Me and the husband (Bhargav henceforth referred to as B ;-)) started planning the trip to Peru in Jan 2015 and when we started, doing the 4D/3N Inca trail was nowhere on our list. We didn't think we were fit enough to walk 45kms in 4 days you see :)
As I was researching tour companies for a 1 day hike to Macchu Picchu, it dawned on me if not now when will be ever do the 4D/3N hike??!! At this point we were in the best of our fitness in several months, thanks to that grilling cruel crossfit workouts that we had diligently been doing for the last 6 months! I immediately called B and said we should do it and told him the reason that had dawned on me and he agreed instantly!! So thus began the biggest preparation of our life to see Macchu Picchu the way Incas did! :)
In addition to the regular preparation involving visa/documents/tickets and other stuff, this trip had a lot more in store. We started out on our weekend hike rituals to get us in shape to walk 45 kms in 4 days. But before this we needed a good pair of hiking shoes, the lesson we( rather I) learnt after a horrible experience hiking the Sykes in Big Sur with a Reebok running shoe! We both bought a pair of Merell hiking shoes which was the biggest asset for the trip. Then began our weekend hiking expeditions all around San Diego and a marathon of shopping for various little things you need for a hiking/camping trip.We bought hiking bags, socks, camel water packs, medicine, body wipes, face wipes(no shower for 3 days was the worst nightmare I had), energy bars etc etc etc. B diligently kept track of things we need to buy/do in his gmail drafts sending me lists every other day!
After all the preparation that we thought we could possibly do in 2 months we finally arrived in Cusco, Peru on 21st March. Getting acclimatized to the altitude was a major part of the preparation needed for the Inca trail and we did that by staying in Cusco and visiting Lake Titicaca 4 days before our trail began. So, we came back from Lake Titicaca and on the day before our trail we had a briefing with the tour company we took the trail with. There we met our fellow hikers and our guide with whom we were going to spend the next 4 days with. We were a group of 8 people - a couple from England (Steph and Dan), another couple from Germany (Batrese and Marcos) and 2 guys form NZ (Kush and Dan again) and we were the couple from India (or the States!!) Everyone seemed nice other than the guide Elvis! I didnt like his attitude from the time we met him, but more on that later... After we came back from the briefing we packed (overpacked) stuff which we needed during the day into our daypacks and the rest into the "duffel" (we ended up using this word so many times during those 4 days ("Where is your duffel bag?" "Is the soap in the duffel bag?", "No its in my duffel bag!!" and I dont know why it seems really funny to me :)) bag that we got from the company which we carefully measured to not exceed the prescribed limit of 4kgs per person! We slept pretty soon as we had to get up at 3.30 and meet the group at 4.30.
We were up by 3 (me that is, B always has to be woken up once I am ready ;-)) and we met the group at 4.30 near the bus which was supposed to drive us to KM 82 the starting point of the hike. I slept happily till we stopped for breakfast at 6.30 in a place called Ollayantatambo. (another funny word that the guide kept mentioning a thousand times! ) The coffee there was amazing and little did the coffee buffs in us know this would be the last coffee for the next 4 days! Nevertheless both of us treated ourselves to 2 full cups of coffee :) Finding hot milk for coffee in Peru was an amazing surprise to us after we resorted to black coffee in the US because of the lack of hot milk :)
After about a 45 mins drive along a narrow mud road next to the river worrying when the bus might fall into the river we arrived at KM 82! There we were at the beginning of the Inca trail.
So began Day - 1:
The first half of the day was very peaceful as the trail was pretty flat with a few ups and downs. We came across a pretty Inca site on the way and we also stopped at several places for breaks and pictures and after about 5 hours of walking we came to a place next to the river where we were served lunch.
