Day 19

Saturday 20^th November 2010 : Day Three of the Inca Trail

Today was billed as the easier day. Mainly down hill we were told, take in the sights we were told. We were set to cover 16km today and we stuck together as a group as there were lots of Inca sites to be seen.

We congrgated for breakfast.

and then set off..................... up hill.

Me: “Hold on a minute I thought this was supposed to be the down hill day?”

Guide: “it is… mostly”

Me: “what you mean by mostly?”

Guide: “60%”

Me: “great”

What can you do? Your 4000m up in the Andean Mountains! So we followed the pack. I spent the majority of the morning following the person’s boots in front of me, some really nice Salamon shoes they were, lovely. I have no idea what the view was like due to this, it was my trick so that I didn’t notice whether we were going up or down hill.

We stopped first at Runkurakay which is over the second pass standing at just under 4000m.

Locals believe that this was used as a look out point as from here there is only one path to Machu Picchu. Due to this it offers superb views across the valley. Callum – the lad who was being sick during the night- took this opportunity to take a wee nap, as we were told about the Chaskis who were the Inca messengers, they would often cover over 100kms per day.

We left there and headed up….again. we took a break at the third pass for some well earned water and Cadbury’s fruit and nut (essential hiking food)

and then headed down (woo hoo!) towards Sayacmarka which is perched high on a ridge about 3600m, the only access to this is via the steps that were cut into the mountain. (more steps J)

Reuben (guide) pointed out that lunch was directly across the valley and joked that a cable car would be taking us across. Instead of the cable car was a walk down one side of the valley and up the other. We arrived at lunch camp and Suzi’s nemesis had already arrived. (Suzi’s nemesis is a woman from the first day who everybody seemed to take an instant dislike to. Really harsh face, skinny, constantly skipping past like a mountain goat and leggings so tight you she might as well as been naked. She kept trying to get past Suz on very narrow parts of the trail and the fact that she seemed to be taking it all in her stride whilst the rest of us huffed and puffed our way up made it worse. We hated her and she seemed to turn up at every corner…. Kiwi Bitch!). we moved her on and wolfed lunch down so fast I have no idea now what it was!

After lunch was down hill all the way and I soon wished I was going back up. The amount of force put through the knees was crippling, we stumbled and uhh, ow, ouched our way down for the rest of the afternoon. The only thing keeping us going was the hope that Kiwi Bitch might be lay in the track with a broken limb just around the next corner, I’m kidding, we were promised a warm shower and a beer at camp on day three and after two days of grime this was a huge incentive!

Then the rain came, which was nice, and we ploughed on with our jackets on. Shortly after the rain began we got to the Inca Tunnel which is 20m long and carved out of solid rock, pretty impressive seeing as they didn’t exactly have drills back then.

A short walk later we came to an opening where you could see Waynu Picchu, the small mountain in the background of all pictures of Machu Picchu, the other side of that was where we were heading.

This seemed positive – what was not so positive was the fact that Suzi’s bowels appeared to have given into the altitude and whilst she was delighted to find a ‘Bano’ or toilet at such a remote spot she was not so delighted when she discovered the ‘toilet’ was little more that a piece of drain pipe cut across and set in concrete in the floor of a shack with a door that wouldn’t close!!! Suffice to say aim was difficult and many more before her had tried and failed!!!

We hit our last Inca site of the day – Phuyupatamarca ‘the town above the clouds’, but to be honest all we wanted to do was get below the clouds and get to camp!!!

The last downhill of the day took us just over an hour and was crippling, we were offered two routes when we neared the bottom, you can go left for a scenically superior route over the terraces but it was 50 minutes longer to complete or you could go down a winding path to camp which took 20 minutes.  

20 minutes later in camp (Winay Wayna) we found the showers and were told that the trick was to turn the tap on the shower just a touch to get hot water. The showers were most welcome, what was not welcome was the naked guy stood in front of me who “flossed” with his towel for a good five minutes and then seemed to perform some sort of minor keyhole surgery on himself with said towel.

We grabbed a beer (mmmmmmmm)

and went to the mess tent for tea. Tea was a bit…..shit. Everything was cold and served really late (about 20:30). We had to be up for 03:30!

The tents were pitched on camp site 9. Two minutes walk from the shower and the bar but also just above the toilets, which stank to high heaven. I guess this hiking lark is about compromise.

We almost dived into bed after tea and prepared ourselves for tomorrow. An early trek to the sun gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu!