If it feels to you like the blogs about the Inca Trail are never-ending, then you should thank me for giving you a realistic play-by-play. At times, it felt like it would never end. For me, most of those times were on day 3. Day 3 was in some ways the easiest, and in other ways the hardest. We were tired, Keith was still sick, and by now my knees were seriously hurting from all the stair climbing. Day 3 was the longest distance we'd cover, and if I'm remembering correctly, that was 16 km. (about 9.9 miles).
Oh, and lucky for us, those 16km had lots of stairs. See?
Our group stuck together for today's hike, and since the group moved so quickly it was no time that we left camp behind us. Behind me in the picture below you can see the night before's campground. By the time we got to this point (about 30 minutes after leaving camp). Our porters had already broken down all the tents and were coming jogging past us to set up our tents at the next site.
See, here comes one of them past us. He's the one with the grande purple backpack.
A short hour or so later we came to another ruin in the clouds.
And Juan told us more about this site. It was likely a stop-over or resting point for messengers who were relaying messages from one village to another. They were small, with a large room for living and then some storage areas for food.
But we didn't rest too long, and moved on. A quick look back at the ruins we just stopped at...
And then a look forward to the zig-zagging up the mountain. This is our group going up the mountain, with Podcast leading the way and me in the very back. Keith obviously took this picture during a stop-and-admire-the-view-moment.
And then a little down the other side of the mountain. Here is Veggie, just 6-8 steps below me.
And more down the mountain. I believe I took a tumble right about where Good Vibes is in this picture, he's on the far left in the olive green jacket. The rocks were wet, and I went a'sliding. Not hurt, though, I carry a little extra padding on my butt for exactly those reasons.
So on I went.
Keith spent the day chatting up David, our other guide.
The coolest ruin we came to so far on the trail was on Day 3. The name, Sayaqmarka, means inaccessible place, and though I don't have a picture of it, there were some seriously steep and narrow stairs up a ridge to get to the ruins. It was an optional hike, and we opted to do it.
And we were rewarded with some awesome moody and mysterious foggy views.
Keith took a break.
While I took the camera and went exploring.
We paused here a while and soaked in the views, and then took a deep breath and climbed down those steep narrow stairs. That put us back on the trail, and on we went towards our lunch site. And for the first time I noticed one of these on the trail. Neat.
Also for the first time, Keith and I were the front-runners in our group. Not for long, though. I loved this portion of the trail, it was cool, lush and had a lot of very interesting vegetation.
And portions of the trail here was original to the first Inca Trail, made by the Incas around 500AD. Most of the trail we were on were made by the Peruvian government in the last 30 years for tourists. As a sidenote, I wonder if they think of all foreign tourists as giants because those steps they put in were seriously tall. Anyway, this tunnel was original, so we all stopped for the photo op.
And after the tunnel, it was uphill again. And then down, and up, and down, repeat, repeat, repeat.
And, at the end of a long day of hiking (we started at 6:30am, and got to camp at 4:30pm), we could shower! YES! This campsite had 2 showers that we could pay a few soles to use. Whooo! It was tepid water at best, and the water pressure was minimal, but ooooh, how great it felt to be clean. Spirits were high this evening since we knew we'd see Machu Picchu the next morning.
Tomorrow, we return to civilization.
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