Day 1: Snow-capped Andes peak from the bus taking us to Kilometre 82, where the Inca Trail (Camino Inka) begins.
By this time, my stomach was in a knot of excitement, anticipation, and anxiety about the 4 day, 3 night trek to Machu Picchu ahead. I was excited to begin, but worried that I had finally bitten off more than I could chew with the Inca Trail.
The Incas considered the mountains (apus) Gods, or at least heavenly beings that had power over them. Although I am not religious, I did make a quick plea to this snow-capped peak to help me through the trek...right before I lifted my camera and held the lens flush against the bus window to take this shot from the moving bus.
Day 1: Kilometre 82. The Inca Trail begins!
This is our group of 19 trekkers and one of our guides at the beginning of the hike. I was a little miffed initially with Valencia Travels for combining two groups -- one small 5-person group, and a larger 12-person group into a single larger group -- into a single large group, worried that it would dilute the attention of the guides and make the trek less pleasant. I was wrong.
I enjoyed the company of every single person in our group, although naturally, I connected better with some a little more than with others. I really enjoyed Phil's company; we constantly looked out for each other, although he actually found my bag ticket at Machu Picchu after I had left it lying around when I stopped to tie my shoelaces). Ryan, the only other solo hiker, was my buddy in photography. The Romanians, especially Todor and Sandra (Alexandra) were my favourites. (PS Sandra is married to John, not Tudor; they were just individually my favourites.)
Day 1: Me and the Andes mountains.
The guides were very good about taking my camera from me and taking photos of me so I would have photos of myself on the Inca Trail to look at.
My Nikon D500 does not have an automatic mode and I usually shoot in manual mode, so whenever the guides were taking photos of me, I would set it on Program mode ("P" on the modes dial) with a exposure compensation of +0.7 or +1 to account for the bright (even if cloudy most of the time) skies, and my photos came out great.
I seriously have more photos of myself on the Inca Trail than photos of me from my last 4 trips combined.
Day 1: Horse on (the very edge of) the Trail
On days 1 and 2 of the 4 day, 3 night Inca Trail, you run into lots of horses along the trail. (You also pass villages and women selling bottles of water and soda and snacks at exorbitant prices) The guides will tell you to ALWAYS stay on the mountain side when passing horses. Follow this. Horses love to walk along the edge and if you are along the edge, they will send you over the edge and a bit closer to the Urubamba river than you ever needed to get.
Day 1: Phil and Steve
The oldest trekkers on our group. I became friends with them right from when we met for the trail briefing the night before the hike started. I had shared my fears of being the worst hiker in our group with them and so throughout the hike, we checked and cheered each other on.
Snow-capped Mount Veronica (Wakay Willca in Quechua, meaning Sacred Tears) in the distance is covered in clouds and although slightly visible to the naked eye, was not visible to the camera sensor.
Day 1: The lookout fort of Huilla Raccay that looked down over Llactapata (Yaak-ta-pa-ta).
The Incas had different types of stone masonry in their buildings. Buildings built as temples or the fort, Saqsaywaman, had interlocking stones (that fit into each other like Legos) that did not need mortar of any kind. These stones were precisely cut with perfect corners and straight lines.
Royal estate buildings like those in Machu Picchu (but not the temples) and also the houses in which the Inca nobility lived had more rounded stones with a little clay mortar. The stones were more naturally shaped, but were chosen a way that they would look uniform and not one would look out of place.
This building has a rougher exterior. More clay mortar and uneven stone sizes mean that this building was never intended for the Gods or the Inca rulers or nobility.
Day 1: Looking down from a lookout point from the higher-placed lookout fort, Huilla Raccay.
That "path" is not really a "path". Those are stairs. So, so many stairs. After telling myself, that I would not make that detour, that I would wait until the people that wanted to explore were done exploring, I of course went to explore myself. I don't know when I will find myself on the Inca Trail again -- if ever, so why not. And to the best of my knowledge, Day 1 was "the easy day", so why not?
Day 2: (Most of) us on one side of the halfway point to Dead Woman's Pass.
Steve and Phil left early to get a head start to Dead Woman's Pass. They had also started the day's hike about an hour before the rest of us because they were worried they would be very slow and might have to hike past sunset by headlamp light to get to camp. That did not happen, by the way.
