Inca Trail Day 2: Heading for Dead Woman's Pass

September 3rd was my second day on the Inca Trail and we were woken up at 5am by the porters bringing us cups of coca tea. We had 30 minutes to pack our stuff and leave our duffels and day packs on the tarpaulin sheets laid out by the porters and be down at the dining tent by 5.30am for breakfast, with a view to leaving for the day's hike by 6am.

I felt great and not nearly as achy as I expected to be - although I am sure the few stretches I did helped. I also had an unexpectedly good night's sleep considering my usual hotel comforts had been exchanged for a 2 person tent. I was was snug as a bug in a rug in my 3 season sleeping bag despite the sharp drop in temperature and very comfortable on the self-inflating sleeping pad, which was oodles better than the foam pad that was provided. I gave Melissa my foam one so that she could double up, but I'd definitely recommend getting a pad. The REI shopping binge I went on before the trip served me very well.

Breakfast was oatmeal made with quinoa served with bread and butter. "Eat, eat," urged Efraim, so I finished my porridge which was delicious and was just tucking into some bread when out came plates of scrambled eggs with ham. Phhssssssss!!! So delicious, but it was a belly busting amount of food and I couldn't manage more than a couple of mouthfuls of the eggs. Had I known more food was coming I would not have had any bread.

After the plates had been cleared and everyone was sipping their tea Efraim told us what to expect for the day ahead. "Today we will walk like old ladies," he said telling us we would begin by walking a total of 12 kilometers: 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) up hill, with frequent stops for breaks, followed by 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) down hill. Again with the up, down. Efraim estimated it would take us about 6hours to complete the hike, excluding time for breaks and lunch.

Water bottles filled, snacks distributed and with a "vamos chicos" from Efraim we were on our way, walking up a steep hill from the outset. 10 minutes in I was breathing heavily and cursing myself for not doing more cardio. Swimming would have been good training for the Inca Trail, or similar lung capacity increasing activities, because low impact cardio, like walking a steady 7 miles a day - which is what I walk to work and back - didn't really do it, although the technique of walking for short steady bursts and then taking a break until your breathing has just returned to normal and then repeating really helps.

A weigh station along the trail for checking the weight of the loads carried by the porters to ensure it doesn't go over 20 kilos.

From the photo below the trail appears to be flat, but trust me, it's not, it's sneakily inclining. In fact people may tell you - in our case people meant Ybone, our tour leader who was doing the Lares trail with Jacqui - that the 7 kilometers up are a mix of uphill and flat. These people will not be telling you the truth.

The end of our 7 kilometer uphill hike was dead woman's pass, so named because the shape of the mountain resembles a woman lying on her back and not for other, more macabre, reasons. That peak you can see between the mountains is her nose and then to the right are the bumps that resemble her chest

The end of the uphill portion looks deceptively close.

Oh crap!! Okay, one last push, apparently the rest stop is close.

The rest stop!!! Finally!! The rest stop also the last opportunity to buy food on the trail - not that I needed to be fed anything more - and also the last place you will see a home on the Inca Trail.

Inca Trail Day 1: Continued - Confused Pigs & Toilet Chat

Forewarned is forearmed, so as the title of this post suggests I'm going to be engaging in some Inca Trail loo chat on this fine and sunny Saturday morning in Manhattan, so if you are squeamish about this sort of thing, look away now - yes Miles I am looking at you ;-) - however I feel I owe it to my fellow hikers to provide some of this information, because Lord knows I really wanted to know what the loo situation would be on the Trail, but could I find much information, could I 'eck as like.

It teemed it down while we were having lunch, you could hear it bouncing off the tent, but thankfully it stopped just as we were ready to start walking again. After all that food - I rarely ever eat a two course lunch, or dinner for that matter - I was ready for a snooze quite honestly, but we had to press on after a quick pit stop at the loos.

Almost all the toilets on the trail are of this variety.

Although you'll be lucky if they are quite that clean.

Sometimes there'll be just one loo at the camp ground, but more often than not they are housed in blocks - with no lighting mind. Imagine trying to use one of these in the dark while wrestling with your garments, a torch/flashlight and trying to hold onto your loo paper - you need to bring your own by the way. Knowing what I know now I would highly recommend investing in a headlamp for anyone pondering the Inca Trail.

