Machu Picchu

The typical Inca Trail trek has the following specs:

• Four days, three nights
• Six hours of walking per day
• Starting altitude: 2,000m
• Maximum altitude: 4,000m, but the altitude variation during the day is no more than 1,000m (see picture with map) to help people adjust.

As I mentioned, this was a “no-go” for us since we only had three days and a plane to catch out of Peru.

Even if we could stay another day, the limited number of people allowed on the mountain wouldn’t have permitted us to do the full four days.

The crazy local guy who was always around found a solution. But there was a catch:

We had to complete the trek in three days and two nights, which worked with the limited permits since the problem was with the fourth day.

This meant we had to combine the second and third days of the normal trek into a single day. This translated to 12 hours of walking (from 04:00 to 16:00) with almost no breaks.

The trek followed the original path built by the Incas, with many steps going up and down, covering 46 km, crossing a couple of mountains and many hills, connecting Cusco and Machu Picchu.

These Inca people were crazy; walking 46 km to get to their holiday place. We’re even crazier for paying to do the same.

But who am I to argue with a civilization that developed more than 100 potato varieties, making it possible to live exclusively on fries and only have the same meal three times a year!!!

We did it (if you want to visualize what extreme tiredness looks like, see our pictures). Machu Picchu is one of those things you have to do before you die (we almost died doing it), and it was definitely an experience. The site itself is nothing more than the remains of some village, which doesn’t look very impressive after you’ve been walking for three days non-stop. Don’t get me wrong, we were in one of the most photographed places in the world, but I was too tired to see beyond the remains.