Sonali does The Inca Trail

It all culminated in this: A full day hike along the inca trail to get to Macchu Picchu. 

At 9:30 in the morning, we were literally dropped off the train tracks at km 104 to begin a day long hike on the famous inca trail. The trail is about 9 miles to Sun Gate (a view point from which you can see MP from a distance). This is followed by about an hour long hike down to MP. Most of the 9 miles was uphill, consisting of the infamous steps and the rest is what they call "Andean Flats". That just means a string of camel backs one after another. For someone like me, hiking with a backpack for the first time I did pretty well (mid pace: enough to only warrant small breaks and still catch up with the trailblazers). I was surprisingly quite fast downhill when a lot of the trailblazers seemed to have knee issues! 

The trail carved along the edge of the mountains provides breathtaking views! You could literally throw the camera up in the air and click a picture and it would be brilliant. We passed bridges and waterfalls along the way. Shortly around 1:30pm we arrived at Winay Wayna, one of the ruins along the way to Macchu Picchu. We  finally broke for lunch around 2:00pm. You prolly guessed, but yes, we had boxed lunch provided by the tour company. Let's just say, we were too hungry to care if the food tasted good. The little pineapple juice box hit the spot though!

Continuing our hike along the andean flats we reached the Sun Gate a little before 4:00pm. You could already see the clouds settling in. We had time for a few quick shots before it started drizzling. That was our cue. We readied ourselves with rain jackets, ponchos and other rainwear we had. I was totally not prepared for the torrential rain that followed. My rain jacket managed to keep my top half dry, but my pants and shoes were soaked to the bone. The worst part: my non-water proof backpack was taking a hit for the worse. 

After a slippery downhill descent in the downpour for an hour, we made it to MP. Even in the rain the view was spectacular. But alas, we had to keep going to catch the bus to aguas calientes, a small town at the foothills of MP which primarily serves as a tourist rest-stop. When the rain finally stopped, the double rainbow showed up as a nice surprise!

So far so good. When we got to AC, our trip started to unravel. You see, we were supposed to have had 2 guides to help us with the hike. Only one of them showed up because the other was sick. This meant that the single guide had to take care of all 9 of us going at different speeds.  When we got to AC, he didn't know where the hotel was. This was disconcerting to say the least, especially after a solid day hiking and rain-soaking. Eventually we found the hotel and checked in. The hotel, very spartan and tiny was what I had expected but not what I wanted at that moment. This is also where I discovered that the contents of my backpack were wet! My presence of mind kicked in and I grabbed a few of my wet clothes and took it to a laundry service a couple of blocks outside the hotel. Best 6 Soles I've spent! The guide had also organized dinner at a local restaurant. As we followed him into the sketchy alley ways, we quickly realized that we wanted to make our own arrangements for dinner and so we did.  In the meantime, extreme paranoia began to set in for some of my friends. In this scenario, they thought that the guide had brought us to this hotel to get his friends to kidnap us ALL! I on the other hand just figured he was incompetent at his job, prolly because he was always second in command. Today with the main guide being sick, he had to step up to the challenge, which he clearly failed at. While we were dinnering, the guide decided that he needed help and reported back to the tour company to call for backup. So when we got back to the hotel, we had a new guide assigned to help us with the logistics of the next day. The day we REALLY see MP!

All set for the hike at Km. 104

Hiking Selfie

The Inca Trail

Winay Wayna

Sun Gate