Inca Trail Day 1. 14th April 2017

Friday 14^th April 2017

Day 1/4 Inca Trail. Ollantaytambo/Piscacucho/Llactapata.

Collected by Walter at 8.30 and took a van to Piscacucho which was the 82km mark, starting the Inca Trail.  Loads of other people there getting their kit ready, with the porters in ‘uniform’ to distinguish them for the clients.  They were weighing their packs carefully to distribute the weight amongst them evenly – their maximum is now 25 kg, in the past it was 55-60kg… slave labour and very dangerous. 

 

We all had to show passports and Trail tickets to be allowed on to the trail, which is highly regulated.  500x people are allowed on the trail per day, but that includes all porters and guides.  For the four of us, we had 10x porters carrying our luggage (limited to 5kg for our gear, plus sleeping bag – to max of 8kg per person).

The trail followed the left bank of the Urubamba River, from where we could see the views of snow-capped Veronica (5,850m).  The route was reasonably easy, albeit helped by walking poles in parts. Walter stopped on numerous occasions to point out Hummingbirds, Parakeets, and to see the numerous Bromiliads growing up the sides of the mountains.  Lunch was in our ‘dining tent’ which had been constructed alongside the kitchen tent.  Soup, a full plate of meat, veg, rice and pudding was supplied to keep our strength up! 

 

We visited Llactapata, again some magnificent Inca ruins, with terraces and spectacular lengths of wall, where we should have camped for the night, but pressed on a little and camped at Hotunchaka (2,800m).

 

 

This was our own private little site, alongside the river, and we were pleased to see that the porters had brought the kitchen tent, eating tent with table and plastic chairs, and a latrine tent!! Tea and popcorn, bread/jam was supplied within half hour of us arriving, then at 7.30 dinner was supplied – soup, meat/rice/vegetables.  By about 8pm we were all finished, with the porters using the dining tent to sleep in en-masse, so we watched the crystal clear sky and found the Southern Cross, Orion, Gemini and a load more with the Night Sky app.  It was so light from just the stars at ‘Inca Loo’ time about 3am that they were casting shadows through the camp.