Trailing the Incas

It pays to tackle challenges well prepared and with a healthy arsenal of self-doubt and foreboding. Armed with dismal levels of fitness, chest infections and dodgy boots and despite anticipating lung failure crawling up Dead Woman´s Pass and ensuing helicopter evacuations, we completed the 4-day Inca Trail intact and in good spirits.













Pics: The scene of unrequited love; Amanda urgently needs a toilet

A story of spurned love in the mountains
And what a hike. Along with 14 fellow walkers (and 21 porters, 1 cook and two guides) we start off on day 1 muttering about the rain and cursing our cheap ponchos, but soon succumb to the beautiful mountain scenery.

When, during our first lunch of perfectly prepared fresh trout, a lonely mutt proposes passion to an unsuspecting and sleepy piglet, we get an inkling of the delights awaiting us on the trail. (The dog only gives up on his love overtures - imagine a lot of air humping and high-pitched squealing - when an indignant mother pig shows him the door in no uncertain terms.)

Dead Woman´s Pass - a piece of cake
(As uttered by Victor, our guide)
Our experience of walking up a volcano in Chile stands us in good stead as we do the five-hour walk (rising in altitude from 3,100m to 4,200m) in slow motion, ensuring that the heart rate never gets too high and therefore not needing to stop apart from official breaks, including elevenses of tea, bread, cheese and popcorn seated at table.

Porters, laden to the T and preferring rubber sandles to walking boots, zoom past us to set up our sleeping and dining tents and prepare 3-course meals (lunch AND dinner). We´re not exactly roughing it.

And so we walk on, amazed by the number of Inca ruins, the variety of orchids and the lushness of the cloud forest (we´re pretty close to the jungle). And the pain we do feel - 99% of the walk is either severely up or severely down, with very little flat - we douse in laughter and beer. Brits Barney and Rebecca (in month 11 of their world trip) convince the assortment of Dutchies, South Africans (yep, two from Green Point), Canadians and Americans that all English people indulge in group sex all the time, and are forced into numerous renditions of Kumbayah (spelling??) My Lord.

A matter of honour


The last morning we´re up at 4am and in the dark man the control point (allowing us entry into the Machu Picchu reserve) half an hour before it opens. We follow Victor´s orders and lock arms and raise our walking sticks to a queue-jumping guide and his clients from a rival company. (On the verge of violence, we are convinced by Victor that the offenders are there legitimately. See pic)

Once through the control point the race is on and we virtually run for nearly two hours to the sun gate in pissing rain. A good thing, too, because it means we´re the first group to observe Machu Picchu entirely covered in clouds. But the sun makes its mark as we walk down and all is revealed.

Pic: Clouds rolling in herald another wet night

It is spectacular. One wonders at the mind that found this remote spot among the incredibly high and inhospitable cucumber-like mountains and conceived of a sophisticated city. And then disappeared after only a few hundres years.

Pic: Nobody does terraces like the Incas

Pic: A lucky dog (luck ain`t a thing that comes to many perros in S America) in Aguas Calientes`main shopping drag

Cathedral, Plaza de Armas, Cusco