The Inca Trail: one last mountain to climb

The biggest reason I wanted to come to South America was to hike the famous Inca Trail, a 45km route consisting of original inca stone paths laid down 500 years ago to connect Macchu Pichu, the spiritual capital of the Incas, to Cuzco, the administrative capital of the empire. This is, of course, the most touristy thing you can do in Peru, but due to strict limits set by the peruvian government, only 500 people can be on the trail at any given time. This intense demand forced Mom and I to book ur trek almost a year ago, basically right after we had the plane tickets, and had left us ample time to worry about the physical demands and anticipate the excitement of resurrecting history. This was the last goal, the final exprience I would give myself on this nearly year long adventure, and the fact that my mom and were doing it together made it all the more special.
Part of me couldn´t wait to get to Cuzco for our orientation with our tour company, but a part of me was sad too. This marked the end of a very exciting period in my life, and of course I wanted to savor this time. But, like all of my travels, it came all to quickly, and before I knew it, after weeks of Mom worrying out loud, we were sitting in a circle with our trek group at our orientation.
"Hello and welcome." Our guide Cassiano started off normally. Then the unexpected-
"As you may know, the Peruvian farmers are planning a strike for two days on the fourth day of the trek, the day we were supposed to get into Macchu Pichu. They usually block the trains from Aguas Caliente, and so we have two options. We can either do the trek in four days and then you will have to stay in Aguas Caliente for two days, or we can do the trek in three days and return to Cuzco a day early. I´ll give you some time to decide."
You could literally feel the shockwave ripple through the room. The entirety of our group sat in stunned silence for a moment before errupting with indignant questions. I swear, I thought he was joking, a bold way to break the ice. But no, turns out sometimes this happens. Last time the farmers held a strike they even burned down a bridge, and the option of walking back along the train tracks was risky as sometimes the farmers get violent. Right, we are booking a trek in a third world country, this sort of stuff can happen. There was an hour of some questions, but mostly complaints, and some demands were met, but the general consensus was to do it in three days, as several people had flights during the blackout period. This upped the physical challenge, and likewise, the worries that Mom had for completeing it. But we didn´t really have a choice in the matter, so we prepared as best we could.
We started early, with a bus ride to our starting point at 5am. We had heard from other travellers that the first day is easy, you feel confident about the whole hike after that day, and then the second day, with it´s ascent over "Dead Woman´s Pass" at 4200 meters in the morning, plus another 1000 meter ascent in the afternoon kicks your ass. But actually, the first day had me worried. Not for Mom, but for myself. I was the youngest in the group (dominated by 30 somethings), and I was puffing away just a few steps ahead of Mom. Passing a girl being carried on a stretcher down the hill planted doubts in my mind about whether or not we would make it. Mom had similar concerns, but morning came on that second day, and we had to do it. It was really, really hard, it seemed like I stopped to catch my breath every ten steps, the pass seemed to move further away the longer I was on the path. I asked myself why I thought I wanted to do this, why I dragged my poor mother along, what sort of masochist pays money to do this. But, at the end of a long four hours, I met my group at the summit. My first words, just blurted out "I´m glad that woman is dead, she was a bitch." and I collapsed onto the sunny grass. 15 minutes later, there was Mom, chugging up the hill like the "I think I can" steam engine. We both had made it, survived it, but we still had 600 meters to descend before lunch, and another peak to climb before the end of the day. Strangely, maybe because of the strange endorphin rush of completeing the first pass, I had enough energy to relieve Mom of her backpack, and carried both hers and mine up the second pass, earning points with her previously lost in my attempts to coach her up the mountain.
The path, hard as it was, was so dramatically beautiful and varied. The first part of the day was all mountain grasslands and jagged peaks, after lunch it turned into subtropical rainforest filled with butterflies and blooming wildflowers, and the last part of the second day was cloud forrest, with mist and fog completely obscurring all veiws, until it would suddenly clear and reveal a huge dark peak or inca ruin just meters away from us. The last inca site we visited that day was at sunset, but in the cloud forrest, so the clouds were lit in gold, pink and blue, creating a fairytale castle setting that inspired me to run out my memory card on my camera. Over dinner, I came to my senses, and cleared out some of my less interesting shots, because we still had a full day of hiking and the grand Macchu Pichu ahead of us the next very full day.