Mostly there are separate facilities for men and women and more often than not there are sinks with running water on the outside of the block, although no soap, but sometimes there isn't water either. Hand sanitizer is your best friend on the Inca Trail.

As a woman these types of loos are most definitely not my favourite - what can I say, I'm a traditional sort - because if you position yourself as the footplates suggest, how can I put this delicately, you - or at least I, and Melissa as it turns out, we further bonded over our mutual ineffectiveness at using these loos - have a tendency to get a little bit of pee on the bottom of your hiking pants - I don't know about you, but my flow is not straight down, it tends to veer off to the right - and if there is no running water...well you are going to finish up the day smelling like an incontinent old lady. Not fun. Now for the good of humanity Melissa and I experimented with a variety of stances on the trail and we've found that sumo squat is the most effective, so go ahead and ignore the suggestion of where you are supposed to place your feet and place them outside of the porcelain area. The only risk you have now is potentially slippery tile - the consequences of which just don't bear thinking about - but I find placing a hand on the door - I was wary of touching the walls - tends to increase your sense of security and if all this sounds too much, maybe consider investing in one of these.

Okay there endeth the public service portion of this blog post. To those of you that were closing your eyes for the last few paragraphs, it's safe to look again.

By the time we'd all used the loos and crossed the stream to get back on the trail the porters had pretty much dismantled our lunch camp and would soon be passing us on the trail. You very quickly get used to the sound of porters behind you and are told to step in towards the mountain to let them pass, but during the first day the guides will shout "Porters" to indicate their approach and signal for you to yield.

After lunch, I practiced my Quechuan lady walk - as observed during my home stay on Amantani - and discovered that a slow steady pace really does make a difference and I gave up on trying to keep up with the 22 year olds in our groups and focused on the beautiful surroundings instead.

The guide and assistant guide on the trail take their turns to lead or bring up the rear and if necessary they push the stragglers so that they make camp before sunset and not end up hiking in the dark. I suspect this is the reason the hikes end so early in the day, since you are typically at camp for the night between 2pm and 4pm. Melissa and I lagged the rest of the group on the trail, but only by an hour at most, which I didn't think was too bad for a couple of old birds ;-)

More chickens.

At 2.15pm we arrived at the second rest stop where this confused pig could not be deterred from making advances towards this poor dog...

...that was until Efraim began massaging the pig with his walking stick, "Inca massage" laughed Efraim. Pig heaven!!

By 3.20pm we were at camp for the day and instructed to come to the dining tent for 'happy hour' - cream crackers with butter and jam, freshly popped popcorn, tea, coffee and hot chocolate. I was famished.

After our 'happy hour' Efraim introduced us to the team that were looking after the 11 of us hiking the trail. As you can see it takes quite a crew to take care of 11 hikers.

By 6pm it was pitch black and cold outside - there are no lights at the camps, so take a good flashlight and/or headlamp. We headed over to the dining tent for a delicious dinner of vegetable soup, trout stuffed with spinach and cheese and served with boiled rice and potatoes followed by apple pie - apple pie!! Honestly we were so well fed on the trail, the food impressed the hell out of me - and tea and by 8pm we were tucked up in bed!!

One day down, two and a bit more to go!!

Peru Trip: Inca Trail Day 1 Continued

I can't believe I first posted about this on Tuesday, it's taken me forever to get around to continuing blogging about Day 1 of the Inca Trail, this week has been even more mental than usual at work. The cherry on top of the cake came on Thursday when I learned from one of my account teams that a senior client had made a huge cock up that may have cost the client organization $500,000 and so she is now worried about being fired. Yikes!!!

I feel for her, she is a nice client, but from an unemotional business perspective she is also the person we have the relationship with, the one who signs all our scopes we are more than a bit concerned, since that could also mean the account is in jeopardy, so we are pulling out all the stops to make her look good and hopefully calm down her furious CEO who she was meeting with at 5pm today. I've yet to hear how that meeting went but earlier she said that no matter what the outcome she was planning to fill an IV drip with gin tonight.

Isn't marketing fun!!!

Anyway it's a Friday night before a long weekend - Columbus Day on Monday, although I will have to go into work even though technically our office is closed, but at least I get to have Saturday and Sunday which hasn't happened for a while - so I am putting thoughts of work behind me.

So back to day 1 of the Inca Trail...

