December 19
OK – Day Three! We have Dead Woman’s Pass behind us and we’re ready to crank through another day of “Inca Flat” and some intense downhill hiking. Here’s a picture that shows how far we had come since Dead Woman’s Pass. In the center of the picture, at the top, you can see the pass. We then hiked all the way down and passed where this picture was taken to reach the second pass on day three.
We have two passes during today’s hike which is about 16 kilometers long. So it’s the longest day, technically, but should be significantly easier than the prior day.
Here is us at the second pass (I believe):
During the hike, we got to visit several locations of Inca ruins: Runkurakay, Sayaqmarca, and PhuyuPatamarca. Ruban gave us a lot of information about these sites – what they were used for, who lived there, etc. I don’t really remember any of it. Sorry.
I do remember, however, the story he told us about this flower. Finally, a really cool orchid!
The Quechua word for this orchid translates to “tear drop”. So apparently a military general wanted to marry the princess and went to the Inca to ask to marry her. They were super in love. The Inca said no, so the two ran away together along the Inca trail, heading for the jungle. The Inca sent his army after them to retrieve his daughter and the general was killed. The princess was so distraught and their love was so strong that when he was killed and she sat on the trail crying, her tears went into the ground and these orchids began to grow there.
We camped at Wiñay Wayna, Quechua for “forever young”. This is also the site of another Inca ruin that is considered the small Machu Picchu.
After exploring a little bit, we went back to the camp site for tea and dinner. Plus, Ruban taught us a dice game that was a bit confusing but a lot of fun. Our last night camping on the Inca Trail was still a bit wet, but not nearly as cold as the prior night. We got settled in, with a 3am wake up call to finish the trail the next morning and head to Machu Picchu!