Over the course of five days
in August of 2012, I found
myself hiking sixty miles up to
some 14,000 feet on the Inca
Trail, which leads to the
magnificent city of Machu
Picchu. Hiking the trail to
Machu Picchu had been a
dream of mine since high
school when I first saw a
documentary about that lost
city, built from enormous
stones by the Incas some one
thousand years ago.
Our group consisted of fifteen people in their twenties,
representing eight different countries, two guides, and a support
staff of cooks and porters. I was the oldest among the group. This
story is about an unusual encounter I had on the second day of the
long hike.
After the initial deceptively flat surface and rather easy ascent,
the Inca Trail reveals its true colors. Much of it is very rugged,
rocky and even treacherous. Our guide warned us early on about the
second day, a steady climb to Warmi Wañuska (Dead Woman's
Pass) at 13,776 feet. I woke up in my tent in the middle of the night
before the dreaded day was to begin, and I heard rain! "Good God,"
I thought, "I hope it stops before we have to take off." It did not! A
These beautiful ruins are of Patallacta, a
complex that contained some one hundred
buildings. Some specialists believe that it was
an agricultural complex.
A Curious Encounter on the Inca Trail
18