Day 5 (Hard day on the Inca Trail)

We wake up around 5. We have a half hour to pack up everything and also get breakfast. It is a little chilly outside but not too bad. Our guide tells us that we can put long sleeves on now, but in 10 minutes we'll take them off at the next checkpoint. It is chilly enough though that we decide to keep the cold weather gear on anyway.

We begin climbing steadily. After about an hour we get our first rest stop which offers us some nice views of the mountain that is on our back as we ascend up. It is a fairly open area. While I am hiking I am always tempted to stop, turn around and take more pictures, but I have learned by now that the guides almost always stop at a better picture location so I wait till then to take pictures.

After the first stop, we have another 2 hour ascent to the next rest stop where we'll get a tea break. From there we we will be climbing up to the highest point in the trek at 4215 meters on the top of Dead women's Pass. Once again we start moving. There was a group ahead consisting of Mark and most of his friends and a group a few minutes behind them which was Megan, Tom, Jake, Darryl and myself. We ambled up towards the tea break stopping for a few photos of a waterfall alongside the trail among other things. We finally got to the rest hour almost a half hour ahead of schedule (I guess we were booking it) and took a well deserved break. I am pretty sure they put crack in the popcorn they served because I couldn't get enough of it. They also had instant hot chocolate which was 10 times better than the crap they served in Cusco.


After the tea break, we had a fairly flat walk for twenty minutes up through a field towards the start of the ascent to the pass. At that point we could start to see the figures on the pass and make them out as people. We were definitely getting close. From here, the trail forked hard up the slope switch backing its way quickly away from the valley floor. After quickly gaining a lot of elevation, it straightened (and steepened) out and we continued our ascent towards the pass. An hour later we finally reached the pass and it was great to know that the big climb was out of our way. Now we just had downhill to the campsite. We stopped for a while to take pictures and then quickly moved down the mountain as it was foggy, windy and cold up there.

After about thirty minutes descent, we came up to another ruin where we stowed our bags, took our cameras and walked around a bit. (note to self: research name of this ruin .. memory is already failing) We got to walk around a bit. Cesar mentioned that they used to store mummies here and there had been a roof and gate protecting the mummies from the elements. From here we could see our campsite and we hastened down there as we were pretty exhausted and looking forward to dinner. After another delicious dinner, we got to finally meet all 16 porters and our cook. For a group of ten people, we had 19 people helping us get to Machu Picchu. It kind of takes some of the sense of accomplishment away thinking about how easy it is for these porters to carry ridiculously heavy packs all year and think nothing of it, while we need them to carry all our gear and it still is painful.

The night was very clear and we took my camera out to try and get some pictures of the stars in the southern hemisphere that we don't normally get to see in the states. Afterwards, we played some more Euchre and then went to sleep.