Some thoughts on the Inca Trail…
Unfortunately I was sick on 3 of the 4 days – the usual stuff: diarrhea and vomiting –and wasn’t able to eat anything. This has maybe coloured my perceptions. Anyway…
The trail itself was not one of the world's great hikes in my opinion - too much hype and very over-rated. There was too much walking on stones and too many steps (up and down), which is hard on the legs. Also, there are 500 other people (including porters) hiking each section of the trail each day, which makes it a real procession. Also, the trail is quite dirty: lots of garbage and it smells like a toilet. Basically it’s running beyond capacity.
The presence of the porters also made for a strange hiking experience. These poor guys, often wearing sandals made of car tyres and carrying loads in excess of 25kg (tents, huge gas bottles, ridiculous amounts of food), would run along the trail trying to stay ahead of the tourists so they could put up tents and prepare food etc. It was a real first class/second class type of experience that I'm not keen to repeat.
I also had a crap load of people in my group, which also blighted the experience. And finally there was a landslide blocking the entrance to Machu Pichu from the trail, which meant on the 3rd day we had to hike 10+ hours to Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to MP, where we stayed in a shitty hostel before being bussed up to MP on day 4. This meant we didn't get to see the stunning views of MP at dawn from the Sun Gate.
However, Machu Pichu itself was a magical place – a real must see. Despite the fact that I got up at 4.45am and was chundering by 5.15 before we had even left the hostel, I thought MP was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. We were there by 7am and it was still completely misty, making it barely possible to see the ruins or the mountains. But by 8.30 the mist was lifting and the ruins came into view.
Our Inca Trail guide gave us a typically boring spiel about MP (he specialised in the banal) before we were left to do our own thing. Despite how I felt, I somehow climbed Wanay Pichu (the high, narrow mountain you see behind MP), which gave breath-taking views of MP just as the last of the mist cleared.
Later I wandered around the site some more before finding a spot at the top of the ruins where I could see the whole site. I sat there mesmerised by it all for two hours (maybe more< I lossed track of time). Even when it started to rain, I was happy to sit there taking it all in: the mist slowly starting to shroud the ruins; the tourists arriving in their colourful plastic ponchos, looking like hundreds and thousands scattered on a piece of bread. It was amazing. I left to return to Cusco reluctantly.
There are pic's of Machu Pichu on flickr and I will post some here when the technology allows.
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