Well, we were up at 4 am. Steve wasn’t in a great mood, having had little sleep. Our fairly cramped quarters combined with the cold and the wet was beginning to wear our patience slightly thin. We gringos need our gringo comforts. The porters had to disassemble our tents, cook us breakfast and pack all the rest of the trek stuff, and run to a train before 5.30am. Hence, the early starting time. Our breakfast wasn’t a good as previous (hard bread and little else), but at least Roberto got us to the final trail checkpoint early, which meant we were the second tour group through. Steve, Manuel and I took advantage of this, and we set off at a killing pace through the cloud forest, covering the four kilometers to Intipunku (the Sun Gate) in about 25 minutes. Along the way, I nearly died climbing some steep monkey steps (steep vertical steps placed close together, so it is more like a ladder than stairs), I could feel my body begin to wear thin. Still, nothing prepared me for the magical moment as we climbed the final incline to the Sun Gate and stared down at Maccu Picchu, which basked in the glory of a near perfect morning. We were fortunate, the weather was ideal and we had an unencumbered view to the Inca ruins and, in retrospect, this was my favourite moment of the entire Inca trail.
For about one hour, we stuck around, took pictures and generally had a rest. I was feeling quite tired from a combination of lack of sleep and general weariness. My vertigo was given a bit of a test, as there were little or no natural railings, and the drop was enormous. From the Sun Gate, we could see tiny specs of people beginning to fill the ruins which increased the groups desire to get down and get dirty amongst the erotic ruins of the ancient Incas. We were waiting around for some time, petting llamas (as you do), Moss decided to go walk abouts through the ruins without actually getting his entrance ticket – I’m unsure how he got in exactly, but I’m guessing he vaulted a wall or something. By the time we got into Maccu Picchu, the fat gringos had made their way via train from Cusco, and the place was becoming crowded with old people and their gigantic cameras, determined to photograph every inch of the ruins. I must say I felt a bit disgusted – after all, we had trekked for days through the rain and mud, to enjoy Maccu Picchu, and here were these clean, pleasant smelling individuals walking about like the owned the place.
After a guided tour by Roberto in which we took in several temples, and the royal apartments, we were left to our own devices. Most of the group decided to hike up Waynu Picchu., though I passed due to a mixture of vertigo and exhaustion. Steve claimed he would take one hour to get up and back, despite the guides saying that it would take approximately two to two and a half hours to complete – at this stage it was 10.30 am, and we had to be on a bus down to the nearby village of Aguas Calientes by 1:00pm. Lo and behold, the return trek up Waynu Picchu would take until 1:30pm. While the guys where up their wandering round the hills, I took the opportunity to have some R&R, and a bag of crisps. I lay out in the sun, watching the gringos file into the ruins, and spend a heap of money. I did see a native Andean musician playing some tunes round the café, he managed to concurrently play a mini guitar and panpipes at the same time.
We boarded our bus to Aguas Calientes at 1.30 pm, and met up with Roberto and Manuel at some local pizza place. There was a complete stuff up with train tickets as the tour company we were with had not organised return tickets early enough, and thus, we weren’t all together on the train. Moss, Anna and I were on the 3:00 pm train, while the rest were on a later train. Many of our group were rightly unhappy (not I, I must confess, as I got to go on the early one! Lucky me). The train journey was approximately two hours, and Anna promptly fell asleep, while Moss and I mentally created the script to a movie (starring Samuel L Jackson as a MI6 spy with rather unconventional and violent methods of ‘getting the job done’, if I recall correctly). We thought we were going straight to Cusco as no one had told us any differently, but the train dropped us off at Ollantaytambo. We were slightly confused and slightly pissed off. In the midst of trying to figure out how to get back to Cusco, a random Peruvian approached us waving a sheet. My first reaction was to tell him to piss off, but Moss’s sensibilities prevailed, as he noticed our names scratched upon the parchment – someone had the smarts to call ahead and get us tickets on a bus back to Cusco. Yay. What was not so yay was the journey back, which was uncomfortable and accompanied with by large blasts of cumbia music – the worst music known to mankind.
We arrived in Cusco at 6pm, exhausted. The rest of the group got back at 9pm. I had a curry at Loki and immediately went to bed.