Like the guide Elvis kept bragging about the food they served from the time we saw him the previous day, the food was indeed fantastic! Since we were the only two vegetarians in the group we were served special main courses and the biggest advantage was we didn't have to share it with anyone else ;-) If I remember right I think we had a pumpkin soup, some mango onion starter, rice, tortilla( surprisingly omlette is called tortilla in Peru!) stuffed avocado and some baked potato for the main course.. (Wow! not bad I still remember it :)) After lunch the hike was only supposed to be an uphill for 2 hours and that would end our day-1. But as we were getting ready to leave the lunch place it started to rain and as we had prepped ourselves for the rain with the rain jacket and poncho we put everything on and started, but the rain stopped within a few minutes and I was starting to choke in the plastic poncho! Man it was hot inside that thing! It was much better once we got rid of it. From here on is when we started noticing the true colors of Elvis! Since I was the slowest in the group (Poor B had to tag along with my slow pace !! ) it was supposedly the guide's responsibility to walk behind the group. So Mr.Elvis walks behind me for 4 days almost all the time with a cold face looking as if he was going to murder me for walking slow! Anyways, I didnt care much for the rest of the day as I reminded myself we had paid him enough, so it was his duty to walk behind us! ;-) We walked slowly and even with our slow place we made it to the camp site within 2 hours and we were there by 4.30ish.. As we reached the campsite, the porters cheered for the last person who made it :D and I got the cheer everyday ! ;-)
We were greeted with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth to wash our faces and it was quite refreshing after a face wash. We then had tea (Oh! btw forgot to mention about the special Coca tea which people drink everywhere in Peru to help ease the altitude sickness and it does really help) with popcorn and some cookies. After this there was a ritual like thing where we were made to say hello to all our porters(there were 13 porters and a chef) individually when they introduce themselves in Spanish and we also do the same, but there was an exception for me and B who didnt know a single sentence in Spanish to do it in English. (Well now after a week in Peru we do have learnt words - Ola Amigos! , Vamos, Gracias are among them :-))Then again we were treated to a sumptuous 4 course dinner with some banana fried in rum for dessert which didn't taste very good after all ! Right after dinner when we were getting back to our tent to sleep, Elvis caught us and told in a hush voice (because its a crime you see I am walking slow) "Guys, tomorrow is a long day and since we have to catch up with the group would you be ok starting half an hour earlier? We usually tell people who are slow to start 1-2 hrs before, but you guys are doing ok" (Ah! What a relief?!! we were doing ok). We agreed to start early and went to get some sleep. I soon started worrying if we would make it through the next day at all because of the encouraging talk we just had with Elvis! We were supposed to make it through 2 tough passes and there was a walk of about 16 hrs ahead of us.. But the good part was if we somehow made it through day-2 we would definitely finish it since day-3 and day-4 were much easier. My sweet husband as he always does consoled me saying we can definitely do it and he will make sure I do (I just adore his optimism, don't know if he really feels that way or makes it up to make me worry less, but it works like a charm always! ;-)). That helped me sleep well through the night forgetting about the long dreaded day...
Most dreaded Day-2:
We woke up early at 4.45 and got ready by 5.40 for breakfast. It took us everyday nothing less than an hour to pack up from our tent and get out, but we still don't get how all the others would get ready in 15-20 mins! Though we were all charged up, I had butterflies in my stomach worrying whether I can make it or not. We started around 6 am from the campsite, with our daypacks lightly loaded for today as advised by Elvis and just enough water to sustain 2 hrs as we felt we had overloaded on the water the previous day which made the uphill difficult. Since today was a 1000m uphill we didnt want to risk. We began our ascent up towards the dreaded "Dead woman's pass". The hike meandered inside the woods and there was a big stream of water flowing all along by our side. It was really pretty and beautiful. That compensated a bit for my fears. As we were 30 mins into the climbing, I had already thought and told B about 10 times the remaining time we had to go to the top of dead woman's pass. It was an estimated 4 hours uphill and we were only 30 mins into it. At this point B gave me a advice - Stop thinking about the dead woman's pass and 4 hrs... measure small and keep smaller goals.. So after that we started doing a Tabata workout! (Thanks to our crossfit routines!! tabata is a short training interval followed by a shorter rest). We walked up for 45 secs and rested 15 seconds and after every 6-7 times we took a longer water break.. and after we started doing that we were at the half way point to Dead woman's pass in no time! (or rather I didnt realise the time passing as I started concentrating on the beautiful wild flowers around and the tabata). We waited here for the group to come to take a group pic. Half the group crossed us in between and the other three came about 10 mins after we reached. For the only one time we had made it before half the group somewhere ;-)
After the group pic Elvis showed us where the dead woman's pass was in the distance. Supposedly it looks like a nipple on a breast ! I couldnt see it that way- Checkout if you can :)
But after seeing it in the distance our confidence increased. The more we could see the destination the more we felt we can easily do it. So we started our way to conquer the dead woman's pass. This part of the hike was pretty crowded compared to others, (not sure why! because all of them that start at the same time should do the whole thing, not clear why we saw many people only on this stretch!) we had a lot of people passing and the view was amazing. Groups and groups of porters were running past us and without much difficulty and still following our tabata routine we made it to the top of dead woman's pass! Yes!! we had conquered the most difficult part of the hike and we were elated! Adding to the happiness was one of our porters waiting at the top of dead woman's pass with hot tea and cheese bread :) The chilly weather at the top was perfect for the tea and any food would have tasted awesome after such hard 4 hours we had had!
