The Inka Trail: Wonderfull...

Publié le 24 mars 2007 par Matt

The Marvelous Inca Trail...
Cet article est en francais ici.

Since I booked my flight ticket to south America, which is to say since a long time ago, I had in my mind the Inka Trail, a four days hike walking on the steps of the Incas and finishing it in Machu Pichu. Well today I can say it : "Done!"
Even though we had doubts about the price of this trek ($US 190), and the fact that this trek is kind of "the Highway" of treks in South America with heaps of people walking with you (The limit is 500 persons per day on the trail including trekkers, guides and porters), JB and I decided to go for it last week and today we are pretty happy about this decision. Really thrilled actually!
We left Sunday at 6am from Cuzco, got in a bus where we met our guide (Nico a nice and short guy) and 13 co-trekkers whit wh we were about to spend 4 days in heaven...Or in hell! With a very internationnal group (English, Canadians, Argentinians, Americans, Irish, German, Frenchs...) it was a pretty good start!
We are driven to the starting point of the Trek, "km 82" which happens to be the km 82 on the train line between Cuzco and the bottom of the Machu Pichu. Quiet a sensefull name! The firt day is a small walk, about 4h with a few ruins on the way, and finnally we arrive to Wayllabamba our camp site where tents are already set up, a tea is waiting or us, etc... The Inka Trail is not an especially hard trek regarding the camping part since the porters are more or less doing everything for you. It{s very nice but in my opinion, a bit too much since those guys are underpayed, have to carry at least 2 kg all day long and arrive to the camp sites before us in order to prepare everything for us... Their condition is hard and rather problematic here but I'll talk about it later.

The Inka Trail

The next day is supposed to be THE big day of the Trail with the climb of the Warmiwañusca Pass (Dead Woman Pass) which is at 4200m of altitude. We thus have to walk up 1200m in 4h-4h30 as our guide warns us. After 2h30 climbing, JB and I are reaching the top. We kinda busted the guide's 4h30! And even though the condition were pretty hard (Rain, fog, clouds, etc.), the Coca leafs helped us and it's only at the very end that we could feel the oxygen lacking... But I'm not talking about Wesley, an Irish friend who reached the top 25 mn before us... He is a machine this guy, especially considering that some of our group did use the 4h30 to do the climb, and they were not unfit at all...
Going down after that was rather painfull because the Inka Stairs have huge and steep steps... But we eventually made it to our second camp site where it rained all afternoon and night. I thus woke up a 3.30 am with my matress and my sleeping bag soaked... Thanks to the holes in the tent, I didn't sleep much that night!

Top, left to right: Felix, Matthew, Lawrence, Wesley, Lauren
Bottom: Cecilia, Kate, Rachel, Lawrence, Matt, Emily, Monica, JB, Martine, Michel

JB climbing up to Warmiwañusca Pass

After this short and wet night, we left the camp site at 6am to go for another great day of hiking. We pased some nice ruins on the way, at some point, reached the part of the mountain where the wonderfull Alpine landscapes where replaced by luxurious rain forest... It was a real shock to find those palm treas and bamboos at 3000m of altitude, but the Inkas had an explenations for that. Since they were a rather amazing culture, they decided to bring the type of soil the had in the jungle to the high mountains of he Andes in order to grow more crops there... They are surely an amazing culture, but oh my god they are crazy!!!
Last camp site is reach around 1pm on this 3rd day, and then we're not any more in the wild Andes... Beers, showers, cigaretts can be found at the camp site. We're back on the "Tourist Trail"!
The good point of this last site is that it's 500m from the Winay Wayna ruin which is also the most amazing of all the one we saw on the trail. Situated on a very steep moutain, it countains at least 200m of terrasses, buildings with 1 or 2 floors, and all this surrounded by wild forest and 100m cliffs... Those Inkas were really awesome builders, and I'm saying that even before seeing Machu Pichu!!!

Puyupatamarca Ruins

Tropical Forest 3000m high...

For the last day, we got up even earlier than before... 4pm, everybody is having breakfast in order to be as soon as possible at the gate of the trail. from there, we wait for the guards to open it and then we all rush to what we've all been walking for... MACHU PICHU !
Before reaching the site, there is on the trail the Sun Gate (Intipunkt) where there is supposed to be an awesome view of the Sunrise on MMachu Pichu. Of course, we enjoyed clouds and rain there, and it was the same when we got to Machu Pichu itself... At 7am, it was all under a heavy Londonian Fog...

It seemed like this day was not starting very well! But after an hour or so, the clouds left and we could enjoy a wonderfull sunny morning in Machu Pichu. We enjoyed walking around those awesome buildings, made with the best stones the Inkas could find and polish, built in such a way that its shape is the one of a Condor or of a Puma depending on where from you look at it (Puma and Condor were sacred animals for Inkas). We really enjoyed this amazing place which is definitively a highlight in our Aouth American trip. Machu Pichu is really an awesome place, full of history, of mystical stories, of mysteries... There are still a lot of controversy about what it really was (a city whree important Inkas hid when Spaniards arrived to Cuzco, a religious place which was already abbandonned when they arrived...) It was only discovered in 1911 by an american guy, and since then it became one of the major touristic site of the planet. So much that around 1pm, we had to leave the place because we couldn't handle any more the amount of tourist which had arrived from Cuzco in train... We walked down to Aguas Calientes, the small city nearby where we enjoyed the hot springs during around an hour. It felt so good to relax and strech after 4 days of hiking!!!

Oupss, we took the same T-Shirt...

Machu Pichu from Wayna Pichu mountain.

After those nice time in the hot water of Aguas Calientes, we took the train back to Cuzco where we had a nice dinner in a restaurant with our friends from the hiking group. The English were outnumbering the French so we went for a Curry instead of a fondue...

The Inka Trail is a Fabulous experience and despite the fact that it is pricy and touristy, I really enjoyed it and would advice everyone who is around Peru to go for it... And if I'm around I could do it again!!!

To finish this article, I wto give you some of the best photos we took during these 4 days... It was such a great Trek that I have top share as much as I can with you!!! (Other pictures are also quiet stunning, and you can find them on the Photo Album of our trip, here)
See You All Very Soon I Hope !!