More braindumping at the airport internet cafe
At some point in the future I have grandiose plans to clean up the trip report here and maybe do some entry post-dating to organize things, but for now here's another braindump while it's all still fresh.
Thursday 8-31 - Day 2 Camino Inca: Our first morning on the Inca trail we were wakened by the guides bringing us hot beverages directly to the tent. Tent Service! Breakfast in Bag! Yay! After a mild nowhere-near-freezing night we rubbed our eyes a lot and managed to get our things repacked. Not having to break the tent down or cook is also a very nice feature of being on a group tour. I'm trying to remind myself of the positives to group travel, which do not include having to sit around the dining tent and awkwardly chitchat with strangers. This is also why I don't like staying at B&Bs either, for that matter. Anyway. It's pretty damn nice to only have to pack your clothes and sleeping bag and mat back into their bags and drop them off on a tarp for the porters to pick up and then wander over to the food tent and eat some hot breakfast, a mystery pancake topped with the Peruvian favorite reduced-condensed-milk syrup stuff. At the end of the previous day we had finally left the dry and dusty desert region behind and headed up into the cloudforest subclimate. This was a lot more like how I had imagined the Camino Inca, not as a striking resemblance to Arizona that we saw on Day 1. The first break of the morning featured the gentlest sweetest donkey begging for food that I've ever seen. And I'm not a donkey fan by any stretch of the imagination. Walking through a forest of what looked a lot like madrona trees (but, apparently are not) we finally ascended up above treeline. Another break for lunch at a site with bathroom pitstop and nice flushing squat toilets. Fortunately my hydration bladder chose that exact moment to run dry, and I was able to buy a 2L bottle of water and, on sudden impulse, a Twix bar. Then back to the grind, climbing and climbing all of the way to the top of Dead Woman's pass. All morning I had been huffing and puffing, trying to get enough air and being careful with each step to not overuse my knees. So our pace was slow but steady. When we caught up to the male half of the Benevolent Assholes Couple made a big show of asking about his female partner and was she doing ok back there. You know, back there with the slow people like you. We suggested he just walk on at his own comfortable pace and after the exchange was over I made sure to remark very loudly about how patronized I would feel if my partner felt that he had to go back and walk with me or wait for me to catch up to him every few minutes. After a few minutes resting at the top, snapping a few photos, and eating the Best Twix Ever, I wrapped some ace bandages on my knees and started to carefully descend to the campsite at Pacamayo. The other side of the pass was suddenly cool and misty and I broke out my new fingerless-combo-flip mittens that I'd acquired in Cusco. Very handy, indeed! I carefully descended the steep trail all the way to camp, where we arrived at the very early hour of 2pm and ate lunch immediately upon arrival. Once lunch was over with, having several hours of daylight left and no camp chores to do seemed like a ridiculous waste of time.
canyonwren headed back up to the waterfall that we'd passed on the way down while I mentally regrouped in the tent a little bit. We were both frankly sulking a bit about having arrived so early to camp as well as the seemingly mandatory invite back to "tea" with the group at 5pm. After her little jaunt, we decided to head back up the trail a little bit to get a closer look at some ruins we'd seen up ahead as well as to just escape the group and freely wander around, snap photos, and just chill. I will never understand the types of people who bust ass and ankle and knee to get to camp just so they can sit around and do nothing all afternoon. I'd rather take all day to get there, and have 100 more pictures on my memory card. Eventually the swarms of gnats drove us back to camp and when we wandered back down to camp we casually strolled into the dining tent, fashionably late to tea. A game of cards ended up being quite entertaining
canyonwren got plenty of good guide time and I ended up dealing the fatal and final round of cards to the female half of the Benevolent Asshole Couple and which made her the official Shithead. Just saying. After dinner which may or may not have involved copious amounts of "Machu Tea", we had a highly entertaining adventure to find the bathroom having to traipse through various campsites and over the river and through the woods. Of course, with a big headlamp lighting my way, I heard more than a few snickers from the porters as they saw our firefly lights wandering around in circles in the dark. During the night we heard rains come and go, but fortunately these were all done by morning.
