The Inca Trail: Road to Machu Picchu

On the morning of Saturday, August 15th, we woke very early, made our way down to the SAS Tours office, and boarded a bus with ten other people. The bus left at 6:15, and took us through some very windy roads to Ollantaytambo village. There, at km 82 on the train line, we began our four day hike up the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
Before I describe our experience, I would like to lay some ground rules for anyone thinking about hiking the Inca Trail. First off, you should be in decent shape. I don't mean that you have to be a marathon runner, or a super athlete, but you should be able to walk for long periods up and down steep slopes/stairs without a break.
Also, you may want to reconsider if you have severe knee problems. Anna did great most of the way on the trail, but when her knee gave out on the third day, it made it harder on her to get down some of the steeper slopes and steps.
Finally, make sure you come prepared. Bring Cipro for traveller's diarrhea. Because we are not used to unsanitary food prep techniques, foreigners are more susceptible to food poisoning here. Most people in our group got sick on the trail, and we overheard most of the other groups around us saying the same thing. I think the only reason we didn't get sick is that I had food poisoning while in Cusco a few days before, and Anna didn't eat much of the food in camp.
Now that I feel that I have done my civic duty by warning you about the dangers of the trail, let me move on to the good stuff.
Day 1
Once we got through the entrance to the trail (they only let 500 people on the trail per day), we crossed a suspension bridge over the Aorubamba river and started on the trail. The first day was relatively easy, with many flat areas interspersed with some ups and downs. We paused at several Incan ruins along the way and our guides, Hilbert and Valentin, explained some of the history surrounding the sites and the trail.

We walked most of the day through a large valley with the glacier mountain Salcontay behind us to the south. The locals call that mountain "the crying mountain" because the glaciers feed the rivers and streams the local farmers rely upon for irrigation. We had several great views of the mountain as we got further up the trail. To the east was the Victoria glacier mountain range, also white-capped.
We stopped for lunch in a small camp on the trail. The porters had run ahead of us and set everything up ahead of time. These guys are amazing. They are all local people who are hired by the tour companies. They carry everything up and down the mountains. The tents, dishes, tables, chairs, bags, and even those big propane tanks for gas grills since fires are not allowed, AND they walked at twice the speed that we did. Talk about tough.
After lunch, we kept walking. After five hours of hiking, we made it to the spot where most of the tour groups stop at for the first night, but we didn't. That camp is at the base of a very long mountain trail leading to Dead Woman's pass. Since the camp would be crowded and noisy, Hilbert had told us that we would keep on for two more hours. The last two hours were straight up hill. It was a healthy climb, but the scenery was worth it. We reached camp at about 6 p.m. and had a wonderful view of the valley below. We also had a two hour head start on many of the other groups in the morning. We got cleaned up a bit, had dinner and settled in for the night. The sky was clear and you could just about see every star in the sky. It was a beautiful, cold mountain night.

Day 2
On the second morning we awoke at 5 a.m. to calls of "coca tea" outside our tent. The locals drink coca tea and chew coca leaves to help with the altitude. Yes, these are the same leaves that cocaine is made from, but in the high country of Peru the leaves are legal because they are such a part of the culture and they contain so little active ingredient in leaf form.
After packing up our gear and having some breakfast we were on the trail by 7 a.m. This was to be our long day. The guides call it "survival day". We would be hiking for ten hours and climbing through two mountain passes.

