Peru trip day 7; (Inca trail day 3) Sat Oct 17
This was the day I lost track of what day it was.
We walk a loooooooooooooooooooong way, and see many ruins, after the cut.
We got up at about 5am, an hour earlier than yesterday, and had a hearty breakfast of pancakes, fried bananas, avocado mush something, and corn cake.
It was raining lightly, so we put on our rain gear. Mom had a matching windbreaker and windbreaker leggings that she discovered after a while were merely water resistant, not waterproof, and her cuffs and the places where her pack touched her got pretty wet. I had a bright orange pullover jacket that I borrowed from my brother, that was really meant to be a kayaking jacket. It was built to keep out sea spray and rogue waves, so a light rain was no problem. But my pants and shoes did get wet. Luckily we had wool hiking socks which stay warm and comfortable even when wet.
The climb out of our little valley only took about 2 hours. The first ruin on the way was a tambo called Runkuraqay, a pretty small ruin on a nice overlook point with a view of Dead Woman Pass and a lot of the trail in this valley. The theory is that this was a waypoint for the runner messengers who travelled back and forth to Machu Picchu. The floorplan of the building is supposedly shaped like an Inca knife. The walls were curved, which was kind of abnormal, so it gave the appearance of a defensive tower.
As we neared the second pass, there were pictographic signs warning you not to pick plants, mess with animals, or litter. We passed a small pond/lake called Spoon Lake, because when it fills up in the rainy season the bowl of the lake overflows into a channel, the spoon's handle, and eventually overflows over the edge in a little waterfall into the valley below.
At the top of the 2nd pass there is a bare area surrounded with rock formation, and little stones weighing down coca leaf offerings. We got out or coca leaf sprigs from our passports and found a nice spot for them. Ken spent extra time here praying, and asked for a stop to the rain. About an hour later it did stop.
On the way down into the next valley, we had the joy of picking our way down steep stairs made slippery by rain. We were passed by a British guy in a splendid set of rain gear, who explained that it was an emergency purchase while he was on vacation in Wales, and its the best emergency purchase he ever made.
We passed another pond/lake called the Black Lake because it was so full of dark algae it looked black. The trail passed under a giant overhanging stone and we stopped for a brief break from the rain and I was brave enough to pull out my camera for some pictures of our damp intrepidness.
The rain passed around the time we got to Phuyupatamarka which means "In the Clouds". The main trail bent into a rare switchback heading further down the valley, with a steep staircase running up several hundred feet into Cloud City. There was a convenient overhang of rock next to the staircase were we could leave our backpacks. While I wasn't exactly thrilled to climb stairs that didn't bring us closer to our goal, I'm very glad I did because this ruin was the best on the trail, with the best view.
The main part of the ruin was a maze of rooms and buildings, and there were flying staircases leading down into the surrounding terraces. At the front of the town was an overlook point where we could look across the valley and see where our papis were already setting up lunch. I joked that they should install a zipline from here down to lunch camp.
There were lots of windows and niches here that had holes bored through the stones along their sills, which we supposed were used for tying shutters in place. An early British explorer who found similar holes in Machu Picchu thought they were tie-down places for chains, and therefore mistook one of the temples for a jail.
Simba showed us how the buildings were built to incorporate the rock outcroppings, and were therefore anchored. They left the face of the raw stone enclosed in one of the bigger rooms, which Simba said was like a temple, and they reverenced the stone. A window in this room was aligned with the solstice sun so they could keep track of the calendar. This was very important for each settlement, so that they could predict when to plant and harvest. But nobody knows who lived there, or why they lived in such a remote and hard to reach location. I theorized that they lived there to take care of the trail.
We stayed there for a while, looking out over the valley. That doesn't do the view justice, because in this case we could see a LOT of valley, and we were at the same level as the clouds that drifted by and changed the scene from moment to moment. Ken said he could stay right there forever. It was a magical place.
We had to climb down to the floor of the valley only to climb up to lunch camp which was almost as high as Cloud City. At the very bottom we passed a tiny little run called "The Shell Place" because when they excavated, they found sea shells. Why were there shells here? Nobody knows. What was The Shell Place used for? Nobody knows.
We were smack in the middle of the cloud forest now, and we saw lots of plants that looked suspiciously familiar. Plenty of houseplants and california wild plants are actually transplants from Peru. We also started to see orchids, but Simba had to point them out because they were small and in unattractive colors like burnt orange.
For lunch we had eggs in hollandaise sauce, chicken fried with lemon, steak smothered in mushrooms, and a rice pilaf. Our porters pitched the tent so that it faced Cloud City, providing a nice view while we ate. Once again we each had an untouched bagged snack from the morning, but I was saving these up now, because we weren't getting a provided lunch tomorrow.
