Peru 2 - Inca Trail

Overview

Perhaps the biggest tourist magnet in Cusco is the nearby Inca citadel of Macchu Picchu. In fact it's probably the most famous tourist attraction in the whole of South America. If you're short of time or just pure lazy, you can get to Macchu Picchu by train. If you really want to feel like you've earned it, you take the so called Inca Trail. The Inca Trail is the ancient Inca Highway that linked the Inca capital Cusco to Macchu Picchu and the jungles beyond. It is a gruelling but spectacular four day hike across the Andes, taking in numerous Incan ruins on the way to what is perhaps the greatest of them all, the amazing Inca citadel of Macchu Picchu. The route follows for the most part the original Inca highway built in the 13th and 14th centuries. It varies in height from 1800m to a maximum of 4200m which is truly breathtaking.

There are many agencies within Cusco offering guided walks with porters. Prices vary considerably. If you're really adventurous, it's quite feasible to do it all yourself without the aid of porters of guides.

STOP PRESS (20/11/99) According to the Daily Telegraph, the Peruvian authorities are from Year 2000 raising park entrance fees and restricting access to all but a minority of some 20 established trekking firms. You can no longer go it alone (legally)!!!

The Run Up
We spent the day before the walk mooching around Cusco, browsing the many indigenous markets buying in supplies of chocolate, and looking for warm clothes. I bought a ridiculous woollen 'beanie' hat that you'd never be seen dead in outside the Andes. On the day before the walk, the experts advise you to not drink too much, get your bag packed in advance, relax, and get an early night. However we went out on a massive drinking session with a Bristol babes (pictured).
Bristol Babes, Flea, Corinne, Alison and Charlie	After a pleasant dinner, we soon got down to the serious business of drinking games, truth games and general self destruction. Katie and I eventually got home at 2.30 am completely blasted, to a messy room not having even packed our stuff and we were due to be leaving in two hours. Katie refused to co-operate, and just climbed into her empty rucksack naked, slurring I'm packed - y you carry me up! We fell into an awkward slumber ... but not for long. Within just a few hours we'd be gasping for breath and sweating into the dust of the Inca Trail itself.

Day 1 - Feeling Gross
We got up at 5am, feeling unbelievably gross. Worse, there was no water, not even cold water in the hotel at this time, so we couldn't even revive ourselves in the shower. We joined a bunch of other bleary eyed gringos on the old bus that was to take us up to the trail head ad so km77 on the railway. The guide was short shifty young man called Ivan who didn't have very many front teeth. The bus pulled into the main Plaza, where we were joined by our porters, a motley faintly pungent crew of Inca-descended hill folk. It was obvious and somewhat worrying that Ivan hadn't ever met most of them before. The other tourists on the bus were very taciturn at this time of the morning. We would however get to know them all well over the following week. It was 10am by the time we eventually reached the trail head, at the end of a dusty track besides the Andean river, the Urubamba.
Local urchins were waiting for us begging for sweets, a behaviour that was to become familiar on the early part of the trail. It took only a short while to get our gear together, and we watched the porters assembling colossal packs. Our main pack was bundled with three others, a couple of tents, some blankets and some kitchen utensils into one giant load which was humped by one porter. It was humbling to watch. The first two hours of the trail follow the line of the river, through relatively fertile farmland. The group soon spread out. There was a couple of French families who were obviously used to Alpine walking. They powered off like mountain goats, where we languished near the back with a small group of Chileans. After about an hour, we crossed the river on a suspensi on footbridge, and began climbing a little on the opposite side of the valley. A head of us the mountains rose in a steep V on either side of the valley. We stopped for lunch at a small adobe farmhouse. Pigs dogs and chickens shared living space with hordes of children. The ice wasn't really broken with many of the group yet, most people were wary. There was barely enough time to digest before we were off again, forging up the side of a gorge. It was steep, but the views from the top were great.		Inca Trail Porters Carry Huge Loads
Below us lay the ruined Inca town of Patallacta, an agricultural centre in its day. It was heavily terraced, and the walls were constructed in the shape of a snake, the Inca symbol of the Mother Earth goddess Patchamama. Patallacta would have been an important town, providing essential supplies of potatoes, corn and maize to the higher altitude military towns further up the trail. We walked for a further three hours up a valley of a tributary to the Urubamba, with the gradient increasing steadily. The valley was populated by remote peasant communities.
It was getting dark by the time we reached the campsite. Porters had practically run ahead. Tents were already set up and the cooking had begun. The campsite was a farmyard, and we weary walkers had to jostle for space with families of pigs and ducks. It was such a relief to stop walking. Makeshift oil lanterns were made from old tin cans using a corn cob as a wick. They were surprisingly effective. We sat around on a wooden bench and got to know our fellow walkers.
There was an eclectic mix of nationalities, French, Dutch, Chilean, Argentinean, Italian and Australian. One Italian couple were on honeymoon - we all laughed at the lack of privacy up here for wedding night nuptials! One of the English lads on the trip, John, turned out to be the son of one of my ex-employers! The Indian family that owned the farm were surprisingly selling a variety of soft drinks and beers. Someone would have had to carry these up here! I really needed a beer though, despite the excesses of the previous evening. One was enough though - it had been a long day, time to crash out. Katie asked where the toilets were, and was directed around the back of the farm buildings - "natural toilets".	Our fellow Inca Trailers

