Hiking The Inca Trail: Day One
It's easy to get to Machu Picchu. You just get on a bus from Cuzco, then a train and then a bus up to Machu Picchu. Easy. The more adventurous though spend three and half days hiking up and down mountains along an old trail to get there. Although there are a number of trails the "classic" approach is along the Inca Trail.
With a small army of porters up to two hundred people a day can set out on the trail to make this traveler's pilgrimage to one of the new seven wonders of the world. Machu Picchu was built by the Inca Empire around 1450 and was never discovered by the Spanish. In fact it wasn't even really known about to the outside world until 1911 when an Hiram Bingham "discovered" it. Check out the Wikipedia article for the full history.
Armed with cameras, water and our walking sticks this small band of merry (for now) adventurers set out on the Inca Trail. The first day is considered the easiest of the four days on the trail. The trail is fairly flat with only limited climbs with plenty of places to stop and rest. Our guide did a good job of keeping us together as a group and scheduling good places to stop for breaks. Local people along the trail sell drinks and snacks which we tourist easily gobble down. Most people take the first day fairly quickly and exhaust themselves in the process. That's a good thing though as it means you take it easier for the rest of the trail and realise it's not as hard as you thought it might be.
It's not long before you discover on day one that there's no sign of life anywhere around you. Even though there are five hundred people on the trail you don't really see many of them most of the time. It's only when you reach the camp sites or lunch spots that you get an idea of how many other people are hiking along with you. Once you start walking it's rare to see anyone other than a porter running past you. The porters are amazing it has to be said. Each one carries no more than twenty kilos (plus his own gear) and they run along the trail wearing very basic sandals and no walking stick for support. A few years ago a race was run along the length of the trail; athletes from around the world competed, but it was a local porter in his regular clothes than won the race. In three and a half hours. OK, he wasn't carrying anything, but three and a half hours compared to the three and a half days that regular people take... That's amazing. He wants to do it again as he thinks he can beat his best time - he won't stop for fifteen minutes to have a cup of tea next time.
The morning passes pretty quickly, after a climb up what we thought was a steep hill re reach a lookout point and can see the river we started off following winding through the valley and past some Incan ruins beneath us. From our vantage point we can see how over the years huge boulders have come crashing down off the mountain and smashed through the ruins, coming to rest on the terraces below. We don't stop for long, there's a lot of ground to cover and we haven't had lunch yet.
Carrying on, the trail starts going down hill. That's not good at this stage, because every step down means we have to take a step up again. The altitude isn't too bad at this point but the air is definitely thinner. Having a walking stick makes things much easier, it takes some of the load and makes covering the rough ground simpler. Wooden sticks with a rubber bottom are sold at the start of the trail very cheaply and are a great investment. Metal walking sticks are supposedly banned, but many people use them anyway.
Lunch time arrives and one of the porters is waiting by the edge of the trail for us to guide us to where they've set up camp. Water is waiting for us to wash our hands and cold drinks are quickly handed around. The food on the trail is quite amazing. The chef with very limited resources prepared three tasty and nutritious meals a day. There was always plenty of food so we were never left hungry. Everything was prepared using water collected from a stream and then boiled to make it safe to drink, but all the food was carried in by the porters.
After lunch we carry on along the trail, mostly in silence as the group soon breaks up into smaller groups. Jeremy, our guide, has described a place where we'll stop for a break, but otherwise lets us walk at our own pace and time. The scenery is spectacular all around us and mostly untouched as hikers are required to stick to the trail and not wander off. There's a good reason for that, much of the trail is on steep cliff faces and stepping onto what might look like solid vegetation can send the unfortunate off the edge of a cliff. With vegetation so dense and few people around it could be quite some time before you're found and rescued and the only way out is back or forward along the trail. There are no helicopter rescues here.
Eight miles pass by and the sun begins to set behind the high mountains as we reach the end of day one. It was great to arrive at the campsite and have the porters waiting for us with a round of applause. Every time we reached camp they'd break into applause to welcome us, even though they'd been there probably for hours before hand. Our tents were already set up and waiting for us. We'd been lucky and the porters had secured a great camp site for us, further up the hill than everyone else with a great view into the valley and the rest of the campsites. We even had company, a turkey stalked our tents but eventually hid up a tree out of the way. Who knew turkeys could climb trees? We certainly didn't.
Day one left me pretty tired, but I sat outside to watch the sun go down and the stars come out and contemplated the day ahead. Day two is the hard day. The long hard climb to Dead Woman's Pass - the highest point of the trail at 4215m (~14,000ft) above sea level.
Continued in day two.