...After walking for about an hour we paused for a moment so that Efraim could provide us with information about the Inca ruin we could see across the river.

As we stood and listened a huge wasp buzzed out of the foliage and we all took a step backwards.

"Oh don't worry about it," said Efraim dismissively, "that wasp is looking for tarantulas for food, they lay eggs in the tarantula's nest and eat them."

Um...I'm sorry, what's that you said...TARANTULAS!!!!

TARANTULAS!! Not just huge wasps, but TARANTULAS!!!!

I was so distracted by that piece of information that I completely forgot to write down the name of the ruin we could see, I was far too busy scouring the ground for spiders and making sure the wasp didn't have an opportunity to lay any eggs on me. Shudder!!

Aside: I will point out to anyone reading this who is planning to do the trail that I didn't encounter any more huge wasps and only came across one spider, so if even if you have a whole arachnophobia thing going on I am sure you would be just fine on the trail.

After our insect encounter we continued on the trail, hiking up a steep hill for a solid 20 minutes. Do-able but not exactly a breeze for this 39-year old regular gym goer and day 1 is supposed to be the easy day. I suspect it's easy only in comparison to day 2. Day 2 scares the crap out of me!! Other than the steep hill though day 1 was been very pleasant to that point, especially as it had stopped raining but was nice and cool for hiking.

We were rewarded at the top of the hill by a rest stop where you could purchase water, soft drinks, Pringles and Snickers.

The rest stops are also set up for the porters who make frequent stops for Chicha served from the large buckets you can see in the photo below. I forget exactly what the pink stuff is - I didn't note it down on day 1 at least, but maybe when I get further through my notes I'll find a name - but I remember it's non-alcoholic, unlike Chicha.

Another home along the trail route.

Porters enjoying a Chicha break.

I was lulled into a false sense of security when Efraim said we'd have a brief steep walk immediately after the rest stop and then we proceeded up a short, steep, rocky climb, but that was only the teaser and soon we were walking up what I considered to be a fairly big hill. As I labored up the hill in my Salomon XA Pro 3D Ultra GTX Gore-Tex membraned, stability control, all terrain sneakers - excellent shoes by the way, my lungs threatening to explode out of my chest, an older local woman walked passed me down the path, herding a lamb and a horse, her feet clad in loafers. Loafers!!

Honestly it's steeper than the photo above would have you believe and those steps...let me tell you, they are on the high side. As a former student of architecture I am aware there are rules regarding the height of steps and the Incas clearly weren't following them. At 5ft 1 I had to over-stretch a little, which I didn't quite get, because wouldn't 5ft 1 have been quite tall for an Inca? They were tiny people right?

And then after you've climbed all the way up...guess what...you climb all the way down!! WTF!! Up, down, up, down!! What's THAT about? Couldn't those Incas have just gone around?

The porters clapped our arrival as we arrived for lunch. I'll be honest, relative to their speedy efforts with 20+ kilos on their backs I didn't really feel deserving of the applause, but bless their hearts.

For some reason I pictured us eating our meals huddled around a camp fire with bowls of something ladled from a caldron, what I didn't expect was a dining tent...

...and a meal of warm garlic bread, vegetable soup, chicken and potato casserole followed by tea. Unbelievable!! We were told that warm tea was to be served after every meal as an aid to digestion as cold water could give you a stomach upset.

Anyway I was hoping to get day 1 all wrapped up in this post, but I'm exhausted and need to have a break from sitting in front of a computer, so I'll love you and leave you for today, but more to come.

Peru Trip: Inca Trail Day 1 - Who Knew There'd Be So Many Chickens??

I slept like a log at the Tiki Wasi Valley Hotel, the hotel bed was the most comfortable I slept in on the entire trip. One last taste of luxury before 3 nights in a tent!! I slept for a solid 8 hours before waking up at 5am to the sound of extremely heavy rain. Ugh great!! As if I didn't have enough anxiety about the trail without adding a heavy downpour into the mix. Hello.... land slide; it's not like it hasn't happened before. I was seriously bricking it, forget the prescription for altitude sickness pills, anti-anxiety would have been more appropriate.

Melissa and I joined the rest of our group for breakfast at 6.30am. I was perversely pleased to note that I wasn't the only one who looked nervous at the prospect of hiking in the heavy rain.

