Wedding Anniversary on the Inka Trail

 12^th September 2011

We wanted to start the Inka trail on the 12^th September so we booked it before we left the UK. We signed up early as we knew the trail only had 200 spaces (500 including tour staff) available each day as the Peruvian government limits numbers due to safety and to avoid damage to the archaeology.

We actually felt quite sceptical before we left as it was such a typical ‘gringo’ trail and such a high cost ($560 each), it was going to be so unlike any ‘camping’ we had done before. We just hated the fact that we would be walking trails with a guide and have 10 porters to set up camp, cook the food and serve on us hand and foot. We are simply used to doing it ourselves and living off what we could carry in our backpacks (in food terms).

But there was no way we could cancel it so we prepared ourselves for 4 days and 3 nights of Gringo trail hell. We left Rowena and Michael in Cusco and got a bus to Ollyantytambo to KM82 to start the trek with our group, which consisted of 3 guys from Panama, ourselves, 1 guide and 10 (yes 10) porters to carry all the equipment and food.

Start of Inka trail at Checkpoint

After passing through the Inka trail checkpoint we started walking along the Urabamba river, passed cacti and old Inka ruins before getting to our first lunch spot. 

Now, prior to us leaving we had been given a bag of fruit and chocolate which we thought was our lunch. We didn’t expect to turn the corner and see a whole dinning tent set up, with hand washing bowls to wash our hands and 3 courses of food! It was absurd.

But we couldn’t turn down the amazing food so we tucked into soup, avocado salad, chicken casserole, rice, sweet potatoes, vegetables and fresh salad before heading out for the afternoon trek to our first campsite in the cloud forest.

When arriving at the camp site the porters had once again run ahead of us and setup the entire camp, dining tents, sleeping tents and prepared hot drinks for us and snacks of biscuits and pop corn! We enjoyed another 2 courses for dinner and retired to our tents around 8.30 pm.

Day 2 started getting out of our sleeping bags at 4.30 am for a 9 hour walk, this was to be the most exciting day for us, as it was the day we climbed to the highest point of the trek called Dead Womans pass at 4200 meters. The day began with a big breakfast of pancakes, bread, Kiwisha porridge and an omelette made for Sarah.

After breakfast we were introduced to the porters, they were a group of farmers from the Pisaq Sacred Valley. They farm the land and do this job in order to survive. They are provided technical walking gear by the tour company (SAS) however in general refuse it and don’t want the kit, they prefer to hike the trail in sandals or trainers. They each carry 30 kg’s of kit on their back and they run the trail to be ahead of us at each stage to prepare campsites and meals. These guys really are super human, when you realise most of them are under 5 ft 8 (some as small as 5 ft 6) their strength and endurance is un-believable.

Our team of porters!

The hike to the Dead Womans Pass would see us ascend 1000 meters in 3 hours, a walk in the park for us!! Along the way to the pass we met many different people from different countries some struggling some marching, I think we were the only people carrying all our own personal kit. Most people had employed personal porters to carry their clothes and sleeping bags and roll mats etc. Without tents and stoves and foods our bags were light as a feather!!! Our only luxury item was a game of travel “guess who” bought as a wedding present by friends Tricia and Tom. Thank you guys for hours of entertainment!!

Half way to the pass you reach another campsite where a group of local ladies have carried up drinks and snacks to sell to people. These ladies carry up all this stuff every day, ascending 500 meters, with hundreds of bottles of drinks etc.

We arrived at the pass around 10.30 that morning, unfortunately the cloud hung in the valley and views were not that great. However it was a great sense of achievement for all.

at the top of dead womans pass

We now started the 600 meter decent to our lunch spot, half way down it started to rain, then it rained some more, then it rained more. We were surprised to see everyone put on their waterproof jackets and then a plastic poncho over the top…We thought people only wore ponchos on the log flume at Disney??? In retrospect with the volume of rain it appeared a good idea as peoples back packs stayed dry and their jackets dry. We arrived at lunch to find our jackets saturated and our packs damp inside….most stuff was in plastic bags but a few key items had got wet.

It was at this point things got even more extreme and one of the worst hail storms we have ever seen set in, this only lasted about 20 mins but left everything white!!

We enjoyed another 3 course meal prepared by our soaked porters and begged our guide (Ernesto) to camp here and not make us walk the remaining 3 hours of the day, however to no avail.