There was still plenty of trail to hike after lunch so we had to get going. For a long way the trail followed the ridgeline, with a very steep falloff all the way down to the river miles below. We passed through the first of the Inca Tunnels. The trail suddenly veered into a rock cleft, and the stairs were carved from the bare stone for a tunnel about 50ft long, and also about 75 degrees declined. I tried to take pictures but the steepness just doesn't come across in pictures. Yet people who have looked at my pictures tell me it looks plenty steep to them.
It was here at the tunnel that mom scoffed at the idea that the Inca and his family were carried the whole way in litters. How could they POSSIBLY have gotten a litter through that? Mom declared that if she were the Inca's wife, she would have been too scared to ride a litter through such a thing in any case.
At the third pass, we had line of sight to Aguas Calientes through a gap in the mountains and there was one bar of cell phone reception. I hadn't talked to Steve since the hike began, which was the longest we'd ever gone. I had to wait several minutes for the call to go through but finally I heard his voice. "I'm calling you from a mountain top!" I said.
The third pass also marked the end of the "Peruvian flat" and the trail turned downward into a neverending staircase. I tried to telescope my walking stick out, but it stuck, and after a couple minutes of Ken and I fiddling with it, the handle broke off. I was pretty sad. The walking stick was great for taking some of the shock off the ankles and knees while going down, and without it, I was extra careful.
Simba kept his eyes peeled and grabbed a length of bamboo wood out of the jungle and carried it to Intipata where there was an Incan fountain still flowing, and someone had rigged a spout out of 3 leaves held down with a rock. Simba washed off the bamboo cane in the fountain and presented it to me as a new walking stick. "Pacha Mama provides." He said. Ken lent me his cotton handkerchief to tie on the top as a handle so I wouldn't get splinters.
The Incans were master water engineers. That fountain at Intipata was the first in a sraight line of about 10 fountains, the runoff from each one gathered in a channel and became the source for the next. When Simba said that this ruin was probably a military fort, I had this vision of a squad of soldiers all showering simultaneously.
There was a deep ditch (like a moat) around the main building part of the ruin, which we crossed on a footbridge made of one massive stone slab. Its not really a drawbridge because it doesn't move, but it has that sense.
Intipata has a commanding view of the entire slope of this mountain and the top of Machu Picchu mountain which is next in the chain. Machu Picchu the city is still not visible, and won't be until almost the last moment. Its a very cleverly hidden place.
This section of the trail was the most impressive. There were places where the steps were chiseled out of bare bedrock, and a place under a large overhang where the stairs curved into a spiral with a central open shaft about 25ft across.
Since the rain that morning had left the stones damp and the dirt slightly muddy, Simba warned us to always step on the driest part of the stone, or a place with a raised edge instead of a super flat place. He reiterated all this when my foot slipped out from under me and I fell on my butt. He had been about 500 ft behind me with Ken, but he nimbly ran down to see if I was ok. I had a tiny rock chip embedded in the heel of my hand so he broke out iodine and bandaids. He did take extremely good care of us.
We came to a point where the trail forked, and we could see Winaywayna ahead and a little above us on the mountainside. This ruin has so many fountains, that they think it was a place to wash and purify yourself before entering the city. From a distance, the exposed terraces are formed like an upside down fan, dramatically laid out against the deep green of the surrounding jungle.
Simba offered us a choice, and explained that the original Inca trail goes up Winaywayna, and then we'd doubleback on a modern trail that went down to modern Winaywayna the camp site, or we could go directly to camp on the modern spur trail that started here.
It was already nearing sundown, which comes early in the steep mountains, and we were pretty exhausted, so we elected to go direct to camp. This portion of the trail switchbacked underneath a set of tension powerlines. After 20 switchbacks they began to feel neverending. When it got so dark that I could barely see where I was placing my feet, I insisted we stop long enough to pull out our headlamps. I promised Steve that I wouldn't take any chances with my safety and running down the side of a mountain in the dark seemed to qualify.
We dragged into camp by the light of our headlamps. This camp had electricity, showers, and even a bar, but I was too tired. My toes, ankles and knees all ached.
After dinner, Simba told us that the porters had to leave at 5am the next morning to catch the first train back to Cusco, so we'd be waking up at 4am for an early breakfast and then have some wait time before hiking.
We said goodbye to the porters. Ken gave them each a small red stone imbued with protection. He joked that that's why his pack was so heavy. At the beginning of the hike he had given me and mom rock crystal for energy. There were times when I held it in my hand to help me motivate to keep going.
Its hard to say which day was harder, day 2 or 3. Day 2 was all uphill, yes, but day 3 was walking from literally dawn to dark. We traveled the farthest, and downhill is no picnic either. I was so sick of the taste of coca that I didn't have any coca leaves this day, but I still drank the coca tea at breakfast and lunch. This is how I know it really does something, because by the end of this day I was significantly more exhausted and moody than previous days.