The first four hours are straight up hill. We moved from the scruby vegetation of the valley into a cloud forest with leafy trees and moss growing on everything. The climb was fairly tough. Imagine being on a stairmaster for four hours, then imagine doing it with only half the normal oxygen.
After a couple of ours we came out of the forest into the high jungle. Since this is the dry season, it was still fairly scruby. Finally, at around 11 a.m. we reached dead woman's pass. The pass gets its name from the shape of the mountains around the pass. On the left, the cliff face looks like an old woman's face, then the pass forms her neck, and a large pinnacle of rock juts up on the right that looks like a breast.
The pass sits at about 13,500 feet above sea level. That would be the highest we would hike on the trail.
After resting for a while we began climbing down the other side of the pass. After two hours of going downhill, we made it to the site where most of the other tours would camp the second night. We used it as a lunch stop, and pressed on.
This might be a good point to describe the trail. It's mostly rocky. Large rocks have been use as rudimentary pavers, although they stick up and lay at odd angles. When the trail gets steep, which it is most of the time, the rocks are made into steps, albeit irregular and deep. This means you have to pay attention the entire time you are walking. This is not like a Sunday stroll through the park; much of the time the trail winds along the side of a mountain, and since it is only a few feet wide, one wrong step or stumble could send you tumbling down a slope that you might not get up from when you stop.
After lunch we began the steep hike up to the next mountain pass. Half way up we stopped at another Incan ruin that was used as a lookout post for the entire valley. From it you can see the back side of dead woman's pass, the valley below that we trekked to, and the majority of a valley that led down to the river. This gave the Incas tremendous power over that valley and the trails through it.
Another forty minutes past the ruin brought us to the second pass of the day. We were still fairly high up, and the clouds partially covered the pass. It was almost mystical how wisps of cloud would blow through the narrow pass as we sat there. After everyone had regrouped, we had a ceremony at the top of the pass. Hilbert asked everyone to sacrifice something for the mountain, such as some coca leaves, candy or a granola bar. We placed everything on a small pile of rocks just off the trail. Hilbert told us that this was an Incan tradition that asked the mountains for safe passage. He explained that the Incas worshiped the mountains as their gods, and had respect for the power of nature. He also told us that the local people who lived in the mountains still practiced the Incan religion and spoke the Incan, or Quechua, language. After that we descended two hours into the jungle to our camp.
Day 3
Dawn on the the third day of the hike was cold. That night there was frost, and the shirt I'd left to dry on top of our tent was frozen stiff, but the sky was clear, and the view of the mountains was spectacular.

This was to be our short day; only five hours to the final camp. Most of it was down hill, with some extremely steep staircases. It was so steep that Hilbert would often come into a resting spot joking "Bloody steps, bloody Incas!"

We made camp at about 1 p.m. and after visiting a nearby ruin and having lunch, we had free time for the rest of the day. There was a hostel nearby and we all took the chance to shower and remove three days of trail dust. Also, after a week of being careful not to have any caffeine or alcohol because of the altitude, I had what felt like a well deserved beer.
We went to bed at 9 pm since we would be getting up very early for the final trek to Machu Picchu.
Day 4
After the 3:45 am wake up call, we started the last 2 hours of the hike. The entry point to Machu Picchu from the Inca Trail is called the sun gate, and the next blog will pick up there.

As a side note, I had noticed that the bars in Cusco always had Johnny Walker whiskey on hand. On the third day of the hike I realized why. Johnny Walker's slogan is "Keep Walking". On the Inca Trail, that's what you do, just keep walking. - Scott

Arrival in Cusco

Today we had a red-eye flight out of Santiago, Chile to Lima, Peru and then finally to Cusco. Now of course we had seen the Andes Mountains in Chile, but that was from a distance. Even then they had been impressive, but the Peruvian Andes are really something else. As we flew from Lima to Cusco, most of the hour and a half flight was over the Andes, which tells you how wide the range is. We saw a few foothills, but then the peaks seem to multiply expotentially in size, until they crowd each other and overlap. The peaks are massively tall. The plane actually had to go AROUND a few, because they were to tall to safely fly over. The Andes make the Rockies look like an anthill.


I don't know how the first Incas, Peruvians, and other cultures in the area ever made it into the middle of the mountain range to build cities and villages. I would say the Andes are a young mountain range, since the peaks are still jagged and very steep. These are not the gently rolling, eroded, round peaks that you find in Japan, South Africa, or Scotland. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to transport goods through the Andes. It's no wonder Machu Pichu stayed hidden for so long.


Altitude is an ever-present thing once you enter the Andes. Normally, mountains have discrete valleys and peaks, so if you feel sick you just climb down into the valley. Here, that's not possible. As I said, the mountains pile up and run together. This results in a plateau of sorts that sits many thousands of feet in the air, and the peaks rise out of the plateau instead of the ground. The "valleys" where cities like Cusco sit are still 8-10 thousand feet in the air. So all you doctors out there, quit telling people in Peru who get altitude sickness to " go down the mountain," because they can't, except by commercial flight.


