(It's nearly impossible to find a wifi connection in Bolivia - sorry for the lack of updates! They are written, just not posted! Pics to come later)
The only thing that got me out from under the cozy alpaca blankets at 4:45am on June 29th was my bubbling excitement that the day for the Inca Trail had finally come. It was so cold I could see my breath and so dark it hardly seemed rational to be awake. A van picked us up at our hostel and we drove to Llactapata with a quick stop in Ollytatambo for breakfast. We passed through the checkpoint at km 82 and crossed the bridge associated with the momentous start to the Inca Trail. Yahoo! I knew this trek was going to be unforgettable, I just didn't know how.
The first day was fairly easy. We only hiked about 7.5 miles with some small spurts of strenuous ups and downs. We took in glorious views of the sacred valley and Mount Victoria. What amazed me the most was how much traffic was on the trail. Being so close to the border of the national park, we passed many local villagers walking with their donkeys, horses, and/or children (some even on bikes!). There were about 200 trekkers on the trail who were part of groups that all seemed to start around the same time. It was hard to share the trail with so many people for the simple reason that it was hard to find a moment to relieve a full bladder. Nevertheless, Marcia and I, being the opportunists that we are, dropped trough when we finally got a stretch of trail to ourselves. We have mastered the fine art of speed peeing... sPEEd!
We camped at Wayllabamba on our first night. Boy the valley gets chilly when the sun falls behind the mountains! We had such a blast getting to know the other 10 folks on our trek and our 2 guides, Juan and Darwin. It ended up being a rather early night because we all needed to rest up for Day 2, known for being the most challenging day on the Inca Trail.
I could help but think of Dr. Seuss's
Great Day for Up as we tackled Day 2. And that is was. With high spirits, and lighter packs (Marcia and I hired a porter to carry one of our backpacking bags for the day) we braved each and every stair leading up to Dead Woman's Pass at 4200m. The trail wandered through subapline tropical forest, which was probably my favorite ecosystem the trail passed through. The moss covered trees and babbling streams reminded me so much of the Pacific Northwest, complete with exotic jungle plants and several humming birds. Marcia pointed out a beautiful white flower off of the trail, of which I had to break the unfortunate news to her that it actually wasn't a flower, but a wad of toilet paper. Seeing that 500 people are on this trail at any given point in time, it's no surprise that there is a fair amount of litter on the trail. These white 'flowers' became a common sighting on the trail, so we decided to name them 2-ply lilies (papyrus tolietirus). Oh man we had some good chuckles throughout the trek about that.
We had lunch on the trail at Llulluchapamba, just passed the halfway point of our ascent. We had to buy water from some locals there (pretty common along the whole trail) because the water in the stream is supposedly not safe to drink even if we sterilized it. We paid 14 soles (~$5) for a 2.5 liter bottle, which was absolutely outrageous for Peruvian standards. It would probably be the equivalent of buying a $20 bottle of water in the states. Marcia and I filled up our water bottles, and chuckled that we lost a sole for each tiny bit that spilled out. 3 local women laughed at us, but I couldn't tell if it was because we were laughing at the difficulty we had filling up out water bottles or that we gave in to such a ridiculously priced bottle of water. Cultural disconnect.
This was a common occurrence on the trail, actually. Each trekking company had about 20 porters to carry the kitchen gear, food, and tents. While we shared many daily interactions with them when they passed us on the trail, we never really connected with them. They never ate with us, they slept in tents away from those of our group, and even took breaks together at different parts of the trail. They had these giant packs with a legal weight limit of 40kg yet still flew passed us on the trail. Many just wore some beat up sandals and worn sweatpants. What a ridiculous contrast to the tourists huffing and puffing along the trail with fancy gear, dri-fit clothing, trekking poles, and sturdy trekking boots! I watched as 2 porters raced each other up the last few hundred meters of Dead Woman's Pass with their giant packs - what an athletic feat!
It most definitely took Marcia and I way longer to get there, but we made it. I split ways with Marcia for the last chunk of the ascent because I wanted my own physical challenge and to take in the spiritual significance of summiting the pass. My heart was racing, my breath heavy, my legs felt like lead weights, and I just kept trucking up the stairs. This was my celebration of my health and how grateful I was that I made such a speedy recovery from last month's shenanigans. This was for my youth and love of adventure. This was for the friends and family who got me back to Peru and made my footsteps feel lighter. I was in such a great headspace and it felt so great to just work my body passed exhaustion. For the last 20 steps of the ascent I was overcome with a huge wave of adrenaline and sprinted to the pass - heavy pack and all. I looked over the mountains panting and sweating, basking in the greatest sense of euphoria ever. YES! I realized that I accidentally left Marcia behind without any water because I was carrying much of the weight for the two of us. Oops. I grabbed her water bottle, left my pack at the pass, and ran back down to meet up with her. Slowly but surely, there we were together with a celebratory beer at Dead Woman's Pass!