After a short break we began the descent of 600m downhill. It was getting pretty chilly and cloudy, so we had to keep the camera in most of the time worrying about the lens getting spoilt! Had never imagined downhill also can be difficult. For most parts it was unevenly made steps which were of significant height and for someone with my height it was an added extra effort to get down every step. Also since it had rained the previous night most of the steps were still wet and and we worried about slipping off them,because if we did, we would go straight into the valley!! :) Oh ya! and then there was Elvis religiously following me and reminding me how slow I was!! After about 2 hours of downhill we made it to a campsite where many companies stop for the day but our day was far from coming to an end there..
We still had one more pass to conquer! So we had a delicious 3 course meal and started our way uphill again. This time we were more confident of doing it since we had already done a much harder one :)
On the way up we came across a small Inca site which was mainly a temple and a small house for some messengers where Elvis told us his so called "stories"! Although everyone was excited to hear these from him I some how found it to be very similar to those extremely boring after lunch history classes in school and dozed off through most of them. He had an extraordinary talent of dragging and telling things which were so not important for so long that I couldn't make myself listen for more than 5 mins however hard I tried! B listened to most of them and I bugged him later to repeat what Elvis told in a more interesting way ;-) After abut 2 hours of uphill and 2 hours of downhill we arrived at another Inca site. After having walked for close to 10 hours that day, my shoes had begun to bug me. And there was a lot of cloud cover everywhere. We stood at an intersection where we had to again climb up a few hundred stairs to get to the Inca site or go 20 mins down to the camp site. After the tiring day we had had, we convinced ourselves that the Inca site will not be worth seeing in the fog and since we had 3 more of them coming up the next day, we decided to make it the sour grape and off we went to the campsite! So 20 mins later we had come to an end of the most dreaded day of the hike and it made us feel wonderful! As usual after a heavy tea and popcorn and dinner we got a good night's sleep feeling proud of our accomplishment!
Half day Day-3:
We woke up happily on day-3 since it was just meant to be half a day and our lunch was at the final campsite. Since it was a short-day we also got to sleep an extra half an hour! Yay!
After a heavy breakfast which included some delicious sauteed banana's (not sure how it was made but it was yummy, I definitely have to try making it :)) and deep fried yuca (a variety of yam I believe) we started out. These 4 days are in a long time the maximum amount of fatty food I have eaten! Thanks to our periodic calorie counting (Divya-my best friend used to call me a calorie counting machine, pop anything in front of me and I know the amount of calories in it!!! ;-)) and obsession for healthy foods we dont have a lot of fat in our regular diet, but these 4 days we had nothing but fatty food in all forms - cheese in literally every dish, fried, deep fried, potato, avocado, popcorn, butter, rice in every meal and what not!!
After about an hour of ups, downs and flats we had to descent a whole 1000m down today. Just a few mins after we left it started raining badly and it rained for about 2 hours. So for the next two hours we covered our daypacks with the raincover and ourselves with the poncho and kept walking. This time got a little boring for me as everywhere outside it was foggy and dull. Couldn't talk to B as well as it was raining and it was hard to hear and difficult to walk and talk! That is when the idea of writing a blog about this whole experience struck me.. Though I had written a few posts 4 yrs ago I had completely forgotten about it and then it struck, this is definitely a experience I want to cherish forever and what better way than to write about it when its so green and fresh in my eyes still! For the next 3 hours I kept thinking about it and after a while the steep steps became gradual and the rain stopped and it had become much easier to walk! After about 3 hours we reached another intersection where one way led to a Inca farming terraces and another to the camp site. When we reached this point B asked me if I wanted to go the terraces or the campsite. After the downhill my legs were hurting bad, as I was thinking, I asked Elvis whats is the time difference between going to the terraces and then to campsite as opposed to straight to the campsite and he bluntly said "For you it'll take 1 hour from the terraces or 40 mins straight. So you should probably go the camp". That irked me a lot. I concentrated only on his "For you" part.. I got completely pissed with him and just for that I told B lets go the Inca terraces and off we went. It was a pretty flat trail to the terraces from there and it took us only 15 mins to get there. As we go there it was quite foggy, but after a while things cleared up and it was a really beautiful site. When B saw this, he too got really annoyed that Elvis had nearly made us miss this!! Thats when we decided we shall not tip him! We walked around the Inca ruins for 15-20 mins, met a few llamas with whom the rest of our group took selfies with, but we being the animal lovers we are took photos from a distance and headed for lunch to the campsite. Thanks to our creative cook we had a very hearty meal and after lunch we headed to see another Inca site called Winay Wayna ("forever young!")
