I'm sat in my tent on night 2 of the inca trail knowing full well that I won't be able to post this online for another few days. But I have marginally lost the plot, emotionally, as a result of the altitude and exhaustion, so this should make for a humorous read for those of you who have the elusive 'plot'. Here goes. Today has been remarkable. It is the second day of hiking today, which is notoriously known as the most difficult. Well I can confirm day 2 of the inca trail is a b**ch. But a challenging, spiritual, emotional and overwhelmingly beautiful b**ch, so we can forgive it. We left camp this morning at about 6.30am in order to complete 6 hours of hiking uphill around 1300m and 2 hours downhill before eventually reaching our camp for the night. But I didn't want to write this post to moan about the distance or to complain about the ridiculously early wake up call. When I was about 100m from the top, and delirious from the altitude and exhaustion I has a mini break down. But the good kind of break down (if there is such a thing?). When you're hiking it's so easy to get lost in your thoughts and I began thinking about this time last year and how far I've come since then. I was reminiscing about my friend Michelle telling me about the inca trail and sending me the infamous 'f*** you cancer' picture of her at the top of Machu picchu (found many blog posts ago.) I decided that my aim would be to go to Machu picchu this year as part of my travels, but I don't think I ever truly believed it would happen. So here I was, so close to reaching the peak before the 2 hour decline and I was overcome with emotion! When I eventually reached the top I felt so proud and happy to have actually reached this goal. Both mentally and physically. Because boy, it takes some serious mental strength to convince yourself to continue onwards on the seemingly never-ending steps. I also didn't know if my lungs would be able to handle the altitude after the beating they took from the Bleomycin last year, but they pulled through.
Through my tears I looked around at the incredible views. It was absolutely breathtaking and dare I say...worth the pain and tears?? I was greeted by a member of our group, Ahte (sp??) who pulled out a sly 6 pack of beer which he had hauled up the mountain with him, unbeknownst to us. It was exactly what we all needed I think, and we drank the beer and the beauty of our surroundings in for about half an hour before getting started on the 2 hour hike down to camp.
So I've now completed the trek and am back in a hostel in Cusco, with aches and pains in muscles I didn't even know I had! The third day of the inca trail was much easier than the second, despite being a full 10 hour hike. I suspect this was partly due to the lesser incline of the journey, but also due to the distractions provided by the beautiful views we were faced with as we turned almost every corner. We arrived at camp at about 4pm and got an early night due to the early morning start the following day. So day 4... To the sun gate and Machu Picchu. We were woken up at 3am to leave camp by 3.20am to reach the checkpoint, about 5 minutes from our tents, where we would queue up until 5.30am for the gate to open and the journey to the sun gate to begin. Luckily we were the first people to the checkpoint meaning we had both shelter (provided for the first 40 people) and a head start on the trek. By the time the gates opened there must have been about 300 people behind us and myself and our guide led the walk along the side of the mountain, head torches on, trekking poles to hand. As we walked along the bumpy terrain and up and down multiple sets of steps in the pitch dark (health and safety??) I turned back to see hundreds of lights behind me as people followed the path we led. It was quite something! Several hot and sweaty hours later after scrambling over around and up rocks we reached the sun gate and could see Machu Picchu ahead.
Eventually we reached Machu Picchu, which was incredible but surprisingly not a patch on the hike. The feeling of arriving there was amazing and the city was very interesting but the journey to reach it is so spiritual and beautiful, it can't be beaten. A once in a lifetime opportunity which I'm so glad I experienced, despite the expensive price tag.
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