1-23-20 - Kyle - Finally Finished!!!

After dinner the night before, the best night sleep during the hike, a good breakfast and sunshine instead of rain, I’ve recovered enough to brave the last day on my own. Because we came down the mountain yesterday, we don’t have to go as far today.  Not that anything is easier for me at this point but I’ll take a somewhat less than full day. 

The cook makes us a welcome to Machu Picchu cake for breakfast and we thank all the porters.  I’m especially appreciative and profusive in my thanks for them.  We are off and it is exactly what I needed.  Mostly flat and where it is uphill, it is more gradual and less steep.  I’m finally able to look around and enjoy the stunning views.  Man, if only the entire 26 miles could have been like this.

Right around noon, we arrive at the Sun Gate entrance to Machu Picchu from the Inca Trail.  It’s an exhilarating moment of pure joy as we stand at the top looking down on the fabled lost ancient city of Machu Pichu.  I joke that when I write the blog, I’ll to put that I hiked the Inca Trail that I’ll have to put and asterisk and note that I actually hike “most” of the Inca Trail since I was technically carried for three hours in the stretcher.

We hike over across the mountain rim and descent to the top of Machu Picchu.  We take all the pictures we can from the top lookout point.  Afterall, I paid a damn steep price to get those pictures. Of course you could take a train to the town of Aqua Caliente and then a bus to Machu Picchu and take the same pictures.  And yes that is exactly what I should have done as I had no business being on that trail. “YOLO” – You Only Live Once” is Leanne’s favorite express on the trip.  The problem is that the word Live implies you are alive.  I think “YODO” – You Only Die Once – might have been more applicable for me and my Machu Picchu experience.  

Justin and Corey were amazing and really helped me out.  They helped carry me down the hill with a sprained ankle, carried my bag, feed me water and snacks and one of them always stayed back with me at my snail-sloth pace.  When not with me, the other one would bounce and spring up the trail.  Oh to be a teenager again.

We are meeting up with Leanne tonight and exploring Machu Picchu tomorrow, so after our quick pictures, we take the bus back to Aguas Caliente. A massage in town gets one foot out of the grave, but the rest of me is still very much in the grave.  It will take a while to recover from this one.

We meet up with our guide Robinzon for dinner.  He has a serious look on his face as he tells us that there was a rockslide on the trail this morning in the exact spot we were 24 hours ago and one porter was killed and two others are in critical condition in the hospital.  The news stops us in our tracks.  When I planned Machu Picchu, I was initially planning on leaving a day later to give us an extra day to adjust to the altitude.  I ended up deciding against it because our schedule after was so tight.  If I would had gone with the initial plan, we literally would have been in the exact spot at the exact time that the rockslide killed the porter. 

As a result, the closed the entire Inca Trail at 5pm today, a mere 5 hours after we arrived.  Anyone who was still on the trail was evacuated down the mountain via an emergency evacuation trail straight to the bottom.  It didn’t matter if you were 1 kilometer from Machu Picchu, you didn’t get to the finish.  The trail is normally closed for maintenance in the month of February so it will remain closed until March 1st.  We started on January 20 and anyone who had a start date of January 21 or later did not get to do or finish the Inca Trail. Once again, if I had gone with original plan, even if we somehow survived the rockslide, we would have been evacuated from the trail only three hours away from Machu Picchu.  I can’t imagine having gone through the hell I did and not being able to even finish.  We say a bunch of prayers of thanks to the Man above.

We enjoy our last dinner with Robinzon.  The has proved to be one of the absolute best guides we’ve had on this trip.     

I’ve dubbed him the “Superhuman Guide.” He has told us that you need two years of school / training to become an Inca Trail guide and five years of university / training to get a degree in tourism which is the path he chose.  His is English is flawless and he has no hint of an accent.  I ask him how he learned English and he said by reading the book “English for Dummies.” No, seriously, that is how he learned.  He said growing up that his family couldn’t afford television or Internet so he had to learn the old-school way by reading books.

The Inca Trail guides have a tough life tough.  They are on the trail about six nights out of seven. This means that the guides that can afford to live in Cusco only get to see their family once a week.  For the porters who carry all the bags and equipment up the trail, it is even tougher.  Most of them live in the highlands which is 6 – 7 hours away so they are not able to go home on their day off.  So the tour companies have built a Porter House where they spend the one night a week off.  There is one room with 20 sets of bunk beds with maybe two feet in between them. Robinzon tells us that most porters might only see their family once or twice a year but they get to spend the entire month of February while the trail is closed with their family.

We bid Robinzon farewell and crash in our hotel beds in no time flat.