So this is the continuation of the last post. Pretty much i will try to recall everythig i can about the inca trail but its really all a blur since the moment i heard we were climbing over mountains and sleeping on the ground. Basically, me being the wonderfully useful human I am, solely chose to do the inca trail as a way to get to machu picchu assuming it would be cheaper than taking a train. Defiitely thought it would be a trot through some ravine with comfy ground to sleep on...part of me might have even expected mass bunk bed housing in the middle of the trek. Seeing the I survived the Inca Trail tshirts didnt even ring a bell that i might be up for a challenge.
Anyway, it starts with the guy picking me up at 7 am in a coach, that was conveniently extremely comfortable for me to sleep...one more misleading factor in my impression that a 4 day trek would be easy. The polish trio introduced themselves with excitement because they assumed i was rooming with sebastian as we were the only unpaired people on the trek. i was able to remember dorotas name because of gossip girl, and voitech s name took me like 3 days...and i also highly doubt that s how its spelled. There were also georgia and alice from the uk who had been in south america for dorota since the end of january. There were the checks, petra and thomas...a plastic surgeon and morning tv host slash commercial superstar in eastern europe (and might i add were always 2 hours early). The spanish, carolina and marc who had the delight of listening to the world cup win while on day three of the trek. The argentinians, who had magic water (and were often 2 hours late). The brazilians who were super nice, and some how managed to get ahead of the pack without anyone knowing leaving us to believe they were lost. our Guide valerio was a gem. had the best knee slapping ha-ha-ha scrunched face laugh at his own jokes.
DAY 1. so thanks to ryan i definitely bought walking sticks...2 because they were cheaper...but still more expensive than buying one...really i just didnt understand wwhat she was saying. one thing led to another and we were on the trek. the first 50 or so meters were straight uphill. and then i recieved probably the most devastating news of my life. we were told about the horses and llamas that carried products on the trail. in learning about llamas i found out that unless i lose basically my entire torso worth of body weight my dream of riding a llama was over. the weight limit is 25 kilos.. lets be real here, nicole richie weighs more than that. continuing on, the first day was gorgeous mainly rolling hills which were tolerable with the backpack, but an extremely unfair representation of what was to come. From km 82, where the inca trail hike begins, to the first camp isnt the real inca trail, its more of a man made connection to the train tracks to facilitate tourism. That night valerio created a suposed hallucinogenic tea from flowers...the first of his many lies. the washrooms at this point were quite luxurious they had imprints for your feet beside the hole in the floor, which may or may not have been surrounded by reminents of bad aimers. no showers, and one tap of running water. Day one wasnt too bad, tehre were a lot of stops and ladies on teh side of the trail selling sublime chocolates and inca cola for 500% street pricing. The sleeping wa stn even that uncomfortable.
Day 2. the challenge day...but i ran a marathon 9 months ago so clearly im super fit and cant be challenged, right?... WRONG. basically it waas like see the top of that mountain?...oh wait, you cant, its so high up its above the clouds and blocked by fog. well, either way, were climbing it. and we were told we could get porters because it was the hard day... but if dorota was going to carry her bag, i HAD to carry mine. basically they were random sized boulder stairs zigzagging up the mountain t il lunch when we were 400m of altitude away. then valerio took my oxygen and basically made me get aporter. and because i felt like a whimp in respect to carrying my bag, i decided to tough out teh cold and wear my lulu short shorts through the pass in teh rain and fog... insisting that i was canadian and not cold. i was freezing. YAY were at the top of the mountain. NOW lets go down the entire mountain on wet stone steps equally as uneven as the ones to teh top... oh me oh my. I think that they realized how long it would take for people to go down, they put bathrooms half way. after lunch there were no more fake poor peruvian ladies selling outrageously priced energy supplements which was mildly depressing as they usually came with the excitement of seeing a few llamas with small children, that were tanned, and therefore looked like me, and i therefore allowed me to imagine what i would look like on a llama at the age of 3. it also signified a no turning back now idea. me being the cynical person i am began to considering differnt fake injuries or medical conditinos and wondering how they would get me out...and if it was worth it to keep killing myself. in all fairness the porter was a godsend. IF YOURE DOING THE INCA TRAIL DONT BE TOO PROUD TO GET A PORTER. we got to the camp..which was our highest in altitude.. had happy hour aka popcorn and tea...on taht note, all i drank was 4 cups of tea a day because i didnt feel like carryin gwater...and sponge bathed in my bottleed water teh firt night, ( at taht point i still had hope for hygeine). anywho the washrooms were a step up--toilet bowls, no seat... apparently the fact that theres no seat means crapping on the bowl is ok? icckkkk it was gross. i really would support anyone willing to begin a inca trail washroom cleaning business. on the second night we were at huge camps wit h pretty much everyone doing the trek. at this point i was deeply curious how 60 year olds, and children, and the obviously gravely unfit had all made it to the same point as me. i have yet to find an answer...but i think its along the lines of "non-student-budget tours probably provide extra porters the whole time". anywho not much too interesting besides it beeing relatively freezing because of the altitude. and then hearing some american man ask why it was colder at higher altitudes wehn were so much closer to thesun...
