Inca Trail Day 1 - post #2

Our first day on the trail started in Cusco at 5 a.m.  We met our guide, Alex, and our porters outside of the Llama Path offices to catch the bus to Ollyantaytambo for breakfast.  Our bus was crowded with our group of 6 and a larger group that would be hiking a two day trail called the Larges Trail.  I slept most of the bus ride to the trailhead for the Larges group, once we deposited them and their porters we headed 20 minutes down the road to Ollyantaytambo.  We stopped at a little hotel for breakfast which was really the first time we all met each other.  Our group consisted of Jo and me, Matt and Bethany (from CA), Klaas (from Holland) and Matias (from Argentina).  We had a light breakfast and got to know one another.   Matias was not originally part of our group, but his company had booked too many hikers for his group and so he and another guide, Eddie, was sent to join our smaller group.

After breakfast we left Ollyantaytambo for Kilometer 82(2570 meters/8431 feet in elevation), the starting point for the Inca Trail.  At KM 82 our porters packed up their goods (and ours) and headed down to the scales.  They can only carry 29 kg (roughly 64 lbs) each.  This weight limit is a wonderful recent development as Alex recalled stories of carrying 40 kg (88 lbs) on the trail when he was a porter. 

While the porters were weighed, we waited in line to get on to the trail.  After getting our passports checked and stamped we crossed a small bridge and headed slightly up hill.  Jo and I quickly took to the back of the pack although the first half of the hike was pretty easy.  The trail is pretty much all uneven and cobblestoned, which provides a separated challenge all together; and one none of us had prepared for.  Getting footing tended to be difficult and the danger of twisting an ankle or slipping was very real.  Alex and Eddie took their time to point out flora and fauna on the trial including tobacco plants, agave cactus and a small parasite, cochineal, that the Incas used to dye fabric.  When crushed the cochineal produce a deep red (carmine) color.

 

We also got a look at our first few Inca sites.  Q’Anabamba(to the left) sat across the river from the trail and was visably being restored.  It was nice to see our trail money going toward restoration of these amazing sites.  Out first close-up view was of Wilkarakay.  We sat on a grassy patch and Eddie explained the timeline of Incan civilization as we stared at this amazing ruin.  From Wilkarakay we walked on a flat, even path toward Patawasi, our last ruin for the day.  After Patawasi we had lunch.

 

Lunch (the view from the camp to the left) was amazing, spaghetti, marinera sauce, alfredo mushroom sauce, garlic bread, and an iced, corn-based, tea called chicha morada that was very refreshing.  It was around lunch time that I started feeling a bit ill, almost like I was hung over.  We left the porters after an hour to finish our hike to the 3^rd available campsite for the day.  This last 2.5 hours of the hike was fairly uphill.  Alex called it “the beginning of the climb” which was a touch disheartening, as it was harder than heck.  I lagged well behind, the mix of feeling ill and the uphill causing me to move slower than expected.

 

After a solid slog uphill, all of us needed a break (except Klaas, he flew up and down hills as if on a Sunday stroll.  He had recently climbed to a much higher altitude and felt pretty good at our “lower” elevation).  When we got to camp we were all visably tired and I retired to bed for the night, no dinner.  Jo said the dinner was amazing; the chef actually carved a mouse out of a radish to garnish a rice dish.  Bethany, who became the group’s pharmacist, gave Jo some Diamox (altitude sickness pills) which helped me sleep.  I was glad for the meds and by the end of Day 2, glad for the sleep.