Altitude sickness result from the lack of oxygen in the thin air, and symptoms include breathlessness, rapid heart rate, splitting headaches, vomiting, and some severe signs like pulmonary edema and neurologic disturbances. Interestingly, a common preventative medication (which we are also using) is acetazolamide, a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor. The local people use a tea made from coca leaves (i.e. a very, very dilute cocaine tea).


Anyway, the city of Cusco is a nest of walled, narrow streets that wind up and down hills. Bright blue storefront doors pop up out of nowhere, spilling colorful hats, mittens, and art onto the sidewalks. The central square, the Plaza de Armas, is ringed with museums, a carved stone cathedral, and beautiful arched promenades filled with the fanciest restaurants and shopping in town. The Peruvians in Cusco are a short, stout, happy people with dark hair and brown, weathered skin. They are very proud of their heritage, and will readily explain to you that there are many distinct native Peruvian cultures.


One thing we have noticed as we travel is that the happiest people always live in the mountains or on very small islands. That trend is true here as well, although local attitudes are slightly colored by the huge tourist market. The friendliest, happiest people we have met so far are the Berbers in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Maybe the openness is a result of the small-town effect, or maybe shared difficulties of farming and transport, etc. Whatever the reason, these cultures set a good example to follow. Nothing ruins your impression of a location like rude locals, not that I'm naming names (cough, cough, Australia, cough). We are looking forward to a few more days in Cusco, and then we will begin the 4 day hike along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. - Anna

Santiago and Wine Tasting

We arrived in Santiago four hours before we left New Zealand. No that's not a typo. It is a wierd and disruptive side effect of flying over the international date line in the middle of the Pacific. Since Chile is 16 hours behind New Zealand, the time didn't quite work out. We left Auckland at 4 PM on August 6th, and arrived in Santiago, Chile at 12 PM on August 6th. It was a very strange, and disorienting feeling. We've been here four days, and we still haven't gotten over the jet lag.

(In the distance, you can see the Andes rising above the city. They are quite impressive.)

Santiago is a bustling city of 6 million people. At first glance, we thought that it was a bit run down and dirty. That was only because we drove from the airport through some of the more seedy parts of town. Our hotel is also in a bit of an unsavory area, and during our first few days here we weren't all that impressed.

Then, on the third full day in Santiago, we decided to take a tour of the nearby twin cities of Valparasio and Vina del Mare. Anna will talk more about that day in the next post, but we were able to see more of Santiago before we left, and our opinon of the city improved. There is a lot of nice parks throughout the city and several malls that have very nice designer stores in them. We were also surprized by how many American store chains are present here. We've seen Domino's Pizza, TGI Friday's, McDonald's (of course), and even ADT Security on many of the buildings.

The city itself is a mix of Spanish and Chilean architechture. We saw several beautiful churches and government buildings. It is obvious that the Spanish had a heavy influence in the development of the city, but the Chilean people are still very proud of their heritage.


The people here are also fairly friendly, and put up with our limited spanish pretty well. Though you can tell that after a while of difficult communication, they begin to get frustrated. But we can usually explain what we want with a few words and some pointing. We will be in Spanish speaking countries for the next month and a half, so we should begin to get better at it as we go. We can already tell, after only a few days, that we are picking up more words, but I think it's safe to say that we understand much more than we can speak.


On our last full day in Santiago, we took a tour of the Santa Carolina winery. They produce over 40 million litres of wine per year, making them the 4th largest producer of wine in Chile. Chile itself produces over 800 million litres of wine per year, and 80% of that is exported. Their biggest customer is the U.K., followed by the U.S., and then Brazil.

(The bottle was dusty, but the liquor was clean...)

The winery itself is situated in the middle of Santiago, in the location where the first wine makers from France set up shop in the 1800's. The winery itself was established by a French man whose name I have forgotten. His wife's name was Carolina, which is where the winery gets its name. Because the winery is in the city, it can not have its fields nearby. Their vine fields are located around the Mariposa Vallley, and the juice from the grapes are trucked in to the winery.
The guide took us around the building, looking at the old vats that were once used for wine. They were very large, made from wood and could hold up to 25,000 litres. There was one vat, that we didn't see, that could hold up to 48,000 litres. Talk about drowning your sorrows.