The afternoon saw us having to hike up several hundred meters again, but this time it felt like the real true Inka trail! The climb was steep stairs, it was raining and the steps fairly slippery. After a few hours the path was more like a waterfall and the rain refused to stop. Sarah’s umbrella did come in handy believe it or not!

After an hour or so we reached our first Inka site of the day the ruins of Runquacay, this building has perfect views all the way back to the Dead Womans pass. It was a brilliant look out for the Inkas to see who was coming along the path. Ernesto our guide gave a great talk in the rain about the ruins and its significance. It was during these talks we learned so much about the Inka way of life and why and how they did things.

We now continued to the second pass of the day at 3900 meters, as the rain was still pouring this was a very brief visit and with heads down we continued on our way! The group was now getting stretched out as some people surged on to try to get away from the rain and other trudged along.

Eventually we reached the Inka ruins of Sayacmarca, these ruins sit at the top of 100 steps up, by this point of the day another 100 steps was enough to put some people off, not us though. Ernesto told us of the military positioning of the site and the importance of being able to see back to the second pass and further on, key to the Inkas communicating at long distances.

From here the second camp site was only 30 minutes, but with aching knees they were a long 30 minutes. We arrived in the camp and surprise surprise the porters had arrived and constructed the entire camp again! So we tried to hang out our wet stuff to dry and were blessed with a perfect sunset then tucked in to another 3 course meal!

We awoke on the 3^rd morning at 4 am cold and damp but after another fantastic breakfast we set off. This day would see us gain 100 meters to our third pass in the cloud forest at 3700m and descend 1000 meters to the high jungle and our final camp site at 2600m.

The first part of the morning was our favourite of the entire trek, it saw us skirting along the edge of the cliffs on the Inka trail. At points the trail is 7 meters deep…the number of stones the Inkas had to use to construct these paths is amazing. We also passed through an Inka tunnel, the Inkas liked to use the land as a path not destroy it to create a path. However occasionally they met rocks where they could not go round so they went through. They had no explosives, and no power tools!! They used chisels and hammers to make a 20 meter tunnel through GRANITE!!! This may have taken them 10 years alone!

   

After a few hours we reached the cloud city Puyupatamarca, from here in exceptional circumstances you can see mountain Machu Piucchu for the first time, but in its name it was thick cloud. We were however lucky enough to spend 30 minutes with our guide telling us more history and information on the Inkas.

From here we had very steep stairs to descend the 1000 meters, the descent was slow and hard and in places dangerous if you made an error! Fortunately our poles came in very handy.

Our early start had allowed us to get ahead of all the other groups so we had all the Inka ruins as private visiting sites!! We stopped at Intapata to overlook the Urubamba river and our final campsite, we lay in peace for quarter of an hour reflecting on the journey so far. We now started the final trudge to the campsite, when it began to rain! Luckily it was a shower and by the time we arrived at our camp it rained harder but we were indoors in an old building for tourists.

Winya Wayna Ruins

In our afternoon time we were able to visit the Winya Wayna ruins, again we were blessed with a private viewing and our guide giving us another talk on the use of the site and general Inka culture. The location of the ruins overlooking the valley was totally amazing and something we will never forget.

The view from our tent

For our last night it rained, and it rained and it rained!!! We had to awake at 3.45 on the last morning to eat breakfast at 4 and be in the queue to start the trail at 5. As we began the queue it was raining and everyone looked a little miserable. However Sarah and I decided that a quick game of Guess Who in the queue would definitely cheer everyone up!

At 5.30 promptly the gates opened to a big cheer and people started to move through on to the trail for the last push, for the first time all the tourists were on the trail at the same time in roughly the same space, it was quite a sight to see all the multi coloured ponchos winding around the cliffs on the Inka trail.


We arrived to Inti Punku “The Sun Gate” at 7 am, there was no sunrise but we were greeted to our first sight of Machu Picchu with the cloud hanging over it hiding parts of it from view just as it had been hidden from the Spaniards.

Walking the Inka trail had been a great experience, you felt part of the history of the trail and you felt part of the story. Walking along the same path to this city that the Inkas took so many years before.

The walk down to Machu Picchu would take another 40 minutes, when we arrived a few other day tourists had arrived but the majority were hikers from the trail. Even though it had not been taxing or testing it felt like you were part of something and all travelled on a journey together, knowing what the others had seen and experienced that few in this world have.

