It was the most challenging thing, both physically and mentally, that I have ever done.
Trekking through the Peruvian Andes for up to 8 hours a day, following the trail of the Incas to arrive at their famous 'lost city' took 4 hard days of one step in front of the other....Up and down mountains we climbed, reaching our campsites by about 5pm and collapsing into the dining tent ready to be served magnificent meals by our chefs and cosying up into our sleeping bags before beginning the days over again. We coped with no showers and filthy drop toilets with no paper....cleaning away the day's sweat with baby wipes and using copious amounts of deodarant to disguise our stink. It was tough...no princesses here.
Starting on day one at the 82km mark I met the new group we would be travelling with. And as soon as I saw them I knew I had found 'my' kind of people. Mainly aussies, they are young and fun and I immediately integrated into their group and felt I had known them forever. Their presence helped me make it - of that I have no doubt.
I took the Inca trail as slowly as I could possibly manage, helped along by two of my new friends, Peter and Kasey, who encouraged and supported me....helping eachother get over the tough bits and taking little stops every now and then to catch our breath, gaze at magnificent views and to smell the roses.
We were also helped along by two awesome peruvian guides who glibly told us they had done this trek well over 300 times. While they didn't even raise a sweat Lewis and Jefferson understood that we did and were kind and supportive the whole way, pointing out interesting wildlife and flora and co-ordinating our team of porters who ran the trail with weights of up to 25kgs strapped to their backs....all our gear, tents and food. If I felt like complaining I only had to look at these amazing men who run the inca trail for a living without even raising a sweat.
Day two was the toughest. Ascending a long steep path for 4 hours we reached the highest point of the trek, appropriately named 'Dead Woman's Pass' at a hight of 4200 meters (13, 779ft) before decending to a valley and then (what comes down must go up...) ascending again to the second pass and reaching our campsite for the night - well over 8 hours after we had started the day. We were fighting altitude sickness and the thin air found that high in the mountains....while I would have been breathless at the best of times, the lack of oxygen made the climb just that little bit tougher.
By the third evening we were desperate for beer. We were almost there and felt that we deserved a reward. Luckily there was a little restaurant at our campsite that evening that sold the stuff....which we mistakenly drank in copious amounts, much to our regret the next day as we woke at 3am in the pouring rain to hike the last 2 hours to macchu picchu. Soggy, exhausted and hungover, Macchu Picchu was a bit of an anti-climax after everything we had been through to get there.
Sullenly clamboring to the sun gate - the famously scenic entry to the ruins - I was exhausted and over it, cursing the incas for building their stupid city in such a remote location. But still I couldn't help but gasp at the site of the ruins lying before me. It is thought that Machu Picchu was built around 1440 as a university and place of worship for incan nobility, however there is eidence that this had been an incan site for much longer than that. With temples, palaces and living quarters as well as evidence of astonomical observatories, it was a facinating place that we wandered around for a couple of hours before heading back gratefully on a bus (thank God for vehicles with wheels to save aching legs) to a restaurant with real coca-cola and hamburgers.
As I bumped along the road back to civilization with a filthy body and a light heart I was more proud of myself for completing this trek than many other accomplishments in my lifetime....
Till next time...
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