Winay Wayna is a beautifully located Inca site with high rising Andes on all sides with a neat waterfall in the background and a roaring Urubamba river in the distance in the valley. It was so peaceful and quiet there it made us think even though the terrain is so hard and mountainous probably the Incas came here for the beauty!! :) To open your door everyday in the morning to such nature is just so amazing! I just didnt feel like going away from that place. Thats when we really realized pictures cannot do justice to the beauty of nature ! You definitely cannot capture all that your eyes can see!
Not sure why, both of us seemed to have had an allergic reaction to something on day-3 which made our faces bloat and so we decided probably washing our hair and face might help reduce it and so we plunged into just washing the hair in the sink in ice cold water and it didnt really help ;-) it only gave us numb heads for a while ;-)
We were finally treated to a good dinner with extra special decors and a finale of a cake which was baked without an oven! Since this was the last dinner we would be having with the porters some more formalities of greeting the porters goodbye and giving them tip followed. Now, we only had the icing on the cake or rather the cake itself remaining to be seen on day-4!
Below is how your face might look after 3 days of hiking and no-shower :P Just a headsup!
The grand finale, the cake itself :) Day-4:
We were woken up by 3am on this day for various weird reasons Elvis told and some which he didn't. He said the only train the porters can take back to Cusco is at 5am and we need to clear the campsite before 4am for them to catch the train. But right after a 2 min walk from the campsite there was a checkpost where we had to wait till it opened at 5.30. We strongly belived the urge to be 1st in line there was his whole idea of waking us up! When we got to the checkpost at 3.45 in the morning when it was raining cats and dogs outside and Elvis didn't have the patience to wait a single minute for us to pack up our tents though we could barely stand outside without the poncho for a minute before we were drenched and it was freezing cold, there wasn't a single soul there! People started coming in after 4 slowly and only by 5 everyone had come. There were around 200 people in the campsite in the night but we had to be there at 3.30 and be the forefront of the line you see! :D This totally drove us crazy on Elvis and more reason now for no tip!
We waited sleepily till the checkpost opened and started hiking at 5.30 in mild darkness with ponchos and head lamps and it was still slightly drizzling.. As usual Elvis was following me. Though it was just a 1 hr walk to Sun gate from where we would get the first view of Macchu Picchu, it was a harder path than we expected and he following us made it worse. It was very cloudy all along the way and we couldn't see anything in the valley and his cold stares when I stopped to sip water drove me crazy! After and hr and 15 mins we made it to Sun gate and we were greatly disappointed. It was all covered in fog and we couldn't see anything. B was highly disappointed and he had decided to come back to Macchu Picchu the next day because he didn't think the clouds would clear at all :) Only this time I was a little optimistic and tried cheering him saying it will clear because it did every other day! He didn't believe me :)
From here we had to walk downhill for another 45 mins to reach Macchu Picchu. We walked peacefully this time since Elvis went ahead of us. We reached the point where we were supposed to get a view of Macchu Picchu, but this is what we saw all fog in the valley! B's predictions were becoming correct!
From behind the house in the above pic is where we should have taken our customary group pic of victory of surviving the 4 days, but since we couldn't see anything below we decided to put our stuff outside the gates of Macchu Picchu, eat a snack and get back in for a guided tour hoping it would clear by then. This last part which was a 10 min walk from here to the gate was the most difficult ever for me! It was downhill, my knees and feet had given up and the 10 mins seemed like a day to me.. It was never approaching! I had sworn to B before the trip that however painful it becomes I wouldn't cry and I had kept up to it till here.. The last 10 mins killed me so much that I had almost broken it and was tearing up. But I didn't! I didn't want to break a promise that I kept up till then! I walked very very very slowly and we were out of the gate!!! After a break to eat snacks and use the toilets (btw they are not called restrooms in Peru!) we stored our backpacks at the entrance and got back inside Macchu Picchu. It was still foggy and B was really really upset. But it was still 8.30am. We still had half a day left there and somehow I was hopeful it would clear up!
Elvis began his boring history classes and I started taking random pictures of the fog filled Macchu Picchu! By around 9 the fog started clearing up and there it was in front of us the beautiful Macchu Picchu which was pictured in the mind from a long long time ago!
Elvis continued his lecture for another 2 hours and by 11 we were left aside to explore on our own. We walked around for an hour and then made it to the top again from where we should have taken our victory picture. After all, we deserved that one pic for the 4 days of effort we had put in!