We walk a loooooooooooooooooooong way, and see many ruins, after the cut.
We got up at about 5am, an hour earlier than yesterday, and had a hearty breakfast of pancakes, fried bananas, avocado mush something, and corn cake.
It was raining lightly, so we put on our rain gear. Mom had a matching windbreaker and windbreaker leggings that she discovered after a while were merely water resistant, not waterproof, and her cuffs and the places where her pack touched her got pretty wet. I had a bright orange pullover jacket that I borrowed from my brother, that was really meant to be a kayaking jacket. It was built to keep out sea spray and rogue waves, so a light rain was no problem. But my pants and shoes did get wet. Luckily we had wool hiking socks which stay warm and comfortable even when wet.
The climb out of our little valley only took about 2 hours. The first ruin on the way was a tambo called Runkuraqay, a pretty small ruin on a nice overlook point with a view of Dead Woman Pass and a lot of the trail in this valley. The theory is that this was a waypoint for the runner messengers who travelled back and forth to Machu Picchu. The floorplan of the building is supposedly shaped like an Inca knife. The walls were curved, which was kind of abnormal, so it gave the appearance of a defensive tower.
As we neared the second pass, there were pictographic signs warning you not to pick plants, mess with animals, or litter. We passed a small pond/lake called Spoon Lake, because when it fills up in the rainy season the bowl of the lake overflows into a channel, the spoon's handle, and eventually overflows over the edge in a little waterfall into the valley below.
At the top of the 2nd pass there is a bare area surrounded with rock formation, and little stones weighing down coca leaf offerings. We got out or coca leaf sprigs from our passports and found a nice spot for them. Ken spent extra time here praying, and asked for a stop to the rain. About an hour later it did stop.
On the way down into the next valley, we had the joy of picking our way down steep stairs made slippery by rain. We were passed by a British guy in a splendid set of rain gear, who explained that it was an emergency purchase while he was on vacation in Wales, and its the best emergency purchase he ever made.
We passed another pond/lake called the Black Lake because it was so full of dark algae it looked black. The trail passed under a giant overhanging stone and we stopped for a brief break from the rain and I was brave enough to pull out my camera for some pictures of our damp intrepidness.
The rain passed around the time we got to Phuyupatamarka which means "In the Clouds". The main trail bent into a rare switchback heading further down the valley, with a steep staircase running up several hundred feet into Cloud City. There was a convenient overhang of rock next to the staircase were we could leave our backpacks. While I wasn't exactly thrilled to climb stairs that didn't bring us closer to our goal, I'm very glad I did because this ruin was the best on the trail, with the best view.
The main part of the ruin was a maze of rooms and buildings, and there were flying staircases leading down into the surrounding terraces. At the front of the town was an overlook point where we could look across the valley and see where our papis were already setting up lunch. I joked that they should install a zipline from here down to lunch camp.
There were lots of windows and niches here that had holes bored through the stones along their sills, which we supposed were used for tying shutters in place. An early British explorer who found similar holes in Machu Picchu thought they were tie-down places for chains, and therefore mistook one of the temples for a jail.
Simba showed us how the buildings were built to incorporate the rock outcroppings, and were therefore anchored. They left the face of the raw stone enclosed in one of the bigger rooms, which Simba said was like a temple, and they reverenced the stone. A window in this room was aligned with the solstice sun so they could keep track of the calendar. This was very important for each settlement, so that they could predict when to plant and harvest. But nobody knows who lived there, or why they lived in such a remote and hard to reach location. I theorized that they lived there to take care of the trail.
We stayed there for a while, looking out over the valley. That doesn't do the view justice, because in this case we could see a LOT of valley, and we were at the same level as the clouds that drifted by and changed the scene from moment to moment. Ken said he could stay right there forever. It was a magical place.
We had to climb down to the floor of the valley only to climb up to lunch camp which was almost as high as Cloud City. At the very bottom we passed a tiny little run called "The Shell Place" because when they excavated, they found sea shells. Why were there shells here? Nobody knows. What was The Shell Place used for? Nobody knows.
We were smack in the middle of the cloud forest now, and we saw lots of plants that looked suspiciously familiar. Plenty of houseplants and california wild plants are actually transplants from Peru. We also started to see orchids, but Simba had to point them out because they were small and in unattractive colors like burnt orange.
For lunch we had eggs in hollandaise sauce, chicken fried with lemon, steak smothered in mushrooms, and a rice pilaf. Our porters pitched the tent so that it faced Cloud City, providing a nice view while we ate. Once again we each had an untouched bagged snack from the morning, but I was saving these up now, because we weren't getting a provided lunch tomorrow.
