The Inca Trail - Team 'Show Me Your Titicacas'

Disclaimer: This post could be potentially very long, so we we will try to cut out all of the inevitable hiking, and let the pictures tell the story. Just imagine that it was very hard, and very tiring. The main point of this post, is to tell how incredibly amazing the porters who joined us were, and what a fantastic experience the Inca trail is.

Day 1

We woke up at 8am and gathered our duffel bags and had a final weigh in. They had to be under 5kg so the porters could carry them, so space was limited. We said goodbye to the people who wouldn't be joining us, and got into the bus with Carlos to get to the entrance to the Inca Trail, KM 82. In the bus, Carlos introduced us to Leo who would be the secondary guide. Carlos also asked us to think up a team name, and after a few sensible but boring suggestions, Tom came up with 'Show me your Titicacas'. Carlos and Leo didn't understand, but after a few chest wiggles they caught on quickly!

We got to KM 82 and met the group of porters who were busy packing up all of our equipment.

This is just our bedding and personal duffel bags!

 After a quick roundup, we were at the base of the trail, right by the railway watching all the sane people get the train up to Macchu Picchu for a day trip. It was also here we had to go through the first check point control, where we had to show our inca trail permits and passports and get them stamped which we thought was unusual! The porters got started straight away and zoomed of, running over a large bridge and then up a steep hill dressed in G adventures purple.We followed suit, and before we knew it, we were on the inca trail!

crossing the bridge to the Inca Trail

Looking over the river to the first check point

The first few hours were basically flat, and Carlos would stop to give us information about the trail and let us try fruits such as prickly pears, and also stop to sample the locals home made 'chicha' a maize based drink that was fermented and tasted interesting.





We carried on the flat bit for about 3 hours of the 7 hour day, and suddenly we were faced with an enormous hill. It was only a short burst, but it was tough and took us about 20 minutes. After a quick motivational pep talk from the team, we carried on to our lunch spot.

The flat trail we had been walking on before the track escalated

Elanna and Melisa feeling powerful

We got to a river and saw our porters had set up a tent, tables with table cloths and cutlery, and individual hot bowls of water for us to wash our face and hands in. As we entered the camp, they all applauded us and welcomed us with cups of squash. We were absolutely shocked at how fast and how efficiently they had set everything up, especially as it started raining. We had a starter of soup, a fillet of fish for main, and rice pudding for dessert... and this was just lunch!! We realised that we weren't going to be the downtrodden trekkers we thought we were going to be. As soon as we finished our food, we took a seat by the river. After 10 minutes we turned around and saw the porters had already packed up, and started running along the next part of the track to set up our dinner and camp for the night.

Elanna enjoying some Cocoa tea by the river

After a lot of up and down walking, we got to a very steep section again. We struggled up lots of stairs to eventually reach our first campsite for the night. Carlos said the last section we had done, was just a hint at how tough the following day would be. We arrived at camp to be applauded by the porters again, and we chose our tents for the evening. We had 'happy hour' which is a chocolate-y, popcorn and hot chocolate feast! It was heaven after our first day, and after happy hour, Carlos invited us to sit down with the porters for a welcome meeting. 

Carlos asked each porter to come forward and introduce themselves and tell us what their job was. He also got them to say whether they were married or single, or if they had any kids. The first few guys were very young, ranging between 18 and 20. They came forward quite shyly, and explained their jobs. They all said how they were single and we all laughed at how meddlesome Carlos had seemed to be. The next few men came forward though, who were slightly older and explained how they were married and had children. We realised Carlos hadn't asked them to tell us for a joke, he wanted us to understand that a lot of the men leave their kids for days at a time in order to get money for the family. There was even a couple of men who were in there 60s and had grand children. The porters stopped being the men in purple running past, and they became kind hearted, brave and humble supermen. Although there was a language barrier, we introduced ourselves back, and had a group picture. 

After the meeting, we felt slightly guilty about the porters waiting on us, but Carlos explained that they would be doing the same hard manual labour at home on a farm but without the pay benefits. G adventures provide the porters with the best equipment and shoes. Some other porters we saw were running on the trail in sandals! The G adventure porters are paid well and looked after, and G pride themselves on making it worth the porters while.

We had another 3 course dinner and headed to bed for an early night as the next morning was a 5:30am start. As Tom was cleaning his teeth, he felt something crawl across his face. After a quick few face swipes, Tom looked in his hands to see a huge stick insect.



 We got into our tents and were thankful to have roll mats to protect us from the hard ground. It got very cold very quickly, and our hearts went out to the 20 porters who would all squeeze into the dining tent every night.

