It´s one month since we left for our world tour. It feels like we have done so much already, but these 2 days have been like a definition of why we would do such a trip.Last night we slept comfortably in our tent – warmer than sleeping in our hostel. At 5am, birds and cockerels awake us and after breakfast and packing up, we steeled ourselves for the ¨challenge day.¨
The walk started upwards in cool weather and a good feeling from the bond growing amongst the group. After our guide Percy had explained the day ahead of us – in short, hard and steep – we knew we would need each other´s support to get us through the day.
And what a day. We walked up steep mountains constantly for the first 4 hours.
The terrain and valleys between the mountains was beautiful – but I have few pictures of the first part of the day because at times it was just a matter of getting one foot in front of the other.We followed the porters who of course know the most efficient methods up the paths. The trail is quite wide in places with a lot of steps and the porters always took the smallest upward part of each step and walked on slopes at the side to minimise energy loss and impact on knees and ankles. We took their lead.
Nicki and I took a steady speed and as the others stopped for a rest after an hour, we pressed on feeling that we had hit our pace. The sticks we had bought proved extremely helpful, at times I was leaning heavily on them to get the next step up, and as the path came out of jungle-like surroundings after another hour we took a rest with the whole group. Resting places were populated with wise old women from the local area selling water and Gatorade, and they were shrewd business people. A large bottle of water in Cuzco costs 3 Soles (2 Euros/ 1.80 GBP) but on the first day, it reached 8 soles, here it was up to 10. The higher the walk, the higher the price...We headed up for the last stretch towards the summit, on the exposed
side of the mountain. That´s when the rain came in, and for the first time I started to feel the effects of the altitude. Breath was hard to catch and we struggled along in all-covering poncho´s. Percy had warned us that the last 20 minutes up to the summit would be heavy – he was not joking. As Nicki described it, ¨I knew all the way that I could make it to the top but there were moments when I wished I wasn´t doing it at all!¨.Two of our group who were ahead of us waited at the summit, despite cold wind and rain. They shouted encouragement to us as we hit the last gruelling steps – incredibly steep, rain pouring hard – and Nicki and I made it to the top, together.
The only pity was the lack of a view – the clouds obscured all – but we consoled ourselves that we had done it, trekked 4200m high and didn´t need any sunny pics to prove it.
And then the descent – in some ways as hard as the ascent. The rock steps were slippery and steep, so we took our time to get to the bottom. 15 mins from camp, the rain came in hard again and didn´t stop for 3 hours as people arrived one by one. Despite the difference across the group in fitness and experience of hiking, everybody made it through the ¨challenge¨ day.
Embarrassingly, the porters clap each person as they reach the camp. These guys, who climb over the same terrain with back-breaking loads, arrive in advance to prepare our tents and food
– they clap us. Clearly it should be the other way round. ¨Porter-lore¨ holds stories that the record for covering the Inca Trail´s 28 miles stands at 3 hours 45 mins. We take 4 days. Incredible! Apparently some professional runners tied the same some years ago and their best was 6 hours. The porters are just amazing.As a group, we shared stories in the communal tent as each of us arrived - what was the hardest part, at what moment we might have wanted to give up, and what it was like to reach the summit. We get closer and closer as we share this experience.
And I´m so happy that Nicki and I reached the top together. We have diffe
rent paces at different times (she´s usually quicker than me) but we got to that high point together and made the full descent together.Now it´s 5pm and I write this with an incredible view. The campsite is cut off from the sun but in the distance we can see the mountains inbetween wispy clouds. Every now and again, the cloud comes up the vally and obscures the view, then it ebbs again to give a new aspect to the stunning view.