After walking around for some more time, we went down to catch a bus back to the town since we were supposed to meet Elvis at 2 and get our stuff from him. When we stood there wanting to catch the last view of Macchu Picchu before we took off, all that was running in our minds was we didnt want to go back. However hard it was, the 4 days, though we felt like giving up so many times, we did not and we finally made it. The beauty of the place was all worth it! I am not sure how much of the Inca history I can appreciate (both B and me felt it was nothing compared to the history we have in India!) but the place is just like it is in heaven. You just don't want to get out of there. We could have sat there at the top all day if not for Elvis!! :)
Back in the bus going down, we again tried to get glimpses of our last view and left the place happy and satisfied and feeling really good about ourselves. Just the thought of from where to where we had come! Me from not able to walk a mountain which was probably 100m high (I had almost fainted!) and B not fit enough to peacefully finish hikes which was relatively easy for everyone else back in 2009 to walking for 45 kms in 4 days touching a peak of 4250m! It felt incredible!
We have done a lot of things together after we met each other in 2010! But this hike is something we will always always cherish, we achieved it together! I cannot even imagine doing this without B and this post is in dedication to the man who made it possible for me to conquer one of the dreams of my life :-)
Love you Kumar Bhargav Viswanatha!! :)
Looking forward to fulfilling so many more dreams with you!!! :)
As I was researching tour companies for a 1 day hike to Macchu Picchu, it dawned on me if not now when will be ever do the 4D/3N hike??!! At this point we were in the best of our fitness in several months, thanks to that grilling cruel crossfit workouts that we had diligently been doing for the last 6 months! I immediately called B and said we should do it and told him the reason that had dawned on me and he agreed instantly!! So thus began the biggest preparation of our life to see Macchu Picchu the way Incas did! :)
In addition to the regular preparation involving visa/documents/tickets and other stuff, this trip had a lot more in store. We started out on our weekend hike rituals to get us in shape to walk 45 kms in 4 days. But before this we needed a good pair of hiking shoes, the lesson we( rather I) learnt after a horrible experience hiking the Sykes in Big Sur with a Reebok running shoe! We both bought a pair of Merell hiking shoes which was the biggest asset for the trip. Then began our weekend hiking expeditions all around San Diego and a marathon of shopping for various little things you need for a hiking/camping trip.We bought hiking bags, socks, camel water packs, medicine, body wipes, face wipes(no shower for 3 days was the worst nightmare I had), energy bars etc etc etc. B diligently kept track of things we need to buy/do in his gmail drafts sending me lists every other day!
After all the preparation that we thought we could possibly do in 2 months we finally arrived in Cusco, Peru on 21st March. Getting acclimatized to the altitude was a major part of the preparation needed for the Inca trail and we did that by staying in Cusco and visiting Lake Titicaca 4 days before our trail began. So, we came back from Lake Titicaca and on the day before our trail we had a briefing with the tour company we took the trail with. There we met our fellow hikers and our guide with whom we were going to spend the next 4 days with. We were a group of 8 people - a couple from England (Steph and Dan), another couple from Germany (Batrese and Marcos) and 2 guys form NZ (Kush and Dan again) and we were the couple from India (or the States!!) Everyone seemed nice other than the guide Elvis! I didnt like his attitude from the time we met him, but more on that later... After we came back from the briefing we packed (overpacked) stuff which we needed during the day into our daypacks and the rest into the "duffel" (we ended up using this word so many times during those 4 days ("Where is your duffel bag?" "Is the soap in the duffel bag?", "No its in my duffel bag!!" and I dont know why it seems really funny to me :)) bag that we got from the company which we carefully measured to not exceed the prescribed limit of 4kgs per person! We slept pretty soon as we had to get up at 3.30 and meet the group at 4.30.
We were up by 3 (me that is, B always has to be woken up once I am ready ;-)) and we met the group at 4.30 near the bus which was supposed to drive us to KM 82 the starting point of the hike. I slept happily till we stopped for breakfast at 6.30 in a place called Ollayantatambo. (another funny word that the guide kept mentioning a thousand times! ) The coffee there was amazing and little did the coffee buffs in us know this would be the last coffee for the next 4 days! Nevertheless both of us treated ourselves to 2 full cups of coffee :) Finding hot milk for coffee in Peru was an amazing surprise to us after we resorted to black coffee in the US because of the lack of hot milk :)
After about a 45 mins drive along a narrow mud road next to the river worrying when the bus might fall into the river we arrived at KM 82! There we were at the beginning of the Inca trail.
So began Day - 1:
The first half of the day was very peaceful as the trail was pretty flat with a few ups and downs. We came across a pretty Inca site on the way and we also stopped at several places for breaks and pictures and after about 5 hours of walking we came to a place next to the river where we were served lunch.