Day 2

The next morning, we were woken up by a soft bang on the tent door. We woke up slightly dazed and heard Leo saying "good moooooooooooorning, do you want some cocoa tea?". With that, he handed up a tea to enjoy in bed and a bowl of warm water to have a quick wash in. We had our breakfast of pancakes -beautifully and thoughtfully decorated by our chefs- while our tents were packed up. We set off at about 6:30 just as the sun was rising. Today was going to be the toughest day: The dead woman's pass. We had read beforehand that this was a very testing day, and we were incredibly nervous.

motivational pancakes

We trekked through rain forests and high humidity areas. There were countless stairs and the group dynamic started to show. Carlos along with keen walker Bossana, Elanna and Maryanne would take the lead shortly followed by walking buddies Thomas and Kate. We would then follow with Melisa and would occasionally stop for breaks and be caught up by Ryan, who was happy to go at his own pace. Finally, Andres and Australian Melissa followed up the rear with cheeky Leo, as Melissa was really struggling with her asthma.

The stairs were very difficult, and it really pushed everyone in the team. Day 2 was very emotional, with a few tears being shed all round. Melisa who was with us, who was very competitive with herself, pushed herself so much and was upset when the altitude beat her. Thankfully we were a close friends having being together from the start, so with a pep talk and a short burst of Tom carrying her bag we got going again. We took it slow, with the stairs really burning our calves. This still wasn't the hardest part of the day.

looking down the trail

Steph's face for most of the day

 After a quick rejoin and some snacks, Tom spied a woman selling alcohol, and he felt that a bottle of rum would cheer the group up at the end of the day. And so Tom set off on the hardest part of the walk, with a liter bottle of rum also in his bag! We broke up into our groups to tackle the dead woman's pass, but Melisa caught her second wind, and zoomed off ahead of us by herself to get to the top. We were left to walk alone, and although the path wasn't as hard as the stairs in the morning had been, the altitude made the air unbearably thin, so regular breaks were needed. Tom didn't actually struggle much with the trek, but Steph needed to stop more often, although when Carlos showed up and started skipping in front of us, she felt slightly embarrassed and pushed on.

Steph's summary of the dead womans pass

another corner that tricks you into thinking your nearly there

When we got to the top, the speedy girls and Carlos were there waiting to give us a huge round of applause, and we took as many pictures as we could at the 4250m check point we had climbed too.

The trail coming up through the valley

you can see the steepness of the mountain here!

The next challenge was to walk down again, which was actually harder than we anticipated, as it had rained whilst we were walking up, which meant it would be very slippery. With Melisa rejoining us to go down, we put on some music to motivate us, and we sang the whole 3 hour walk down.

Melisa struggling with her poncho

Tom and Steph with a stray goat they found

Once again, when we got to camp we were applauded for our efforts and served food immediatly. The second day was very disjointed in terms of peoples arrival as it was a testing day for everyone. Australian Melisa and Leo emerged last after about an hour, and having had a real battle with her asthma, Melissa burst into tears when we all cheered her back into camp. It had been an emotional day for everyone, so card games and rums were enjoyed all afternoon, and Swiss Thomas even showed off more magic tricks to some of the porters, who were very impressed despite not understanding what he was doing. We went to bed feeling elated about our achievement of the day, and slept very well.

A tasty quiche dinner saying 'well done'

Day 3

We were woken up by the usual Leo wake up at 5:30, however today it was Tom's birthday so it was an extra special day! It was going to be another tough morning, with the first 2 hours being uphill.

The group managed to stay more together, and as it poured down with rain, we popped on our ponchos and scaled the mountain looking like pac man ghosts.

wacca wacca wacca wacca wacca

We passed lakes and ascended into fog and cloud where the air was really thin. Australian Melissa got in a really bad way with the air, and had an asthma attack which shook her up. Thankfully Steph had bought multiple inhalers for her asthma, and with a team effort, we managed to get her feeling better after some chocolate and some hugs. 

We passed through the fog, and as we went downhill again the day significantly brightened up. We stopped at a pretty incan site and explored for a while, taking in the amazing views.









There were multiple incan sites along the trail, and we stopped in each and everyone of them. Carlos was so well informed about the sites and would relay all the information to us. There were often a couple each day, and by he time we finished the trail it was hard not to take them for granted!

