So another 8 hours on the bus to Cusco. Cusco was a really cool city. All the towns and cities we’ve been to in South America have a plaza (square) which is the main feature of town. Directions are given in relation to plazas (a lot are called Plaza San Fransisco, San Fransisco is big here…). In a lot of cases the ‘Plaza’s’ have a massive ornate church on one side, statues in a pretty garden where you’re not allowed to walk on the grass and often a water fountain. The plaza in Cusco had 2 massive churchs on it, was surrounded by restaurants, tour companies and the center gardens of the plaza were full of people admiring the large water fountain, the gardens and the view.
That night once we arrived and found a hostal we got on Wifi and arranged to meet Karlie and Jade at the plaza!! So exciting to see a couple of good ole Aussie mates after 3 months away!!! We went and grabbed dinner, introduced the girls to Pisco Sours, tried Guinea Pig (well Matt and Karlie orderd guinea pig but Matt received chicken an Karlie received the guinea pig!), caught up on the Aus news and shared travel stories!
The next day we took one of the ‘Tours for Tips’ walking tours around Cusco. They point out details about the architecture of the city, introduce you to hidden food gems and let you try some of the local cuisine. We ended up in a Cocoa museum where we drank chocolate tea and learnt a bit about Cocoa (which originated in Mexico). We were starving after the walk and headed straight back to one of the restaurants we had been introduced to…. Japanese!!! Woo hoo!! We ate sushi and drank more Pisco Sour (not very Japanese but oh well). It was great hanging out with the girls and we were all getting ourselves psyched for our big walk!
The evening before our tour started we attended the Inca Trail meeting. Well our guide scared most of us a little. Matt mentioned it was a good thing for the company he wasn’t the salesman. We had 4 days of walking… Day 1 would be steady and easy, only 8km… Day 2 would be tough, we would be walking 11km and going from 2,600mts and going over “Dead Woman’s Pass” at about 4,200mts. It would be 5hrs of walking uphill… and steep. This day, would be the test and if they thought we couldn’t do it, they would tell us an stop us from going over Dead Women’s Pass, because after that… there’s no evacuation. If you hurt yourself or are too sick, people (the porters) would have to carry you out. Before that you could get a Donkey to take you back own the path, but after Dead Women’s Path there was no donkey access and it was easier to continue to Machu Picchu to get out. This stressed this fact a alot… In the past, people have insisted on continuing when they were advised not too, and they ended up collapsing and porters having to carry them out… Okay… got it… Dead’s Woman’s Pass will be easy therefore the name…
Day 3… That would be the biggest day but the most beautiful. We would walk all day and cover 16km. Day 4 we would have to get up at 3.30am in the morning to wait for the gates to open, then walk 5km and arrive at Machu Picchu. But who are the first people to be able to get into Machu Picchu??? The people who go on the train? What the? We did think there and then that the Trail walkers should be priority after all of that!! 
We had bags we were allowed to give the porters but the maximum they could weigh was 6kg. They all got weighed as well so no cheating! Everything else you wanted you had to take in your day pack and carry yourself. So a little nervous, we weighed our bags, got ourselves ready and went off to enjoy the comfort of a bed!!
The first day of our tour actually didn’t have any walking in it. We visited a local community and got to see the women weaving and making their clothes and blankets. Every village has a kind of ‘uniform’ because ALL the women wear the same clothes and they all make the same clothes. They all want to dress the same and in the western world we all want to be individual. This also might explain how and why most of the little handmade shops sell the same jumpers and scarves and products as well!
The women showed us how they turned the alpaca wool into thread and then how they dyed it naturally!!! They used leaves from different trees to get yellows and greens. The red, purple, orange colours are produced by gathering these parasites that live on a cactus and crushing them! The parasites are grey and there’s no hint of red… until their crushed!!! They crush out a dark red colour and different amounts of water added to them create the different shades of red, purple and orange. So that the colours don’t run when washed they would add salt to the water, or back in the day they used urine as salt was too expensive (is that why they still say to wash clothes before use????) The interesting thing is that these parasites for red are actually a major export here and are mostly used today in cosmetics… So we will all think about that when wearing red lippy from now on…haha!