Like the guide Elvis kept bragging about the food they served from the time we saw him the previous day, the food was indeed fantastic! Since we were the only two vegetarians in the group we were served special main courses and the biggest advantage was we didn't have to share it with anyone else ;-) If I remember right I think we had a pumpkin soup, some mango onion starter, rice, tortilla( surprisingly omlette is called tortilla in Peru!) stuffed avocado and some baked potato for the main course.. (Wow! not bad I still remember it :)) After lunch the hike was only supposed to be an uphill for 2 hours and that would end our day-1. But as we were getting ready to leave the lunch place it started to rain and as we had prepped ourselves for the rain with the rain jacket and poncho we put everything on and started, but the rain stopped within a few minutes and I was starting to choke in the plastic poncho! Man it was hot inside that thing! It was much better once we got rid of it. From here on is when we started noticing the true colors of Elvis! Since I was the slowest in the group (Poor B had to tag along with my slow pace !! ) it was supposedly the guide's responsibility to walk behind the group. So Mr.Elvis walks behind me for 4 days almost all the time with a cold face looking as if he was going to murder me for walking slow! Anyways, I didnt care much for the rest of the day as I reminded myself we had paid him enough, so it was his duty to walk behind us! ;-) We walked slowly and even with our slow place we made it to the camp site within 2 hours and we were there by 4.30ish.. As we reached the campsite, the porters cheered for the last person who made it :D and I got the cheer everyday ! ;-)
We were greeted with a bowl of warm water and a wash cloth to wash our faces and it was quite refreshing after a face wash. We then had tea (Oh! btw forgot to mention about the special Coca tea which people drink everywhere in Peru to help ease the altitude sickness and it does really help) with popcorn and some cookies. After this there was a ritual like thing where we were made to say hello to all our porters(there were 13 porters and a chef) individually when they introduce themselves in Spanish and we also do the same, but there was an exception for me and B who didnt know a single sentence in Spanish to do it in English. (Well now after a week in Peru we do have learnt words - Ola Amigos! , Vamos, Gracias are among them :-))Then again we were treated to a sumptuous 4 course dinner with some banana fried in rum for dessert which didn't taste very good after all ! Right after dinner when we were getting back to our tent to sleep, Elvis caught us and told in a hush voice (because its a crime you see I am walking slow) "Guys, tomorrow is a long day and since we have to catch up with the group would you be ok starting half an hour earlier? We usually tell people who are slow to start 1-2 hrs before, but you guys are doing ok" (Ah! What a relief?!! we were doing ok). We agreed to start early and went to get some sleep. I soon started worrying if we would make it through the next day at all because of the encouraging talk we just had with Elvis! We were supposed to make it through 2 tough passes and there was a walk of about 16 hrs ahead of us.. But the good part was if we somehow made it through day-2 we would definitely finish it since day-3 and day-4 were much easier. My sweet husband as he always does consoled me saying we can definitely do it and he will make sure I do (I just adore his optimism, don't know if he really feels that way or makes it up to make me worry less, but it works like a charm always! ;-)). That helped me sleep well through the night forgetting about the long dreaded day...
Most dreaded Day-2:
After the group pic Elvis showed us where the dead woman's pass was in the distance. Supposedly it looks like a nipple on a breast ! I couldnt see it that way- Checkout if you can :)
But after seeing it in the distance our confidence increased. The more we could see the destination the more we felt we can easily do it. So we started our way to conquer the dead woman's pass. This part of the hike was pretty crowded compared to others, (not sure why! because all of them that start at the same time should do the whole thing, not clear why we saw many people only on this stretch!) we had a lot of people passing and the view was amazing. Groups and groups of porters were running past us and without much difficulty and still following our tabata routine we made it to the top of dead woman's pass! Yes!! we had conquered the most difficult part of the hike and we were elated! Adding to the happiness was one of our porters waiting at the top of dead woman's pass with hot tea and cheese bread :) The chilly weather at the top was perfect for the tea and any food would have tasted awesome after such hard 4 hours we had had!
After a short break we began the descent of 600m downhill. It was getting pretty chilly and cloudy, so we had to keep the camera in most of the time worrying about the lens getting spoilt! Had never imagined downhill also can be difficult. For most parts it was unevenly made steps which were of significant height and for someone with my height it was an added extra effort to get down every step. Also since it had rained the previous night most of the steps were still wet and and we worried about slipping off them,because if we did, we would go straight into the valley!! :) Oh ya! and then there was Elvis religiously following me and reminding me how slow I was!! After about 2 hours of downhill we made it to a campsite where many companies stop for the day but our day was far from coming to an end there..