(Ye olde vats)

We also saw some old wine making machinery, and were taken down into the wine vault. It was a large, underground chamber with vaulted brick ceilings, filled with wine casks. It had been kept in almost the same condition for the 152 years that the winery has been opened. There were even candles in wall scones burning to give light and add to the atmosphere.

This was the entry to the cellar. It has a bit of a feeling of entering an old dungeon. Except, instead of people, there are gallons and gallons of delicious wines.

Inside the cellar. Notice the candles on the columns. Talk about keeping it true to the original atmosphere.

While we were there, we were able to taste several of the wines. They were very good. One variety, called Carmenere, was originally believed to be a Merlot and was even entered into competitions as such. Apparently, after many judges commented on how strange Santa Caraolina's "merlot" tasted, the winery had an expert look at the vine leaves and determined that they were the only winery in Chile to have Caminere vines. Even though they initially made a mistake, they are very proud of this wine.

In the 1860's the winery won the gold medal at the annual international wine festival in France. This was the catalyst that first put Chile on the map for wine making. After tasting several of their wines, we can see why.
Tomorrow, we leave for Peru and the beginning of the Inca trail. We had initially thought of Santiago as just a stopover place before we moved on, but we are both glad we were able to see more of Chile, and have realized the kind of cultural experiences that this country has to offer. - Scott

Vina del Mar and Valparaiso

We normally don't take "big bus" type tours, but we didn't have a car and the two cities we wanted to visit were two hours away. We went to Valparaiso first, and learned about several famous buildings there, which were mostly dedicated to navy or government administration. Valparaiso is a major port for Chile, and it is also built into a steep hillside. The city is a mish-mash of nice and run down houses that sprawl up the mountainside. Copper and lapis lazuli are two of the more important materials that are mined in Chile, so there is a copper monument in the town square. We then rode the second most rickety cable car known to man up the steep hillside to a viewing platform. Apparently the most rickety cable car was many years older, but was not big enough to hold our group of 14.
Here are some pictures from the day:

Because Valparasio was built on 45 different hills, we were able to get several great views of the cities.

In the back you can see another example of the Spanish influence on Chilean architecture. This church would be at home in Europe.

This building was the headquarters for Chile's Naval commanders during the 19th century.

This cat was very happy to sit in the sun on one of the tables of its owner's shop. It also did not want to be bothered. A little girl went up and tried to pet the cat, and got bit for her trouble.

We seem to be drawn to cable cars on this trip. This one was over 80 years old, and very rickety. Anna was not impressed.

These are the tracks that the cable car came down. Looks like they could use some maintenence. But, we made it down without incident.

After lunch, we visited Vina del Mar, which blends into Valparaiso. There is a nice white sand beach there, but the waves were massive so no one went swimming. There were some very beautiful scenic overlooks of the ocean and the Andes Mountains on the drive home. All in all it was a nice day trip.

Vina del Mar was a little more picturesque than Valparasio. This was a working clock whose face was made out of flowers.

A view of the harbor separating the cities.

The beach in Vina del Mar.

View of the mountains on the way back to Santiago.

-Scott & Anna

Tramping New Zealand

After making the decision to go to the coromandel penninsula instead of the Abel Tasman Track, we drove up the penninsula to coromandel town. Once we got into town we called a local bed and breakfast called the Jacaranda Lodge. The owner, a very helpful lady named Robin, said she was out with some friends, but she let us know where the spare key was. I thought this was a bit overtrusting, but I wasn't about to go driving around in the dark looking for another place. We got there, dropped our bags and went to the local pub for dinner. It was a good meal with some of the local seafood and lamb.
The next morning, we had a hearty breakfast with homemade bread, museli and jams made from the produce Robin grew on her land. She gave us some recommendations on where to go hiking, and told us about a program in New Zealand where people can "woof" their way around the country.
"Woofers" pay for their room and board by working for local farms or lodges for a few hours a day. This allows them to travel cheaply and see more of the local culture. It seems like fun, and if we had a couple of months, we might try it. I would reccomend that anyone who comes over and has the time to give this a try. The people here are nice and the land is beautiful. It wouldn't be a bad place to work for a while.