After a few more stops we ended in a town called Ollantaytambo (Oie-yan-tay-tam-bo). Its a small, old town where people still live in buildings built by the Incas. They were smart people the Incas. This town was built as a stop between Machu Picchu and an Inca fortress, where traders could stop and sell their produce. In order to keep things fresh, they built fridges!! Only a few kilometers from town was a glaciar. And as the town was situated at the meeting of three valleys there was always wind which had been cooled by the glaciar. So they built houses open to the wind high on the mountain above town to keep their produce fresh. Ingenious!!!
Again it was off to bed for a good nights sleep as tomorrow would be the start of our Inca Trail.
INCA TRAIL DAY 1 & 2: There was another small drive in the morning and we arrived at our starting point. Camino Inka… We were all a little excited and nervous and ready to get this walk underway!! The first day of driving and local sightseeing was just making us a little agitated!! The walk was pretty cruisey and there was a couple of small Inca sites and look outs along the way. We did the walk in less time than Yohan (our guide) and our assistant guide (Edwin) said it would take. So they were both impressed and figured we were going to have a good time and it would be a nice and easy tour.
Well, weren’t they mistaken!!!
After dinner Karlie started to not look that great… one of the other girls mentioned that she hadn’t been feeling that well either.. And an English guy that was with the group was missing a lot and hardly eating… Hmm… everyone started to talk about the altitude. But as Yohan pointed out… we were actually lower than Cusco right now. The English guy who was initially the one who had not been looking so great at lunch and dinner had just flown in from England… so they figured he was jet lagged.. Nothing to worry about.
Well, Karlie ended up going to bed earlier… but then she threw up… Not good. That night… I woke up in the middle of the night and ran out into the cold, through the darkness, to make it to the toilet… that toilet had earlier in the day been blocked up by others… I was of course pannicking and wondering what was I going to find??? And what was going to happen if I couldn’t use that toilet??? OMG. The fear… To my good fortune the toilet was clean as a whistle… Well… for the 2 seconds before I got to it. I was violently ill… I walked back up to the tent… worried as anything… sat in the tent… Then had to get out, and go throw up hopefully not on anything or anyone in the dark… This same process happened 4 more times until I was only throwing up the sip of water I tried to drink and then dry-reaching. Karlie had had a similar experience. I started moaning to Matt… I need a donkey!! (the only way I could see myself getting out of there). You all know the feeling, if you’re lucky enough to have NOT had gastro, you feel like you couldn’t move if you tried and that you’re pretty much dead… if not dying…
At our pre Inca Trail meeting, Yohan had told us that only 2 people in his group hadn’t completed the trail that year… Karlie and I were putting ourselves on the list that night.
MIDDLE: Scenery along the walk
RIGHT: The summit of Dead Womans Pass & Karlie and Jade on Day 3
I would like to say Next Morning… but that implies that there was sleep, and then an awakening in the morning… Well, it’s more like… once the sun was up and everyone else was awake… We discussed our options and talked to the guides. They thought it was just altitude sickness and were hopeful for us to continue. They gave us coco tea (good for altitude and for the stomach), and surprisingly we had both stopped throwing up… I had started to be able to sip water, and neither of us could stomach or look at food still. But… we decided we’d just be the slowest people on earth, take it easy… and just walk up that massive mountain and cross Dead Woman’s Path. No sleep, no food or nutrients in our bodies… no problems!!!
Slow and steady wins the race. That’s what I kept telling myself anyway. That day was pretty hard. 5 hours of walking uphill to cross this 4,200m summit, no energy whatsoever. Matt took my pack for the day which meant he carried 2 bags this evil, hard day, and he stayed with me the whole day and kept checking on me to make sure I was coping okay. I was so grateful to him and sooo impressed with his effort. It would have been easier for him to go at a pace that was smoother for him… a little faster. I kept telling him to go ahead but he would stay… Such a good husband and so sweet!!! Karlie and I were not happy with the Inca Trail that day!!
But alas!!! It’s amazing what you can do and what your body can do when you’re determined!! At the end of that day Karlie and I felt heaps better. We were starting to eat again (not much but a bit!!) and we were feeling like we’d showed this bug who was boss and pushed it out of our system!!
Meanwhile… that night, other team members were going down!! A girl from NZ (her partner had had to cancel his walk because he needed surgery on his ACL) was feeling nauseous pretty much the whole time she was on the trip. We wonder if it’s because she was taking the gastro stop type tablets and it wasn’t able to leave her system? Later, the girlfriend of an English couple threw up as well… This altitude sickness… was not altitude sickness!!
