Day 3: unforgettable
The longest day, we covered 15km. Day 3 is both Wilfredo and Edy's favorite day, the most beautiful day, and it also turned out to be my favourite.
Yesterday was all about ascent, today descent. Endless stairs, downward, over 1000m downward. And when I say 'stairs,' don't imagine the ones in your house. These ones were ragged, rocky, sharp, & unforgiving on the knees.
We also encountered uphill sections, such as this one, which led to more ruins.
Incans had priests involved in choosing sites for building structures. They also knew where to build to avoid earthquake damage. They built by adapting to the land or rock, not making a flat foundation first as today. Thanks to them, today we have lots of places to visit!
They built trapezoidal niches to hold steady against earth tremors, and they put decorations in them such as gold or ceramics.
With Edy
Wilfredo in a trapezoidal niche
Omnipresent mate de coca
Camp set up for munchies
Incan tunnel
More stairs
One of my fav parts of the trail, Wiñay Wayna. The pic doesn't do the view much justice.
Benedicto baked us a cake!
After dinner & dessert we had a ceremony for the porters and chef because they were going to leave us early the next morning to catch a train back to their villages. On the first day at camp we also had an introductory ceremony where we introduced ourselves in Spanish & shook hands with each porter and Benedicto. Most of them speak Quechua so we also greeted them in their first language.
The ceremony involved a spech in Spanish & another handshake and sentence in Quechua. Somehow I was the one with the best Spanish in the group (not necessarily perfect or fluent!) & I got elected to give the speech. It was the last thing I expected to do on the Inca Trail, but it turned out to be one of the best moments.
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