Robin had suggested that we hike the Coramandel walkway at the tip of the penninsula. That is how we wound up on the Coleville road. This, as Anna explained, was one of three roads forbidden by the rental car company. She also mentioned that it wasn't that bad, which it wasn't. We made it up to Fletcher bay campground in about an hour and a half without incident.
We had left half of our bags behind at the Jacaranda. Robin had cautioned us that one of the biggest problems in New Zealand was theives breaking into hikers' cars while they were gone and stealing valuables. She agreed to hold the stuff we didn't need to camp with until we returned.


We set up camp and got a fire going just as it was getting dark. Since it is winter here, that was at about 6 p.m. We cooked up a decent dinner of canned Irish stew and some diced veggies. We sat around the fire and listened to the waves on the beach for a while before turning in. We had no sooner gotten in the tent when a stiff wind picked up and it started raining.


It wasn't that bad at first, but soon the wind got stronger until we began to worry that our little tent was going to get torn away by the storm. We joked that it couldn't be any worse than the sandstorm in Morocco, but it was pretty gusty. Eventually, we caved and moved into the car where we slept fitfully until morning. Not exactly the serene camping experience we had hoped for, but we were still looking forward to the next day.
After breakfast over the fire, we started out on the walkway. The trail follows the coast for several miles over some fairly rugged terrain. We started out in some cattle pasture with beef cattle staring at us as we walked through the mud as if they had never seen a human before. After about a half hour, we left the pasture for the proper trail. It rose and fell through valleys and scruby forests.

We saw some interesting songbirds along the way, that had really pretty calls, and a lot of traps. It seems that the weasel and possum populations that were introduced in New Zealand several decades ago have gotten out of control and were beginning to wreak havoc on the local environment and bird population. The DOC began a program to reduce their numbers with trapping and hunting. Traps were set up at regular intervals along the trail (for vets reading this, the traps had diphacinone and cyanide in easily accessable locations where dogs and children may be present. Can you belive that? -Anna). For all the signs we saw that the DOC posted, we did not here a squeak or see any possums or weasels while we were walking. Perhaps the program is working. (yeah, and we read in a local paper there was an "unexplained" epidemic of fish die offs and dead dogs showing up in the area. Hmmm..)
We walked for a couple of hours until we reached the main lookout point. So what did we do? We looked...out. Actually we could see for several miles in either direction. The view was great and we spent twenty minutes or so, after a couple of noisy girls squealed at the view and moved on. Then we made our way back to camp.


That night, we had better weather, but it turned cold. There were cold water showers at the campsite that seemed like a good idea after a couple of days around a fire. They felt like the water ran directly off a glacier, but at least we were somewhat clean. We also found out that night that Anna's sleeping bag does not live up to its 20 degree rating. It was above freezing that night, but Anna didn't get any sleep for being cold. We tried to zip our bags together to huddle for warmth, but the zippers didn't fit. She shivered her way through the night, and we tried to warm up over the fire in the morning.

Then we broke camp and made our way back down to Coromandel to pick up our bags and get some advice from Robin on where to go next. We then made our way over the 309 road, which happens to be the second of the three forbidden roads according to the rental car company. The third was Black Jack road that was also nearby; we almost drove up that as well but ran out of time. We stopped at a small path that lead to a Kuari tree grove. These behemoths of the forest are the second largest trees in New Zealand, and have nearly been logged into extinction. They were very tall, and very straight. We could see why logging companies like them so much, but we were both glad to still be able to see and touch them.


After driving on, we ended up at Cathedral cove. A 45 minute walk leads to a beach with a famous arch cut into the cliff by the waves. We saw tons of tree ferns there, which, as Anna explained to me, are the most primative form of tree. For the initial time period the dinosaurs were roaming the earth, tree ferns were the only tree in existence. It was like looking at a living fossil, pretty cool.

Along the walk we stopped off at Stigray Bay, where there are some great views. The water is so clear you can see every stone and peice of reef under the water. It also made the bay a brilliant shade of turquoise that is hard to describe.

