Inca Trail : Day 1

Inca Trail Hike – Tales of my four day walk to discover Machu Picchu and the incredible Andes.

The Inca Trail is something quite unique in this world. A pathway through history that is both an educational and physical achievement that culminates in viewing, visiting and respecting a monument that defies gravity, and discovering an architecture that has endured through the ages and continues to inspire to this day.

Day 1 – Cusco, Ollyantantambo, Trail

• Wake up at 3.30am
• Meet the bus at 4.30am
• Reach camp at 4.00pm
• Distance covered: approx 16 km’s
• Elevation change: 2,720, – 3,300 above sea level

I didn’t sleep too well last night. This happens when I have to get up early for whatever reason but even though I had my alarm on and a wake up call on stand-by, I am never an easy sleeper the night before anything big.

Given I was out on a tour around Cusco the previous afternoon, I missed the tour briefing where you met your fellow trekkers and get a full blown overview of what to expect. I did however get an overview in the Llama Path office previously (the company through whom I booked) of where we would be stopping each night and approximately how many hours we would be walking each day.

No need to have worried though, meeting the other 5 trekkers on the bus the morning of day 1 was easy and they were all lovely. 

And so it begins

From Cusco we drove to a spot called Kilometre 82. This is the point where the trek starts just outside a town called Ollyantantambo, a 2 hour drive from Cusco.  The drive out there showcased the farming in the region with men lugging big hessian sacks of corn from the hills all the way to the main street, most of them running with the bags on their shoulders and wearing thongs (even in the mud). All the animals that we passed were tethered on short-ish leads, most very malnourished with protruding bones – a sad sight to see.

Many of the villages we passed through had incomplete housing and looked like shanty towns. Some houses did not even have doors while others were quite ‘slap stick’ put together with whatever materials were available it seems. Washing was strewn across the poles that act as fences, on isolated mounds of grass or hanging from the balconies. These are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it towns in a very poor country indeed and you really do wonder how they survive. 

The road to Kilometer 82 from a particular turn off point is not sealed, it’s full of potholes and is not wide enough for two cars, let alone a mini tourist van to pass at the same time so anytime this happened, someone had to reverse back to a passable point so we could both continue. When there is a small cliff on the other side of your seat window however, it’s best not to look down. 

Nearly Ready…

Off the bus and to the trail check point we go. Amazingly we were completely hammered by local sellers peddling goods including toilet paper and ponchos right to the end of our prep time before we got to the check point. These sellers really do work for their money. At the check point we were handed our national park entry permit that has to be stamped by the man in the first window, who hands it to the man siting next to him. We then shuffle along to the 2nd window and this gentleman checks the name on his list against each of our passports. Clearly he only checked our names and nothing else as every birthday for every person on our tour was incorrect on their official Tour List form. We had all gained a year for some reason.  My eyes widened when I saw the age staring back at me … eh hem… 41! …… Ah NO sunshine, I don’t think so…. not yet anyway. 

I asked the others if they had the same problem and it seems they were also just as surprised to see they had also all gained a year, so I didn’t feel too bad. Someone in the Llama Path office clearly isn’t a maths genius. It was at this time that I realised that I was the oldest of the group, by a long shot. The youngest was 25. Not one of the them was yet 30 and they all looked pretty fit. Bugger. 

We had the obligatory group photo under the sign at the start of the trail which was actually a really exciting thing as the personal engines started to rev up…..all this was now real. We were about to start hiking the Inca Trail – 42.5 km’s of ups and downs, 4 days and 3 nights of dedication was about to begin. 

The first few hours is pretty flat terrain and with the adrenalin pumping our guide was surprised at how fast we were going. We were tracking really well ahead of time and he had to slow us down to give the porters time to get the lunch stop all set up. We ended up at lunch an hour early. 

My fellow travellers were all lovely people and as the morning unfolded we seemed to end up walking with different people starting conversations and learning about each other. This is the low down of my companions: 

• Lisa: Occupational Therapist / Irish but lives in London / 27 / engaged to Con
• Con: Real Estate Finance / Irish but living in London / 29 / engaged to Lisa
• Carli: Glaciologist (first time you’ve heard of that I bet) American / 25 / goes out with Ethan
• Ethan: Paleontologist / American / 27 / goes out with Carli 
• Michael: Full time drummer in rock band / American / 26 / Says ‘Dude’ alot
• Elvis – our trek guide. Yes, his name really is Elvis.
• Moi

So with 6 of us plus Elvis it ended up being a great number to trek with and we all got to know each other well. No separate parties formed and we all looked out for each other and stuck together. 

Along with us for the ride were 11 very hard working porters and a chef. These porters can carry up to 25 – 30 kg’s each time on each trek.

There are still working villages along the track and we walked through a number of them on the first day. What was interesting is that donkeys are still used as a means of transport for goods as the hike uphill with heavy boxes is not great for humans. So we passed some rather forceful donkeys and their owners on Days 1 & 2. The higher you get, the less villages and livestock there are. However it was interesting to see the donkeys working. I had not seen this since my last trip to Greece a number of years ago when a donkey completely lost it and ee-aawweed for such a long time that my travelling friend and I were in stitches at the poor overused and underfed animal. He was certainly making his point and stamping his hoof down. Only one upset donkey on the trail today though. Not bad considering how many we saw.  

