Inca Trail – The longer way to Machu Picchu

After a not so well slept night, we woke up at 4.40am and packed the last stuff before starting the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with Bamba Experience. The typical Inca Trail is a 4d/4n hike on a path that goes through valleys and mountains. The highest point was only at 4200 meters so for us it was not a problem since we had been at high altitude places for the past few weeks. We had been waiting for the Inca trail with both excitement and fear. We guessed it would be really tough but with amazing views of the mountains and valleys.

View from Inca trail

First we had a few hours’ bus ride to Ollantaytambo where we had breakfast. We were only five + our guide in our group. Besides us, there was a Swedish couple Johan and Maria, and a Brazilian woman Anna. We Started our hike around 9am after a short drive from the breakfast place on a really narrow dirt road. The control point and system was quite interesting. They check everyone who is going to the Inca Trail and they even weighted the packages the porters were carrying. The weight limit for the porter’s package is 25kg and if it exceeds the group can’t basically go further because then the tents, food etc. would be missing.

Ready, set, GO!

  

The first day we walked close to a river

The first day was a nice walk in the Sacred Valley surrounded by a dense vegetation, rivers and local habitation. The first day was just an easy warm up for the remaining days. We walked only around 5-6 hours and it was relatively flat without big ascendings or descendings. Our guide told few things about the local customs and about few flowers. One nice, white and big flower is used, or has been used by the locals to get some inspirations 😜 It is called ayahuasca and when you pour hot water into the flower and drink it, it has a hallucinating effect, or so we were told. We arrived to our first camp around 2-3pm. It was a small village. Our porters weren’t fast enough so we had to wait for them to bring our dry clothes and tents. Our camp was still in the valley so we had quite nice views on the fields with cows 😄 In the evening we had dinner and we were offered fish. Bamba had said they offer also vegetarian food for vegetarians. Well… Edda got a “vegetarian option”, cooked vegetables etc., but the cooks were maybe a bit lazy so they had cooked the veggies together with the fish! 😧 They claimed that they had cooked it separately but the food tasted strongly as fish. This is very unprofessional!

The first day with full of energy 😉

"Cooks" prearing our meals

It looked nice

Our camp the first night

The next morning, we had again an early wake up around 5am. Markus noticed that the luxury sleeping mattress had seen its best days. At least it was easy to empty and roll when it was already almost empty in the morning… Our guide promised to check it and fix it. After our breakfast, we started to hike, or almost climb up along the path going to all the way up to 4200 meters. It was a 5-hour hike and it was quite tough. The lower part of the trail was green and had really beautiful forest and nature. Around at 2/3 of the trail, Markus took Edda’s backpack when the trail just continued to be steep uphill. When we finally arrived to the top, the views were rewarding. 😃 After a short break, we had some 2 hour downhill to our next camp and lunch. The descending was much easier than climbing up 😉 On the way down we had nice views and we made jokes and had fun with Johan and Maria. Just a little bit before the camp it started to rain but also it hailed. The beginning of the day had been nice and sunny but of course when we would have few hours just to relax and enjoy the views it started to rain. We had bought rain ponchos and they worked quite well. When we came to our camp, the lunch was ready. After the lunch, we went to our tent because it was raining. The rain got rather heavy and it was also raining wet snow. We had cleaned us with cleansing wipes as the day before because the showers were, uh, how to say this… it was like to take a shower in public festival toilet… When the rain got heavier we noticed that the Bamba tents were planned to be fresh with an extra good ventilation. We would have been happy with a bit less breathing tent fabric because also the water came through. When Markus went to tell about it to our guide he just said “we will fix it”. When we went for dinner, we noticed that the guide and porters had fixed the leak with Johan’s and Maria’s rain ponchos 😜 They had also the same problem with their tent so after the dinner we gave back their ponchos and put our own ponchos for rain cover. And the “air” mattress was still feeling bad and didn’t want to keep the thin air inside it…

Up, up, up...

There were a lot of these butterflies on the way

We saw also few lamas

The highest point of the trail, 4200 meters

Our camp from a different view point 

On the third morning, we woke up around 6am. We noticed that the tent was not leaking too much and our stuff wasn’t wet 😊 But, it was still raining and our ponchos had been as rain covers for the tent so they were wet also inside :/ luckily we had towels so we could wipe of most of the water before putting them on. When we said that the tent has to be fixed for the next night, our guide just said: “Welcome to South America…” ??? Not what you want to hear when it’s raining and we have a 9 hour hike ahead of us. Our hike itself was quite nice, even if it was raining. The clouds made the mountains, forests and Inca ruins look quite mystic. It was also a matter of luck if you saw something. First there could be a nice view but the next minute you could see just white when the clouds covered everything.