Summiting the pass was only half of our day. We had an insane amount of downhill still to go. Marcia and I took it slow on the downhills because she was still recovering from a broken foot from January and we wanted to have an injury free trek. Watching the sunset over the mountains of the sacred valley was such a surreal experience. In fact, I find it really difficult to explain what these mountains even looked liked. They were bright green, textured, and unlike anything I had ever seen before. They weren't majestic, stunning, ominous, nor mesmerizing. Perhaps captivating and uniquely sculpted seem to describe them best - the pictures can hardly do it justice. Before long, Marcia and I were rolling into our second camp by headlight, exhausted and ecstatic that we finally arrived.
It was almost upsetting how quickly the 4:30am wake up call came upon us on Day 3. We began the morning by hiking passed some really cool Incan ruins, and up to the second pass at 3800m. The trail continued in small ups and downs through some more ruins and more breathtaking forest. But the majority of our day was a lot of downhill - including 3000 stairs. We descended into the jungle and came upon views of the back side of Machu Picchu. Magical! The day was quite long, and it was exhausting to be going downhill all day with a heavy pack. By the third day, we had gotten to know many of the people from other groups also doing the trek which was really fun. We spent most of the day conversing with other travelers, which made the day go by much faster. So much laughter, which still didn't subside after our realization that we would be coming into camp by headlight again.
The last day was all sorts of mayhem. We woke up just after 3am so we could take down camp, eat breakfast, and hike to the checkpoint of the National Park. The checkpoint didn't open until 5:30am, but we had to get there early to wait in line with the rest of the trekkers also wanting to get to the sun gate for the sunrise. Most of our hiking that morning was by headlamp, again, as we also dealt with the speedy impatient hikers trying to pass everyone on a quite narrow trail with a cliff (500m down) to one side. It was a crowded trail simply because everyone went through the checkpoint at the same time, similar to day 1. Coming up to the sungate was a blast - 50 super steep stairs to an impressive ruin overlooking Machu Pichu. Unfortunately the fog prevented us from actually seeing Machu Picchu, which seems to be the common story told by trekkers watching the sunrise at the sungate. We hiked the trail down to Machu Picchu, and began running into people who looked way cleaner and less tired than we were. The fog started lifting and I'll never forget the moment I saw Machu Picchu with my own two eyes for the first time. While seeing it was quite anticlimactic compared to some of the views from the Inca Trail, it really was magical.
We dropped our packs off in storage at the entrance to Machu Picchu and spent a few hours exploring the park. Although quite touristy, I still found the park to be absolutely fascinating with a lot left up to the imagination. I would recommend it to everyone to go there at some point in their lives. It was overwhelming to be back in civilization, especially with such inadequate rest the night before and sore muscles. Marcia and I had a last hoorah lunch with other folks from our trek, explored the town of Aguas Calientes, and relaxed in some hot springs before we hopped on the train back to Cusco.
Overall, I found the trek to be challenging at times, but no where nearly as difficult as the Santa Cruz trek. It was so awesome to do it with Marcia - we had so many great conversations and so much laughter. On more than one occasion we were asked if we packed laughing gas with us. I feel so lucky and privileged to have had the opportunity to trek through the sacred valley to Machu Picchu - an experience I'll definitely never forget.
We returned to Cusco about 11pm at night, and packed up for our 8am bus to Puno. However, in the morning we learned that all the buses were delayed going to Puno because of strikes and blockades along the route. This is pretty typical for South America. We didn't realize how much we needed a down day until we had a day to kill in Cusco...and boy what a great day it was! We had breakfast on a balcony overlooking Plaza de Armas, but got really grossed out when Marcia sipped a cockroach that was swimming in her cappuccino foan. Hey, it's hard work killing one of the buggers - nice work, Marcia We switched cafes and ended up on another balcony overlooking Plaza de Armas with cockroach-free cappuccinos. We used this time as an opportunity to plan out more of our itinerary and logistics, which got us really excited for the upcoming parts of our trip. We then explored some local handicraft and tried on ridiculously priced alpaca wool sweaters in fancy shops. The best part of our day hands down were the hour and half long massages we got for about $25. Our sore muscles from the trek could not have been happier! We went back to our hostel, picked up our fresh clean laundry we had done that day, and took a taxi to the bus terminal. And so here we are now on a night bus to Puno deliriously waiting to begin our adventures with the Peruvian/Bolivian border crossing and Lake Titicaca exploration.