Day 3. another pass, you could see the mount ain we had to climb from the camp, which was depressingly daunting. I got a porter all day because it was 16km, ihad enough money, and i felt bad for myelf for missing the wake up call coca tea tent service.. which i missed blindly meandering to the filthy washrooms. as much as the milage was higher, (10 k day 1, 9k day 2) it was only a short up/down-hill/mountain then we saw more inca sites like we did on teh first day and the middle section was really nice and jungle-y and easy. which made for a nice day. then we proceded downhill...forever, we decended a km in altitude.. gross, then we all met up at and inca site waiting for valerio to give us info on it for like a half anhour and left when he never came becasue we were worried the line for hot showers would be too long. on that note, hot showers = best 5 soles ever spent. also though, it reminded me how much being a girl sucks, our line went about 4 times slower than teh mens. while we were waiting carolina and marc listened to teh world cup final via radio and cheered for their win! in retrospect this whole thing seems really short considering it was our last night...but in the moment, the days were somewhat neverending in certain respects. For our last dinner we had a huge buffet feast. which was nice, except for the part where we were starving at every otehr meal, and then we had way too much food.. i wish they had spread it out a little bit, and that way the porters woulndt have had to carry so much food for so long. might i also add, that maybe becuase of my job, or maybe because im asian...i had a hard time calling our porters porters, i wanted to call them sherpas, because basically that s what they are. anyway, just a fun fact. also, on the note of porters, they wore sandals to run through the inca trail with 50 pouunds on their backs. crazy men. they all spoke kechwa ....or whatever taht dialect is too, which was challenging when they were repetitively telling me things. not that i understand spanish either, but its less of a long shot. we gave them tips and a thank you speech dlivered by thomas and translated by marc that included english words that the english girls and i didnt understand and a sentence about the porters being our bread of the inca spirit? oh, thomas.
Day 4. MachuPicchu. wake up at quarter to 4....not cool. especially when you decide to bring akinetic energy flash light that requires two hands and dies in like 2 minutes. so i would like topoint out that i am a very efficient blind hiker, as i did the first 30 minutes tapping my upcoming ground with my walking stick. valerio promised it wasnt that difficult-just a couple of hours at the difficulty of the first day. too bad he forgot to mention the whole we climb another mountain thing. and the sand gates, where we get the first glimse of machupicchu were up such a steep wall we hd to climb with hands and feet. getting there was amazing, but all the people that hiked the trail were there which was a bit crowded. we continued hiking to another inca site where we watched the sun rise over machu picchu which was gorgeous. and incredible when your delirious from sleep deprivation. we continued onteh the classic photo spot and toured mchu picchu for a few hours.
So ive been typing forever so more info to come later today or tomorrow. i will say though that after this weekend i have nver loved hot showers or legit toilet seats so much in my life. also i realllllly want to be at stampede.
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