Inca Trail Day 3: Day 3 on the Inca Trail is the longest, but the prettiest. Days 1 & 2 were weren’t actually on the original Inca Trail but Day 3 was the original and you could tell. The trail was narrow in parts and the steps!! OMG the steps! The main reason the Kiwi guy with the bad ACL wasn’t allowed to come on the walk was the steep downhill steps on this day. At one point we walked across a ridge where you could see down valley to your right and to your left. It was beautiful.
We went slowly this day as our guide wasn’t doing too well! Turns out he had been sick the night before also.
That day at lunch, they presented us with a homemade cake at lunch on the top of this ridge! It was pretty amazing considering these guys were carrying all this stuff along the same path as we were for the 4 days. There were 20 porters for the 10 of us and our 2 guides. Everyday they packed up camp, put their 25kg packs on their back, and basically ran the trail. Our assistant guide Edwin had been a porter before becoming a guide and he did it when the weight wasn’t regulated and they would carry 40kg along the trail! As young guys they would race each other as well! A couple of years ago they did a marathon along the Inca Trail and a porter won it in 3 hrs 45mins… He was in his late 30s!!! Amazing.
We saw 2 lots of Inca ruins at the end of this day 3 and they were beautiful. The nice thing about them was that we were the only ones there, and the views from the ruins were stunning.
Earlier that day Matt turned to Jade and told her she was doing so well as she was the last girl standing!! Seriously 20 minutes later… she started to feel ill and threw up! She was cursing Matt of course! haha… Poor thing. So she skipped those ruins as she just wanted to get to camp and lay down. As we got near the camp… Matt… also now the actual last man standing… started to feel ill too… We went ahead onto camp… and bam… he was sick as well. We were all taken out by this damn gastro bug the English boy brought to camp!
Inca Trail Last Day – Machu Picchu: It was probably the worst day for Jade and Matt to be sick. They didn’t have to climb a mountain, but they had to get up at 3.30am… Then we went and stood in line at the gates for the beginning of the walk. Then we had to walk 2 hours to Machu Picchu. We’d had great weather the whole time… but today… It started raining. So we got our rain coats out. This time Matt and Jade stopped regularly on the trail as they just had NO energy… And we also got absolutely soaked…
We arrive at Sun Gate, the point at the top of a hill were you see the view of Machu Picchu in all it’s glory! This is it, we have arrived… Well, this is what we could see after about 15mins of standing in the rain at Sun Gate…
We were devastated!!! We’d all fought off this bug, worked hard to get here, felt like crap… and for this… to see some clouds and get soaked!! Our guide was doing his best job to brighten us up and not let us get upset at the mountain (their mountains are gods to them, so apparently the mountain knew we weren’t happy with it!!) The photo below tells the story of our thoughts…
Poor Matt! You can see by the look and his face he’s not feeling well, and wants to kill somebody… I was masking my pain with a smile which is how I roll… Jade is blocked by the rain drops!! And Karlie is shattered as well! The other thing is, we were freezing! My shoes were soaked through, and having been in the rain for 2 hours was getting to us. So we actually walked straight through Machu Picchu and out to an outdoor cafeteria to try and group ourselves together… This was just as bad as the rain wasn’t settling.
So our guide took us on a 1 hour (shortened) tour of Machu Picchu, showed us the main things there like the construction of the temples was immaculate, and then left us to spend as much or as little time there as we wanted. We had until 1.30pm. And the clouds had started to clear a bit… You could tell it would be the most BEAUTIFUL place if we could see a little more… as it was, it was still gorgeous but you can’t really see it in the pictures… But this is what we have for you…
Funny thing about the name Machu Picchu. Our guide was telling us off all the time, because “Machu Peeekchu” means “Old Mountain” and as English speakers we say “Machu Pickchu” which means “Old Penis”… hehe.
Looking back,we have a good laugh about what happened and can’t believe it happened!! Half the reason for continuing on was the fact that we booked it 4 months in advance and spent alot of money on it. So after 3 beautiful days, to have rain and cloud on the Machu Picchu day was hilariously horrible!! But… it is a city in the mountains… and it’s the beginning of the rainy season so we were told this could happen. We could have done without the gastro bit though!!
When we got back to Cusco we enjoyed beautiful showers! Got clean and warm, and spent the next 2 days shopping at the markets, eating out and catching up with the girls. It was so great to travel with them and hang out with them and we missed them heaps after they continued on!!!
Timeframe: 7 October – 16 October 2013
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