I'm realizing now that I really should have either taken notes or tried to write these posts as I was on the trail and not 2 weeks later back in the comfort of my house, but here's a lame attempt to summarize possibly the hardest and most worthwhile thing I've done.

Inka Trail Map

Day 1 - "Easy"

 Our trek began VERY early in the morning - our guide, E, came to pick us up at our hotel at 5:30 am. We traveled around Cuzco by bus picking up the remainder of our trek companions, and got to the Peru Treks' office by about 6:30. From there, we drove for about 2 hours through Chinchero and Urubamba to Ollantaytambo, where we stopped for breakfast. Since we left as early as we did, there was no breakfast available at our hotel, and I was very glad that we stopped!

From Ollantaytambo, we continued to kilometer 82, where we disembarked, picked up our sleeping bags and mats supplied by Peru Treks, and began our journey.



On our trek we had a family from Mississauga, a honeymooning couple from Montreal and another from Perth, Australia, a couple on a year long tour from England, a young couple from Melbourne, Australia, a nice couple from Belgium and his cousin from Italy, who was a machine on the course.  I'm pretty sure he could have (and maybe did) keep up with the porters!

In the beginning, I was the annoying girl who stops to take pictures of everything, including a donkey!




We had to register at km 82, where in addition to the tickets pictured below, we also got some cool stamps for our passports!




The white things on the prickly pine are a bug that was used as a dye. You can't tell at all, but when E squished some of this stuff in his hand it turned a very deep red colour.  The Inka used to mix their dyes with urine and soak the fabrics for days. It sounds gross, but apparently it works really well, and based on all the other cool, interesting and effective things I saw the Inkas were able to do, I'm inclined to think they're probably right!

Our next stop was at a small village, where we learned how to chew coca leaves and llipta, this black stuff that is used to make the taste a bit sweeter, but also made everyone's mouths numb.  I really didn't like the taste of the coca leaves, even with the llipta, but they did seem to improve my ability to breathe at altitude, so I continued to chew as instructed.  It left beautiful green globs in my teeth, though.




This is a good indication of the type of trail we hiked on day 1, uphill but sloped as opposed to stairs.



Llactapata was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 and was primarily an agricultural station used to supply Machu Picchu with maize.





This was our lunch: avocado with walnuts and cheese. On the trail! Delicious!


We continued on our way to our final destination for the day, Wayllabamba.


It was smokey because there was a forest fire, that we could see later on from our camp site.  S, our other guide, was telling us they are not very common.



When we arrived in Wayllabamba, we stopped outside the local bar (really it was a simple structure with a metal roof), where we tried chica, a home-made alcoholic beverage made from maize. While most of the people on the trek weren't particularly keen on it, T and I liked it a lot!  We then went into the bar, where we saw the vat the chica was made in, and some guinea pigs under the stove. Cui,



Once it got dark, we could see the forest fires that C was talking about. This is my lame attempt to take a photo.  While I had a mini tri-pod, I couldn't find anything stable to put it on...


We had a very, very cold night. T and I snuggled in our tent, and made some changes to our sleeping arrangements for the next day.

You can find all of my unedited photos on Picasa:

Peru

After sending out some Laundry to be done (the B&B specifically requested that we not do it in the sinks, and at 5 Soles/kg, the price was right), we started the Walking Tour described in our Tour Book.


We started with a walk around and through the Plaza de Armas, where we were accosted by just as many merchants selling alpaca scarves, hats and mittens, massages and other goods.

We walked along the Calle de Medio, a pedestrian only street where there are plenty of small shops, to the Plaza Regocijo. The colonial arches surrounding the plaza encompassed this area in ancient times.

Then it was along Calle Carcilaso to the Plaza San Francisco, where there were these beautiful blue Juliette balconies! Neither the Church nor Museum of San Francisco were opened, and although we planned to come back to visit, we never made it.




