Inca Trail Peru – Part 2
I hear soft murmuring voices followed by my tent being shaken.
“Hola,” our friendly porters great us at the early hour of 5:20 am.
These porters are machines; they never seem to stop.
Nicolas gently hands me two tin cups by the handle with fresh cocoa leaves floating in the water – what a great way to wake up for our third day of hiking in the Inca Trail. After a breakfast of eggs, tea and bread our group wasted no time starting the ascent to our second highest peak of the trek.
Please join us on our journey from last week’s post, Inca Trail – Part 1, as we continue along this Incan journey…
We started the day hiking straight up to the second highest point on the in Inca Trail, Phuyupatamarca at 3650 meters or 11,975 feet.
And although the day started out rainy and cloudy…
…by the time we made it to the top, the skies had cleared…
…giving sight to the ever amazing Andean mountains.
We hiked to ruin after ruin in these mountains.
At the site of Mountain in the Cloud, I loved all the curvature in the design of these ruins.
We got to wander all around and explore.
Ramiro telling us yet another interesting tidbit about the Inca’s, how for example they didn’t use their gold for currency. Rather people paid ‘taxes’ to the king in the form of labor.
Can you see the running man?
Can you see him with Chris’s impression?
There were miniature worlds happening on the rocks of these ruins.
So many little mosses and grasses quietly creating their lives.
This photo was to document the bathroom break. When hiking on a narrow trail alongside 500 meter cliff drop offs, it doesn’t leave much room to step off the trail to use the bathroom. Since people only hike the Inca Trail in one direction, sometimes all the guys had to just turn their backs, hold up any oncoming hikers and the girls would run ahead to use the bathroom.
Ramiro took us on an extra trail route so we could see more ruins.
The stones you see jutting out from the terraces served as steps to get between each level of the terraces.
Enjoying the view before our final hike to camp.
Birds eye view of camp night #3.
Although I think it’s a bit hard to tell, these steps were steep.
The incline of the stairs of the Inca’s are just straight up and down.
Another family photo.
On the final night the chef made a cake and we celebrated TJ and Sally’s honey moon.
He did such an amazing job decorating it. It was an awesome cake.
Off to bed for our early wake up, Machu Picchu was only 6 km away.
Don’t let the use of flash fool you into thinking that it was light out in this photo.
It was 3:20 am. We were the first group to wake up and be waiting at the gate, which was great because got seats by the gate and didn’t have to stand like all these people.
There was one set of brutal steps left called the “monkey steps,” aptly named because most of the tourist crawl up the steps on all four legs much to the guides amusement. And despite Andrea looking so in the zen and focused in climbing these steps…
…her expression sums up what everyone is thinking, “Holy crap, these steps are steep.”
Either with grace or not, everyone eventually made it to the Sun Temple.
Us at the Sun Temple.
It was not sunny at all and so we had to buy a post card because we were not able to get the classic Machu Picchu postcard photo.
Here we are amongst all the ruins.
We couldn’t see anything.
There were thick rain clouds everywhere.
Slowly the clouds started to lift.
The llamas raised theirs heads.
And we could see Machu Picchu.
These ancient, ancient ruins.
We were all so excited to be able to see, we started taking pictures of everything, including of each other.
There were so many stone terraces.
The craftsmanship of the rock work was so impressive. This section of rock was so beautiful with slender and sleek curves.
These stones jutting out allowed roofs to be attached by fibers tied around the rocks thus anchoring the roof.
The Inca’s were not a tall people.
But boy did they know how to build.
So much of their craftsmanship was picture perfect.
It’s no small wonder scholars spend the entire lives studying the ruins. There was so much symbolism and meaning behind so much of the construction. For instance this rock was purposefully carved to mimic the mountains in the back ground.
Turn after turn revealed the most beautiful stone constructions.
One could loose themselves for days exploring the stone work of Machu Picchu.
We all just kept taking photo after photo.
And for now we’ll pause this post again (ah! what?!) because the next part of Machu Picchu we went to was so cool it warrants a final conclusion post.
So be held in suspense…the final Inca Trail – Part 3 will soon be up!
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The fitting of the stones is unbelievable, especially on the scale it was done!!! Had to be fantastic to see first hand.
Yeah, I never realized the precision and grace in the construction…and Machu Picchu is just one of so many sites, it just happens to be one of the biggest sites remaining. The amount of detail and sheer scale of the work just blew me away.
what an adventure…. this place sounds like it was quite an amazing hike.
It was a great hike and we were so lucky to have such a nice, small group to hike with. Two girls from Panama, their cousin from Peru, a newly married couple from Colorado and us. We all hiked just about the same pace and were very thankful for everything the porters did for us on the hike.