Day 2 - Sorting out the men from the boys
We were woken by the cocks at 5am, who were chasing chickens around the tents. The chickens are very odd-looking in the Andes, scrawny, semifeathered freaks. One ran by with a distinct quiff and half the feathers missing from its wing. We had a breakfast of sweet porridge and tea. Ivan the guide gathered everybody around, opened up a plastic bag of coca leaves and invited us to take plenty. We would need them to cope with the altitude and strain ahead of us today.
We were due to climb the highest point on the trail, the 4200m Warni Wanusca pass, an ascent of over 1200m in thin air. It was a very stiff climb all the way, first through a fertile narrow valley and on into deep woodland. The path zig zagged relentlessly for hours before breaking out into a steep V shaped valley.
It was murderous. I left Katie to her slower pace and marched on with coca leaves wedged against my gums, my lungs aching for oxygen. It got to the point where the only way to go on was to count the steps up to a hundred then rest for a minute before the next hundred. At last the head of the pass appeared. Other groups had already got there and lined a hummock at the top cheering each new walker on as they made the final steps to the top. The vista from the top was fantastic. There were many other even higher peaks far off in the distance, snow capped and sharply defined against the deep blue sky. I joined the French contingent from our group who'd already got here and waited for Katie and the other tail enders to reach us. It was a wait of almost two hours, and by the time Katie arrived I had started to cool off considerably, so we descended over the other side of the pass into a broad grassy valley.		The highest point on the trail
The porters were setting up lunch, which was pretty gross, stewed vegetables with an egg on top. After lunch it was an easy descent to where we were to camp for the night. There were no farms or dwellings in this valley, too high too remote. We set up camp relatively early and chatted to our fellow Brits, Will and John, both students. We had Inca Soup for dinner, a strange concoction of black potatoes and beef. At least I think it was beef. I tried to teach the Argentineans some card games and it almost ended in a fight. Will usefully produced a bottle of rum and we helped him finish it before bed. It was much colder at this altitude requiring full clothing plus three-season sleeping bag. The tent was heavily iced up when we woke in the morning.

Day 3 - Hidden Inca Treasures
The ground was hard and frosty, and the sun had not yet risen above the dark parapet of far off mountains. It was an extraordinarily beautiful dawn. None of my fellow walkers was up, but Ivan was bossing porters into getting stoves lit, bullying them out of their slumber. He greeted me and demanded a cup of tea from a wary porter.
Inca Fortress - Guards the Trail	At the top of the pass the views were once more, quite splendid. Katie and I lingered almost an hour wandering around the peak to the side of the pass to get a better view of the valley below, which descended well over a thousand metres to the Urubamba. We spotted a train the size of a matchstick making its way back to Cusco. I could see the trail rising sharply ahead of us up the side of a rocky mountain wall, black and clammy in the pre-dawn shadows. It rose to a pass some 4000m up. Just below the pass are the remains of an Inca fort, a sort of 13th century traffic control. After breakfast, it took us less than hour to reach the fort. Was I getting stronger, more acclimatised? Quite possibly.
After this we descended for several hours, and the climate became more tropical. Ivan pointed out the various flora en route, and explained its medicinal properties as used by the Inca. We were overtaken by two young Indian boys, fully decked out in traditional ponchos, felt hats and carrying a battered old kettle home. They didn't speak Spanish - they don't up here. The main language of the indigenous population is Quechua, though there are many others, a curious almost far eastern sounding speech. Click here to find out what Quechua sounds like.		Indian hill tribe children with Ivan our guide (the short one)
Before long we rounded a corner and came upon the Inca citadel of Saycamarca a ruined settlement perched so precariously on the side of a cliff, it seemed to be part of it. This was almost certainly a military citadel. It was never discovered by the Spanish, a fact that is known since the original alter stone was in tact when it was eventually found by an American archaeological survey earlier this century. The Spanish conquistadors would most certainly have destroyed it.
Saycamarca - Military Citadel	Yet the town was obviously abandoned. It is thought that perhaps the able bodied men went to Cusco to march on the Spanish, destroying the trail behind them to avoid the possibility of their home being discovered, but they never came back. A few hundred metres below the citadel is an impressive Inca farm, now fully restored. We went down to it. It is from here onwards that the Inca Trail itself is in its best preserved state, a well formed path of granite flagstones, some 600 years old. The trail climbs steeply through dense jungle, elevated many feet above the jungle floor on a walled terrace. It clings to the side of the mountain eventually rising above the tree line, you realise what an incredible engineering feet this was. In places they tunnelled through solid rock. The road winds around the mountain like a roadrunner cartoon, and you expect it to disappear into oblivion at any point. Far below, and for miles there is a carpet of dense jungle, flanked by impenetrable mountain walls on the far side. We were in for one final Incan treasure before Macchu Picchu itself. Towards the end of the third day, we came to the citadel of Phuyupatamarca. This place is only a hundred feet or so below the trail, but it was only discovered in 1982! You can believe it too when you get there, it blends so closely into the shape of the mountain, tumbling down the mountainside a series of ramparts and buttresses, and helped by a little undergrowth, would have been pretty undetectable.
We filled our water bottles at the well of eternal life. This was a series of interconnected stone tubs fed from a mountain spring which the Incas believed to have special healing properties. I dropped a puritab into my bottle nonetheless, muttering "more like water of eternal bacterial life." From Phuyupatamarca we descended very steeply through woods. I found it less of a strain on the knees to jog down than walk, and it only took an hour and a half to reach the final camping area at a place called Winay Wayna.
There is a makeshift trekkers lodge here with a welcome supply of cool (if expensive) drinks. Every other hiking group descends on the same place,a and it can get very crowded. There is very little flat ground for tents. Ours was positioned dangerously on a ledge overlooking a heap of rotting rubbish. There is only one 'official' toilet, which very rapidly became unspeakably nasty, so I went natural again. It was an early night, since we had decided to rise before dawn in order to reach our goal, Macchu Picchu to watch the sun rise over it.