 This led to the colonial archway of Santa Clara, and past that the church and convent of Santa Clara, which was not open to the public. That led us to the Mercado San Pedro, where I went in, and T stayed outside. Shopping in the market was overwhelming with all of the things that were available. Along the outsides were the typical clothes and other textiles, spells, incense and other random products.  On the inside there was all kinds of produce, including pig heads and frogs, as well as many, many species of potato! Finally there as a ginormous fruit juice selection, but I avoided it, as much as I didn't want to, for fear of my stomach disagreeing with my mouth! Instead, I got myself a typical bag to carry all my junk in, which you will no doubt see in most of the pictures following this post, and some gifts.

Outside the market, we got roasted sweet potatoes, and T got a roasted banana. They were delicious!


Just in case the market wasn't enough, the walking tour took us onto Calle Nueva, where we saw merchants selling hardware, guitars, dvds, and tea (which T bought).

We ended up onto Avenida El Sol, where we were last night while at Peru Treks, and found the Palacio de Justica, a big white building that looks kind of like a wedding cake!

Behind the Palacio del Justica, we walked along Loreto, a pedestrian only cobbled walkway with Inca walls on both sides.


The wall on the left of the photo belongs to Amaruqancha, the wall on the right belonged to Acllahuassi and is one of the oldest and best Inca walls in Cuzco.

Loreto took us back to the Plaza de Armas, where we turned down Triunfo and to Hatunrumiyoc, another walled-in pedestrian alley, and home of the famous 12 sided stone.



Here, we went to the Museo de Arte Religioso.  I desperately needed to use the washroom, and T was very interested in visiting the Museum.  A win-win situation if I ever saw one!


At the museum we took an audio tour.  The paintings were mostly by the Andean people, but were cathlolic in nature, and the audio tour explained to us how the artists combined the Inka style with the Catholic faith. It also talked about how the catholic church was able to integrate with the indigenous people. There were also a collection of paintings depicting the signs of the zodiac and their Christian equivalents, which T and I thought was really cool. (Sorry, no photos were allowed in the museum! I took from in the courtyard, where it was allowed, though)


After the museum, we ended up on the same street as our B&B, where we stopped for some lunch and coffee.  I had the most delicious hot chocolate I've ever had, it was spiced chocolate with espresso, and I wish I could have it every day! While we were there T fell asleep, and I did some reading about the next portion of our walking tour!

Once T woke up, we started on our way along Cuesta San Blas, a very steep cobbled street which leads to to the Plaza San Blas.


 The Plaza is supposed to be a 'Bohemian Headquarters,' and while there was a guy juggling, it wasn't as bustling with 'fire twirlers, jugglers and itinerant artisans' as our tour book said it would be.


Here's a close-up of the juggler. He's not that visible above!


From the Plaza San Blas, we walked through the San Blas area of Cuzco along Tandapata. The road was really cool, and I took lots of photos!












 After a bit of debate when we came to a crossroads, we ended up on the path to Sacsaywaman, or as T renamed it, Scandalous Woman. Before climbing to the ruins, we got some freshly squeezed OJ (very yummy!) and T got a corn with cheese, which she enjoyed immensely.


 On the way up, we saw a llama, which I took lots of pictures of, because it was the first one I saw...





When we arrived at the ruins, they yelled at us because apparently there is a fee of 130 Soles to get in. We decided it was probably not worth the money, since we were going to see all kinds of Inka ruins on the Inka Trail to Macchu Pichu, so we went in and dropped off our garbage, took photos of ourselves, and then climbed the other side of the mountain to see if we could get a better view.  And the view ended up being pretty spectacular.



Sacsaywaman is supposed to be the most impressive one in the immediate area around Cuzco, although apparently what we could see was only about 20% of the original structure.  The Spaniards tore down much of the structure to build their own houses, which makes me very, very angry! 



When we arrived at the summit of the other hill, we found this!!


Later that night, we met up with C at the McDonalds in the Plaza. I could smell it before I saw it, and I was glad we weren't eating there. If it wasn't such an easy marker to meet at, I would have been upset that we were meeting there.  We walked around for quite a while looking for a place to eat, and ended up just down the road from our hotel at the Blue Alpaca! We ordered chica, a juice made from a corn, and I ordered alpaca! It was delicious, and I guess the most exotic food I ate while I was away.  The cui (guinea pig) was twice as much as everything else on any menu we saw, which is why I didn't order it.
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Alpaca!

Chica!