"Perhaps it's not raining in the mountains," said Jacqui optimistically.

Bless her!!

Our trail guide Efraim arrived at the hotel at 7.20am and by 7.25am the 4 of us - myself, Melissa, Jamie and Sarah. Jacqui was doing the Lares Trail - were on the mini bus with 7 members of the multi-national group we'd also come across on our stay on Amantani: Greg & Nicole, a Canadian couple; Junko, a midwife from Japan; Roisin, a banker from Ireland; Sara, a medical student from Germany and last, but not least, Max & Rose, a Malaysian couple based in London. Accompanying us on the trail was our guide Efraim and his assistant guide, Miguel.

The minibus ascended slowly through scenic Peruvian farmland. Perhaps this whole hiking thing was a joke, perhaps we'd be driving!!

A girl can dream.

At 7.55am we arrived at the trail checkpoint and took the opportunity to run to the loo - the last chance for a couple of hours - while our guides and porters did their thing.

If I had to pick one single aspect about the Inca Trail that just blew my mind, it was the job the porters did!! Wow, how amazing are these guys!! Seriously I have the cheek to complain about my job, these guys do back-breaking work!!

In 2000 Peruvian authorities limited the number of hikers on the Inca Trail to no more than 500 per day in an effort to curtail overcrowding and erosion of the route. Of these, approximately 300 are porters and the remaining 200 are tourists. The porters are employed by the various companies that operate tourist treks along the route to carry all the bits and pieces required by the tourists during the 3 night, 4 day trek: tents, kitchen equipment, food, dining tables and chairs, you name it they carry it, even a gas canister!! The porters run on ahead of the tourists to set up equipment, so that when you arrive at the camp sites everything is ready for you. This photo journal on the BBC is told from the perspective of life as an Inca Trail porter.

In 2002 the Peruvian government introduced a law to improve conditions for the porters including a minimum wage and the introduction of a weight limit of 20 kilos - prior to the 2002 law some were carrying closer to 50kilos. From what I can gather from various websites and the trailer for this documentary this law is not well enforced and many porters are still not treated well. Had I known this before the trip I don't think I would have taken it, although on the flip side at least I am now aware and able to contribute to charities trying to improve the porters' working conditions, although I hate the fact that I may have perpetuated an unpleasant environment, although all our porters seemed pretty jovial so hopefully they were treated well.

The above photo shows one of our porters consolidating our bags - which weigh a maximum of 6 kilos - into a large bag that he would carry on the trail.

At the check in we were also given our little bag of snacks - 3 boiled sweets, a piece of fruit and a chocolate bar - for the day's trail before heading to the checkpoint to show our passports and trail passes. As we passed through the checkpoint Miguel, our assistant guide stood at the end ready to stamp our passports with an Inca Trail stamp. Kind of cheesy, but I liked having the proof :-) It was brass monkeys out, and we were all layered up in coats, scarves and gloves, but Miguel was dressed in only shorts, a fleece top and sunglasses. Perhaps he knew something we didn't.

A group photo before we begin!!

And we're off!!!

On the first day of the trail, the so-called easy day - 'piece of cake', said Efraim frequently - we would walk 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) and ascend 2,700-3,000 meters in altitude (roughly 8,850-9,840 feet).

Being overtaken by our first porter. This one worked for a different company. "Manchester Utd," said Efraim, comparing their red uniforms to those of the English footie team.

Despite the rain - which was fairly light by this time - you get hot very quickly on the trail, even in places where the terrain is relatively flat and you're exerting less effort, and members of our group were soon stopping to peel off layers. Take my advice, wear one layer less than you will think you need, and suck it up and brave the cold for the first hour, because whatever you take off you have to carry, so it's better to make do with a scarf, hat and gloves to keep you warm because they are easy to remove and stuff in your daypack. I can also highly recommend this lightweight jacket I bought from REI for the trip, it was absolutely perfect.

As it turns out our assistant guide, Miguel, did know something :-)

Chickens!!! Or rather, chicken!!

And um....donkeys. I totally wasn't expecting them.

