Inca Trail - Day 3

Today's hike was the longest on the trek - about 16 km. That wouldn't be too long a hike normally, but when it's a lot of ups and downs at high altitude, it's a lot of work!

We started the hike picking up an Inca stairway and ascend again past the small Inca site of Runkuracay. As we reached the second pass, the landscape opened onto spectacular new views to the snowpeaks of the Pumasillo range. We descended to the ruins of Sayacmarca (Inaccessible Town), an intricate labyrinth of houses, plazas and water channels, perched precariously on a rocky spur overlooking the Aobamba valley. The Inca trail, now a massive buttressed structure of granite paving stones, continued along the steep upper fringes of the cloud forest through a colorful riot of orchids, bromeliads, mosses and ferns. At the third pass (where we stopped for lunch), pinnacles topped with Inca viewing platforms overlook the archaeological complex of Phuyupatamarca (Cloud-level Town).

Pausing to explore the wondrous maze of Inca stone towers, fountains and stairways that spill down the mountainside here, we began a long descent through ever-changing layers of cloud forest. An Inca stairway partly cut from living granite (as in, it was there and carved, not put there when they built it) lead us finally to our camp by the ruins of Wiñay Wayna (Forever Young), the largest and most exquisite of the Inca Trail sites.

This day was the day filled with Inca ruins and awesome views - my favourite day of the trek! We were given a small snack bag in the morning and had our lunch about one and a half hours past where everyone else was stopped. This meant that for that piece of the trail (a REALLY nice piece of trail!), there were no other groups around and no porters running past us on the trail!

The campground was again terraced, but this time the terraces were narrower and separated by trees and shrubs as well as the drop. There were showers, but no one in our group wanted to wait with the 100+ other hikers waiting to pay to use two showers, instead, we scrubbed down with our buckets of warm water. There was also a bar at this campsite - it's amazing what some people will pay for a bottle of beer and some chips (it was at least 4 times as expensive here). We were at the bottom level of the campground and had a great view of the valley, it was also the warmest (and lowest) of our campsites. The stars that night were amazing!