Morning clouds

The clouds moved enough so we could see the lake

Not a very sunny trekking weather

Inca ruins on the way

Despite the rain, the views and landscapes were great

The trail went up and down through a nice scenery. The first 6 hours were more uphill and at the highest point of that day we had lunch. After our lunch, we had mostly downhill the next 3 hours. Even if it was tough, it was worth it with all the nice views. In the end the rain finally stopped and we could even see the sun behind the clouds. In the last part of the day's hike, we got to choose if we want to take a short cut, 30min to the camp or go to see Inka terraces, 60min. We took the short cut because we had seen a lot of the terraces before. Johan and Maria went to see the terraces. On our way, we saw also the terraces from distance and we could even spot Johan and Maria from there 😄

The sun started slowly to shine 😄

Not raining anymore, but keeping the poncho in case of showers

It started to look good for the last day!

Inca terraces and when we zoomed in, we could see Johan and Maria climbing there

When we arrived to our camp it looked very nice. We had a beautiful view on the mountains and the sunset made an extra touch to it. As you know, it had been raining basically the whole day. When we went to our tent, we noticed that our porters had been so fast that the rain covers had flown of… (???) This meant that we had wet mattresses, and Markus’ mattress was wet and empty 😝 Luckily we had our spare clothes and sleeping bags in plastic bags, because also the duffel bags that the porters had carried were soaking wet… Bababamba! At this point it started to be difficult to find humor when the other companies’ stuff was dry. The porters managed to dry them mattresses during our dinner. The dinner was around 6.30pm and Edda’s vegetarian food was the same as before, looked a bit like just leftovers from the “normal” food. She hadn’t got any proteins during the whole trail. No beans or other that would've contained vegetarian proteins. 😒 We went straight after the dinner to sleep because we had to wake up at 2.50am.

There was a check point gate and we had to manage to get among the first ones there to get a seat and continue the trail without big delays. The gate opened at 5.30 so we had a long wait. We had our own alarm luckily, because the porters came to wake us up at 3.05am and our guide didn’t get up before 3.20am. He had said that we should leave at 3.10am to get the seats but he got probably angry when we didn’t want to tip the porters and cook because of the not-so-good service with wet stuff and poor vegetarian food. When we got to the gate, all the seats were already taken but there were only around 50 people so we were in a quite good position. Then it was just to wait for few hours…

  

When the gate finally opened, we continued the hike with a fast pace and we managed to overtake quite many. The views were amazing in the sun rise and Markus stopped every now and then to take photos, and then he had to run to catch up with Edda and the Swedes. Our guide had forgotten something and went back and just said that let’s meet at the Sun gate. We continued hiking and at one point the queue stopped. there were steep stairs and people had problems to manage them. At the top there were some ruins and people stopped there and took a bit clothes off. We just thought they took a rest so we continued because our guide was missing. After a while our guide cached us and told that we reach Machu Picchu in five minutes. So, it was the Sun Gate and we just walked through it 😞 Well, it was really cloudy at the Sun Gate so we didn’t see anything when we passed it. When we arrived Machu Picchu it looked amazing from above.

First glimts of sun in the morning

Finally arriving to Machu Picchu

Machu Picchhu and Huayna Picchu

After we had arrived to Machu Picchu from above, we had to go down and check in to Machu Picchu again. We had a few hours’ tour around the ruins with our guide. In the end he gave us our bus and train tickets back to Cusco. We had booked with Edda an extra hike to Huayna Picchu. It was another mountain next to Machu Picchu. We looked at it and were wondering what we are doing… :P

Yes, the Huayna Picchu mountain to the left looks steep, and the path is actually almost straight up...

We were surprised how “easy” the hike was. It was basically straight up with amazing views. We were told that it was a one hour hike up to the top, but we made it in 40 minutes 😉 The views were stunning from the top! It was definitely not for people with fear of hights. At some points there were quite steep drops and the path was narrow with tiny steps without rails or fences. From the top we could see the whole Machu Picchu and it was worth the extra hike and sweat! We were among the first on the top so it was not crowded. The top was just few big stones so there was not too much space. When we went back down there were quite many still hiking up. At some points we had to make short breaks when the path was so narrow that two people couldn’t pass each other. The whole trip up and down took about 1,5 hours.

Incas didn't make the stairs too easy to Huayna Picchu

Even at 3/4 of the way up the views were amazing

A bit steeper stairs to come down...don't slip!

Markus climbing up

Finally at the top! Almost like the 'toe photo' on the beach 😅

Here's how Machu Picchu looks like from above

After this we had to find the bus leaving to Aguas Calientes where we had lunch before we took a train to Ollantaytambo from where we had a bus back to Cusco. It was a hard treck but worth it (despite the problems with the Inca Trail company) but we would not maybe do it again 😜

We had a nice journey back on the train with drinks and snacks, not bad! 😄

View from the train