Friday 9-1 - Day 3 Camino Inca: The first task of the morning was to get up the nastiest set of stone steps I think I've ever seen. Picture unevenly arranged blocks of stone, with about 12 inches of rise, and only 6 inches of forward run. Then picture yourself, carefully lugging your fat ass up these steps trying to not feel any knee popping with each heave ho. Then picture hordes of schoolchildren crowding behind you to get past, and then suddenly stopping short in front of you to chat and giggle. And then picture pulling over to the side of the trail every 10 minutes to let some incredibly fit 50 year old porters run up the steps past you carrying four times the weight of your daypack and wearing flipflops made of recycled tires. And I wasn't even suffering from altitude sickness, unlike poor
canyonwren.This mayhem continued on for the first hour or so until we reached the ruins at Runcurakay, which is neatly perched on the hillside. As was usual by now, the drill was for us to all gather as a group and listen to Víctor, our lead guide, talk about the ruins. Once the talk was over, we'd get about 2 minutes of private time in the ruins and it was time to be herded up along the Camino. While the lectures were very enlightening, I was started to get really frustrated and I stubbornly took my damn time to finish taking pictures before being hustled off the site. The climb continued up over another pass, and then we went down a similarly nasty set of steps on the other side. Finally the trail levelled out at a point and we were in the most magical of cloudforests with orchids and birds and trees. While I enjoyed seeing the bamboo forest as well, I shuddered to think of its invasive swath of destruction through the pristine Incan forests. We had a lovely lunch stop and then continued on through tunnels and over giant stone cobbles up to fairly easy pass. Right after the pass we came to some beautiful Inca ruins with ritual baths and water flowing everywhere. Time for another lecture, and then down at least one thousand steps to the campsite. Our guide affectionately referred to this section of the trail as the Matagringos. Between my very questionable set of knees and
canyonwren's ongoing struggle with nausea and lack of energy due to lack of appetite, suffice it to say that this was very slow going and we just gently picked our way down the stone staircase. The beta guide, César, was assigned to do sweep on the group and he was our constant companion throughout the entire day. We arrived to Wiñaywayna just in time to drop our gear off at the tent and head out to the ruins with the group. Sadly, the remaining half hour of precious daylight was spent listening to another damn lecture about the ruins, and by the time we were turned loose to explore it was nearly pitch dark. At this campsite there were hordes of people, a restaurant-cum-discoteca, and purportedly hot showers. In the end the timing just never worked out to take a shower, though judging by the state of the toilets I'm thinking this was probably a good thing. Another cat-bath with the godsend babywipes was just going to have to do for tonight. Our tents were perched on a ledge right above some of the nastiest ammonia-emitting toilets, but fortunately this smell was abated by closing the tent fly. This being our last night with the group, a sum of money was collected by all in the group to give to the porters and cook. Being the only gringo that was even passably fluent in spanish, I was suddenly nominated to present the bag of money to the cook on behalf of the group. Of course, the biggest jerks of the group are always the ones who suddenly start to grandstand about how much they love everyone now that it's all over. Sometimes I really just think I hate about 99% of all humans, but then I have to realize that there is some serious selection taking place with this specific type of adventure. Walking the Inca Trail is something that most people are capable of, it's short enough and catered enough and all of the hard stuff related to trekking is being done by "the help", and it's a big fat crown jewel on the travel resume of a lot of blowhards. But anyway, I digress.
OK, breaktime.
canyonwren and I are going to go see if the Continental ticket counter is finally open so we can go check our big backpacks in as luggage. More dumpage later. By the way I have a horrendous throbbing zit in my armpit right where my backpack strap chafes. Just thought I'd share.
Thursday 8-31 - Day 2 Camino Inca: Our first morning on the Inca trail we were wakened by the guides bringing us hot beverages directly to the tent. Tent Service! Breakfast in Bag! Yay! After a mild nowhere-near-freezing night we rubbed our eyes a lot and managed to get our things repacked. Not having to break the tent down or cook is also a very nice feature of being on a group tour. I'm trying to remind myself of the positives to group travel, which do not include having to sit around the dining tent and awkwardly chitchat with strangers. This is also why I don't like staying at B&Bs either, for that matter. Anyway. It's pretty damn nice to only have to pack your clothes and sleeping bag and mat back into their bags and drop them off on a tarp for the porters to pick up and then wander over to the food tent and eat some hot breakfast, a mystery pancake topped with the Peruvian favorite reduced-condensed-milk syrup stuff. At the end of the previous day we had finally left the dry and dusty desert region behind and headed up into the cloudforest subclimate. This was a lot more like how I had imagined the Camino Inca, not as a striking resemblance to Arizona that we saw on Day 1. The first break of the morning featured the gentlest sweetest donkey begging for food that I've ever seen. And I'm not a donkey fan by any stretch of the imagination. Walking through a forest of what looked a lot like madrona trees (but, apparently are not) we finally ascended up above treeline. Another break for lunch at a site with bathroom pitstop and nice flushing squat toilets. Fortunately my hydration bladder chose that exact moment to run dry, and I was able to buy a 2L bottle of water and, on sudden impulse, a Twix bar. Then back to the grind, climbing and climbing all of the way to the top of Dead Woman's pass. All morning I had been huffing and puffing, trying to get enough air and being careful with each step to not overuse my knees. So our pace was slow but steady. When we caught up to the male half of the Benevolent Assholes Couple made a big show of asking about his female partner and was she doing ok back there. You know, back there with the slow people like you. We suggested he just walk on at his own comfortable pace and after the exchange was over I made sure to remark very loudly about how patronized I would feel if my partner felt that he had to go back and walk with me or wait for me to catch up to him every few minutes. After a few minutes resting at the top, snapping a few photos, and eating the Best Twix Ever, I wrapped some ace bandages on my knees and started to carefully descend to the campsite at Pacamayo. The other side of the pass was suddenly cool and misty and I broke out my new fingerless-combo-flip mittens that I'd acquired in Cusco. Very handy, indeed! I carefully descended the steep trail all the way to camp, where we arrived at the very early hour of 2pm and ate lunch immediately upon arrival. Once lunch was over with, having several hours of daylight left and no camp chores to do seemed like a ridiculous waste of time.
