The third day of the trail began with rain. We ate our brekkie then trekked 2.5km up 300m to Runkuraqay Pass. On the way we passed ruins which enlightened us as to the genius of the Incas. The temple was orientated to get the eastern morning sun, with precise openings at summer, winter solstice and equinox. The mathematics and design is incredible.
The next part of the walk was beautiful. We went down another 300m and then traversed the mountain through rainforest like environments. There were cool cave tunnels cut into the mountain that formed part of the trail. The rain stopped and the sun burst out. The trail was becoming more and more enjoyable.
We ate lunch on the ridgline of a mountain with vast valleys either side swamped in cloud. Quite incredible.
After lunch it was all downhill, we were nearing the end you felt. We passed amazing terraced stone ruins of Phuyupatamarca. The terracing was incredible. The trail then took us deeper into forest vegetation. A cool part was a spiral stone stair - kinda like you would see in a grand ballroom. As we neared the bottom and camp, we stopped at the Intipunku ruins. These were really cool as the looked over machu picchu mountain and back up the river. We could also now see the train that takes people to machu picchu. We were nearing civilization again.
Base camp was pumping, all the people doing the hike were camped here. There was a large bar of sorts and I settled in for several beers with the blokes while sim had a shower as did most of the girls. Showers seemed unnecessary really, amenities were pretty bad and water cold, besides we had plenty of baby wipes.
I was reminded of home when Land Down Under came on in the bar. Quite surreal.
We got to bed about 9ish as we had a 3:30 start the next morning.
The rain began to fall and didn't stop all night.
- Blog from iMat
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