Playa Oquendo

Day 1: we were picked up at 5.30am and after picking up the others we headed to Ollytamba for breakfast. After breakfast we started the trek. Day 1 was was quite easy. We stayed mostly as a group and had many rests. There were plenty of Inca sites on the way so our guide explained the significance of each. At lunch we met our porters and chefs. There were 20 porters for our group and lunch was amazing! 3 courses of delicious Peruvian food! The afternoon trek was also relatively easy, with only a few inclines but I was very nervous for day 2, because the altitude made even easy walking tricky. When we arrived at camp, we were surprised to find our campsites set up with warm water to wash ourselves. In the evening we have tea time (tea and snacks) followed by another three course dinner. It was so impressive to see what the porters could do in such a short amount of time.

Day 2: We have been warned that this day was the hardest on the trail and it was definitely true. We began the climb with a fairly gradual incline through a cloud forest. The scenery was really beautiful. Although our guide said the first part of the day would take two hours, it took our group less than half that time. This was the same for the next section of the hike, so I was becoming less worried. Then came the final climb. This took much longer and was much much steeper. In took us around 2 hours to climb to ‘dead woman’s peak’, which sits 4200 feet above sea level. We waited a couple of hours at the top for the rest of the group to make it up and also to take some photos. We then had to walk down about 500 feet to our next campsite. Although this was much easier on the lungs, the steep decent was painful on our knees and feet. After we reached camp, we had a meeting with the porters, where we learnt about their work. Our guide told us that although a world record for the fastest Inca trail time was beaten recently by a Norwegian (12+ hours), the porters can complete the entire trail in less than 4. He also said that Porters may not exist in the future as it is not a well paid job in Peru.

On the third day of the trail, the scenery was so beautiful. Although we still had some steep climbs and descents, the snowy mountain views were so lovely. This day was also the longest. We started hiking around 5.30am and didn’t get to camp until around 5pm.

On our final day of the Inca trail, we were woken at 3.30am to pack up and leave camp. This is so the porters are able to catch the only train back into town. We hiked in the dark along the mountain edge, until we finally reached the sun gate just before dawn. We had a beautiful view of Machu Picchu, so we waited close by until the sun rose over the ruins. We still had a little way to hike down to the main entrance.

When we reached Machu Picchu, we had our tour and learnt about the history of the sacred city. It was amazing how well restored the ruins are, even though thousands of people walk on them every day. Our guide thinks that Machu Picchu might be closed for tourist to walk through soon.

After our tour of Machu Picchu, we had lunch in Aguas Caliante and then caught the train back to Ollytambu. The train had windows on the roof, so we could see the snow capped mountains.

To end our trip, we had a night out with our group in Cusco which was lots of fun!Read more