This is the reason we´re in Cuso, really... The Inca Trail is a 4 day walk, following an old Inca road, which finishes at the Inca site of Machu Pichu. It´s compulsory to use a guide to walk the Inca Trail, and we went with Peru Treks, who were superb.
We (Tara, Colin, Grace and Dunk) were picked up from our hostal at about 5.30 (a sign of things to come), and headed off to Ollantaytambo on a bus with the 13 others in our walking group. After a stop for some strange luke-warm coffee we drove along a dirt road to "km 82" to the checkpoint which marks the start of the walk. Along with the 15 walkers, we had 2 guides (the cheif guides name was bobby), 18 porters and a cook - i think they needed all the porters to carry the mountains of food we were fed!
We followed the Rio Cusichaca for a few hours, stopping to check out the Inca site at Llactapata - Bobby gave us a 30 minute description of the site, its purpose, the reasons for it being built where it was etc. He was very knowledgeable. Not long after starting the walk, we began to see some of the 13 species of humming bird which inhabit the Machu Pichu National Park - I´ve never seen them before and they´re pretty unusual. The smallest looks more like and insect than a bird...
Lunch was had across the river from Llactapata. We had a dining tent and 3 course meal - a bit of a change from sitting under a tree and munching on a sandwhich like we usually do at home! From here, we walked a couple of hours to the village of Huayllabamba, where we camped. A couple of beers from the village shop broke the ice; we had a great group of people on the tour, most of who were fairly fit, which made for a great trip.
Day 2 consisted of a climb up to Warmiwanusca Pass (Dead Woman Pass) at 4198m, and then down to camp at a site named Pacamayo. The walk was made difficult by the altitude, but was otherwise short, and easy going on a rock-surfaced track. Much of the walk up to the pass went thru lush cloud forest. This reminded me a bit of the rainforest in south west Tasmania, and was beautiful. Views of the surrounding mountains were obscured by high cloud for most of the day, but Mt Veronica cleared in time for sunset. The view from our tens was stupendous - we looked across a massively deep rainforest filled valley surrounded by huge and precipitously sided mountains. No beers for sale nearby this night, but we were entertained by Bobby´s card tricks, and fed a huge lunch at 3 in the arvo (at the camp site), followed by afternoon tea at 4.30 and then dinner at 6.30 - no chance of loosing weight on this walk! Myself, Grace and Tara spotted an Andean Deer (quite common apparently) whilst going for an afternoon stroll.
Day 3 began at some ungodly hour of the morning, and we finished walking at 2 or 3 in the arvo. It was very misty in the valley where were camped, with a lot of low cloud which pesisted for the day. This was very atmospheric, but prevented us from seeing the apparently majestic mountain views this days walking is sposed to provide. We stopped at the Inca site of Runkuracay on our way up to the second pass at 3998m, where we each added a stone to the collection of cairns on the pass. Spectacular high mountain scenery... From the pass, we walked several hours thru cloud forest, and open alpine areas along an original section of Inca trail. This is a rock trail built by the Incas which clings to the mountain side in some unlikely places, providing people who dont like heights (won´t mention any names ;)) with a few nervous moments. We stopped at the Inca site of Phuyupatamarca, which provided a spectacular view of Machu Picchu mountain and the surrounding peaks before descending to camp at Huinay Huayna - this ´research station´built by the cusco university years ago seems to have been transformed into a Gringo service station, equipped with cold beer and hot showers. The researchers have been replaced with walkers in (I can only assume) the name of profit. This is a real shame, but we had a few coldies anyway...
The final day began sometime before 3 and 4 in the morning (you´d think we were off to climb a mountain or something!). We walked for 2 hours to Machu Picchu through beautiful cloud forest with yet more majestic views of the hugely deep valley below us, and massive moutains above. It was too cloudy to see anything from the Sun gate (the point at which the trail enters Machu Picchu), so we walked down to the site itself and were shown around for a few hours by Bobby. It was great to have a guide to explain the place, and I don´t think it would be half as interesting without. The train arrived in the valley below at about 10.30 and the crows descended at about 11, at which time we bailed to Agus Calientes.
Macchu Picchu is an interesting spot, but I think its location is really what makes it, rather than the history of the site itself. It sits on top of an improbably steep mountain in a rainforested valley, bringing back memories of Indian Jones.
We caught the train back to Ollantaytambo, and then the bus to Cusco, where we promptly went for an awesome streak at Fallen Angel - thouroughly recommended!
All in all, this is a very enjoyable walk. The spectacular mountain scenery, cloud forest and humming birds made it for me, and the Inca sites along the way, and particularly Machu Picchu at the end add an interesting cultural aspect to it. The distances are short, and the track has a hard rock surface for most of the walk, making life easy indeed. The altitude made for hard going about about 4000m. Going with a tour group was not as bad as I thought (it was great fun actually), although I suspect we were particularly lucky in having such a good guide. Also, I think I mave have become a walking pole convert - i took a wooden pole on the walk as my knee is giving me grief at the moment, and it helped a lot...
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