The next stop was to the ‘Banos’!!! (Real toilets!) after a quick change of clothes we prepared for our guided tour of the lost city and low and behold Rowena and Michael (Sarah’s Parents) appeared from the bus at the entrance. A very surreal co-incidence!!

We are now going to give a brief history lesson for those who don’t know much about Machu Picchu or its history! It’s all really interesting stuff but don’t quote us on any of it as it may be some wrong dates or times….

So the Inka empire was rapidly growing around 1400 to 1500, they decided to build a city on the side of Machu Picchu mountain. This city was a military and civilian city that inhabited many people during its life.

Its position high above the Urubamba river gave it an ideal position to see any people approaching from any position, the location also offered them sunlight from the East and West to grow their crops on the 500 terraces they built on the sides of the mountain. This location was also seen as spiritual to the people who built gold plated temples where the sun would rise through the windows and set through others.

Their astrologists built sun dials and compasses that point perfectly to the poles.

In 1532 the Spaniards arrived in South America and around 1535 they arrived in the then named Qosqo (today named Cusco) capital of the Inka’s. The Spaniards first made friends with the Inka king and advised they were merely there to help the people, this was obviously not true and soon enough they started to kill people and the king fled to the jungle. On route he advised people to evacuate Machu Picchu and take all the gold and silver they had with them to stop the Spaniards plundering it (This is why only one gold artefact has ever been found at Machu Picchu). You can still see today where stones were left while being moved to building sites when the people received word to leave.

Wind the clock on 400 years until the early 20^th century, a local man wrote to the Peruvian government and advised them of the location of Machu Picchu however the Peruvian government decided to ignore the information.

In 1911 an American university lecturer named Hiram Bingham was on an expedition in southern Peru looking for Inka cities when he was advised by a local that there was a large city up on the side of Machu Picchu mountain. When Bingham went up there he found several small families living there and farming the land as the Inkas had done so long ago. So it was not Hiram Bingham who discovered Machu Picchu, the local Qechuan population had known of it for many years, it was simply Hiram Bingham who showed it to the world.

The Inka trail to Machu Picchu is one of thousands of Inka trails through South America that cover some 42000 Km’s, these paths were built for military and communication purposes and used by the native people. When the Spaniards arrived many of these paths were destroyed by the Inka people to stop the Spaniards finding these lost cities.

There is not much more to say about Machu Picchu, of all the wonders of the world we have seen it is by far the greatest, to see what these people were capable of so many years ago with so little in the way of tools was amazing. The stone work they produced is mm perfect and far superior to anything we can produce today or try to produce. These people were able to build earthquake proof houses long before anyone really understood the phenomenon.

We really do implore anyone who is thinking of going to do it, and if you can spare the time and money do the Inka trail, there is so much to learn and see it will blow your mind!

This is another wedding anniversary we will never forget!


VIDEO WITH MUSIC TO COME PLEASE CHECK BACK!!!!!!!!

Lost City of The Incas

So the time has come for us to visit the wonder of the world that is Machu Picchu otherwise known as the Lost City of the Incas!!

Its our 3rd wedding anniversary tomorrow so what better way to celebrate!

We are doing the 4 day 3 night Inca trail that leads to Machu Picchu. The walk will take us over passes of 4200 metes and past many important Inca ruins and religious sites. We will arrive at Machu Picchu on the 4th day at sun rise. We will meet Sarah's parents at Machu Picchu on thursday.

We will write a blog with pics later in the week.

A week off in Cuzco

1st September 2011

So we're just over 4 months in to our trip and Sarah and I decided we were in need of a week off. Travelling for long periods of time is actually quite tiring which people don't understand until they do it.

Now i'm not going to blog and complain how hard my life is!!!

However being a tourist is tiring, so we agreed we would settle in Cuzco for a week, and do no tourist things, no museums, no ruins, no cameras, and no tours!

We joined a gym and decided to take it easy for a week! Training everyday at 3300 meters is great fun. Sarah's ankle is still needing to rest however so no cross trainer or stepper!! (Sarah is upset).....

We have however broken one rule and taken a few pictures in and around Cuzco for the blog.

Pound of tata's anyone?? 

As we are staying for a week we managed to get a deal with our hostel (Sami Wasi) which is situated up on the hill in Cuzco, it has amazing views out over the city day or night.