We still had one more pass to conquer! So we had a delicious 3 course meal and started our way uphill again. This time we were more confident of doing it since we had already done a much harder one :)
On the way up we came across a small Inca site which was mainly a temple and a small house for some messengers where Elvis told us his so called "stories"! Although everyone was excited to hear these from him I some how found it to be very similar to those extremely boring after lunch history classes in school and dozed off through most of them. He had an extraordinary talent of dragging and telling things which were so not important for so long that I couldn't make myself listen for more than 5 mins however hard I tried! B listened to most of them and I bugged him later to repeat what Elvis told in a more interesting way ;-) After abut 2 hours of uphill and 2 hours of downhill we arrived at another Inca site. After having walked for close to 10 hours that day, my shoes had begun to bug me. And there was a lot of cloud cover everywhere. We stood at an intersection where we had to again climb up a few hundred stairs to get to the Inca site or go 20 mins down to the camp site. After the tiring day we had had, we convinced ourselves that the Inca site will not be worth seeing in the fog and since we had 3 more of them coming up the next day, we decided to make it the sour grape and off we went to the campsite! So 20 mins later we had come to an end of the most dreaded day of the hike and it made us feel wonderful! As usual after a heavy tea and popcorn and dinner we got a good night's sleep feeling proud of our accomplishment!
Half day Day-3:
We woke up happily on day-3 since it was just meant to be half a day and our lunch was at the final campsite. Since it was a short-day we also got to sleep an extra half an hour! Yay!
After a heavy breakfast which included some delicious sauteed banana's (not sure how it was made but it was yummy, I definitely have to try making it :)) and deep fried yuca (a variety of yam I believe) we started out. These 4 days are in a long time the maximum amount of fatty food I have eaten! Thanks to our periodic calorie counting (Divya-my best friend used to call me a calorie counting machine, pop anything in front of me and I know the amount of calories in it!!! ;-)) and obsession for healthy foods we dont have a lot of fat in our regular diet, but these 4 days we had nothing but fatty food in all forms - cheese in literally every dish, fried, deep fried, potato, avocado, popcorn, butter, rice in every meal and what not!!
After about an hour of ups, downs and flats we had to descent a whole 1000m down today. Just a few mins after we left it started raining badly and it rained for about 2 hours. So for the next two hours we covered our daypacks with the raincover and ourselves with the poncho and kept walking. This time got a little boring for me as everywhere outside it was foggy and dull. Couldn't talk to B as well as it was raining and it was hard to hear and difficult to walk and talk! That is when the idea of writing a blog about this whole experience struck me.. Though I had written a few posts 4 yrs ago I had completely forgotten about it and then it struck, this is definitely a experience I want to cherish forever and what better way than to write about it when its so green and fresh in my eyes still! For the next 3 hours I kept thinking about it and after a while the steep steps became gradual and the rain stopped and it had become much easier to walk! After about 3 hours we reached another intersection where one way led to a Inca farming terraces and another to the camp site. When we reached this point B asked me if I wanted to go the terraces or the campsite. After the downhill my legs were hurting bad, as I was thinking, I asked Elvis whats is the time difference between going to the terraces and then to campsite as opposed to straight to the campsite and he bluntly said "For you it'll take 1 hour from the terraces or 40 mins straight. So you should probably go the camp". That irked me a lot. I concentrated only on his "For you" part.. I got completely pissed with him and just for that I told B lets go the Inca terraces and off we went. It was a pretty flat trail to the terraces from there and it took us only 15 mins to get there. As we go there it was quite foggy, but after a while things cleared up and it was a really beautiful site. When B saw this, he too got really annoyed that Elvis had nearly made us miss this!! Thats when we decided we shall not tip him! We walked around the Inca ruins for 15-20 mins, met a few llamas with whom the rest of our group took selfies with, but we being the animal lovers we are took photos from a distance and headed for lunch to the campsite. Thanks to our creative cook we had a very hearty meal and after lunch we headed to see another Inca site called Winay Wayna ("forever young!")
Winay Wayna is a beautifully located Inca site with high rising Andes on all sides with a neat waterfall in the background and a roaring Urubamba river in the distance in the valley. It was so peaceful and quiet there it made us think even though the terrain is so hard and mountainous probably the Incas came here for the beauty!! :) To open your door everyday in the morning to such nature is just so amazing! I just didnt feel like going away from that place. Thats when we really realized pictures cannot do justice to the beauty of nature ! You definitely cannot capture all that your eyes can see!
Not sure why, both of us seemed to have had an allergic reaction to something on day-3 which made our faces bloat and so we decided probably washing our hair and face might help reduce it and so we plunged into just washing the hair in the sink in ice cold water and it didnt really help ;-) it only gave us numb heads for a while ;-)
We were finally treated to a good dinner with extra special decors and a finale of a cake which was baked without an oven! Since this was the last dinner we would be having with the porters some more formalities of greeting the porters goodbye and giving them tip followed. Now, we only had the icing on the cake or rather the cake itself remaining to be seen on day-4!
Below is how your face might look after 3 days of hiking and no-shower :P Just a headsup!