Below, you can see the arch of Cathedral cove behind us. The arch is more like a tunnel, that runs for a couple hundred feet. If it is low tide, you can run through to another beach before the next wave comes in. The tide was coming in while we were there, so we couldn´t make it to the second beach. It was still beautiful.

We walked back to our car and made the decision to drive through back to Auckland. We had initially intended on stopping in Thames to do some more hiking, but we decided we wanted to have some extra time to do some laundry (nearly all of our clothes had the distict smell of campfire imbedded in them) and relax a little before our long 11 hour flight to Santiago. It turns out it was a good decision. It took all the following day to get the laundry done because the dryers were lukewarm at best. To make matters worse, the car got towed for parking on the street during rush hour, and Anna got yelled at by a laundry Nazi.

(I must attract power plays by over-zealous cleaning ladies. This woman put the bathroom Nazi to shame. There I am minding my own business, emptying a sleeping bag from a dryer, when water cascades out of the bag onto the floor. A random woman who had been sitting in the corner talking on a cell phone for an hour instantly hangs up and reveals herself as an employee. She berates me for 5 minutes because I got water on the floor, and one time someone else did that and didn't wipe it up. I politely informed her that I am not that person, and had she given me a moment to restart the dryer I would have wiped it up. Then Scott checks in with me and I explain quietly that the dryer appears to be cold and show him the very wet sleeping bag. Before we can even decide whether to switch dryers or turn up the settings, the woman interrupts to say how it's my fault that the bag is wet, since I didn't use the high setting. I patiently try to explain that I didn't use high because of the synthetic fabric which I've seen melt that way. Wrong answer, she then begins to tell me that she knows best because she works there. I smile and nod until she stops.
As Scott and I resume our discussion, she interrupts yet AGAIN to insult me for not using the commercial behemoth super dryer. Perceiving that there was no end to the tirade in sight, I was near the cracking point. I eventually had to tell her that I was quite capable of troubleshooting my own laundry issues, and I thanked her for her advice in order to get the wet laundry out of there. We said we were going to air dry it, but really we snuck back in once she left. I never realized laundry could be such an incendiary topic. Okay, I'm done now. -Anna)

Other than Anna's run-in with the local gestapo, we enjoyed New Zealand a lot, and we would love to come back. We still haven't seen much. We only saw one corner of the North island, and we still have the entire south island to go. Besides, I still haven't gotten a chance to go bungy jumping... - Scott

Arrival in Auckland

We made it to Auckland without any incident. After the last day in Australia, we needed to recover (see picture above).

This is the view out the side of our hotel. Auckland is a surprisingly modern and classy city, at least in some parts. The channel here is the viaduct. It's the main area in town where hip restaurants and shops are located, but the waterfront is a relatively small area in town. The rest of the city center is a combination of run down, abandoned buildings that compete with new construction that is attempting to revitalize the city.

(Another view of the viaduct. These apartments all have docks so their owners can enter off canals, similar to Venice, Italy.)


Tepid bath? At least they don't get your hopes up. Actually, we found out that there are all kinds of hot springs in New Zealand, and they are described by the water temperature. So some are hot springs and some are tepid.

Above is a picture of the countryside. We originally meant to drive to the South Island to hike the Abel Tasman Coastal Walk, but upon arrival we found out that instead of being a 6 hour drive it was actually 12. So we stopped to ask some advice at a local hiking shop, and decided to drive to the Coromandel Penninsula about 2 hours out of Auckland. The penninsula reminded us a lot of the Island of Skye, because the road is very narrow (one lane in many places), and follows a coastal route.

This is a picture of a "forbidden" road to the trailhead. The rental car companies are very specific in their aggreement, stating that certain listed roads may not be used. Unfortunately, that's also where all the best hiking is. Since Scott had extensive experience driving narrow, unpaved mountain roads (Scott said there is no way this road could be worse than the Gap Road back home), we decided to drive the forbidden road anyway. It turned out that it really was a very normal unpaved road and the drive was completely uneventful, except for a traffic jam caused by a herd of cattle.

Below is another picture of the forbidden road.

There were actually 3 forbidden roads, but we only needed to drive two of them. One was really no different than any other road, and the other was just narrow. I suppose it's like driving in snow; if you're not used to it, you could make some pretty bad mistakes. -Anna