Day 345: Inca Trail Trek – Day 3
Rain. That pretty much seems up our hike today. Well, we knew we were visiting Peru in the wet season – this was actually what we expected the entire trek to be like. Luckily, today we only had a half-day of hiking scheduled, and most of it was flat. We passed a couple of ruins along the way. It was raining too hard for us to bother taking out the camera at the first Inca site – Phuyupatamarca. The second site, Intipata, was merely foggy, so we were able to explore a bit more before walking the remaining 15min to our campground.
Passing through a “tunnel” on the trail
Nonstop rain and heavy clouds obscure our view of the ruins at Phuyupatamarca – “The City Above the Clouds” (not today)
Miserable hiking in the rain. So much wet.
Foggy conditions at the ruins of Intipata
Lindsay can barely make out the Urubamba River in the valley
Waterlogged llamas and two wet couple of boots at the Intipata ruins
We continue 15 more minutes to our final campsite of the trek. Lindsay is fed up with the rain and hides in the tent after lunch
During our trek with Alpaca Expeditions, we learned that different trekking agencies have slightly different itineraries for the Classic Inca Trail. Alpaca likes to start hard and finish easy, while other companies space out the difficult days (especially the two mountain passes that we did the day before). We discovered that one of the really great benefits of Alpaca’s itinerary is that we got an entire afternoon at leisure in the last campground.
Why would you want so much time here? Well, there are 2 large Inca cities (Intipata and Wiñaywayna) which were a mere 10-15min walk before and after the campground. And, unlike Michu Picchu (which we would discover tomorrow is crowded with tourists from open to close), these ruins are nearly deserted. Sure, there are several dozen fellow trekkers at the campground, but when you have all afternoon, you are not all going to be at the ruins at the same time. When Igor backtracked to Intipata after lunch, he was *literally* the only person there (our guide didn’t even bother to go with him!), and when we visited Wiñaywayna around sunset, we ran into 4 other tourists who were just leaving. If you want your magical moment, wandering around ancient ruins and pretending to be Indiana Jones, you gotta do the Inca Trail, and you gotta pick your agency wisely. We noticed many other groups (G Adventures in particular) were still arriving at the campgrounds between 6-7PM. By the time they arrived, it was too dark to visit the ruins, and since they would be leaving for the Sun gate at dawn with the rest of us, they would completely miss out!
Igor returns to admire the terraces of Intipata and finds blue sky and sunshine starting to appear
The terraces of Intipata abutting a steep cliff along the Classic Inca Trail
Exploring the stone steps of the Intipata ruins
Igor has the entire complex and all the llamas to himself!
Final view of Intipata
More of Igor’s nature photography: flowers and moss
Lindsay joins Igor to visit the ruins of Wiñaywayna – the “Forever Young” City where nobles would stay during the ancient days of the Incan Empire
Terraces of Wiñaywayna, and the Urubamba Valley below
The Wiñaywayna complex has a canal and fountain system that flows fresh water through the city
Lindsay admires the view of the ruins
Majestic Andean peaks create a beautiful backdrop for the ruins
Exploring the double gateways into the city
A waxing moon sits high in the sky as we take in the breathtaking view of the Andes Mountains
We had our final sit-down meal of the trek tonight, as we would make better time with a packed breakfast for our 4AM start tomorrow. We also said farewell and gave tips to our team of chaskis and our chef, as they would be exiting the trail via a different route going straight to Aguas Calientes to catch the early local train home. It’s been a great trek, guys – we wouldn’t be surprised to find out we’d gained some pounds instead of losing them these past few days. Thanks for taking such good care of us!
Back in camp, half the trekkers are on the roof of the ranger station, trying to get a cell signal. We can’t get any data, so we return to our site to wash up for dinner
PIZZA AND CAKE. My camping standards have officially been ruined
Our fantastic team of chaskis and our brilliant chef – thank you for an AMAZING trek!