Day 20

Sunday 21^st November 2010 : Day Four of the Inca Trail

Half past three!!! HALF PAST THREE!! And not so much as a Coca Tea???

The porters have to leave extra early on the final day to catch the train so we were all up and dressed and raring to go by 04:30. The fact the checkpoint doesn’t open until 05:30 was not welcomed by the group. We stood in a queue in the dark for an hour or so and watched the sunrise.

Sounds good? It wasn’t. Although watching one of the group sit down in some human excrement lightened the mood.

The gates opened and people shot off like the start of a marathon. We reverted back to slow and steady wins the race. About ten minutes in Kiwi Bitch came skipping up behind us. She shuffled this way and that for a good 15 minutes before getting past me on my blind side, she then passed Suz and I thought Suz was going to give her a whack, but like a good English lady she just gave out a loud tut!

We were told that the trek was about an hour or so and by then you should reach the 50 steps. Once you’re up these it was another 10 minutes to the sun gate or “Intipunku”.

We ploughed on at an increased pace, vexed by all the people pushing their way past us.

We reached the 50 steps in good time and hauled ourselves up them,

we picked up the pace again as we sensed the sun gate getting nearer and nearer. Then all of a sudden it was upon us, we walked through the opening, rounded the corner and braced ourselves for the majestic site of Machu Picchu, the pay off for four days of blood, sweat and tears. And what we saw was indescribable, well, not really I can describe it perfectly, if you look out of your window right now you can see it too - cloud, cloud and more cloud. L

Some members of our group had arrived 10 minutes before us and had seen Machu Picchu in all its morning glory, but as we sat and ate our Snickers in disbelief the cloud just got thicker and thicker!

We figured there wasn’t too much point in hanging around looking at cloud so we set off. Suzi was really upset, she thought that the sun gate was the place where you took the “postcard” shots (it wasn’t). Her mood was lightened a little by the opportunity to have a picture taken with a wild Llama who was just sat on the track.

Another 40 minutes soon passed and we finally arrived at Machu Picchu. The historic city in the clouds discovered in 1911 by one Hiram Bingham, an American explorer. It’s huge, probably as big as Bury town centre and very impressive to witness, the skill and craft that went into every stone is amazing. Historians believe that it took the Inca’s over a 100 years to build and it remains unfinished, and we were whinging about Wembley!

We took some photos that are defiantly “keepers” and then tried to search out some ridiculously over priced sandwiches. Luckily we didn’t have to look far as the woman in the tourist café was more than happy to bend me over a barrel for two butties and a drink each (£15).

We then had a two and a half hour guided tour of Machu including “the temple of the sun” and “the sacred plaza”, the sun had come out by now making it a pretty nice walk round (I say walk, everyone in our group hobbled around Machu Picchu and the distinctive sound of screaming thighs and calves could be heard for days afterwards).

We also saw the royal tomb with three steps which represents the three levels of existence in the Inca world – the Snake (underworld), the Puma (the present) and Condor (celestial world).

We walked back towards the exit where you could get your passport stamped to confirm you had completed the Inca Trail, I’ve not been so proud of a stamp since I completed my Kelloggs form for a Corn Flakes bowl!

After the tour we caught the bus into town, it was awesome, travelling without moving is so underrated. We found a bar and sat and reflected on the last 4 days whilst chugging down a few beers and listen to traditional Andean Music.

We caught our train at 15:30 and was back in the hotel in Cusco for 19:30. We climbed into bed, watched half an hour of “Finding Nemo” and fell into a hiking induced coma.