Inca Trail, Peru 5/21/06

Inca Trail, Peru 5/21/06

I just made it to the lunch camp on day 2 of my hike to Machu Picchu. Dave, MJ, & I are making great time. I arrived at 9:50 a.m. and they arrived just a few minutes after me. It seems a little early to already be at the lunch stop but oh well. It will be a nice long rest before the remaining 5 members of our group, including Nij, arrive and lunch is served. Now is the perfect time for a quick entry in the journal which has been hard to find time for.

So far the Inca Trail has been amazing! Everything I wanted and an experience I will never forget. We started out yesterday at about 7 a.m. The Trail was mostly flat in the morning and the temperature rose quickly. The heat continued into the afternoon and I shed layers down to shorts and t-shirt at lunch. The mostly flat trail changed to mostly up hill in the afternoon and by the time we reached the base camp we were very happy to be done with steep rock steps.

Since yesterday afternoon, Dave, MJ, and I have been very far in front of everyone else. There aren’t many options to take wrong turns so we can hike at our own pace and not get lost. The trail is easy to follow but it’s either uphill or steep downhill so it’s definitely physically strenuous. The hike is hard but the body is holding up well. Of course I love every second of it.

The scenery is gorgeous; green mountains in every direction, lush valleys, bright flowers, jagged cliffs, and rushing rivers, make every angle a picture I hope my mind will never forget. I also must mention how much I love that Dave and MJ are here with me. M.J. said it best this morning. As we were huffing our way up to the highest elevation of the trail and a perfect mountain pass, he said “You know most people will never see anything like this in their life.” I said “Yep, and even fewer get to see it with two of their best friends since childhood.”

The rest of our group is made up of two couples. Jeff and Melinda are about our age and live in Atlanta. This trip was Melinda’s idea and Jeff is not holding up so well. He was joking from the beginning about not being real excited about the physical demands of the hike and after last night it sounded like he had good reason to. Add into a tough physical day high altitudes at night and it was easy to see he was not enjoying himself. Apparently he could be heard getting violently sick all night. I say apparently because I fell asleep pretty quickly and other than hearing some early groans, over MJ's flatulence, I slept through everything else. We are anxious to see him at lunch and see how he’s holding up…and what “they” do if he’s not. It’s not like there is a road anywhere around here for an EMS rig to pull up.

The other couple are young Backpackers from England, Thomas and Sarah. I have not talked to them much yet but I’m anxious to get some travel stories out of them. They are on a long, multi-country, trip so of course I’m very jealous.
Right now us early birds are kicking back on a grassy hill leaning against our packs. Dave is trying to take a little nap. M.J. is doing a sketch of the scene in front of us; a flowering Peruvian tree hanging over a thatch roofed building. Pass that is a continuation of the green mountain range that we just crossed. It is steep with a sheer cliff running down one of its axis. In the distance you can hear the rushing water of another river. I’m sure my words won’t paint the picture as well as M.J. can draw it but it is the only tool I have at my disposal. Well that and the memory I will have after lunch when I climb over that ridge. I’m sure that will be pretty vivid. Dave is now staring at the mountain and the little white dot of a person climbing it which indicates the direction the trail leads; a direction best described simply as, up.

“God that is gonna suck!” he says.
True, I think to myself. It's funny how something could technically suck but also be so much fun!
Time to go find some water now and fill up my bottle. I have 2 more days before I get to the grand finale of this hike, Machu Picchu. I hope I have time to get more entries in but so far when I’m not walking or eating it’s to cold to get the pen out. To sum up: I LOVE THIS!!!

MJF