Saturday, November 12, 2005
South America Trip - Day 24 - Inca Trail Day 3
Day 3 was pretty relaxed walk through the jungle. The cloud again prevented us from enjoying the view of the surounding mountains. The beginning of the walking was reasonably flat. In some parts of the trail the Incas hand built up a level path on steep rock demonstrating advanced egineering. Other parts of the trail led us through tunnels formed by the tops of rocks falling. Later we walked down 2083 steps (or there abouts), some of them very steep, to our last camp site. We met up with the others near the bottom, as Lou found some extra energy from somewhere, and all entered the camp together which was nice for us.
After a rest we visted the nearby ruins of Wuiñya Wiñya which means "forever young". Inca ruins are characterised by their terraces which served three functions - retaining walls to prevent erosion, agriculture and decoration. Here the terraces were the most impressive we´d seen so far. At the top of the ruins was a Sun temple. The Inca´s had a very sophisticated plumbing system. They used aquaducts to bring water from far away to the city and had stone pipes to pass the water through the cities fountains. The water was used in the morning for ceremonial purposes and then after for washing.
The main thing about the last camp site that will stick in my mind is the toilets. It seems by this stage half the trampers had the runs and still hadn´t learnt how to use a squat toilet. You get the picture!
After another great meal we had a ceremony to thank and tip our porters. We had grown very fond of them as they worked very hard and were very sweet.
After a rest we visted the nearby ruins of Wuiñya Wiñya which means "forever young". Inca ruins are characterised by their terraces which served three functions - retaining walls to prevent erosion, agriculture and decoration. Here the terraces were the most impressive we´d seen so far. At the top of the ruins was a Sun temple. The Inca´s had a very sophisticated plumbing system. They used aquaducts to bring water from far away to the city and had stone pipes to pass the water through the cities fountains. The water was used in the morning for ceremonial purposes and then after for washing.
The main thing about the last camp site that will stick in my mind is the toilets. It seems by this stage half the trampers had the runs and still hadn´t learnt how to use a squat toilet. You get the picture!
After another great meal we had a ceremony to thank and tip our porters. We had grown very fond of them as they worked very hard and were very sweet.
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