Inca Trail

We left our hotel on a bus to the Sacred Valley again, to Ollantaytambo. We stopped at a grocery store to get some more water, coca candies, chocolate wafer bars (Kalyn) and such. One of our tour members visited an impressive Inca ruin there, that had many steep steps.

Knowing we had plenty of that kind of thing ahead of us, the rest of us toured a little house in town. It sounds kind of weird, but if there were tourists that came to Frontenac and they wanted to see my house, I would let them look around inside for a few coins a day.

These guinea pigs were running all around inside.

They are awfully cute, and the little squeaky noise they make is adorable.

This is the cooking area.

There were various things hanging to dry.

And these are the skulls of relatives. Grandmas and grandpas. They are still with the family, watching over them.

Offerings. I believe these are llama fetuses.

This is my daughter in front of the snow capped Veronica.

Here we have Veronica in focus. Very impressive.

We were taken by bus to the place where we would begin our trek. This was where we were served our first lunch meal, prepared by the cooks who traveled with us. We were fed very high energy, high calorie food. I really liked the food. We had cream of mushroom soup here that was delicious and nothing like cream of mushroom soup I have had at home.

We walked, with our passports in hand, to the head of the Inca Trail. We got our passports stamped there and crossed the river to begin our hike.

 Here Kalyn and I have had our passports stamped and are ready to cross the river.

This is the Rio Urubamba from the bridge.

Isn't that amazing? And the views never got any less exciting.

We climbed up the hill, higher and higher above the raging Urubamba river below. Here we see some Inca terraces across the river.

We marveled along the first stretch at the cacti and the huge agave plants.

And we saw these ancient guest houses built for weary traveler along the Inca Trail.

Speaking of travelers along the trail, at this point we weren't that far along the trail, but I was surprised to see that there were people living on the trail. It felt to me like we were very isolated, yet I saw women and children traveling the opposite direction, toward the town we came from, like it was very routine. We practically crossed through some people's yards. There are no roads here, these people need to walk several miles to get to a road, and travel up and down hills steeper than this Kansas girl ever wants to walk on a regular basis.

The white colored line in these layers is a layer of volcanic ash. Troy had the camera most of the time and this would be very interesting to him.

 So we went up the hill, then back down and over a river, then up a more steep hill. At this point I'm thinking I'm glad I'm at the very top and I'm thinking it's the most beautiful place I've ever been.

And I look over and I see the rest of the group (yes, they were ahead of me a little) gazing down at the valley where we would be camping.

And it's quite a little beautiful place, itself. So isolated.

We would be camping between a potato field and a raging river with Inca Ruins across the bank. This place is called Llactapata. And I believe the Incas burned it in hopes of detouring the Spanish from discovering the Inca Trail. That's what I understood with my limited interpretation of English spoken with a Peruvian accent. I will look it up later to be sure.

There is a little village down there and one of our tour members found a place that sold beer. So we bought one to celebrate our first day. We were all so excited!

We walked around and explored by the river. They set up the food tent and served tea. The porters already had our tents set up for us. Troy took a single tent that was originally intended for Kalyn. Carrie and I took the double tent intended for her and Madison, and the girls took the double tent intended for me and Troy. Perfect! We dressed for cold weather because evenings and mornings are quite chilly. We were fed very well and stayed up talking in the tent and drinking coca tea.

But the big excitement was the sky! Gorgeous during the day, yes. But after dark.....oh my! I have never before, and maybe never will again, see a sky so black with so many stars and the Milky Way illuminated so well against it. Our guide pointed out some constellations I have never seen, like the Southern Cross and Scorpio.

 Cute girls. Tent buddies.

And I'm still thinking it's just the most beautiful place ever.

The next couple days would be challenging hiking. Much harder than our first day. I would be just as excited, but a little more tired by the time we got to camp.

But that's another blog.