500 Years of Feet
If I were forced to choose, I might have to say that the trek along the Inca trail to Machu Picchu was better than the Wonder itself. This 4-day excursion was among the best things that we did on the RTW trip, if not the best. A little bit spendy, certainly, but thoroughly enjoyable and just amazing for the sights along the road.
The trail to Machu Picchu was built roughly 500 years ago, before the arrival of the Conquistadores. Our guide told us that the first 2 days of trekking is on trail that is only about 30% original but that on the third and fourth days, the trail is 80-90% original. Considering that the road is paved with stone and snakes through cloud jungle, over extremely high mountain passes, and skirts whole valleys, it is beyond remarkable that it has remained intact, let alone in good enough shape for people to continue to traverse it.
The highest point we crossed, Dead Woman’s Pass (doesn’t take much imagination to wonder why it has this name) was 4215m. (13829ft.), not a height that I will take lightly anymore. The altitude took its toll on both of us, sapping our strength and only allowing 20 steps between rest stops. Luckily, we had acclimatized for a couple of weeks before setting off but some of our group had a rough time with altitude sickness, unfortunately. Fortunately, we discovered coca leaves. Yes, they are of the plant of ill repute but I found that tucking a wad in the side of my mouth and chewing on these bitter leaves actually made quite a difference in my performance; I felt less headache-y and a little more energetic. It was much nicer, however, to chew on a coca candy and/or take a little coca mate (tea) and significantly less gross than the wad of leaves.
Apparently, the messengers that used to run the Inca trail back in the day used to make good and regular use of the coca plant and would cover as much as 120kms a day. I can’t even begin to imagine that as it took us the better part of 3 days to cover only 45kms of trail. There’s a race held each year – or every other year (?) – over the section of trail we hiked and the record is sometime just over 3 hours. The record holder is a porter who ran baggage-less along the entire route. Inconceivable.
One of the prettier aspects of the trail (besides the ruins enroute and the trail iself) was the orchids. We’ve come across other wild orchids in our travels but nothing as extraordinary as these two, whose names I have, of course, forgotten.
