Inca Trail - Day 3

Day 3

We woke after a night disturbed by rain. It finished soon after we got up, but the paths were still slippy.

Another early start - off at 6am - and another decision to make.

Having made such good time yesterday, we could have a relaxed hike today, and stick to the original plan, getting up very early tomorrow morning and reaching Machu Picchu for sunrise.

Or we could press on to the sungate today, getting to Machu Picchu in the afternoon. We'd then stay at a hostel tonight, and coming back up by bus tomorrow morning with Jeff and Robbie to walk around the ruins.

Always up for a challenge, (as well as being attracted by the promise of a ahower and proper bed instead of another night camping!) we went for the second option.

We got to Winaywayna - we originally we had planned to camp on night 3 - by 9.30 am. Normally you then have to get up extremely early on Day 4 to queue for 1.5 hours to get past the control point and start the trek to the Sun Gate.

We chilled for an hour or so, had a v early lunch - and CAKE! baked on the trail by our amazing chef! We said goodbye to our porters. I gave a moving speech thanking them for helping us acheive our goal - which must have been mistranslated, as they remained seemingly unimpressed. I put it down to cultural differences - although perhaps they were still grumpy about having to change plans!

Then, keen to be on our way, we pushed ahead. We breezed through the control point (with no queues - in fact we had hardly seen any other hikers on our whole journey, apart from at the summit and at the second campsite - it was great to be doing the trail at our own pace and not stuck in queues) and pushed on the the sun gate, where we would get our first glimpse of Machu Picchu...Read more