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Cusco - Inca Trail (17-21 Oct. 1999)

Cusco is one of the most beatiful towns in South America. The main plaza (see below) is stuffed with beautiful architecture and the surrounding hillsides gives you the right Andean feeling. Nevertheless, after having walked around the alleys for a day we felt ready to overcome our initial fear for the Inca trail. In fact, we overcame it so well that we decided to skip using guides and carriers. Thus, we spent have a day purchasing the dry food and stove fuel that we could find in the streets of Cusco. The last night we switched between two Lonely Planet recommended hotels, since the first one hadn't fulfilled our wishes of warm water. So, we left a lot of stuff in the new hotel and joined a touristic bus towards the Inca trail.

The bus from Cusco must be one of the most scenic roads in South America. Undulating agricultural landscape mixed up with small lakes and magnificent views of the impressive Cordillera really made this trip something to remember. A one-hour stop in Urubamba gave us a chance to inspect the local street market to find some cheap bread for breakfast. The road went on (merely) and we reached Km. 82, the first dropping-point for the Inca trail. I was persuaded by some local girls to buy a colourful hat after having "involuntarily" bargained the price down to US$ 1 by simply being uninterested. Considering the ugliness of the hat, I luckily lost it two days later.
     We followed the Urubamba river, first on the right side and then on the left side. Some funny Argentine guy, that just had voluntarily bargained for a hat made us some company in the beginning. However, after the first heavy uphill walking and some organized pause for liquid uptake, we left the other bus tourists behind us. The path started to become really steep now, although it felt temporarily easier when we entered the first of several valleys along the Inca trail (see below to the left).

The path became even steeper after we had passed the only village of the trail and entering the second valley. We aimed at reaching the first resting-place. It proved to be rather bad for camping, and we decided to eat some candy before continuing to the first real camping site. We met some Norwegian girls from Valdres, which was nice at the time since we hadn't met any Scandinavians so far in South America. The path to the camping site went through a really cosy cloud forest, but due to the terrible rise we could not enjoy it too much. The camping site was located just over the tree limit and a small creek gave us water for cooking before going into the tent for the night. At 3800 m.a.s. this was the coldest night so far on our journey, but at least we managed to get some sleep. In the morning we headed off (see right) for the first and heighest pass of the trail.

INKA TRAIL, DAY 2