The wake up call on third day morning came even earlier than previous two days - at around 4:00 a.m. This was the penalty we had to pay to compensate for the lost afternoon the day before. By the time we started it was about 5:30 a.m. The sky had a nice early morning hue - orange and blue and red - plus the clouds. From the campsite valley, we could also see Mount Veronica’s snow covered peak - the tallest in that area (around 6000 meters). After having climbed 4000 meters, I am more appreciative of the challenges of those altitudes.
Start of Third day
Morning hues
Climbing up
The third day hike proved to be relatively easy. We covered the distances pretty quickly - we must have walked around 10 miles on the third day. With around 7 hours of hiking, it was easily the longest day. But by now, we have got acclimatized. Also, this being the penultimate day, I wanted to soak in as much of it as possible. We saw some large ruins on the third day including Runkurukay (‘Pile of Ruins' - I am sure this is not what the Incas used to call it in 15th century), Sayacmarca (‘Town in a Steep Place’) and Phuyupatamarca (‘Cloud Level Town’). Sayacmarca was especially big. It had separate quarters for royals and workers and could accommodate around 1000 people. Ditto with Phuyupatamarca.
Runkurukay
Washington guided us all along
Runkurukay from 2nd Pass
Sayacmarca
The long and relatively easy walk offered ample opportunities to talk and bond with others. I walked with Mark and Gernault with some time. Gernault recalled his experiences at Kilimanjaro. Mark was very observant of the birds and vegetation around our trail. Washington gave a few more monologues on the history. The first half of the day was very sunny though cold. We had a very nice lunch at the third pass (‘Warmiwanuska’) - the food tasted increasingly delicious with every passing day.
Mark juggeled ...
..clouds huddled ...
..then we lunched.
The second half of the day, which involved primarily climbing down, got rainy. We had to take shelter a few times to protect ourselves and our beloved backpacks from the showers. On our way down, we could see our camping site from above. We also visited one huge terrace that was still being excavated.
Phuyupatamarca
Closer to 3rd day's campsite
The camping site on the night of the third day was very different in terms of amenities. It had a properly constructed ‘café’ complete with bar and snack counter. It also had showers and toilets. I felt it was getting gradually re-introduced to civilization when we went on to have tea and snacks in this café - there were concrete walls around us, concrete rood above us, we sat on chairs with backrest and the food was laid out on a big wooden table.
I saw almost all the fellow hikers from other groups frolicking and enjoying this new found luxury. Many of them were also looking cleaner thanks to the showers. I remember that one of them was a bit hesitant to shake hands with me as I chose not to stand in the line outside the shower in that cold night.
After a quick snack at the café, some of us went to visit (yet another) ruins ‘Huinay Huayna’ (‘Forever Young’), about 15 minutes away from the camping site. These were huge, steep terraces and they also had many quarters built for the workers and the royals. It was getting dark but still, whatever I could see of those ruins, appeared extremely grand. It had started raining and so I chose to come back to the camping site. The ever enthusiastic foursome - Gernault, Mark and the Swedes stayed back with Washington to dig into the details.
Our camps on that day appeared to be erected in a very precarious spot. It was about a 15 feet wide ‘terrace’ - beyond 15 feet, there was a steep fall. Our tents’ doors faced toward the ditch. So, a single misstep while coming out of the tent could hurl one into an un-imaginable, hair-raising and potentially fatal trajectory. I guess all of us were reasonably toughened by the life’s hardships over the last 3 days - so we simply joked about it and moved on to replenish our food reserves.
It was a gala dinner that night. Ours was not the only group there - there must have been about 10 other groups in the café at the time. The café was more like a Ski Resort. There was loud music, people were having food, drinks and great fun. We had a small thanks-giving ceremony at our table - porters’ efforts were duly recognized, they were appropriately tipped and our food and drinks were duly devoured. We wouldn’t need porters beyond the next day’s breakfast and they were all to start back for their respective points the next day. Most of them would embark on another hike with a different group the day after next - amazing stamina and desperation.
After dining, people from other groups celebrated with more drinking and dancing. I enjoyed the proceedings from a distance and preferred be easy on my aching bones and muscles. I must have retired to sleep around 9:00 p.m. that night. It rained quite heavily at times. We were supposed to wake up really early next morning - around 3:30 for the last leg of our journey. All the pilgrims (around 500 of them) would start the same time next day from the same spot. We definitely would not want to miss the sunrise at Machu Picchu and starting early was the price to be paid for it.
