Inca Trail Day 4 & Machu Picchu Day 1

Today is our last day walking the Inca Trail. I'm both so glad it's over, but also can't believe how far we've come. Day 1 seems like so long ago!

Today was going to be difficult due to the big down sections we had to conquer. But first, breakfast 🥞. We had pancakes today and an astonishing cake that the chef made in a pot. It was soft and warm and very delicious. I was pretty impressed! I think Allan ate half that cake all on his own. Before we started walking, we took turns taking a picture with the polaroid with each of the porters (to help the small tip we gave).

Then it was time to begin the long climb down. Jhon said a young girl counted the steps at one point to around 2,000. Not sure how accurate that is as I didn't count, but we were going down the stairs for a really long time, both big stairs and smaller stairs. Once the stairs stopped, it was Ricky path downhill that still could be a bit tricky to walk on (I think I fell at least twice even with a walking pole). It was still very cloudy as we were walking through the forest on the trail, but it was expected to clear up later.

Along the way we saw some random spatterings of Incan ruins, but we made a bigger stop at Intipata and nearby Wiñay Wayna. The ruins here were massive with countless terraces and some small dwellings. After our exploring, we were going up and down mostly along a path now with far fewer stairs. I was absolutely exhausted by now though and had to try extra hard to keep my eyes on the prize and remind myself to just keep moving forward. Jhon told us we'd know when we were close because there is a set of about 50 steps shortly before the Sun Gate. Luckily I had my pole to help me up those and the steps to the gate afterwards. Allan used his hands a bit, even he was tired!

Finally we reached the Sun Gate and got our first glimpse of Machu Picchu in the distance. I was so glad to have made it. We had the whole place to ourselves which was great. Machu Picchu and the mountains around it were pretty big, bigger than I imagined. We stopped just after the Sun Gate and had some of the boxed lunch (sandwiches) that the chef had prepared for us for lunch.

I was devastated to learn that we still had almost 2k more to walk in order to get to Machu Picchu, downhill. We began the walk, all the while getting closer to the destination. Once we arrived at Manchu Picchu, we entered part of the Circuit 1 section where you can get some good panoramic views of the buildings and mountains. We kept walking around the outside edges of Machu Picchu to the exit, it was a lot of stairs down again (the Incas really love their fucking stairs). When we got to the exit, we stored the big backpack to go back in and do Circuit 3 which is actually walking around some of the main buildings. Despite being absolutely shattered, it would be useful to do the tour with a guide, so in again we went.

Circuit 3 was most of the middle buildings including the Sun Temple. The Sun Temple has two windows that correspond to the respective solstices when the sun shines directly on them. The Incas have a lot of little things like this throughout their sites, but this one with its curved walls is impressive. A lot of the buildings are half beautiful architecture with perfectly carved stones, and half rustic because they had to go faster to complete the buildings when war with the Spaniards started. It's pretty interesting to see once you notice it. The Incas also made good use of bedrock, carving blocks to match existing bedrock wherever they built. After about an hour of up and down stairs in the middle section of Machu Picchu, we got the bus down the 8km of switchbacks to Aguas Calientes, bidding farewell to Jhon.

We spent some time in our hostel airing the gear out and, unfortunately, having cold showers. It was better than no shower after sweating on the trail for the last 4 days. Then, it was time to find some food and a celebration beer. On our way to the restaurant we stopped in at a little hotel that had spa services and booked a massage for after dinner. My legs and shoulders killed, so hopefully the massage would help. We went to Chulos and shared a couple of alpaca dishes and each had a beer. The food was pretty good, and alpaca tastes similar to other red meats. The beers were ok, but after finishing the Inca Trail I definitely needed something!

We stopped back at Otto's Spa for our Inca combo massage. The massage included, swedish massage, pressure point and hot rocks. I'd never had hot rocks so it was interesting to experience. Despite some parts being really sore, it did feel good after the initial few rubs. I'm glad I didn't feel sore like this until the end of the Inca Trail, but I was so hopeful that I would be ok after feeling fine the whole way until now!

We walked back to the hostel, and by then, there was nothing left to do except for sleep, which I did with pleasure. Unfortunately the hostel has an early check out time, which means we will have to be up and out before 9. Czytaj więcej