Day 4 - Macchu Picchu

We were woken at 3.30 am by porters packing their stuff up ready to go. I crept out bleary eyed to a stand pipe on the other side of the camp to brush my teeth. After a breakfast of pancakes, we set off in the dark, with torches. I walked with one of the Argentinians, who had a similar pace to me. We reached Inti Puncu, the Incan Portal of the Sun overlooking Macchu Picchu after about an hour and a half. It was superb to see it for real, quietly magnificent, neatly terraced in the saddle of two hump shaped mountains. I waited for Katie, and we joined Will and John for the final half hour trek to the edge of the citadel to watch the sunrise in the notch between two distant eastern mountains. It was six in the morning, a magnificent setting, yet strangely anti-climactic. This marked the end of our little adventure after all. We beat the regular (train-based) tourists into the monument and were able to enjoy it in relative peace for an hour or two. Despite our exhaustion, we summoned the energy to ferret around its many precincts, led by a very serious elderly guide. He fussed and fumed at us if so much as whisperd to each other in his hallowed citadel. He almost had a cardiac arrest when he vcame across two French hippies sat cross-legged on one of its crumbling walls smoking a joint, and started shouting for the police. It was not to laugh aloud. Well what is Macchu Picchu anyway - was it all worth it? Macchu Picchu was a rich Incan city, that escaped the ravages of the Spanish invasion, remaining undiscovered until 1911 when an American explorer called Hiram Bingham came upon it. Much of what makes this the place it is today is down to the efforts of this man who spent over four years painstakingly studying the site and cleaning it up.		Inti Puncu, Gateway to Macchu Picchu at Dawn
Macchu Picchu sits in the saddle of two mountains - the perfect natural anti-earthquake barrier.	It is the only place where there is a perfectly in tact Incan Sun Dial at the highest point of the city, a highly significant religious artefact. The citadel is packed with fine buildings, and as ever, the stonework is quite fantastic, with huge blocks perfectly dressed and perfectly interlocking. It is estimated that at its peak over 100,000 people lived here. It's pleasant to try and imagine what it must have been like, probably far more advanced than many of its European conterparts. After our tour, we walked down the steep mountainside to the modern village of Aguas Calientes. This is the railhead, where the train was to take us back to Cusco. We had lunch with Will and John. The train was jam-packed solid, and there was quite a bit of aggro about who had seats reserved or not. We didn't have any seats in the end, and had to stand up for the four hour journey back. Several people were sadly reduced to tears by the trauma of it - but it wasn't that bad really. Back in town, I found it very strange having to deal with crowds of people and busy roads after our four day departure from civilisation. We sought out the Hostal Macchu Picchu and thankfully our tickets for the next day's train journey to Puno were waiting for us. We met up with the Bristol babes again, and went out to the Café Cultural on Procuadores for our first decent meal in days, washed down with a copious amount of cold beer.

You are reading the story of Adrian and Katie's travels through the Americas between May and August 1998.
Adrian and Katie put the rat race on hold for a year to travel the world.

                           

Adrian & Katie's World Tour News - Peru and the Inca Trail                              Last Updated: 1 August 1999
Web Page by Adrian Ball  (email: adrian.ball@virgin.net)