I had been hanging around Cusco a couple of days when I visited the Inca ruin Sacsaywaman on the hill above town. There, I ran into 3 guys and recognized one of them as a friend of a friend of mine back in Austin, TX. What a coinkidink! At this point in my trip, I had been walking every day of the past 3 months above 9,500 feet and was I ready for a ramble. The guys Jim, Cloud, and Paul talked about the Inca trail so I volunteered to be part of the team. I was just wondering how I would find some good folks to hike with on the Inca trail to Manchu Picchu. Ask and yea shall receive.
There are more like 7 Inca Trails thru the Sacred Valley. We used the standard 70 kilometer one that starts at kilometer 33 into the train trip up the Sacred Valley from Cusco. We got off the train there, crossed the Urubamba river, and and bought a ticket!
After the entrance fee we begin to wind thru a farm valley terraced with Inca stone work. At the end of the first day we spent the night camped in a village near Mount Victoria.
The next morning we were wise enough to hire porters to carry our backpacks to the top of the pass. It was strenuous; it was 5 hours straight up and over Dead Woman Pass (Warmi Whynusa (my sound spelling) of the name in Quechua). Before leaving Cusco I purchased some coca leaves. The coca leaf is legal and used by the natives to help them work longer hours on less food. When we stopped for a break I requested that the porters teach me how to chew the leaves. The process involves putting a little potash on the leaves so that when you chew it helps break out the alkaloids in the leaf. Well it worked. The effect of chewing the coca leaf was to give me a wonderful smooth energy climbing up the pass. I easily climbed all day and wasn't hungry at all. It's a very natural type of energy boost and it doesn't jangle your nerves like a couple of strong cups of coffee will. One thing about the potash though...it has a tendency to damage tooth enamel. So that thought made it easy to restrict my chewing.
Everywhere on the trail I was impressed by the Inca mastery of stone work. Each day we would find a small installation on a point where the sun was the last to leave and the first to shine in the morning.
I will soon post a few photos of some of the places we stopped to rest.
To be continued...J;-)
