Inca Trail - Day 2
This trail is not for everyone. In fact it is deliberately hard.
There is a train that runs up the Urambamba Valley to the town of Aguas Calientes. From there you catch a 30 minute shuttle bus that does 23 zig zags to climb the almost sheer cliff to Machu Picchu 310 metres above.
So why? It was a pilgrimage trail that went to many sacred sites (on mountain tops) along the way. It was travelled by nobility and religious people. The Inca (Children of the Sun) went there by litter, along the river valley, just as most tourists do today.
We were warm in our tent, until 5.30 am when we were woken with bed tea.
Breakfast was great with omelette and loads of very warm creamy slightly sweet porridge. I had two cups and plan for three tomorrow.
We left at 6.30 as we needed to climb 4000ft and then decend 1000ft. It was about 10 deg when we said goodbye to the cute scruffy camp dog and started climbing up to the Park Checkpoint. Here our porter's packs are weighed again as a WH&S measure. Their limit is 25 kgs.
Soon after we entered a forest and it go seriously cold, possibly zero. We were all lightly dressed for steep uphill walking and didn't want to rug up.
We climbed and climbed and then we climbed before doing a bit of extra climbing.
There is a train that runs up the Urambamba Valley to the town of Aguas Calientes. From there you catch a 30 minute shuttle bus that does 23 zig zags to climb the almost sheer cliff to Machu Picchu 310 metres above.
So why? It was a pilgrimage trail that went to many sacred sites (on mountain tops) along the way. It was travelled by nobility and religious people. The Inca (Children of the Sun) went there by litter, along the river valley, just as most tourists do today.
We were warm in our tent, until 5.30 am when we were woken with bed tea.
Breakfast was great with omelette and loads of very warm creamy slightly sweet porridge. I had two cups and plan for three tomorrow.
We left at 6.30 as we needed to climb 4000ft and then decend 1000ft. It was about 10 deg when we said goodbye to the cute scruffy camp dog and started climbing up to the Park Checkpoint. Here our porter's packs are weighed again as a WH&S measure. Their limit is 25 kgs.
Soon after we entered a forest and it go seriously cold, possibly zero. We were all lightly dressed for steep uphill walking and didn't want to rug up.
We climbed and climbed and then we climbed before doing a bit of extra climbing.
We got to camp at 5pm had 6pm dinner and were asleep before 8pm.
The slowest of our group got to camp at 7.30 ughrrr!🤐
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