I never thought of walking down stairs as difficult, but I suppose I had never done it for hours at a time before, because the third day, after 4 hours of descent, my thighs were quivering with effort, my calves were sore, even my right elbow hurt from taking so much weight with my walking stick. At lunch, we still had an hour and a half to hike to the sun gate, the entrance to Macchu Pichu, and we were running behind schedule. Everyone was getting antsy, and after we were done eating, most of the group took off like a shot. I surprised myself, practically jogging the last leg, with some cruelly steep stairs called The Monkey Stairs, as they are so vertical you climb them with your hands like a monkey. Finally, I saw the sun gate at the top of the path, and sustained the final push until I had my first veiw of Macchu Pichu stretching out before me, the familiar sight that I had never before seen with my own eyes. It was magnifacent, and yet, anticlimactic in a way. Every turn on the path I had hiked was equally as beautiful a setting, every ruin was interesting and mysterious and way less choked with tourists, or "cheaters" and "losers" as we had taken to calling the throngs that had arrived on the comfort of a 4 hour train from Cuzco to day trip the famous spot. The inca trail was all ours (well, sort of, remember, there are 500 people a day allowed on the trail, but comparitively private), so special and challenging, and suddenly we having the same experience as 2000 other tourists, it seemed a little like they weren't worthy to be there. Then, as if to right the wrong, the sky opened up and rained. All the Loser Cheaters fled to the safety of buses, and the Lost City was (almost)exclusivesly ours. We followed Cassiano through the complex, getting the highlights and snapping photos of the iconic city now veiled with mist and clouds. Though we didn't get our full day at Macchu Pichu, I felt like the time we did have was great. But for me the real highlight of the experience was the challenge, the sense of accomplishment and the special bond with my mom for doing this together that will be ours forever.
As the whistles signaling the closing of the park sounded, we shuffled to the bus, snuggled down in the first proper seats we had had in three days, and headed to Aguas Caliente town for dinner. But the adventure wasn't over for us yet. Our farewell dinner of pasta had a condition attatched: eat it in four minutes then (literally!)run to catch the train. Running for a train after 3 intense days of mountianous hiking and shoveling at least a quarter of a pound of pasta into your gullet in under 5 minutes is a less than pleasent exprience, but we made it onto the train, completely exhausted. Relaxing into the motion of the train, we made easy conversation with fellow travellers who had done the hike, chatting about the upcoming strike, the hiking experience and trail gossip (remember the girl on the stretcher?), when suddenly, out of the darkness, I caught a glimps of a large fire. The farmers on strike had begun to set the fleilds alight on either side of the train tracks. Then, to add to the dread beginning to build in my stomach, the train came to a stop a few minutes later, no station, no city, just dark country side all around us. We sat and waited for about 20 minutes, but there was nothing. Then, we just started up again, and there were no other disturbances. The whole experience was a little eerie, but we piled into our waiting transport van and set of to Cuzco, an hour and a half away. After only 10 minutes, we got a flat tire, no big deal, but it was getting later and later, and we had already been delayed on the train. After it was fixed, we got going again, and I nodded off. It must have been at least an hour when I woke up startled by "Oh my god, they're rolling rocks into the road." The farmers had begun to block the roads, too, with large stones that would seriously damage a car. Our driver kept his cool, and navigated around the blockage, but he did seem tense. It was already so late, we really shouldn't have been out on the roads, and after that I couldn't get back to sleep. I kept flashing to that scene in Children of Men when the car full of heroes gets attacked on the road by a violent mob. I knew that wouldn't happen to us, but I have a really, really good imagination, and can froth myself into a tizzy in much more benign circumstances, and I felt guilty for bringing my mom into what could turn into a bad situation.
At 2am, we pull up to the hostel that has been provided by the trek company to compensate for our missing night, and we roll into bed and pass out. It was over, the whole thing. We were back safe and sound, with an exprience of a lifetime under our belts. The crowning jewel in my eight month adventure is over. Now Mom and I aimlessly wander around Cuzco, our remaining days spent doing nothing of consequence. It's just, after hiking 3 days to Macchu Pichu, nothing else really seems worth doing. Now, I just look forward to being home, to being able to tell my stories over dinner to friends, to relive my trip combing through my nearly 1600photos, to just be in one place for a while. But, knowing myself, I'm sure it won't be long before I'm planning my next adventure.