The Inca Trail

I survived the Inca trail! That`s what it says on a lot of t-shirts I see around here. And yeah, it something you have to survive, not so much because it`s across a super challenging mountain landscape, but because if you`re not properly acclimatized before hand, it doesn`t matter how tough you are or how fit you are. I had no problems; actually, our entire group was wonderful and did really well. Anyway, prepare for a long entry. On the Inca trail I sometimes wrote in the moment, sometimes wrote at night (much to the destruction of my flashlight batteries), and I finished up today, after the fact. Here are my thoughts:

¨The Inca Trail, Day 1 - 9.13pm Monday 02 October 2006

I don`t have much time to write cuz I don`t want to waste my flashlight batteries. I just finished Day 1 of the Inca trail! I didn`t sleep much last night cuz the water ran out in my hostel so I waited up late-ish till it came back on again to have a shower.

Llama Path picked me up this morning, bright and early, just after 6am, an everyone clapped when I got on the bus. A tradition, apparently.

The bus ride isn`t worth mentioning, but once we got to the first town, Ollantaytambo, we had breakfast (which we had to pay for), picked up coca leaves or walking sticks or whatever anyone wanted/needed, and I headed onward to the trail itself, about a 40 minute bus ride away.

Perú is so spectacular. The Inca trail today was great -- it was relatively easy so we could get used to the altitude etc. I really like my group, too. We`ve had a lot of laughs so far and we all get along well. Turns out the clingy couple are on their honeymoon, and there are 2 other guys who weren`t at the meeting, one of which is like the comic relief of the group.

The tour company is almost too good -- I knew they were environmentally conscious, which is why I chose them, but I didn`t think it would be quite as luxurious as it is. We had full, restaurant quality meals in our little dining tent! Dessert included! I`ll write more as I see more.

...

I look forward to tomorrow even though it`s supposed to be the hardest part of the climb. I`d feel worse about the challenge if we weren`t all in the same boat.

¨Inca Trail, Day 2 - 12.51pm Tuesday 03 October 2006

We made it to the top! We`renot all the way there, but Dead Woman`s Pass is, at 4200m, the highest point of our climb. It was tough, especially the last stretch, but we are all in good spirits and made it with few woes.

5.16pm
We took a group picture just then so I had to stop writing.

Today we journeyed from a campsite near Wallyabamba, where the second checkpoint is, up and up and up a very steep mountainside along stone footpaths, dirt, and old Inca steps, to reach the height of Dead Woman`s Pass (or, in the proper Spanish, Warmiwañusca). To get there we went through the cloud forest at one point, which is stunning -- there are microclimates in this region, high in the Andes, one being the cloud forest (or subtropical mountain forest), which is like a tropical rainforest way up at a high altitude and misted over with clouds.

We also travelled through the grasslands part of the mountainside, and the higher we went the grander the views got.

It was such tough work that most of us didn`t have the breath to talk much while actually climbing -- though we attempted a few jokes and a song or two. During out breaks though, and during our very posh (for camping) meals, we had a great time laughing and talking with each other. We are now at our second camp (in a valley after a very steep downhill), we got here are about 2.30pm, and the slower people arrived by 3.30pm ... Happy hour, gotta go --

¨Inca Trail, Day 3 - 9.34pm, 04 October 2006

No time to write cuz have to get up at 3.30am. Reminders:

- Quasimoto/pirate
- Green Woman, Flying Head
- subtropical mountain forest
- tipping
- Jose, our guide
- extra Inca site
- flutist

¨Inca Trail, Day 4 - 11.50pm Thursday 05 October 2006

I hardly know what to write. I`m sitting on the ground in a room that was, 500 years ago, the front room of the residential sector of Machu Picchu. How can I put into words how I feel about this lost city? Especially now after four days of trekking to get here, four days of pilgrimage, spiritual journey, of learning about how the Incas lived, how they grew, and how they finally were defeated. I can`t. I am in awe of this place, there is so much history, so much energy behind it and within it´s walls.

Yesterday Jose, our guide, told my group that every time he took a group on the Inca trail he had a challenge: to get us interested and involved in the Inca culture and history. As he said, Perú is Inca, and to come and go, looking at the sites like a tourist without knowing how it came to be and what it means, and how very important it all is, means nothing.

I`ve seen nothing like this before, and I have so much respect for these stones because of the last 4 days. Before I came here I wanted to sit on an old Inca rock and think about the state of the world, in the footsteps of young Ernesto Guevara, but now it is so much more. It means something to me outside of that revolutionary fantasy. Now I really know what Che meant when he asked to himself, how could the Spanish destroy the people who built something so beautiful like Machu Picchu city, and create a city like Lima, which is ugly and sprawling and unorganized, in its place.

The Incas had an incredible civilization. They were master stone workers, astromoners, healers, politicians. Their architecture and the layout of their cities and buildings is so perfect for the landscape and climate that they have, in a place that gets so much rain, lasted for hundreds of years without eroding. They were so powerful and so smart that they, with a lot of help from the Spanish, destroyed themselves.

The 2 most widely accepted theories for what Machu Picchu was used for are: (1) that it was a sacred religious place, a mausoleum which served as the central religious centre for the Incan empire; and (2) that is was the university for idolatry, where all the greatest sorcerers, healers, witches, religious people would come from all over the empire to study. There are ceremonial baths on the actual site, and sacrificial sites along the Inca trail just as you approach the city. These are for cleansing the mind, body, and soul, and for giving gifts to the gods, before entering the sacred site. Not just anyone could come here, not just because the mountains made travelling difficult, but because the Inca King only allowed certain people to use the roads: the king himself, the inspectors of the empire, the messengers, and whomever he gave special permission. So for a city which housed a floating (constantly moving, constantly changing) population of 500 people, the people there and the things that took place there were obviously of immense importance for this culture.

There is evidence, in the 4-cornered stone here and and on Intihuatana, and in the placement of the windows in the Temple of the Sun, for example, of knowledge of astronomy, the exact movements of the sun, moon, and stars. There is obvious evidence of religous ceremony, worship, sacrifice. The terracing along the sides of the mountain shows remarkable skill and foresight as they serve multiple functions: as retaining walls to prevent landslides, flat grounds for agriculture, reflectors of the sun to create the perfect microclimate, and sometimes for defense.

Machu Picchu may be one of the 7 wonders of the world, but for me, now, the wonder is how do we manage to destroy everything beautiful that we make? Why do we constantly not see a good for what it is and try to create something new that ends up oppressing and exploiting the people of the world)

This morning my group and I got up at 3.30am, trekked up...

--others need the internet so i´ll finish this later on