I'm in love with Peru- Part 2: Hiking the Inca Trail

Wednesday was the start of our hike! We started out in Ollantaytambo, the small town at the beginning of the trail, where we got chocolate-banana pancakes for breakfast before heading out. The beginning of the actual hike wasn’t too bad, and our whole group went at a fairly reasonable pace. Our backpacks were HUGE, considering we were carrying four days worth of clothing/food/sleeping gear/toiletries/etc, but it the weight wasn’t as bad as expected. We had three adorable tour guides: Jair, 28 years old who speaks English, Spanish, and Quechua with about equal fluency and was such a sweetheart for the entire trip, telling us jokes and actually making the history of the Incas fascinating; Roger, who was also probably late 20s and equally adorable, but quieter. He would randomly interject with HILARIOUS comments on everything, and hit on Lis in a cute-but-weird kind of way. Also, he likes “tunchi-tunchi” music- what he calls electronica because of the way it sounds. The last tour guide was Julio, who was a little older and more intimidating, but also really nice. His English wasn’t as good as the other two so I suspect he was just shy.
During the hike, we stopped a bunch of times to look at various ruins and plants, and at one point Jair offered to let us eat part of a cactus which the locals do fairly frequently. Robin and I split one (the fruits are called “tunas”) and it was actually really good, surprisingly enough. We stopped for lunch at a little overhang, and watched openmouthed as the porters (the men hired by the company to carry the food, tents, chairs, tables, first aid supplies, etc- they’re amazing. Their bags are almost as big as they are, weigh fifty pounds each, and they were running up the mountain while we huffed and puffed every ten feet) whipped an entire campground together out of their packs. We all ate lunch together in the lunch tent, and were shocked by how good the food was. Every meal on the trail started with “happy hour”, which was coca tea and popcorn, and sometimes crackers while the cooks got the food ready, then some kind of soup, followed by a main dish of usually pasta or chicken or rice with vegetables, followed by this weird hot jelly for dessert, followed by more tea/coffee/hot chocolate. Jair kept encouraging us to eat everything to replace the calories we lost. I obviously didn’t have a problem with that, but some of the members of the group who are more restrictive with their diets looked horrified at the amounts of food we were served. We spent the entire rest of the day hiking, and got to camp tired but feeling pretty good about our accomplishment. After dinner, everyone sat around and chatted for a bit but basically went to bed right away. Anne and I shared a tent the first night and stayed up talking for a while before eventually falling asleep.

Day two of the hike, I woke up already feeling dizzy from the altitude, which affected me more than anyone else for some reason. After breakfast, we set out early and the group split up depending on how fast they could travel. Joe went up front with two other girls from the US and a guy from England, who were all experienced hikers and were miles ahead of the rest of the group for most of the hike. The middle was comprised of the girls, three kids from Miami, an adorable 49 year old southern man named Michael, and a few others, while I followed in the back with two Uruguayan women, who didn’t seem to have trouble with the altitude but just liked walking really slow. I was really struggling for most of the day (as in, took ten steps, couldn’t breathe, would have to sit down for a minute to catch my breath- repeated endlessly during the nine hour hike) but I made it up to the top of Dead Woman’s Pass, which was the most challenging part of the hike. This was thanks in large part to Julio, who walked excruciatingly slowly the entire day so I wouldn’t be left behind. By the time I got to the top, (15,000 feet, thank you very much) I was super dizzy, had tunnel vision, and couldn’t breathe at all, but Jair gave me some pink liquid and made me breathe the fumes, which helped a lot. I was ready to go again when the group set off for the last two hours of downhill hiking to camp. When we got there, we learned that showers were available, but the water was freezing. They recommended that we skip them, since going to bed with wet hair would be a cold, miserable experience at that altitude because the temperature drops so low at night. Joe and Anne went for it, but the rest of us decided against it. That night, I had to wear a t-shirt, sweatshirt and sweatpants, a NorthFace, wool hat and gloves, and two pairs of socks to be able to go to sleep. Lis, Anne, and I shared a tent that night, so at least it was a little warmer.

