Inca Trail, June 2003

As part of a bigger adventure, I found myself in Cusco, Peru's major tourist destination, one time Incan capital and bright, airy city set impressively high (3300m) in the Andes. A perfect base for all types of mountain trekking ranging from short walks around nearby ruins to ten day hikes with mules and guides through the higher reaches of the hills. Despite my occasional pretensions toward mountaineering this was a tourist trip for me, so Dervala and I decided to attempt the Inca Trail.

The end of the Inca Trail

Ever since UNESCO imposed themselves on Peru to improve their management of the Inca Trail, tourists can only walk the centuries old path in the company of a licensed guide and group. The shelves of the South American Explorers' Club in Cusco hold bulging ring-binders packed with diligently filed trip reports written by those who wish to share their trekking experience. Dervala and I picked through the numerous tales of "Hardest thing I've ever done", "Terrible guide", "AWESOME!!!!" to select Wayki Treks as our chosen tour operator. Leo the salesman's quick smile, dancing eyes and repeated assurances that the group size would not increase beyond six tourists sealed the deal.

So at 5am on Friday morning our Eurovision group of six gritty-eyed tourists - Swiss Christian and Susanne, French/Portuguese Ana and Jean, plus Irish Dervala and quintessentially English me - were collected from Cusco's hotels for a dawn drive in the company of some hygenically challenged porters to the cold, shady town of Ollantaytambo and then onto the start at the poetically monikered Kilometer 82. The full group was fifteen strong; us six gringos, six porters pulled from the vocal pool at Ollantaytambo, the perenially grubby cook Marcelino, Raul the sullen teenage-type assistant guide and Leo the entertaining salesman who had become a last minute and very welcome replacement for our previously nominated guide.

The start of the trail, a small suspension bridge over the Urubamba river, had a checkpoint manned by a passport-stamping guard ensuring numbers on the trail are restricted to 500. Our paperwork was in order and with zero fanfare we set off, easily matching Leo's museum-browsing pace as porters with muscles like steel-hawsers dashed past in half jogs with huge, unwieldy, flour sacks on their backs.


The start of the trail	Veronica (and Raul)	The cloud forest

The bit none of the write-ups in the Explorer's Club's well-thumbed files remember to mention is that if you've ever walked for more than four hours in walking boots with a pack on your back then the Inca Trail is far from difficult. To put it all in perspective, the record for running the trail, set in the annual race, is three and a half hours, whereas we had three and a half days to cover the same distance. Plus, as the porters carry all the food and tents any rucksack you carry weighs little more than a standard winter day-pack. I'm not moaning though, the slow pace and light weight are very definitely a good thing, meaning there is little to distract from the fabulous mountain scenes that unroll themselves at each bend.

We spent the morning of the first day winding gently along the banks of the Urubamba before cutting up a valley to overlook the ruins of Llactapata where, with Linguaphone Spanish and alarming hand gestures, Leo entertainingly told us tales of Atahualpa's rejection of the bible, the divisions of the Incan Empire and the schemings of the conquistadors. The afternoon saw us head slowly upwards to the near empty campsite at Wayllabamba, next to a cold fast river and plagued by flying, biting things.

All the time the large snow-capped bulk of Mt Veronica monitored our progress, looking preposterously cold and inhospitable in such sunny weather. (As an aside: Veronica? Veronica? In a country where place names are a romantic sounding melange of Quechua and Spanish, why have a mountain named after a French climber? It just spoils the poetry. Said the Englishman. With the book about Everest at his side.)

My normal walking diet is Super-Noodles and Mars bars, so the three course meal we were served in our dining tent that night (and every night, and every lunch, and every breakfast) came as a pleasant if rather guilty surprise.


Lunch, with quite a view		The valley walls	The summit	The other side

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