The grand finale, the cake itself :) Day-4:
We were woken up by 3am on this day for various weird reasons Elvis told and some which he didn't. He said the only train the porters can take back to Cusco is at 5am and we need to clear the campsite before 4am for them to catch the train. But right after a 2 min walk from the campsite there was a checkpost where we had to wait till it opened at 5.30. We strongly belived the urge to be 1st in line there was his whole idea of waking us up! When we got to the checkpost at 3.45 in the morning when it was raining cats and dogs outside and Elvis didn't have the patience to wait a single minute for us to pack up our tents though we could barely stand outside without the poncho for a minute before we were drenched and it was freezing cold, there wasn't a single soul there! People started coming in after 4 slowly and only by 5 everyone had come. There were around 200 people in the campsite in the night but we had to be there at 3.30 and be the forefront of the line you see! :D This totally drove us crazy on Elvis and more reason now for no tip!
We waited sleepily till the checkpost opened and started hiking at 5.30 in mild darkness with ponchos and head lamps and it was still slightly drizzling.. As usual Elvis was following me. Though it was just a 1 hr walk to Sun gate from where we would get the first view of Macchu Picchu, it was a harder path than we expected and he following us made it worse. It was very cloudy all along the way and we couldn't see anything in the valley and his cold stares when I stopped to sip water drove me crazy! After and hr and 15 mins we made it to Sun gate and we were greatly disappointed. It was all covered in fog and we couldn't see anything. B was highly disappointed and he had decided to come back to Macchu Picchu the next day because he didn't think the clouds would clear at all :) Only this time I was a little optimistic and tried cheering him saying it will clear because it did every other day! He didn't believe me :)
From here we had to walk downhill for another 45 mins to reach Macchu Picchu. We walked peacefully this time since Elvis went ahead of us. We reached the point where we were supposed to get a view of Macchu Picchu, but this is what we saw all fog in the valley! B's predictions were becoming correct!
From behind the house in the above pic is where we should have taken our customary group pic of victory of surviving the 4 days, but since we couldn't see anything below we decided to put our stuff outside the gates of Macchu Picchu, eat a snack and get back in for a guided tour hoping it would clear by then. This last part which was a 10 min walk from here to the gate was the most difficult ever for me! It was downhill, my knees and feet had given up and the 10 mins seemed like a day to me.. It was never approaching! I had sworn to B before the trip that however painful it becomes I wouldn't cry and I had kept up to it till here.. The last 10 mins killed me so much that I had almost broken it and was tearing up. But I didn't! I didn't want to break a promise that I kept up till then! I walked very very very slowly and we were out of the gate!!! After a break to eat snacks and use the toilets (btw they are not called restrooms in Peru!) we stored our backpacks at the entrance and got back inside Macchu Picchu. It was still foggy and B was really really upset. But it was still 8.30am. We still had half a day left there and somehow I was hopeful it would clear up!
Elvis began his boring history classes and I started taking random pictures of the fog filled Macchu Picchu! By around 9 the fog started clearing up and there it was in front of us the beautiful Macchu Picchu which was pictured in the mind from a long long time ago!
Elvis continued his lecture for another 2 hours and by 11 we were left aside to explore on our own. We walked around for an hour and then made it to the top again from where we should have taken our victory picture. After all, we deserved that one pic for the 4 days of effort we had put in!
After walking around for some more time, we went down to catch a bus back to the town since we were supposed to meet Elvis at 2 and get our stuff from him. When we stood there wanting to catch the last view of Macchu Picchu before we took off, all that was running in our minds was we didnt want to go back. However hard it was, the 4 days, though we felt like giving up so many times, we did not and we finally made it. The beauty of the place was all worth it! I am not sure how much of the Inca history I can appreciate (both B and me felt it was nothing compared to the history we have in India!) but the place is just like it is in heaven. You just don't want to get out of there. We could have sat there at the top all day if not for Elvis!! :)
Back in the bus going down, we again tried to get glimpses of our last view and left the place happy and satisfied and feeling really good about ourselves. Just the thought of from where to where we had come! Me from not able to walk a mountain which was probably 100m high (I had almost fainted!) and B not fit enough to peacefully finish hikes which was relatively easy for everyone else back in 2009 to walking for 45 kms in 4 days touching a peak of 4250m! It felt incredible!
We have done a lot of things together after we met each other in 2010! But this hike is something we will always always cherish, we achieved it together! I cannot even imagine doing this without B and this post is in dedication to the man who made it possible for me to conquer one of the dreams of my life :-)
Love you Kumar Bhargav Viswanatha!! :)
Looking forward to fulfilling so many more dreams with you!!! :)
