Unlike Day 2, which was hard work and not terribly rewarding, we loved Day 3 on the Inca Trail. Once again we set off almost as soon as it was light. Wilbert's plan was again to have all the walking done before lunch, in part because of convenience, but this time he also knew there were a lot of ruins to see and was quite keen to get us to them before everyone else got there. In this he was successful. We generally got to look around ruins on our own, but a big group would arrive just as we were leaving.
The first of these was
Runkuraqay which Wilbert described as a fuel station for people, which we interpreted as meaning an Inn.
( Runkuraqay Pictures )We then went up and over a pass, a little lower than Dead Woman's Pass the previous day, and a shorter climb because we'd started higher. Then we came down towards
Sayacmarca, a much larger ruin.
( Pictures )Once we left Sayacmarca we continued down to about 3,500m. After that the trail was much more level. Strava shows a steady climb, but I felt much more able to look about me at the scenery rather than paying close attention to where I was putting my feet. As the trail levelled out we got to
Qunchamarka, another Inn. It wasn't clear how to access this, but we walked around the outside. I think at this point we were up in a Cloud Forest - though I'm hazy on the difference between Cloud Forest, Rainforest and regular forest, all of which I think we walked through at various points.
( Pictures )Wilbert spent some time telling us about the Inca Tunnel we would meet. B was pretty sure this was just a large fallen rock which the Inca's had run the path under. Wilbert got distracted at this point since he found a dog in the brush above the tunnel. After some encouragement he got it to climb down and it ran off down the path ahead of us. We met it again at the next campsite where, presumably, it belonged. I'm afraid we failed to photograph the dog, so you'll just have to imagine it.
( B did photograph the tunnel, however )We arrived at our campsite in good time for lunch. The camp was above another Inca ruin,
Phuyupatamaca, and after lunch Wilbert packed us off to take a look at it on our own. This involved going down some steep steps and it seemed like the water source for the camp was at the bottom, because we were passed by a lot of porters carrying water back up them. At the time we assumed he sent us to look at it then, rather than the next day, because the plan was to leave before light so that we would get to Machu Picchu in time to meet up with the rest of our group. However it transpired that pretty much everyone was leaving before light and we seemed to be the only party who's guide thought to encourage us to check out the ruins we would miss in the dark.
( Pictures of Phuyupatamarca )We had an excellent position in the camp right next to a large rock that overlooked the view. We were next to the camp of a group of three people who were on the "Luxury" tour. Wilbert was very contemptuous - they had three guides
and a masseuse. They were also served cocktails in glasses
made of glass when they reached camp. The most disconcerting thing was that they were played into camp by Andean pipes. B felt he would have been quite happy with the cocktails and the larger tents (including a shower tent!) and so on, but felt he wouldn't have coped with the pipes.
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