Sarah's parents arrive in Cuzco tomorrow and we start the Inka trail to Machu Picchu on Monday (our 3rd wedding anniversary treat), more to follow:

The Sacred Mountain of Ausangate & The Three Lessons

The Ausangate trek takes 5 days and circles the sacred Ausangate mountain, It is said to be the 4^th best trek in the world.

We had met a guy called Simon in Huaraz and had discussed doing the Ausangate trek together in Cuzco, However Sarah’s ankle was still causing her some discomfort and a 5 day trek was not going to happen.

When we arrived in Cuzco we bumped in to Simon and started chatting about the trek, Sarah and I said that we probably could not do it as Sarah’s ankle was not up to it. At this point Simon told us of a yoga retreat he was studying yoga at, Sarah’s ears pricked up and she was hooked. We decided that Sarah would spend the five days relaxing at the yoga retreat and Simon and I would complete the trek.

Our problem was we could not leave until Tuesday morning and wanted to be back by Friday, 3 nights…The trek is supposed to take 4 – 5 nights….We came to the conclusion we may only make it half way and turn around.

We spent two days planning and collecting food and equipment for the trek, at 6 pm the evening before we left we were still searching for the map of the trek!! We finally found a copy at the Sothern America Explorers club that was officially closed, but agreed to sell us a map on the quiet!

Day 1 - Tuesday

Simon and I got up at 5 am on the Tuesday morning to set off on our adventure. I felt a little apprehensive leaving Sarah, it was set to be the longest we had been apart since we left on this trip in April! Sarah was however fast asleep at 5am so I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

We arrived at the start of the Ausangate trek at 10 am, our first decision had been not to start at the traditional beginning of the trek but get a taxi to another remote village and start there. What this did mean was that we would not have the normal path everyone takes to follow! This meant we needed to use all of our ‘navigational skills’ and a little help from the locals. We also decided that we were going to carry our packs ourselves; 12 kgs on our backs the whole way.

Some of the locals were very helpful some not so, you find in South America when someone has an interest in what your doing or can provide a service their advice can be taken with a pinch of salt! The first guy told us we were 4 hrs from our destination and could drive us, we knew from the map we were a maximum of 5 km away so 1 – 2 hours….

After crossing just a few valleys and speaking with locals we really started to get a feel for the size of the Ausangate mountain range and how small we were.

Map Reading... 

By 1 pm we had reached our first check point and campsite!! We were very excited at how fast we had covered the ground. We were going to climb the first pass to 4800 meters and get well on the way past the first nights scheduled campsite, we may be able to do the entire circuit in 3 nights!!

We excitedly started to walk up the valley and were running parallel to a fairly wide river that we needed to cross. The river was too wide and to fast to cross easily, safely or while remaining dry. We were now an hour from the last village where there may have been a bridge. We consulted our map, it appeared that we could cross the river at its source and we were only probably less than an hour away, so we decided to continue.

It was at this point it started to snow….the sky was dark, the clouds low and it got much colder. The river was not getting any easier to cross and we started to realise if we didn’t get across it soon then the chances of us doing the circuit were slipping away.

Finally after two hours we reached the source…….a huge glacial lake! We realised that there was no way round and we could not cross the river, we were done! We would have to walk back to the village that was now 2 hours away. We were both so angry with ourselves for letting this go so far, but the bloody map didn’t have any lake marked.

Lesson 1- if your at a village there is probably a bridge for the locals!

The walk back was much quicker than the walk up, we walked most of the way in silence each berating ourselves internally for the error. We got back to village by about 3 o clock, we knew this meant we had to camp the village side of the pass. We found a beautiful spot beneath Ausangate and setup camp.

Dinner was a gourmet masterpiece! Errrr….

We then settled in the tent at 6 pm due to the cold weather at 4000 meters. We had been up since 5 am and walked for the best part of 6 hours so were pretty tired and fell asleep very quickly. When I woke up it was still dark, so I looked at my watch….It was 9.15 pm!! This was set to be a long long night.

Day 2 - Wednesday

We awoke round 6.30am, but both refused to get out of our sleeping bags as it was super cold.  I turned to Simon and said “We can do the whole circuit you know” he didn’t seem so sure, so we agreed to see how the day went. We got up and cooked a porridge breakfast to keep us going for the day ahead, by 8.30am our camp site was packed and we were on our way.

