Inca Trail, 17th - 21st March (Part1)

Inca trail, Day 1 and 2

Company- Llama Path. Highly recommend them, a very professional outfit.
Had a disastrous nights sleep, between the noisy rude germans coming into and out of the hostel at all hours, and Richard´s breathing funny (he did that the whole time at altitude) we got bugger all sleep. Had to get up at four, breakfast at 4.20, and they picked us up from the hostel at 4.45. Shattered. Off to the bus, sleepy and grumpy, to be clapped aboard by 21 red-clad porters. It´s Llama Path´s thing, to clap everyone all the time.

We had had a briefing the night before, with details of where and when we would be walking. Introduced to the guides, Casiano the main guide and Marco the assistant guide. Organised to hire walking sticks at their strong recommendation, at a cost of 51 soles for both of us (that’s about $20 aussie). We had decided a week before hand not to hire an extra porter to carry our personal stuff, thinking, how pathetic is that! So it turns out that everyone else on the trip, apart from another aussie guy, steve, had hired an extra porter. What a lot of wimps, we thought. I had a tiny tiny inkling that maybe there was reason they had all hired a porter…

We stopped in Ollantaytambo, a village en route, for breakfast, at about 6.30 am. Richard and I had forgotten to get a spare rain poncho in town, as we only had those tiny emergency ones you can get at home. Never fear, the poncho ladies were ready and waiting for us in Ollantaytambo, it was raining already. 3 Soles each, what a bargain! Also available for 3 soles each were wooden walking sticks, so here we were a bit peeved at how we were getting ripped off hiring fancy ones. Then it was another hour back on the bus until km 82, our embarkation point. Getting to Km 82 in a very large coach bus was interesting, narrow, inca streets that 2 donkeys struggle to pass on, on some corners he had to have a couple of goes to get around them. Unfortunately, we made it, and had to get out into the rain trhough another throng of poncho and coca leaf selling ladies. We had the obligatory group photo in front of the starting point sign, (Richard and I on the left in the green ponchos) then did the official sign in, got a stamp in our passports, and off over a wooden bridge to the start of the trail.
Still raining.
Off we go, its not too bad at the start. The straps on my little backpack were starting to rub a bit. I had packed SO light. Just the pants, tshirt and jumper I was walking in, plus a spare pair of pants, another tshirt, undies, rain jacket, emergency rain poncho, sleeping bag, and sleeping mat. Toothbrush and sunscreen, waterbottle and mars bars, and the packet of all natural confectionary company lollies that had made it all the way from Australia. So, that´s pretty light, I swear it was less than 10 kilos.

The first day was supposed to be pretty easy. The first hour wasn´t too bad, then it started to hurt. The incline was getting ever so gradually steeper, and the steps started appearing. Damn those Incas, the steps were built to be taken at running pace, and by all accounts, the Incas were a tall bunch. So they are about knee height, which is just pushing it a little bit. And its up hill, and more uphill, and then we come to a sheer bloody vertical hillside with a path complete with very large steps cutting up the side of it. Damn, the pain, I am struggling to get any air in at all, having to stop every five or ten giant steps to suck back the thinned oxygen at that height. Made it to the top, with the ever patient Marco, saying, take it easy my friend, no hurry. He tried to take my bag off me as well, but I made it up carrying it. Score one to Jo. Just over the other side of the hill we had a lovely view of … and inca site.
The walk from there to the lunch site was about another two hours, we pulled in for lunch at bout 1.30. Lunch, was amazing. First up, a little salad of avocado, cucmber, tomato and lettuce, all artfully arranged on a plate an something like thousand island dressing over it. Yummy. Then, out came a nice creamy asparagus soup, wow, I thought, what a great lunch. Except that wasn´t the end of it!! Then it was big plates of spaghetti with either mushroom alfredo or napoiltana sauce, bloody brilliant!! Followed up with cups of tea, coffee, or coca tea.

Coca tea is supposed to help with altitude sickness and headaches, but it just tastes funny. I am normally a fan of green tea and all kinds of herbal tea. But Coca is not for me, it has an odd musty, nutty taste.

