Inca Trail day 3

I feel like I may have understated the level of exhaustion I was feeling at the end of day 2. I was beyond tired, my back was seizing, my legs where shaking, I literally could hardly make it through dinner without collapsing. Dahlin and I had decided that we would carry all of our own gear... because as Dahlin put it, we could so why wouldn't we. We never knew when booking but this appeared to be quiet unusual, we were the only ones in our group, or any of the groups we saw for that matter, who carried more than just a day pack. All night I stressed about how I would put that stupid pack back on and whether I  would be able to survive carrying it another day up and down those dreaded steps. We had brought Tylenol 3 in case of an emergency and when I went to bed I fully intended to drug myself through the rest of the hike just so that I could finish. By some miracle though I woke feeling great and my back didn't hurt at all for the rest of the trek, thank the lucky stars!!!

our 2nd night camp site

ready to begin another awesome day, did I mention I'm not a morning person

We again started our hike early, early, early... apparently being up in the 4's was becoming our thing. We were up by 3 and on the trail again by 4. We had to finish the rest of day 2 and get to the end of day 3 in order to be at the entrance to Macchu Picchu the following morning when it opened. Day 3, however, is the day you travel the longest distance 16 km usually, though it is not as grueling as day 2 which is normally about 12km but with most of the elevation gain. We however, still had half the elevation gain from day 2 as well as the longer distance. So we weren't sure how we would do, we did have a back up plan as to where we would sleep if we couldn't make it to the camp site, but we really wanted to push to the end if possible.

So we got to it. Our first goal was to get to the summit, this was a 600 meter ascent up to the top of the mountain, Warmiwañusca mt. They call this the dead woman’s pass and it is located at 4,200 meter /13,776 feet, the highest point of our hike. It is called the dead woman's pass not because a woman died there but because of the shape of the mountains.

At this point in the day we were still hiking the trail by ourselves so we were able to spread out and everyone could hike at their own pace. Dahlin and I just went at a comfortable pace and we made it up in an hour and a half. Then we were able to just relax and enjoy the scenery while we waited for the rest of our group to get there.

the 11 of us

Then began our decent into the Pacaymayo Valley. The stairs are not great, in my opinion, for the ascent- but they are equally horrible for the descent. I was, however, very greatful at this point that we hadn't continued the previous night. The stairs would have been slippery in the rain which would have been made even more dangerous in the dark! Plus we would have missed out on all the beautiful views.

We next reached the ruins at Runcuracay, a circular structure with a rectangular outbuildings perched on the edge of the valley. This was thought to be a guard post or lookout point.

It was really foggy and really cold! But we hung out here again for a while for the group to gather.

We then continued on a paved path –Camino Inca to the second pass (3,950 m / 12,956 ft) called Abra de Runcuracay. It was about another hour beyond a series of false summits at the top of another series of steep staircases till we got to this summit.

Then began our descent, where you go through a short tunnel and through a series of tight switchbacks, dropping height quickly. You then begin to descend more gradual and the path curls and coils across the slopes. To the right on the pass lies a large, algae-covered lake, and our first view the next archeological site, the Sayacmarca Inca town. 

This is the point in our hike where we began to run into other hikers. I don't wanna sound spoiled, but man we had it good up to this point!! Having to share the archeological sites and the trail definitely changed the feeling of the hike, as we had to either follow behind long lines of hikers or else pass which was difficult as the trail was pretty narrow.

We were now caught up to the other groups, a little sleep deprived, but caught up. Everyone was a little sore, and tired but nothing outta control, so we were pretty proud of ourselves! This was our first day that we had to eat with everyone else and by everyone else I mean ALL of the other trekking groups, it was a lot of people and there were 6 groups who didn't make it at all due to the strike. It is actually kind of crazy how many people are there, I never did get a picture of it but they made it work. The food that we ate the entire trek was SO good! It was so impressive the things that they were able to cook with just things that they hauled up the mountain. All of the SAS workers were amazing!
Despite having been up and hiking for 6 hours already  we had more to go so after lunch we got to it.

the hike was pretty gradual from this point on through the beautiful lush rain forest and eventually cloud forest. There was so much beautiful moss and lichen and everything was so green! We did however end up hiking in the rain at this point, for probably only about an hour. Thankfully we had our trusty ponchos though so we were no worse for the wear once it was all said and done.

The next archeological site that we hit was Phuyupatamarca, the Town of the Clouds.

I wish I could remember all the details of every archeological site... but it all feels a little like a blur to be honest. So you will just have to enjoy the pictures.

To get out of this site we had to descend about 2,000 steps into Wiñaywayna. These were steep steps! I was super super greatful we were going down them rather than up!!!

At 4:00, 12 hours from when we had started, we got to the last archeological site we would see this day, Intipata. This was again a bunch of farming terraces with a couple of buildings. Such gorgeous views too, you could see a long way to where we had came from so that was pretty cool as well!

~We got to our camp site around 5, which was the time everyone else got there. So we did it! We hiked half of day 2 and all of day 3 in 1 day. We then settled in for the night, with all the other hikers! It was definitely our nosiest night with all the other people around, but we were so tired it really didn't matter. It was really a great day! The views where just so amazing!