The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

Hola people. It´s Corry here, i´ve been given the blog duties for the first time on the trip...and what an honour and a privledge it is to tell you about one of the highlights so far - the Inca trail and Machu Picchu.  The last blog stopped the night before the trail started in a small town called Ollyamtamo which is about a 30min bus ride from the start. There were a few hilarious episodes involving broken beds and outrageously loud Peruvian music being played right outside TWild´s and Corry´s room. TWild was not a happy man and started to pour water down a small crack in the floor onto the uncouthly people playing the music (which he has already alluded to in a previous blog). Anyway, all bets aside, everyone on our group were pretty much amping to start the trek and when morning came, we were both running around like little girls getting ready to start. Our bus ride to the start was a memorable one with the backstreet boys, michael jackson and justin bebber blasting away on the sub woofers...just the ticket to get amped up to. TWild espeically liked "as long as you love me" by the backstreet boys....fair play I say.
Anyway, enough of the suspense. We arrived at the start and were tricked out with some sweet-as hiking poles, bandanas, poncos and some good snacks which were meant to last the full 4 day trek. Our guides were two really good Peruvian chaps who pretty much sorted everything out for our group (you have to show your passport, tickets etc) before you actually start the trail... We also had 18 porters who carried all of our stuff to each campsite, each day. Oh and I forgot to mention, we had 2 executives chefs preparing the most incredible food for us. Each and every breakfast, lunch and dinner were pretty much 5 star. Anyway, day 1 of the trek was relatively straight forward. It basically involved some slight inclines and some pretty cool views of surrounding farm land and valleys once your get near to our camp. When we arrived at campsite 1, there were these lovely local ladies selling ice cold beers which was rather thoughtful of them to be honest. Lets just say the cerveza´s were well earned that day...at least we thought they were until the DREADED DAY 2!!!
Day 2 started at around 5.30am with a really nice breakfast prepared by the chefs. We started the hike pretty much straight away which was a 4 hour hike straight uphill from approx 3000meters above sea level to about 4200meters. What an absolute mission. Bex, it´s pretty much twice as steep as Mt KauKau and about 20 times the length. Nightmare material. Anyway, after the first four hours, we reached the 4200meter mark also known as Dead Woman´s Pass. We stopped here for a while to take photos and recover from the epic climb. But I must say, what an incredible view from up there. You are able to look back on where you have just climbed and can see in the distance snow capped mountains with overhanging clouds etc. Amazing. It got pretty nippy up there after a while so we started the steep decend down to the lunch campsite. This is the point where I should really point out that the inca trail is not just an easy dirt track or a nicely paved walking path...it´s basically thousands of massive stones just thrown together to form some kind of path. It´s definitley tough times and not for the faint hearted. (Bex). Had another epic lunch put on by the chefs and continued on climbing and decending again until we reached the second camp site. Inca ruins and remains were scattered everywhere...quite stunning really. I should also really mention the day 2 campsite...we were overlooking massive mountain ranges with snow capped mountains and overhanging clouds...simply superb. TWild came down with something chronic during the evening which involved both ends if you know what I mean. Poor bastard...I genuinley felt sorry for the poor guy...I´m a good mate like that you see...LOL. He wasn´t the only one to fall ill at this stage though, Tim, the Aussie bloke, also got crook and seemed to have it even worse than TWild. Anyway, we were all pretty tired after the day 2 hike so we had an amazing dinner then hit the sack pretty early.
Day 3 started early again but turned out to be a more relaxing hike than the previous day. In the morning we were introduced to all of our porters and we all introduced ourselves to them in Spanish. Good times all round. Great bunch of guys and we all had the greatest of respect for them! Day 3 involved some uphill and downhill sections with some amazing views out over more mountain ranges. We passed through some old Inca tunnels and started to walk on the original inca trail (prior to this, the trail we had been walking on was developed by the Peruvian government). You didn´t really notive any major difference though because the path was still very rough. The aim of day 3 was to get near a power pole which indicated that we were nearly at the day 3 camp site. TWild and me saw the power line after a while but it took another 2 hours to actually get to it. Keep in mind that TWild was feeling crook and after a while, the Incans started to cop some abuse for their poor path building techniques. I found this hilarious as you might probably imagine. Again, we passed through some incedible incan ruins and our guides told us about the history of each site. Our camp site on day 3 was superb...there was a small hotel near our camp so we were able to shower for the first time in a few days. Felt like heaven. We all had an early night to prepare for the final assault on Machu Picchu in the morning...come on!!
Woohoooo so it´s now day 4 and finally after 3 long days of uphill and downhill slog, we have reached the final day of the trek which definitley turned out to be the most rewarding. TWild seemed to feel much better this morning and there were no longer any strange sounds coming from his direction. We woke at 3.30am, had breakfast and at 5.30am we started the 2 hour trek to the Sun Gate and Machu Picchu. A few of us wanted to climb Huayna Picchu (which is the huge mountain you often see at the back of the classic photo of Machu Picchu). As a result, we had to literally run to the lost city in order to get a ticket. It was pretty much mayhem on this final trek...people were walking, running, crawling, crying everywhere. TWild and me reached the Sun Gate after about an hour and WHAT A VIEW....the view which met us was simply outstanding. Its the first view of Machu Picchu and was completely undescribeable. So yeh...I can´t really describe it since it´s undescribable...just beleive me when I say it was an undescribeable view. We were quite lucky as clouds started to form and 10 minutes after we left the Sun Gate, the whole of Machu Picchu was fogged over. We were lucky to get such a good view. We then finally reached the lost city, picked up our Huayna Picchu ticket and chilled out until the rest of the group caught up with us. Machu Picchu is an incredible place. We were taken on a guided tour of the city by our guide and explored most areas of the city. TWild, me and a few others then started the trek up Huayna Picchu which turned out to be the most ridiculous climb ever. It basically involved pulling yourself up sheer vertical cliffs...good times really. I was sweating like some kind of animal and TWild was making outrageous comments about incans again. The views from the top were outstanding... log onto TWild or my facebook pages to see the photos.
After chilling around Machu Picchu for another hour or so, we headed back to Cuczo on a local train and then mini van. Everyone was absolutley buggered by this stage but a few of us went out to celebrate in Cuzso afterwards which I´m sure TWild will fill you in on during the next episode of the blog.
Well that´s all for now folks. The last four days were definitley a highlight of the trip so far. Shout outs go to our guides and porters as well as Jo who hiked the trail with a broken foot. Big ups to you!
Peace.