we started out walking along a mountain ridge to the third mountain pass (which was not much higher than where we started).  From there it was down, down, down.  I had little problem, though; since this was original Inca trail, the steps were smaller and more even – much easier on the knees (the Incas were obviously better engineers than those who made the other parts of the trail).  We stopped at a few Inca ruins along the way until we got to our lunch spot, where there was a place to buy a good birthday beer.

I had been elected to collect and distribute money (tips) to our porters.  This would be the last time we would see most of them, since they would be heading back to Cuzco when we arrived back in town.  I took care of this during lunch.  Just as I was collecting the money, the porters all came out with a “Happy Birthday Tania and April” cake, and everyone sang happy birthday to us.  It was great!  The best part was the mystery of how they made a cake for us out in the middle of nowhere!

I finished collecting the money for tips and was honored to say something on our group’s behalf and distribute the money.  The porters all lined up and filed through as I gave them their tips.  Then they all filed back through again with huge grins on their faces and thanked us all.  I took that to mean that they were really happy with their tips; each porter received 30 soles (about $10), and the cook received double, for cooking such great food.

We had walked as far as we could on the Inca trail, so we headed along another trail (and the railroad tracks) into the little town (called Aguas Calientes, or Macchupichu Town).  We had a beer as our hotels were sorted out, and headed to take our much needed showers (there’s no showers on the trail).  Much to our disappointment, the water was cold (although, it did get hot during the 2nd half of my shower…a great birthday present).  We had a few beers and headed for dinner (which was held at a restaurant, but a few of the porters had stayed behind to cook for us).  After dinner, two of the people in our group brought out a cake for April with big 3-0 candles on it, and they played a “Happy Birthday” on repeat over the sound system; later, they brought us out a parrot made from a cucumber, chili peppers for the beak and plume, and bamboo feet.  We bought beers for the porters to thank them for all their amazing work, and asked them tons of questions (like how the trail was the first time they did it — really, really hard).  Tired from the day, and with a 4:20 wake up call the next morning, we went to bed around 11 – the earliest I’ve been to bed on my birthday for well over a decade.

We got our wake up call (Happy Birthday April!), had breakfast, and were on the first bus up to Macchu Pichu, which left at 5:30am.  We waited in a very short line to get in and we were there – Macchu Pichu.  It was beautiful; bigger than I had imagined (or than the classic photo lets on).  Our guide took us around to the most important places, telling us about the site, and then we were left to walk around.  By 9:30 we were having a beer in the little cafeteria, paying US prices.  We walked around a bit more, taking a rest in a little storage hut to listen to some music on April’s IPod, and headed back into town to eat lunch and met up with our group.  Just as I was showing my pictures with the Parrot, one of the Kiwi (New Zealand) guys from our trip showed us his, putting mine to shame.  He had taken shots at 1-second intervals, making for a perfect flipbook type movie on the camera.  He started out waving the New Zealand flag, then the All Blacks flag (NZ rugby), then stripping, dancing and doing naked cartwheels and spread-eagle handstands.  A Macchu Pichu classic.

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