The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

This is a view of the houses of the ¨Virgins of the Sun¨ their honored position meant that they were concubines for the Inca or (if really lucky) a human sacrifice.

That´s right, we had to get this close before we could see Machu Picchu!


Cheryl and our guide, Ivonne, exhausted atop the highest point at 4200 metres.


The Group about to attack the second pass on day three. L to R Laurie, Cheryl, Amber, Amie, Katie

The hardest thing we have ever done!

The altitude really knocked us about and it was a real stuggle to cross the three passes on the way to Machu Picchu. On top of that it rained every day of our four day trek and the soggy camping was not much fun by the third night.

We had a lovely group though with Amber from the UK who was at our Spanish school and two Aussie girls from North of Newcastle. Would you believe that they were from Wallaby Point and we are from Kangaroo Point! Our guide, Ivonne, was a Cusco girl who had studied Tourism at university to do the job. She was very knowledgable and thoughtful and was always there for us when we were dragging our feet at the back of the group.

The second day we crossed the highest pass at 4200 metres. Even our two weeks in Cusco had not prepared us for the altitude and we both struggled up the track only able to take baby steps of one foot only 50mm in front of the other. After a dozen of these, you would stop and gasp for breath with your heart racing. Unfortunately, it did not matter how much you rested you did not get your breath back so you just kept going. Slowly, slowly trying to maintain a rhythm. Laurie was also nauseous while this was going on. We were each fighting our own private battle to get to the top of that rotten pass!

On day three we crossed the second and third passes and they were not as bad but still hard work. The real ¨fun¨ that day was actually the descent. After lunch at the third pass we had a 1,000m Inca staircase to negotiate and everyone still has sore calves from that two days later.

We finally splashed through the drizzle yesterday to reach Machu Picchu. Of course we were in cloud so could not see the classic view from Inti Punku. In fact, we could not see the ruins until we were within 200 metres of them. We were all unimpressed at that point. The funny thing was that there was a guy walking around trying to sell us post cards that showed Machu Picchu in brilliant sunshine. I asked him where the place was on the post cards because we could not see anything like that from where we were! He gave up on us pretty quickly.

Luckly, the weather cleared for a couple of hours while we were there and we even had a bit of sun. Ivonne gave us a great tour of the temples, the ¨sun dial¨ that is not a sundial, incredible stone work, the puma´s head, the houses of the virgins of the sun, the llama´s head, the Inca´s seat and the Inca´s private bedroom (complete with ensuite).

After lots of photos we headed down to Aguas Calientes for pizza and rest before catching the train to Cusco. By the time we got down the mountain the rain had started again so we were happy that we did not go up Huayna Picchu.

Had an interesting chat on the train. See a separate entry for that.