By the time we got to our lunch spot, we were peeling off layers as we were so hot. We were welcomed with claps into the camp, and welcomed into the lunch tent. To our absolute surprise, there was a full party spread laid out for the group due to it being Tom's birthday. There were pizzas, chicken, pasta, rice dishes, garlic bread and our eyes lit up. We stuffed ourselves silly which was a bad idea due to having to hike in the afternoon but it was so lovely we couldn't help ourselves.



Suddenly the whole tent became very shifty, and Carlos ran outside and zipped us in. We were all confused as to what was going on. At that moment, Carlos popped back in his head and started singing Happy Birthday. We all joined in, and at that moment we heard the porters outside singing and the two chefs came in, armed with the most enourmous and beautiful cake you have ever seen.

HUGE cake

We had to hold back tears, Tom included, as the amount of effort the porters had put in was unbelievable. Not only did they have to run the trek in time to beat us and set up, they had to cook and had gone to the extra effort of  making all the food. Tom shared his cake with everyone including all the porters, and was then presented with a large alcoholic concoction, which apparently Henry had given to the porters before as a sneaky gift to Tom. He poured the left overs in his bottle which would make for a very wobbly trek in the afternoon!

That afternoon of trekking was the most stunning and picturesque. The sun really came out and shone for us, and we towered on top of mountains. The track was very thin with steep drops down the edge, but the views kept our eyes from looking down. It was mostly flat, with a few fun caves to scramble through.

That afternoon we arrived at the most amazing campsite, right on the top of the mountains with 360 degree views. Everywhere you looked there was a different mountain peak, even more incan sites and there was also a glacier in the far distance. It felt as if we were on top of the world, as we saw the sun set over the mountains, which even Carlos and Leo who had done the trek hundreds of times, said was pretty impressive. We went and sat on a large rock and finished off the rum concotion, waited for dinner and couldn't believe we were actually camping here.

Us with Leo (left) and Carlos (right). Tom's mountain chic

 This dinner would be our last one made by the porters, as they would be leaving the following day. Australian Melissa thought it would be nice for us to say some thank yous for the porters, so we all said a sentence which Carlos would translate for them later on at our goodbye meeting. We were called for dinner and rushed down to eat. Steph was so excited she dropped and smashed her iphone!

Our final dinner

After we finished eating, Carlos called in the porters and they squeezed into the tent. The mood suddenly got very emotional, as Carlos reiterated to us just how amazing these men were. He said as long as we smiled when the porters saw us, they knew they were doing their job. Carlos started to reel off in Spanish the abundance of praises we had for the men, and Steph caught sight of the eldest porter having a little smile to himself when he heard that "superman was lazy compared to you guys". At that point Steph started hysterically crying which set of the other girls. Even the boys had trouble holding back tears, and we all went round and thanked each and every porter. We went outside the tent to go to bed, to be greeted with the most astonishing night sky, with galaxies visible for miles. This prompted the girls to start crying again, as we realised what an emotional experience the whole thing had been, and how lucky we were to have had the opportunity to do it. For the last day we had to be up at 2am, but we couldn't resist popping our heads out of our tents and staring at the stars for half an hour or so.

It is fair to say that, turning 25 will be a birthday Tom remembers for the rest of his life.

Day 4

(not that many pictures were taken for this part of the hike as it was pitch black!)

We were woken up in the pitch black at 2am to start our downhill descent to Macchu Picchu. We were woken this early with the aim of getting to the sun gate of Macchu Picchu at sunrise. In the rainy season  (which we were currently in) it would be up to the weather to decide if it would be clear enough for us to see it. We fumbled around to get our head torches on, and said a final goodbye to the porters, who would be rushing past us on the trail, as the earlier they finished, the quicker they got to see their families.

It was a tough morning, with lots of careful stepping and trying to avoid falling. And after the whole morning of Tom telling Steph to be careful. Tom got a bit cocky and tried to eat a cereal bar whilst on a downhill section with his walking poles and torch hanging off his wrists. Unsurprisingly, he fell arse over tit. Thankfully he wasn't hurt, and it provided some much needed laughter for our tired group. We found singing to songs really helped pass the time in the dark, so did so for a few hours. We were about an hour to Macchu Picchu when the sun rose, so we unfortunately missed the sun rise at the sun gate, but we didn't mind. We powered through eagerly awaiting to see the sacred temple. We neared the summit, where Carlos and Leo told us before we got to the top, we had to conquer the 'Gringo Killer', a completely ridiculous flight of stairs that would never pass health and safety standards. 

We literally crawled on our hands and knees to get to the top, and we finally saw the sun gate in sight! Like zombies to fresh blood we ran as fast as our legs would take us to get our first glimpse of Macchu Picchu itself...