Inca Trail Day 3 - June 1, 2011

I felt a lot better this morning and enough appetite returned to eat some breakfast pancakes.  Unfortunately it was Babe's turn to feel bad; something at dinner last night did not sit well with his stomach.  We had brought Pepto Bismol tablets and Imodium, which helped the situation somewhat.

start of a beautiful day

terraced campsites

Our hike continued up again towards the ruins at Runkuraqay, thought to be a rest stop along the Inca Trail.  This uphill wasn't as bad as Day 2, but it was still exhausting at 12,000 feet.

probably a storage room

the "egg hut"

Then we were on our way down the trail...no more up, yay!  There were a couple of lakes on the way to the ruins at Sayacmarca.

a bit brackish?

another lake

We arrived at Sayacmarca...to get to it, you had to climb a set of steep stairs.  We left our packs at the bottom of the staircase and went up (no need to carry the extra weight!).  It was a pretty big ruin, but as the stones were not perfectly cut and set close, nor smooth, this building was functional (trail checkpoint) rather than religious or royal.  Sayacmarca had clear views of the trail coming and going.

the Incans built it into the mountain to keep with nature

smaller buildings nearby

huge rock face, and yes, it's the same outfit

window into the past

"floating stairs" were built here and there, to quickly move from terrace to terrace

how much time did it take to carve this???

living areas

After listening to Jimmy tell the history of Sayacmarca, we continued hiking towards our lunch rest stop, where all the other groups also stopped.  My appetite was still low but I made an effort to eat as I had burned thousands of calories up until now with no intake.  Today, the cook made some "causa", made of potatoes and seafood (this version had tuna as it was easily carried on the hike), which my Latino co-workers recommended, so I ate that.  Babe was only able to eat a bit of his causa and some soup.  The cooks and porters were being well fed lately! (they got to eat the leftover food in addition to their regular meals, which probably wasn't as "extravagant" as our dishes)

lunch tent

so much food...pasta, quinoa, pizza and potato salad (which was soupy...)

causa with yellow potatoes and tuna

After lunch, we descended towards the ruins of Puyupatamarca.

more terraces

this was also a campsite...where we'd have stayed had I wanted to hike more the day before

the irrigation channels are still working!

terraces and storage rooms

more holes carved into the rock

a functional building with coarse stonework

another nice view

We continued hiking towards our campsite near Winaywayna; it got more jungle-like as we lost altitude.  The trail was downhill, however, there were pretty steep areas.  My knee was not happy with the downhill and I had to pop a couple of ibuprofen every few hours and go down sideways at times.

goodbye Puyupatamarca

stairs were carved into the rock!

steep stairs going downhill

lots of different colored moss

a sneak peek at the town of Aguas Calientes, located under Machu Picchu

wildflowers along the trail

more magnificent scenery

There were two routes to the campsite: one direct and one with a scenic detour to Intipata (which was the terraced mountainside in the picture above).  The detour was only adding an extra hour, so we decided to go check out the terraces there.

terraces with view of valley below

storage rooms

more terraces below

these terraces were recently unearthed

amazing engineering, just to grow food

We arrived at Winaywayna for our last night at camp.  There was a pay shower available, but we figured we could last one more night without a bath as the temperature was very cool.  Jimmy and the porters took showers.  There was a restaurant there that served food and alcohol, neither of which we partook in, but there were clean restrooms with western toilets!  (still BYOTP)  Babe was feeling a bit better and ate some dinner at least.  I was fully recovered as the altitude was much less. (a mere 8,700 feet)

Our cook and porters (minus one) were not going to enter Machu Picchu with us, so we tipped them that night and everyone offered a round of applause.  All the other groups must have done the same thing, because we heard clapping all over the campground.  The one porter continuing with us into Machu Picchu was to carry our duffel bag to our hotel for the final night, the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge.  I was so looking forward to the shower and the bed!

As tomorrow would be a 3:30am wake up call in order to catch the sunrise at the Sun Gate (Intipunku) approach to Machu Picchu, we went to bed in the early evening.  Unfortunately, all the campsites were very close together; being surrounded by people in their 20's talking really loud, laughing and shouting to each other (plus beer access at the restaurant on site), there wasn't any peace and quiet until a few hours later.  I do remember that was how I acted at camp when I was that age, so what comes around goes around. ;)