canyonwren headed back up to the waterfall that we'd passed on the way down while I mentally regrouped in the tent a little bit. We were both frankly sulking a bit about having arrived so early to camp as well as the seemingly mandatory invite back to "tea" with the group at 5pm. After her little jaunt, we decided to head back up the trail a little bit to get a closer look at some ruins we'd seen up ahead as well as to just escape the group and freely wander around, snap photos, and just chill. I will never understand the types of people who bust ass and ankle and knee to get to camp just so they can sit around and do nothing all afternoon. I'd rather take all day to get there, and have 100 more pictures on my memory card. Eventually the swarms of gnats drove us back to camp and when we wandered back down to camp we casually strolled into the dining tent, fashionably late to tea. A game of cards ended up being quite entertaining
canyonwren got plenty of good guide time and I ended up dealing the fatal and final round of cards to the female half of the Benevolent Asshole Couple and which made her the official Shithead. Just saying. After dinner which may or may not have involved copious amounts of "Machu Tea", we had a highly entertaining adventure to find the bathroom having to traipse through various campsites and over the river and through the woods. Of course, with a big headlamp lighting my way, I heard more than a few snickers from the porters as they saw our firefly lights wandering around in circles in the dark. During the night we heard rains come and go, but fortunately these were all done by morning.
Friday 9-1 - Day 3 Camino Inca: The first task of the morning was to get up the nastiest set of stone steps I think I've ever seen. Picture unevenly arranged blocks of stone, with about 12 inches of rise, and only 6 inches of forward run. Then picture yourself, carefully lugging your fat ass up these steps trying to not feel any knee popping with each heave ho. Then picture hordes of schoolchildren crowding behind you to get past, and then suddenly stopping short in front of you to chat and giggle. And then picture pulling over to the side of the trail every 10 minutes to let some incredibly fit 50 year old porters run up the steps past you carrying four times the weight of your daypack and wearing flipflops made of recycled tires. And I wasn't even suffering from altitude sickness, unlike poor
canyonwren.This mayhem continued on for the first hour or so until we reached the ruins at Runcurakay, which is neatly perched on the hillside. As was usual by now, the drill was for us to all gather as a group and listen to Víctor, our lead guide, talk about the ruins. Once the talk was over, we'd get about 2 minutes of private time in the ruins and it was time to be herded up along the Camino. While the lectures were very enlightening, I was started to get really frustrated and I stubbornly took my damn time to finish taking pictures before being hustled off the site. The climb continued up over another pass, and then we went down a similarly nasty set of steps on the other side. Finally the trail levelled out at a point and we were in the most magical of cloudforests with orchids and birds and trees. While I enjoyed seeing the bamboo forest as well, I shuddered to think of its invasive swath of destruction through the pristine Incan forests. We had a lovely lunch stop and then continued on through tunnels and over giant stone cobbles up to fairly easy pass. Right after the pass we came to some beautiful Inca ruins with ritual baths and water flowing everywhere. Time for another lecture, and then down at least one thousand steps to the campsite. Our guide affectionately referred to this section of the trail as the Matagringos. Between my very questionable set of knees and
canyonwren's ongoing struggle with nausea and lack of energy due to lack of appetite, suffice it to say that this was very slow going and we just gently picked our way down the stone staircase. The beta guide, César, was assigned to do sweep on the group and he was our constant companion throughout the entire day. We arrived to Wiñaywayna just in time to drop our gear off at the tent and head out to the ruins with the group. Sadly, the remaining half hour of precious daylight was spent listening to another damn lecture about the ruins, and by the time we were turned loose to explore it was nearly pitch dark. At this campsite there were hordes of people, a restaurant-cum-discoteca, and purportedly hot showers. In the end the timing just never worked out to take a shower, though judging by the state of the toilets I'm thinking this was probably a good thing. Another cat-bath with the godsend babywipes was just going to have to do for tonight. Our tents were perched on a ledge right above some of the nastiest ammonia-emitting toilets, but fortunately this smell was abated by closing the tent fly. This being our last night with the group, a sum of money was collected by all in the group to give to the porters and cook. Being the only gringo that was even passably fluent in spanish, I was suddenly nominated to present the bag of money to the cook on behalf of the group. Of course, the biggest jerks of the group are always the ones who suddenly start to grandstand about how much they love everyone now that it's all over. Sometimes I really just think I hate about 99% of all humans, but then I have to realize that there is some serious selection taking place with this specific type of adventure. Walking the Inca Trail is something that most people are capable of, it's short enough and catered enough and all of the hard stuff related to trekking is being done by "the help", and it's a big fat crown jewel on the travel resume of a lot of blowhards. But anyway, I digress.
OK, breaktime.
canyonwren and I are going to go see if the Continental ticket counter is finally open so we can go check our big backpacks in as luggage. More dumpage later. By the way I have a horrendous throbbing zit in my armpit right where my backpack strap chafes. Just thought I'd share.