Arriving at Lunch we found a dining tent ready to go with a table, stools, a branded Llama Path red table cloth, origami folded napkins and our cutlery. This looked pretty swish and no one really expected this level of professionalism. There was also a bowl of warm water and hand towel for each of us to wash our hands before lunch. Then we sat down to a 3 course meal. Yes folks, 3 courses for lunch and dinner is the norm along the trail for this company (and a couple of others I believe) and the standard of food, considering the location and lack of tools the chef had to work with, was delicious. 

Today’s Lunch:

… remember, we are now in the Andes, 3,000m above seal level and this is the sort of food we were eating. Incredible. 

• Entree: Cooked tomato with peas, carrot and cheese inside / pumpkin soup
• Mains: Salas of pineapple (?) zucchini, carrot, olives, egg | Avocado with carrot, peas and cheese | trout stuffed with ham and sauce | rice (that came out looking like a baked cake) | and herbed hot chips | vegetarian crepe with spinach
• Dessert: forgot to write it down

During main course Michael exclaimed “I’m going to blackout with joy. I thought I was going to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!’

The back end of the day was uphill for 3.5 hours. Steep in some parts and ok in others.  Elvis told us that this was training for tomorrow. I have never been good with uphill anything and just took it slowly when I needed to. Lisa found uphill a little hard as well and Con was such a gentleman and stayed with her the whole time. (Lisa said Con was a really fit guy and urged him to go ahead but he never did). I learned in Kokoda to just take it one step and a time, take your time and stop as much as you need, a strategy that I adopted here and it seemed to work, however the catching my breath during the stops got a little longer as we got higher.

The three yanks seemed to take it all in their stride with Mike talking the whole way through it. As we learned over the course of the 4 days Mike is an energiser battery who is ‘on’ all the time. He could sell ice to Eskimo’s, rice to the Chinese and out-talk Dory underwater. He’s a funny, honest guy and someone that you love having along on an experience like this. I could hear him talking all the way up the hills in front of me the entire time wondering how the heck he is doing that and still breathing between steps. He must be a fit guy. I also tip my hat to my three  American comrades who each carried their own backpacks. Mike’s was about 15kg, Carli ‘s about 20kg and Ethan’s about 25kg. Pretty impressive considering I had about 5-7kg on my back and I was huffing and puffing the whole way.

The scenery changed every couple of hours throughout the day from massive hills with straw-like grass to spectacularly high and long waterfalls that flowed into a gushing torrent of a river, the roar of which was actually deafening at one point. Toward the end of the day, the scene was more of a tropical/jungle style, with large looming trees around you with root systems piercing the previously flat terrain. It’s rainy season so there ended up being quite a lot of mud at the end of the day. The challenge there was you couldn’t tell what you were walking through at one stage. Was it donkey poo or was it mud? You just had to do a Johnny Walker and keep on going despite what you think you may have stepped in and what your boots may smell like at camp. 

(Due to the heavy rains, they had an avalanche at Aguas Calientas 5 days before we arrived which closed the road up to Machu Picchu for a day while they cleared some of the debris. This didn’t affect trekkers though.)

Elvis said that people tend to get to camp at about 5.00pm but we were there at 4.00pm which made us all feel really good. 

There were about 4 different companies at the camp site with us, all in separate sections, and all had a dining tent as well. Given the number of people the noise was actually not too loud. We were the second group to arrive at camp. A small group of 4 beat us there. They must have started trekking really early or just be super fit.

Happy Hour was at 5.30 – 6.00pm each day. Happy Hour consisted of coffee / Aussie Milo / tea (no alcohol at altitude peeps), biscuits and popcorn. I watched the cook do this, it’s seriously cooked in a pot over a gas ring and super yummy after a long day. We all demolished it in about 1 minute flat.

Dinner

This was again a masterful feat: There is no way any of us are losing weight on this trek. 

• Entree: Vegetable soup
• Mains: 5 different platters of food: Tender chicken thighs | vegetables|large potato gems in alfredo sauce | pasta in tomato based sauce |egg frittata
• Dessert: Flambee banana (they flambee it right in front of us) – flambee, in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Given we were up at 3.30am we were all pretty beat. As son as dinner was over we all figured out what our night routine would consist of – including going to the toilet at the fabulous SQUAT / AIM / FIRE holes in the ground. I had not seen these since the middle east trip in 1998 (actually there were a few on Kokoda in 2010) and had to learn again very quickly how to get the aim right so I didn’t pee on my pants! All this in the dark with a head lamp on your forehead trying to move your head around so you can see what you are doing. Quite funny scenes actually, especially if you are outside seeing these little flashes of light going in all directions. The joys.

What a great day and an unbelievable start to something that I am so happy and proud to be doing, and learning so much about this incredible ancient peoples along the way.

I am hoping for a good sleep tonight as Day 2 is supposed to be the hardest day, despite Elvis trying to talk us into the fact that most people end up saying it’s not. 

We’ll see Elvis, we’ll see. 

Travel is the best.