Inca Trail

The boys had an AMAZING adventure on the Inca Trail. Happily they both survived no problems and had the time of their lives. Knowing both of these men very well, it is hard to meet their very high standards, and both of them agreed that it far exceeded their expectations.

They had a great group of people to hike with, even some fellow Canadians, and loved their tour guide Freddy. It was a 4 day hike, being three solid days of hiking and then the fourth day arriving to Machu Picchu. It was very nice to meet the boys at the gate of these immaculate ruins and just to know they were happy and healthy.

Here is the group right before they started their trek. They began at the 82km railway marker.

 

Andrew said that his dad did a great job. John was the oldest member in their hiking group, I believe, and was usually the first one to arrive at the next pit stop. Apparently hiking, exercise, stairs, nor altitude can slow him down!

 

 

Their porters carried the majority of their things and had their tents all set up when they arrived at camp. They were fed three solid meals per day, plus snacks and tea. Apparently on their last night there was a freshly baked cake. Nobody knows how it got there and whether it's even possible for the cooks to bake a cake on the side of the mountain, but they said it tasted good!

Here I am sharing some of Andrew's pictures of the trail. It was very heart-warming that Andrew got to do this with his father, and I'm sure this is something that neither of them will ever forget.

As they started their hike, they went over the Urubamba River. On the right side you can see the railway tracks where Penny and I travelled to get to Aguas Calientes.

This fortress and agricultural centre is called Llactapata. They came upon these ruins after only hiking a short ways.

 

The first day they hiked about 6 hours. The landscapes were beautiful and they were approaching the mountains. They saw a lot of donkeys, alpacas and cows along the way. Some Peruvians live along this portion of the Inca Trail so they did pass a few small villages on the first day.

 

Don't ask me what any of these places mean or where exactly they stopped, but here is a sign indicating the trek for the Inca Trail.

 

 

They encountered a pack of llamas running down the trail just before arriving at their first camp site in Yuncachimpa.

 

The second day was the worst for hiking. Four hours of ascending hiking and then another 6 hours of strenuous hiking. They claimed it was fun. This is a picture of Andrew and John finishing the toughest section of the trail to Warmi Wanusca (i.e. 'Dead Woman's Pass') at 13,800 feet.

 

 

 

Of course with Andrew's new camera, he was testing out all sorts of lenses and angles. I'm pretty sure he took like 2000 photos along the trail and narrowed it down to 60 for his Facebook album! He enjoyed also taking pictures of the animals and the flowers.

 

 

 

The sunset from the Sayaqmarka ruins. Now that they are in the middle of nowhere, Andrew couldn't come around the corner with a 1L bottle of beer like he did the first night...

 

 

The sunset from their campsite at Chaquiqocha on the second night. You can also see a couple more of the friendly neighbourhood llamas.

 

Here is a picture using his fish eye lens of their campsite on the second night. I have to admit I gave him a hard time about buying this lens a few months back, but he really has turned out some really spectacular photos with this lens.

 

 

Andrew said the third day was his favourite of the trail. It had the nicest scenery getting into the cloud forest and it was also mostly downhill, ha ha.

 

The ruins of Phuyupatamarca, is one of the most beautiful sites in the Inca Trail, almost always with clouds, typical of the cloud forests.

 

 

 

Although they hiked 'The Inca Trail', they only walked 44 km of the 40,000 km of trails that were built by the Incas across South America. Their vast empire stretched through large sections of Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Argentina.

 

Although the porters carried Andrew and John's tents and supplies and blankets and food, they still were supposed to carry their necessities. In Andrew's words, this means giant camera bag, several different lenses, and a tiny bottle of water. He was known on the trail as the crazy guy with the big camera and tripod.

 

 

On the third day they saw quite a few Incan ruins. 'Intipata' is a fairly newly discovered site, which was primarily an agricultural settlement due to the absence of plazas, religious structures or fortifications.

 

 

The view of the Urubamba River down in the valley below. Machu Picchu is less than 10 km away from here.

 

The second most beautiful Inca ruins along the trail (the first obviously being Machu Picchu) was this site very close to the last campsite named Winay Wayna (Quechua for "forever young", named after a variety of pink orchids that live here). This large complex was not discovered until 1942.

 

 

 

One last shot of the gang before they got to Machu Picchu.

 The last morning, they woke up at like 4am because the porters wanted to catch the train to get home for the rest for the week. Most of them do the hike once per week.

After hiking for 4 days, they finally arrived at Inti Punku (the 'Sun Gate') early in the morning and got their first glimpse of Machu Picchu, the mysterious 'Lost City of the Incas'.

 They hiked another half hour or so and then met Penny and I at the front gates of Machu Picchu for our morning at the amazing site!!!!!!!!