Day 65 - Inca Trail, day 2.

By the time we get moving, it’s already light, though not yet sunrise. Chastised by Miguel the day before for having too much weight in my rucksack (14kg rather than 6kg), I repack. He allows me the extra 3kg, since that’s the sleeping bag provided by Q’ente, but everything else has to go into my day pack, which ends up weighing 10kg. Maybe bringing my laptop was not strictly necessary….

Miguel introduces the rest of the team – Isidro the cook, Jorge the assistant cook, head porter and seven other porters. Before certain regulations were introduced recently, there were fewer porters, each carrying way more weight, and I’ve heard stories of them eating leftovers and not having anywhere warm to sleep. Miguel tells me that there are still no regulations on the other trails – Salcantay, Vilcabamba, etc., and there are companies which get away with treating their porters badly, and they put up with it, because if they won’t work, other people will work under those conditions in their place. Am keeping an eagle eye on both our team and the other teams which pass us for any sign of abuse.

I let the rest of my group pass me when we start out. Am grateful to Miguel for not insisting that we walk as a group. He tells us to take our time and walk at our own pace, meeting either at the second water stop, or up at the pass if it’s getting too cold at the water stop.

The first part is a dirt path along a gentle slope, amidst lush vegetation. In spite of the morning cold, I’m wet through with sweat almost instantly, and constantly out of breath in spite of the gentle incline. Uphill hikes are not my forte. I’m not very fit, and find myself walking up to the nearest bend in the path, stopping to catch my breath, wheezing like a broken bellows, and then setting off again for the next bend. I know that it’s poor technique, that it’s best to pace yourself, to walk slowly but constantly, but in this case, it’s getting up to that pass by any means possible. What I lack in fitness, I make up for in grim determination. The good thing is that I am ‘the average hiker’, so I time myself between stops in order to record in the guidebook how long each section should take.

A large Peru Treks group walks by. They stop, and a deeply tanned, bearded guy comes over to me, grinning. I don’t recognise him at first, and wonder who the hell he is, when it turns out that it’s Tim from the jungle. Looks like he’s regained the power of speech. He greets me and chats to me as if the days of silence never happened.

They’re all carrying their own gear, and at least half of their group is going faster than me. I’m not that bothered, knowing that I’m a lot faster on the downhill, provided my knees don’t play up. What does concern me is that Miguel said that it should take around an hour to get to the first water stop, then another two to get to the next one, and another couple of hours to get to the pass. I reach a clearing packed with campers after forty minutes or so, find the rest of my group there, rest for a few minutes and press on, partly because I get cold very very quickly, my sweaty t-shirt turning to ice, and partly because I believe that I’m yet to reach the first water stop of Ayapata.

An hour later, wheezing and gasping my way up a mixture of stone steps, steep bends, and dirt path winding through mossy forest, past a stream, I still haven’t reached it. Am thinking how demoralising it will be if it takes me two hours to do an estimated one-hour hike. Just think how long it will then take me to get to the pass! Since Miguel informed me that there’s going to be another strike on the 17th, meaning that I have one day less in Cusco, I still haven’t given up hope of talking the rest of group into doing the hike in three days and getting to Aguas Calientes on the night of the third day – which would mean extra walking today, and with me being the weakest member of the team, that’ll be a challenge and a half.

Two hours after setting out, I come out at the Llulluchapampa campsite, the one that was supposed to take three hours. I’m actually faster than average! Immense relief. Once again, I only stay long enough to look down into valley below, now coloured by the rays of the rising sun, before the cold induces me to press on.

After a little while, the forest gives way to the exposed, sunny slope. I can see numerous backpackers inching up it in single file. Porters pass the hikers, slowly but without stopping, carrying large loads. They have none of our technical gear and are wearing old sandals, but that doesn’t seem to hinder them. I keep setting myself short-term goals: that rock over there, that bush beyond that, and make my way up.

Miguel finally catches up with me, sees me chewing coca leaves and offers me some llipta (the stuff that activates the coca leaves – compressed ashes, in this case). He chips off a little bit, tells me stick it in the middle of coca leaves, and I stuff a handful under my cheek. I keep chewing as I plod on, and maybe it’s the juices, maybe it’s partly physical and partly psychological, but going up does seem to become easier. I keep putting new leaves under my cheek as the existing ones diminish. Half of my mouth and my tongue have gone numb; Miguel says that that always happens to first-timers. When I spit out the green mush, I discover that I’m missing a filling. Must’ve chomped down on the llipta a bit too hard.

Make it to the top in three hours, forty five minutes! A cold mist is creeping down. People are having their photos taken with the valley behind them, holding up scribbled signs: Dead Woman’s Peak, 4,215m. Amy tells me that Tim the weird American’s been inciting other members of his group to scramble up the little peaks above the pass. He just can’t keep still.

Miguel tells us that we need to make a decision: camp at Pacaymayo campsite, as originally planned, or press on and try to make it in three days. My group’s not keen. As Amy explains, the Inca Trail has been the whole point of their trip to Peru; they’ve spent a lot of money, changing their plane tickets in order to stay the extra day, and they’d like to spend as much time as possible on the trail, instead of Aguas Calientes. As for me, I’d like to press on, partly to have more time at Machu Picchu, and partly to save a day and complete all my research. I ask Miguel if it’s possible for the guys to camp on the last night, and for me to go on to Aguas Calientes, and he tells me that it’s not allowed, that the permit is given for a specific group, that the group has to stay together. I acquiesce.


The way down is easier. Steep stone steps descend into the mist of the valley on the other side of the pass, and I go down quickly, zigzagging, using my hiking poles. The porters pretty much run down the steps. I remember myself, aged seventeen, when holidaying with my best friend in Canada, running full tilt down the side of a hill, leaping crazily over fallen logs, revelling in the fact that my body did exactly what I told it, and knowing even then that it wouldn’t last forever. Compared to the agile, sure-footed porters, I’m a real klutz.


Beat the others to the campsite. From there, we can see tomorrow’s trail climb steeply up the densely forested mountain and disappear. Tomorrow’s the last pass, only 300m higher than we are now, compared to the 1,200m climb of today, but it looks a lot higher than 300m. The Pacamayu stream runs right past Miguel’s tent. Mine is slightly slower down the slope from the others, to protect them from my snoring.

Read “Dark Shadows Falling” by Joe Simpson, of “Touching the Void” fame; he’s the climber who dragged himself to safety with a badly shattered knee after his partner was forced to cut the rope and leave him for dead. He talks about the 1996 Everest disaster, documented by fellow climber Jon Krakauer, in which many people died due to overcrowding and incompetence, combined with a killer storm. He’s making the point that Everest is now a playground of the rich, as opposed to that of elite climbers; if you can afford to spend $70,000, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have experience; you get guided up the mountain and the sherpas set up your camp for you. Simpson disapproves. I think I do, as well.

Over dinner, I express amazement that Mark and Jared have to do their own taxes; back home, only freelancers have to do that. They grill me about the recent bipartisanship displayed during the UK elections, and I tell them that while I’d vote for Lib Dems as the lesser of three evils, I wasn’t impressed by Nick Clegg’s populist move of pledging free tuition fees for students. I don’t want my taxes to pay for some dosser to take ‘media studies’ or some other equally useful subject.

At night, it’s properly cold. Am wearing my jumper on top of the three layers.