Another thing I wasn't expecting to see on the trail....homes. People LIVE on the trail route

I also didn't expect to be nowhere near completing this blog post by 11pm, my bedtime unless I am in the mood for a little Jon Stewart, so I'm going to stop here and continue another day, however I'll leave you with this photo of the Perurail train transporting "the lazy people" to Machu Picchu ;-)

Peru Trip: Sacred Valley - Ollantaytambo

I'm dragging out writing about this particular day on my Peru trip a bit aren't I? I'm struggling to find time to post to be honest. Work was pretty brutal last week as I had to spend 3days at a training course, but of course the usual work doesn't stop, or get pushed back for that matter, so I ditched all thoughts of going to the gym and worked late and arrived early. I was exhausted by Friday and at 4.30pm my team and I left to hit the pub, along with a couple of the other walking wounded from the advertising trenches, and as a result I had to take care of a few loose ends this weekend. I should have just stayed late on Friday really, but I just didn't have it in me.

I don't know how people with legitimately stressful jobs do it, people who are exposed to actual danger, or the evil inflicted by the worst side of humanity on a daily basis or other such stresses. I have to tip my hat to them, because at the end of the day all I'm doing is working out whether we've been successful in encouraging people to read marketing bollocks or if we've managed to sell people shit that they probably don't really need, I sometimes have to wonder whether it's really worth all the stress, but I do need the money.

Ohhhh to be a trophy wife!! Ha ha!! Actually that lifestyle would bore me to tears, but maybe a sabbatical is something to ponder!! I could really do with achieving some semblance of a work/life balance.

I actually told my team on Friday about starting the ball rolling on the move to the west coast - I doubt it will happen for months - and the most common reaction I received was "take me with you." I was soooooo flattered!!

Anyway, Peru!!! So next on the itinerary on our day trip to the Sacred Valley - after the Inca ruins at Pisac, the market and lunch at an excellent ranch style spot where the food was amazing, the parrots were beautiful and the bathrooms were even better - running water, soap, loo paper and a hand dryer. The height of luxury!! - were the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo.

The Inca site of Ollantaytambo is located in the mountains. Of course it's in the mountains, because why place it somewhere flat, like in the valley for example, when you can laugh your asses off 500 or so years later at tourists lungs exploding out of their chests as they labour uphill to peer at farming terraces.

Sorry that was kind of flip of me, but the hills and steps were getting to me that day and I couldn't help but laugh when I overheard another guide say the following to his group.

"When you get back home people will say to you 'how was your trip to Peru?' and you will say, 'it was memorable',

'Why is that' they will ask, and you will respond 'because I suffered a lot.'"

Ha ha, so true. While stunningly beautiful, Peru is not a country for the prissy and weak of heart, since you're ALWAYS climbing up steep hills or lots and lots of steps to visit the various ruins, struggling to catch your breath as a result of the lack of oxygen and enduring bathroom facilities that are little more than a hole in the ground without the benefit of loo paper or running water. Never in my life have I used so much hand sanitizer!!

Oooh I do sound spoiled eh!! What a princess ;-)

The city of Ollantaytambo is thought to have been developed in the middle of the 15th century by the Inca emperor Pachacuti and is thought to have been a fortress owing to it's dense walls and strategic location at the tip of a mountain.

Do you see the face in the rock??? It's to the right side? I'll point it out to you in a few photos time if you can't see it in the photo above.

Oh great, stairs!! Of course we climbed them, not all the way to the top, but almost!! After all the stair climbing I was expecting to have an arse so firm you could bounce tennis balls off it by the time I got back to New York.

The view back to the town.

Old man mountain face!!! Or Viracocha as he's known to his poker buddies, 'the creator of civilization.'

Despite my comments about suffering in Peru, the hotel we stayed at in Ollantaytambo, the Tiki Wasi Valley Hotel, was probably the nicest one we stayed in of all the accommodation organized by Gap Adventures, albeit lacking some of the furnishings we'd become used to, like a TV and a closet, but we found out later that it had only been open a month, so I am sure the arrival of such items was imminent.

After visiting the ruins Melissa and I took a stroll around the small town before dinner at the Blue Puppy.

Ollantaytambo is a living city, built on Inca foundations. It's a pretty little place and well worth a visit.

Restaurants and shops lining the main square.

On the left side of the photo above you can see the original Inca water channels that still remain.

The stick with the red and blue paper you can see in the photo above indicates the establishment serves Chicha, a fermented drink made from corn. Apparently these places are frequented by the male workers of Ollantaytambo. There were lots of such places in the town.