The first part of the day would see us climb to 4800 meters to the Arrapa pass, we walked pretty quickly and half way up the snow began to fall once more, the clouds rolled in and conditions were bad again. Despite all this we got to the pass within an hour and a half. Unfortunately at this altitude (with it snowing) visibility was poor and the path extremely hard to follow, the ground was white and most tracks covered. We even had to turn to the untrustworthy semi-topographical map!

More map reading...

Even more map reading....

We followed the ridge for an hour until we rounded to the next valley and sprawled before us was rocky peaks and craggy mountains, a walkers dream.

We were making un-believable time, or so we thought, our next camp site was supposed to be some glacial lakes, we would be there by 12 o clock! As we descended into the valley it began to dawn on us that we were not quite as far as we thought, but an hour behind.

The day was turning into highs and lows; thinking we were doing well then being disappointed we were not as far as we thought. We could not make a decision whether to go for the full loop or turn back. We agreed that by lunch time we would make a decision. The snow was getting heavier and heavier and we were almost making the path up, scrabbling over rocks and sliding down banks with 100 ft drops to the lakes below us.

By lunch time we had to make a decision, turn around for a 25 km 2 day walk back to the start point of the town of Tinke, or continue for a few hours then camp, followed by two 17km days…..and two 5000 meter passes… and what about this bad weather?

We made the decision after much discussion that due to the weather conditions and poor map and time we had to turn back.

We trudged back heads low in silence, I was so disappointed we could not continue and felt we had failed even though we never originally intended to do the whole loop. I realised on this trip that I often let ideas run away with me and get disappointed when they don’t happen, even if the idea is a dream more than a reality.

There was some form of camera trickery here im not that short.

We finally setup camp around 3 pm, overlooking one of the glacial lakes in a beautiful spot surrounded by snow, I relaxed and Simon practiced some Yoga.

At sunset we climbed to a nearby peak to get 360 views of the valley, we were awe struck by the views and tranquillity of the valley, there is a good reason this is one of the best treks in the world.

Can you see our tent bottom left...

Can you see our tent bottom right...

We agreed to wake up at 6 am the next morning for a hard days trekking back as far as we could to Tinke.

Day 3 - Thursday

It was so cold that night!!! Snow carried on falling on the tent and the temperature dropped and dropped. By 5 am we whispered to each other and decided we would pack up camp and walk as far as we could until the sun rose then have breakfast in the sun.

So we started to pack up the tent, while doing this our water bottle began to freeze and it took several attempts to pull the tent poles apart which we frozen together!!! Just touching the poles burned my hands.

We hiked for about an hour up to a pass where the sun was starting to appear, the sun on our frozen hands and faces was like a warm bath. We settled down to another gourmet breakfast of porridge, and as we had decided to turn back we could eat like kings, we each ate 200 grams (c.1000 calories) of porridge, no mean feat!

The sky was almost clear with a few floating clouds passing quickly leading to picture perfect views.

We retraced our steps back along the ridge to the 4800 Arrapa pass, this time the sky was a perfect blue with only one or two clouds, the views were perfect! The mountains and glaciers in all their beauty were there for us to marvel at, and we did for some time.

We then trekked back down the valley to our first campsite and onwards. By about 12 pm we realised we were starting to get low on water….it was a 2 km trek to the nearest glacial river….we really didn’t want to divert that much, we were within 4 hrs of Tinke and being able to get the bus back to Cuzco to sleep in a real bed. We found a small river that we followed up the valley and managed to get some water after some scrambling over rocks. The water was not the cleanest and not ideal. We purified it and decided we would use it as the backup and for cooking.

Lesson 2- get water when you can before getting low.

'What you looking at!'

Victory is ours!

After a long 3 hours we arrived back in Tinke, we had covered 20 km’s and descended 1000 meters. We were exhausted!

Our next obstacle was to find a bus back to Cuzco. We asked several locals and were told the bus was 4 pm, great only 45 mins to wait J

4 Pm came and went…..we were then told 5 pm……..Brilliant the bus arrived!!! But we sat on it until 6.30 until it actually left!!!

We rolled in to our hostel at 10.30 pm dirty, smelly and very very tired and extremely hungry!!! Food was a high priority! Sarah was extremely surprised to see us rock up and even happier after we had showered and bagged our dirty clothes for de-contamination.

So to sum it up the Ausangate trek was beautiful, but a few things had worked against us which meant we didn’t complete the whole loop, but it was an amazing few days.

Lesson 3 -you don’t always need to please your ego to have an amazing experience.