On day 3, we spent the morning hiking through the most beautiful part of the trail- really jungly and green as opposed to the dry yellow mountainside we had seen thus far. We saw a few more Inca ruins, which were really cool, and Jair explained the different functions of different rooms and temples to the entire group. We had lunch at a camp in a little valley, and a half-hour break, which was amazing. Jair came around and rubbed Ibuprofen lotion into our knees, since the upcoming part of the hike was the most physically demanding (as opposed to Dead Woman’s Pass, which was only that tough because of the altitude.) Our next stop after lunch was this field perched on the edge of a cliff, which was absolutely gorgeous and had a natural spring that was actually safe to drink from for a change. The entire group lazed around in the grass and the sun for about an hour, and we were taking our group picture when the Uruguayan women finally showed up. One of them got really angry that we had started without her (mind you, this is after we waited for over an hour before Jair decided we had to leave or we wouldn’t make it to camp before dark.) She then refused to join in the picture and stood in front of the whole group and refused to sit down, so everyone’s group pictures were ruined. After that fiasco, we started off down the steepest downhill I’ve ever seen in my life. The stairs were incredibly hard on the knees, as Jair promised. Although I was feeling a million times better since the altitude was lower, Robin was having some trouble with the downhill sections, so we sent the girls on ahead and I hung back with her. It took us several more hours to get to camp (we were the last ones, and thought for a while that we had gotten lost) and then we just collapsed because our bodies were in so much pain. For anyone that ever hears that hiking up is more difficult than hiking down: it’s a lie. The breathing is more difficult and that’s it.
Since that night was our last night on the trail, we went to a little restaurant near the trail for our last happy hour and dinner. We all tried the local Cusquena beer, which was pretty good, and then our chefs used the restaurant kitchens to prepare us our last real meal. They brought out a homemade birthday cake for one of the English boys, and made a fantastic dinner that blew us all away- six or seven different main dishes, etc. After dinner, we all got in a big circle and introduced ourselves formally to the porters, and vice versa. There was one adorable porter in his sixties who has been hiking the trail twice a week since he was 17- crazy. We all got some group pictures and then headed to bed.

Day 4, we all got up at 345 in the morning and had a superearly breakfast, and set off hiking while it was still dark in order to get to Machu Picchu before sunrise. It was a really pleasant hike for most of the time, except for poor Robin and Anne, who were both really sick. The very last part before we got to the Sun Gate was literally a sheer vertical climb that involved using hands, feet, knees, and elbows to get to the top. At the Sun Gate, which is an old Incan ruin that overlooks Machu Picchu, we waited for about half an hour for the clouds to clear so we could see Machu Picchu from above. (PS- yes, I mean clouds, not fog. Even after descending for two days we were still well above the clouds.) They didn't clear, though, so Jair brought us the rest of the way to Machu Picchu and secured our entrance tickets. They only offer 500 admissions a day to Machu Picchu, so it's really competitive to get in (hence the arriving before sunrise.) The sun was just hitting Machu Picchu as we got there, and it was absolutely amazing. It's one of those places where pictures don't do it justice AT ALL- and the part you see in the pictures is maybe a quarter of what's actually there. We did a two hour tour, but could have stayed there all day because there was so much to see. After that, Anne, Robin and I hopped on a bus to Aguas Calientes, the closest town, to meet up with our group again for a final goodbye lunch. Lis and Joe showed up shortly after with a few other people as well. We all had lunch together and watched Chris eat cuy- a Peruvian delicacy which is actually guinea pig. I was tempted to try it until I saw that it comes to the table still looking like a guinea pig, and you have to eat it with your hands. After watching the process I wasn't so interested in the idea.
After lunch, Jair brought us all to the train station, where we took a train to Ollantaytambo, the town at the beginning of the trail, where we caught our bus home. After an extended fiasco in which the bus company had never heard of our hostel and refused to drop us off there (it was about ten blocks from the main plaza, where their office is) we made it back and showered for the first time in four days. In all of the pictures from the trail, we're wearing hats partially because of the sun, and partially to cover our gross hair. It was nice to be able to walk around with a bare head again. Robin fell asleep immediately, but the rest of us went out to grab dinner at a little restaurant before coming back and going to sleep. Sleeping in a real bed that night was AMAZING.