The Royal Road and the Race to the Sun Gate

Machu Picchu will surpass all your expectations. That was the best advice I received as I got closer and closer to South America’s most famous attraction. You might think that it doesn’t belong on the backpacking circuit because it’s too expensive; or that having seen the famous photographs so often there would be no surprise to getting there in person. But all bets are off on the Inca Trail, and my first glimpse of Machu Picchu was not only the highlight of the trip, but one of those cliché lifetime moments that you never forget.

It didn’t begin as auspiciously. The company database was down back three months earlier on the night we were trying to book online. In fact, with a huge trip in front of me, it was hard to get my mind excited for something so far away in time and space. Caught up packing, flying, and then layed over in New York, it was a few days before I had another chance to go back to the website to try again. By that time, Anita and Kuo-Bao had already booked a nonrefundable spot on May 26 and watched the number of open spots drop from 150 to 0 in less than 48 hours. I snagged May 27 with little consolation; we would not be hiking the trail together. We just lost the moon.

The Inca Trail is a stone trail from Cusco to Machu Picchu constructed by the Incas over 500 years ago. Due to its popularity, the Peru government decided to regulate the trail a few years back, allowing only 500 people per day to enter the trail and requiring a guide for all groups. Every tour group offers a package of meals, tents, and porters for four days with the meaty price tag of at least $450 USD. There is essentially one porter per hiker, and they carry your tents and food and in some cases, clothes and sleeping bag.

The trail actually starts at Km. 82, just outside the ruins of Ollantaytambo. Lucky for us there was going to be a strike the day our hike was going to start. Strikes are pretty terrible down here, so our tour group picked us up the night before. Sometime after 1am we pulled into a small compound surrounded by brick walls. It was absolutely disorienting and it was raining and I was grumpy. There, while we were huddled under a shelter with only the light of the bus headlights, a group of porters began setting up tents. The compound was already filled with tents. It took me a minute to realize that every other group was here, that we were probably waking them up. The hike hadn’t even begun and we were way behind.

I woke up to daylight and the sounds of movement outside. Suddenly our tent was ripped open and three Peru faces looked in. “Hi I’m your guide Brian. Have some coca tea.” I hadn’t even finished my tea when a lady came up to the tent selling walking sticks. I looked around. The compound was a bustle of activity, almost like a South American Everest base camp: groups eating at large tables, stretching, pep talks, Americans in ugly hiking shorts, the smell of fried eggs. You could feel excitement and anticipation everywhere. An hour later, by the time we had eaten and packed up, the place was almost empty.
The first day qualified as a nice walk. The trail was mostly flat, skirting a bubbling river and passing rural houses and local people with cows and horses. Snow-capped mountains beckoned in the background but an overhead electrical line polluted the foreground. I got to know the rest of my team: two British buds who were sharing my tent, a young British couple on round-the-world tickets, a California brother and sister who spoke excellent Spanish, and an older couple from Buenos Aires. We had lunch and siesta on a warm, grassy section after a few hours. It wasn’t long before we arrived at our campsite in what was basically the backyard of a corn farmer, in the shadow of an Incan ruin.
I’m used to few amenities while hiking, so this hike amounted to luxury. The porters ran ahead with all the gear, preparing tents and a snack before we even arrived. We ate at a table in a large tent shelter that was carried from one site to another. It was delicious. We had everything from chicken to popcorn to pancakes, and of course soup with every meal. I might have made a habit of helping others eat their leftovers and I might have kicked that habit when I had a little stomach ache the second night. A selection of tea accompanied every meal, and I felt like a zombie after the hike when I stopped consuming tea 6 times per day.

The second day of the Inca Trail was very difficult. The trail began climbing immediately without cease from an elevation of 2980 m to a grueling 4201 m. At one point we passed the last ladies selling 15 sole Gatorade at the side of the trail, an indication that we were leaving civilization behind. The trees disappeared and the air temperature dropped. Every step made you breathless. Breaks became more frequent as the body became less energetic. I stopped counting steps once I reached 1500. The humourous, casual banter with my tentmates faded to a trickle as focus, exertion, and a bit of aggravation took over. But our team was strong, and we did pass several groups along the way, and even some porters. I ran the last 20 steps and collapsed in a heap on the ground. We had reached the Abra Warmiwanuska, or Dead Woman’s Pass, the highest point of the hike.
We did get a bit of hail at the high point before beginning the equally grueling descent to camp for the night. It took another two hours of hard impact on the knees before I was able to remove my pack for the day. The headache was merciless.