There was still plenty of trail to hike after lunch so we had to get going. For a long way the trail followed the ridgeline, with a very steep falloff all the way down to the river miles below. We passed through the first of the Inca Tunnels. The trail suddenly veered into a rock cleft, and the stairs were carved from the bare stone for a tunnel about 50ft long, and also about 75 degrees declined. I tried to take pictures but the steepness just doesn't come across in pictures. Yet people who have looked at my pictures tell me it looks plenty steep to them.
It was here at the tunnel that mom scoffed at the idea that the Inca and his family were carried the whole way in litters. How could they POSSIBLY have gotten a litter through that? Mom declared that if she were the Inca's wife, she would have been too scared to ride a litter through such a thing in any case.
At the third pass, we had line of sight to Aguas Calientes through a gap in the mountains and there was one bar of cell phone reception. I hadn't talked to Steve since the hike began, which was the longest we'd ever gone. I had to wait several minutes for the call to go through but finally I heard his voice. "I'm calling you from a mountain top!" I said.
The third pass also marked the end of the "Peruvian flat" and the trail turned downward into a neverending staircase. I tried to telescope my walking stick out, but it stuck, and after a couple minutes of Ken and I fiddling with it, the handle broke off. I was pretty sad. The walking stick was great for taking some of the shock off the ankles and knees while going down, and without it, I was extra careful.
Simba kept his eyes peeled and grabbed a length of bamboo wood out of the jungle and carried it to Intipata where there was an Incan fountain still flowing, and someone had rigged a spout out of 3 leaves held down with a rock. Simba washed off the bamboo cane in the fountain and presented it to me as a new walking stick. "Pacha Mama provides." He said. Ken lent me his cotton handkerchief to tie on the top as a handle so I wouldn't get splinters.
The Incans were master water engineers. That fountain at Intipata was the first in a sraight line of about 10 fountains, the runoff from each one gathered in a channel and became the source for the next. When Simba said that this ruin was probably a military fort, I had this vision of a squad of soldiers all showering simultaneously.
There was a deep ditch (like a moat) around the main building part of the ruin, which we crossed on a footbridge made of one massive stone slab. Its not really a drawbridge because it doesn't move, but it has that sense.
Intipata has a commanding view of the entire slope of this mountain and the top of Machu Picchu mountain which is next in the chain. Machu Picchu the city is still not visible, and won't be until almost the last moment. Its a very cleverly hidden place.
This section of the trail was the most impressive. There were places where the steps were chiseled out of bare bedrock, and a place under a large overhang where the stairs curved into a spiral with a central open shaft about 25ft across.
Since the rain that morning had left the stones damp and the dirt slightly muddy, Simba warned us to always step on the driest part of the stone, or a place with a raised edge instead of a super flat place. He reiterated all this when my foot slipped out from under me and I fell on my butt. He had been about 500 ft behind me with Ken, but he nimbly ran down to see if I was ok. I had a tiny rock chip embedded in the heel of my hand so he broke out iodine and bandaids. He did take extremely good care of us.
We came to a point where the trail forked, and we could see Winaywayna ahead and a little above us on the mountainside. This ruin has so many fountains, that they think it was a place to wash and purify yourself before entering the city. From a distance, the exposed terraces are formed like an upside down fan, dramatically laid out against the deep green of the surrounding jungle.
Simba offered us a choice, and explained that the original Inca trail goes up Winaywayna, and then we'd doubleback on a modern trail that went down to modern Winaywayna the camp site, or we could go directly to camp on the modern spur trail that started here.
It was already nearing sundown, which comes early in the steep mountains, and we were pretty exhausted, so we elected to go direct to camp. This portion of the trail switchbacked underneath a set of tension powerlines. After 20 switchbacks they began to feel neverending. When it got so dark that I could barely see where I was placing my feet, I insisted we stop long enough to pull out our headlamps. I promised Steve that I wouldn't take any chances with my safety and running down the side of a mountain in the dark seemed to qualify.
We dragged into camp by the light of our headlamps. This camp had electricity, showers, and even a bar, but I was too tired. My toes, ankles and knees all ached.
After dinner, Simba told us that the porters had to leave at 5am the next morning to catch the first train back to Cusco, so we'd be waking up at 4am for an early breakfast and then have some wait time before hiking.
We said goodbye to the porters. Ken gave them each a small red stone imbued with protection. He joked that that's why his pack was so heavy. At the beginning of the hike he had given me and mom rock crystal for energy. There were times when I held it in my hand to help me motivate to keep going.
Its hard to say which day was harder, day 2 or 3. Day 2 was all uphill, yes, but day 3 was walking from literally dawn to dark. We traveled the farthest, and downhill is no picnic either. I was so sick of the taste of coca that I didn't have any coca leaves this day, but I still drank the coca tea at breakfast and lunch. This is how I know it really does something, because by the end of this day I was significantly more exhausted and moody than previous days.