This post is dedicated to my 2 American friends that I met on the Inca trail: Ralph Jnr and Helena.
After an introductory meeting the night before—an event I was later informed I’d unintentionally left early at—the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was finally upon me. With only 500 permits issued per day (including guides and porters), this trek requires booking months in advance and is naturally pricier than some alternative routes to Machu Picchu where the numbers aren’t capped and you can book just days out from the trek.
Given this setup, I had braced myself for the possibility of not having a group of like-minded, similarly-aged companions, much like my Amazon experience in Ecuador. Quietly hoping for a youthful, adventurous crew, I was well aware that reality might play a different tune.
Andddddddd I was right. The group of 10 consisted of:
- An American family of 5 – Mum, Dad and 3 kids aged 19, 16 and 13.
- A pair of friends in their 40s? I think. Romanian and Lebanese.
- A pair of second cousins from America, in their late 30’s – though Andrew could get away with looking 15.
Day 1: The bus collected me bright and early just past 4am where we headed in the direction of Ollantaytambo for breakfast, a natural starting point before we started. Day 1 starts relatively easy, with a flat(ish) hike along the Urubamba River. You pass through the archaeological site of Llactapata, an ancient Incan town and the whole day is about 16km. A couple of the kids in the family had not adapted well to the altitude in the prior days before the hike and were struggling quite a bit resulting in us getting to our Day 1 camp in the dark, much later than we were initially expecting. While I was ready to adopt the “every man for himself” approach, our guide was much more compassionate, insisting on several – unnecessary, if you ask me – rest and water breaks along the way. After dinner, we sought an early night before facing Day 2, notoriously the hardest day of the trek.
Speaking of the dinner, the food throughout the Inca Trail was an unexpected highlight, exceeding my expectations. Each lunch and dinner we had a starter of soup and then a buffet style selection of foods which never ran out and it was mainly all delicious.
Day 2: “How the fuck are these kids going to survive today if they struggled yesterday” I enquired to my newly befriended American cousins. “I hope we don’t have to wait for them again” I selfishly added. Day 2 is the most challenging day of the trek, as you climb a steep ascent up to ‘Dead Womens Pass’ which sits at 4125m. The ascent combined with the altitude made it really quite difficult. Thankfully our guide allowed us to go at our own pace and we agreed at a group meeting point at the summit of the Dead Womens Pass. Being the most fit, charming and good looking, I naturally arrived at the peak first and wondered how long I would I be waiting for. The answer? 2 hours, from my arrival to the last person of the group, the family father, who gets a pass because he was carrying both his and his daughter’s bags. Poor bastard looked like he was about to collapse when I saw his weary body crawl to the top of mountain. It was a long time to wait but I had views of this to look at, so I can’t complain:
With the hardest section of the whole trek behind us, we descended down the other side of Dead Women’s Pass where lunch awaited us. Arriving to camp was a relieving feeling but not before a brief moment of panic when one of our group members, Johnny, had gone missing. He appeared half an hour later, turns out he had just stopped to watch the sunset at one of the Inca sites. Fair enough!
Day 3: The third day proved relatively easy, with what felt like much less walking than the first 2 days. We passed many archaeological sites on day 3: Runkurakay, Sayacmarca, and Phuyupatamarca. The trail went through the cloud forest and offered some amazing views over the andes. We enjoyed some dinner before a very early night as we were waking up at around 3am to get to the sun gate to enter Machu Pichuu.
Day 4: Our final day began with a later-than-planned departure, thanks to the younger girl of the family who had a penchant for crying at the most inconvenient times. With headlamps on, we reached the gate to enter the final section of the trek and lined up, waiting for it to open at 5:30 AM. It was freezing, but the thought of being so close to Machu Picchu brought a certain warmth. After four days of hiking, we were almost there.
After 2 hours we reached the sun gate which offered our first glimpse of Machu Picchu. An abundance of photos were taken and we eventually made our way down for a guided tour of the site. It was amazing to see something I had seen so many pictures of over the years in the flesh.
We took the bus back into a nearby town for lunch, before departing on the train back to Cusco. The 4 day Inca Trail was one of many highlights in my trip so far. Whilst it wasn’t the usual young backpacking group I was accustomed it, everyone got on well and I was lucky to share the journey with the two American cousins, Johnny and Andrew, whom I got on really well with. Long live the USA!
who are Ralph Junior and Helena?