By the third day we were seasoned veterans. The trail entered into a cloud forest, winding its way through mountains covered in jungle but obscured by mist. I began to notice the beauty of the trail more. It fills you with wonder, for it must have been a truly labourous project to restore today, let alone construct 500 years ago. There were many Incans ruins along the way and on the third day we saw the most, each one more impressive than the last. I felt most like Indiana Jones as we descended a steep stair of the trail and arrived at a mist-shrouded temple site.
No one is really sure what the Incas sites were used for, or even what Machu Picchu was. The ruling theory of the day is that it was a type of “religious university” where priests studied the skies to learn the ways of the important Inca calendar. The Royal Road to the city was restricted from the general public but did have some rest points and temples along the way. When the Empire fell, the Incas destroyed parts of the road and hid knowledge of Machu Picchu from the pillaging Spanish. It wasn’t until 1911 that Hiram Bingham stumbled across it with a local guide.
Brian, our guide, gave us a little talk at each stop. He was knowledgeable and spoke good English for the most part, aside from incessant use of the word “consequently” and awkward usage of “not” instead of “no”. One of the most interesting stories was about a giant chain of solid gold that the Incas hid from the Spanish in a lake somewhere, but that has never been found. The Incans could do no wrong in Brian’s eyes, and indeed I think Brian thought of himself as a direct Incan descendent. There was very little discussion about the crippling Incan civil war. Instead we were told that the Incas discovered pi. We all thought of this as remarkable for a civilization that had never been able to invent the wheel.
In every famous picture of Machu Picchu there is a pointy mountain in the background. That is Winapicchu, a very holy Incan spot. Our tickets guaranteed us entry to Machu Picchu but only 400 tickets per day were given to go up Winapicchu. The only way to guarantee a spot was to line up in person first-thing in the morning. Still a two-hour hike away on the last night, it’s a substantial challenge to get such a ticket, since the first bus goes up to Machu Picchu at 5:30am. Some tourists walk up from town even before that. Brian told us we could try.

Our group awoke at 3:30am. Twenty minutes later we were sitting outside the gate of the final campsite, the third group in line. We played Uno while we waited for the gate to open at 5:30 am. The other groups, people that we had come to recognize over the past few days, were abuzz with excitement. At 5:30 we hurridly pushed through. Brian looked at me and my two tentmates, for the three of us were the most eager to make an attempt at Winapicchu. “Do you want to go?” We nodded in agreement.
Brian took off. There were about a dozen people in front of us on the narrow trail. We followed Brian, slipping past the other hikers one at a time when the trail opened up slightly. Once we were in front, Brian went into an all-out sprint, racing along like a puma. I was right behind him, panting heavily, bag bouncing all over the place. At last my walking stick, of questionable necessity for most of the trip, was put to use as an extra support on the slick, uneven stone. In the other hand I held my little flashlight, providing an amount of illumination just slightly better than nothing. Our footsteps were accompanied by the calming noises of a sleeping forest and punctuated by the whistles of the first train pulling into the town at the bottom of Machu Picchu. That reminder gave me new strength to keep moving. I’ll never forget running perilously through the mountains of Peru in that morning darkness.

You knew you were close to something. At last we reached the final stairs, almost a wall they were so steep. Brian finally pulled ahead of us. We found him at the top of a ridge, at a small Inca structure called the Intipunku, or Sun Gate. There, in the growing twilight, across the valley, we had our first look at Machu Picchu. It looked like it had been waiting for us for quite some time.
We left Brian and continued to the entrance to town (we left just as another guide reached the Sun Gate, and he looked surprised that he wasn’t the first one there). We took a few quick photos without fanfare at 6:30, clocking in as the first to finish the Inca Trail that day. It was already crawling with busloads of very clean-looking tourists, some struggling with the inclines as we ran past them to check our bags. We raced through the ancient village to get to the Winapicchu check-in, running past a steady stream of tourists on a set of stairs through the terraces. We were disgusting and focused: there was no way we were going to miss this for politeness. They gave out 400 spots that day, I got number 326. Success. And relief. And essentially the climax of 4 months of travel in Latin America.

We were walking back to the town entrance when the sun began to hit the surrounding landscape. We started running again. For the second time we raced across the ancient town, finally arriving at the famous spot at the entrance. Just as we arrived, the sun crested the hills and bathed the site in a golden light. Sun-up at Machu Picchu, the most famous picture in South America.
The rest of the team arrived shortly thereafter. It wasn’t long before Brian had changed into business casual and began the tour. The weather was perfect. There are over a dozen different ruined temples in different shapes and contusions in Machu Picchu, and they all are for different reasons. There’s intricate water fountains, great green grass terraces, and lots to captivate the imagination. All the ruins we had seen so far were tiny in comparison. There were dozens of rocks and walls and windows that had importance when the sun lined up with them; Brian referred to these as calendars. He was actually pretty funny. Someone asked him about rumours that Machu Picchu was falling off the mountaintop due to tourist weight. To which Brian replied, “Those are rumours circulated by the enemies of Peru.”
“Who is an enemy of Peru?”
“Chile”

The best was a complex-shaped stone at one of the high points in town. It was roped off. Brian told us it was the most important stone in Inca culture. He advised not get too close since touching it can give you bad dreams for weeks due to its extreme power. Someone pointed out a large crack in a section at the top of the stone. Brian explained that a piece of the stone had been broken off by a falling camera boom during the filming of a commercial for a beer commercial.

After the tour we made the precarious climb to the top of Winapicchu. At the cramped top a little house and steep stair clung to the side of the rocky peak. Was it worth the run? Absolutely.
I was reunited with Kuo-Bao and Anita during the train ride back to Cusco. We shared stories from the week; Anita showed me videos of Kuo-Bao nearly delirious from altitude sickness the first two days. Outside, the river valley was a blur. That night we celebrated by dining on Cuy, a Cusco delicacy, also known as guinea pig. It was as horrible as it looked.
And that’s where the story ends. There was a little more excitement in Cusco over the next few days, and a long wait in the Lima airport, but the adventure was over. We sat in the comfortable train, content, racing back to Cusco along a lush river valley. Some people next to us craned out the windows snapping blurry pictures. I barely looked out. Innumerable more secrets lay hidden in the land of the Incas, and no doubt all over the continent. My commitment to finding them all is still true, and my philosophy of venturing out into the unknown is unwavering. But it’s time to go home.