In Defence of the Inca Trail

When you´re backpacking you´re not supposed to book ahead. Booking in advance is cheating, it´s for flashpackers and people on holiday. Except for some things you have to and one of these things is the Inca Trail.



 

The start point at Ollyantambo

The Inca Trail is rapidly disappearing from the South American traveller´s itinerary. You have to book at least a month in advance, which in reality means three, resulting in a rigidity unsuited to your average gringo. Thus the Inca Trail is largely populated by short-trippers - families on their once-in-a-lifetime holidays, uni students on summer break and old Australian women with something to prove.



Luckily I have sisters. Sisters who, when I announced I was trotting of to Latin America, demanded to come out for a bit and since they were forcing me to be in Lima by a certain date it made sense for us to suck up the extra cost and tread in the paths of the Incas

But was it worth it?



I think yes.

Llaqtapata - High Town in Quechua

Trekking to Machu Picchu whether it´s via the Inca Trail, the Salkantay or the Lares really makes you appreciate quite how isolated the citadel is. So isolated in fact that its existence remained a mystery because the Conquistadors, even with their new fangled technology (horses), couldn´t penetrate the area. As you climb up and down it never looks as though there ought to be a city just over the horizon or round the next mountain. On the Inca Trail you pass several ruins, many of them Tambos or guest houses for the original users of the trail- this I think is partly what gives the trail its edge. This part of the Andes is not the most beautiful and those seeking jaw dropping scenery in Peru would be better off sticking to Colca Canyon and the Cordillera Blanca. But the ruins give the Incas a presence outside of beleaguered Machu Picchu, a reminder that this civilisation was once the biggest empire of its day, that beautiful, colonial Cuzco was one their city and these impassable mountains were and are their domain.

The trail´s crowning glory is Intipunku, the Sun Gate. Contrary to most reports you do not get to watch the sun rise over Machu Picchu from here.The authorities have deemed walking the final 6km in the dark too dangerous - a tendency to European standards of safety is one of the trail´s cons. However climbing up to Intipunku and getting your first sighting of Machu Picchu set in its mountainous context below you is amazing. A 45 minute walk downhill past one final appetiser of a ruin and you are in the city itself, right next to that infamous rock from which everyone has their picture taken. Day trippers and alternative trekkers unfortunately enter the city at its midpoint and must climb up through it before reaching ´that view´- not quite as impressive.

Of course the Inca Trail has its bad points. The sheer number of people for one, although quite how many of us there were wasn´t revealed until lunch on the third day which everyone has at the same spot. The loos are horrendous even for a veteran of British festivals! And if you get a pedantic Spanish guy in your group well...

No trip to Peru would be complete without a visit to Machu Picchu which definitely deserves its title as one of the new wonders of the world. If you are going to trek it and have sisters who will be restricting your itinerary anyway, not to mention book it all for you, then strap your hiking boots on, grab your backpack and whatever you do don´t buy a sodding walking stick.

As this picture was taken a man blew angrily at us with a whistle.

Inca Trail Costs with Cuzco Explorers

Trail itself: $300

Porter to carry stuff: $90 (divided by the three of us)

Tips: 40 soles

Hiking Boots and Guide Dogs

I´ve written before about the possibility that travelling has turned me in to my Mother. Well today I would like to explore whether I am turning in to my Geography teacher. On one school trip involving cagoules I promised myself that, unlike my teacher, I would never wear hiking boots with shorts and I would never buy a fleece.

Well guess what... I did both.

Hiking (or if you want to sound more hardcore, trekking) is the travellers bread and butter. Back in the UK if I asked said to a friend ´Hey let´s go hiking in the Peak District this weekend!´ I´d probably be met with a scowl. Yet  here in South America I am regularly comparing notes on treks, enquiring in to those I want to do and advising on how to fall asleep at 4000m with only a three season sleeping bag.

Snow-capped peaks and icy blue lakes

At least once a month out comes the hiking boots, fleece and oh-so-useful zip off trekking trousers and off I wander into the jungle, or down a canyon, across a valley, or up a mountain. Undoubtedly the best, most awe-inspiring scenery has been found whilst hiking. I have stood at the bottom of canyon on the Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador about to cry at the ascent required, climbed to the top and then exclaimed ´Isn´t it a lovely view´! I have frozen to death in the Cordillera Blanca in Peru, stomping along for an hour without feeling my toes and then forgotten all about it at the sight of a particularly blue lake and an especially pointy snow-capped peak.

Sin Cola and a happy sister

My sisters (who have joined me for three weeks) and I recently returned from the Colca Canyon. On day one we hiked in to the canyon, on day two we hiked along the valley floor to the Sangalle Oasis which was unusually and thankfully deserted. On day three we got up at 4.30am to climb out of the canyon (a 1000m ascent) before the sun came up. It was on this third day, in the pitch black with no view to speak of that I found another reason to love trekking. The dogs. The friendly Sin Cola (No Tail) who had helpfully eaten our unwanted rice the night before accompanied us the whole way up. A look of fond concern on his face Sin Cola guided us up the switch tracking path turning what was supposed to be a three hour, uphill slog in to a walk in the park.

Challa and a still happy sister

The dog collecting happened again a few days later on the Isla del Sol in Bolivia. Strolling along the ridge line we were joined by the beautiful Challa (named after the village we poached her from) who guided us all the way south to Yumani. Faithful to the end she tried to bed down with us at our hostel only to be cruelly turned from the premises.


Tomorrow the sisters and I are off to hike the Inca Trail. The fleece is packed, the boots are waiting by the door. The phrases inter-locking spurs and v-shaped valley will be echoing in my head as we hike, although I´ve long since forgotten what they mean, and hopefully in amongst the Incan ruins and the stunning vistas there will be, patiently waiting, another dog eager to go walkies.