Stuffed absolutely full to the brim, the going after lunch got harder still. About an hour or so into it, we passed the spot where most of the other groups on the trail were setting up for the night. We still had a three hour climb in front of us. It was bloody torture, I mean, really bad. By this time, it was not just me at the back, Richard had fallen back to join me, and Steve, the other Aussie guy carrying his own bag.We were heading up into the cloudforest, it was drippy and humid and cool, and the steps were now covered in amosses and lichens. Feeling totally pathetic, taking five steps and then having to rest for a minute, and so on, we marched so slowly upwards. Foolishly, I asked Marco how far we had to go, about 1 hour and twenty minutes was his joyful reply. Christ, we thought we were dying. So onwards and upwards, stopping to breathe and rest often, chatting to steve about whatever we could think of to take out minds off it. Marco says at one point, I think the porters will come soon and take our bags for us…. The porters go ahead and set up camp, and then head back down to pick up the stragglers. Marco again tries to take my bag from me, this time I let him, he tells me, don´t worry, I am Arnold Schwarzenagers son. Score 1 to Marco. We keep crawling on up. The porters don´t come. Richard discovers the technique of zigzagging, walking across the full length of each step before stepping up to the next, just to keep moving. Steve and I just keep stopping. Richard starts to get a second wind of some kind, and he disappears ahead out of sight. We just keep plodding on, interminably. Suddenly, we are out of the cloud forest, and hear voices, Yippee the porters have come for us!! Ha, there was only thirty more steps and we were in camp. I thought we would never make it. So we get applauded into camp, doing our best to hide our heads in shame, and for nothing, it turned out that the rest of the group had only made it fifteen or twenty minutes before us, they kept stopping for long breaks as well.

Camp was beautiful a crystal clear mountain strem gushing through, patchers of grass, a gorgeous view down the valley, llamas grazing behind. The dining tent was set up, and there was freshly popped pop corn, hot tea coffee and milo and other snacks waiting for us. The porters had already put up everyone´s tents.
I was hurting so much I could barely sit through dinner (soup and a main and a little pot of chocolate custard) before craling into my tent and passing out for the night. As it was, being st Patricks day, the paddies (there were 5 on the trip) bought some beer off a little local lady, and tucked into that. Apparently then a bottle of baileys came out and that was duly disposed of as well. Meanwhile, I was unconscious to all of it!

The next morning I did not hurt nearly as much as I thought I would. I hurt, I really hurt, but I thought it would be a lot worse.
Pancakes for breakfast, and porridge, drunk out of cups (!) off we went. Damn. Steep stairs again. We were facing a 400m ascent to the peak at 4200m, known as dead woman´s pass. I dared not ask how it got its name.
Again an interminable climb, (photo is on the way, Marco on the right. Our camp from the morning is a speck just over his left shoulder) and again Marco took my bag off me, only about 20 minutes from the top though. We made it, and posed for group photos at the top )In the clouds). Again, the three of us felt piss weak, but it turned out that the rest of the group had done it in an hour and twenty, we had made an hour forty, and the average was two hours. So we were doing a lot better than we thought.

Next up, an 800 m descent to the lunch spot. All steps again, and the rain had come back. I fairly flew down, loving having gravity on my side for a change, chatting to Casiano all the way. Fist one into camp for lunch, brilliant! All the porters clapping again, but this time I felt it was for a reason. We had to sit around waiting for an hour for lunch, we had got there too quickly! Lunch was as brilliant as the previous days. The chef was an absolute champion.

After lunch we had another 400 metre ascent to the second pass. Passing a couple of other inca ruins on the way, and some clear little lakes. The porters passing us, as usual. They come up the path like a red wave, there were 21 in our group, and someone yells, porters!, we all stand to the side as they jog on past, laden with everything for the camp, to a maximum of 25 kilos each. And the buggers run the whole way, sticking together, one in the middle with a portable radio with the futbol match of the day playing, Cuzco versus someone.

Onwards and upwards, we mabe it to the second pass, again, raining, and cloudy. For some reason we had to stand around in the rain and sing a silly song, which happened to be singin´ in the rain.

And another, smaller descent, (but still terribly excruciating) to the next campsite, which was also a great little spot. Unfortunately we could not appreciate it fully due to the clouds, again.

On the way to camp, Roy was looking a little odd, and stumbling, I asked him how he was, and he insisted he was ok, just a little cold. So we get back to camp, and settle into the dining tent for more milo and popcorn. Perfect. A while later Ian comes out of the tent he shared with Roy and says, "Roy´s sick, really sick". So Marco and Casiano go and check him out. I let them too it for a while, but then when I saw the oxygen come out I put my hand up to help out. So I jumped in the tent with Roy, got my sleeping bag out as well and wrapped that around the one he was already in. He was sitting huddled over in kind of a foetal position, with stomach cramps and unable to feel anything - feet hands, etc, and shivering and trembling, and unable to move. We got some oxygen into him, and I checked out his feet and hands which were toasty warm and had circulation, so that was a good thing. The oxygen helped somewhat, I think mostly because I told him how much better he would feel because of it. Mostly he was just panicking because of not being able to feel anything, and not being able to breathe properly. Managed to get him to lay down, kept him wrapped up, reassured him that his feet and hands were actually warm, not frozen as he thought, and checked in on him every ten minutes auntil he was soundly asleep. He woke up feeling fine the next day, all good.

However, that was not to be the worst of it for Roy.... (To be continued)