Image Up Advertising & Design

12 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | MARCH 2023 By Bob Kaller, Resident Popular among adventurous hikers are destination tours that challenge the bodies and reap the rewards of being one with nature. Read on and see if this could be for you. Back in 2018, I joined a hiking club out of Temecula and a few months into it, the club offered a trip to Peru to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu which I knew very little of but decided to give it a try. I called my life-long buddy in Upstate New York to see if he might like to join me and without hesitation, he was up for the challenge. At the time, I was living in the mountains near Idyllwild and was hiking quite a bit and thought I should be able to make this type of hike along with four other hikers from Temecula. The hike itself was four days covering 26 miles with different terrains on a stone path that dated back to the 1450s when it was built by the Incan emperor at the time. We spent the first few days in the town of Cusco getting ourselves acclimated to the elevation of a little over 11,000 feet. As a side note for those of Irish descent (or not), if you ever visit Cusco, make sure to visit "Paddy's" Irish Pub, which claims to be the "highest Irish pub in the world," and of course we had to authenticate. On the first day of the hike, our group of 15 were driven by vans to the 82 km check point of the Inca Trail in Piscacucho village. A limited number of trekking permits were allowed per day. Our team of porters, who were around five feet tall and weighed 100 pounds, carried all our gear along with our food (45-55 lbs.). They made it look easy. Those porters were truly incredible … they prepared unbelievable meals for us and had our tents set up when we finally arrived at our final destination at the end of each day. We had thin pads (which helped a little) under our sleeping bags inside two-man tents. They had two tents to provide 'porta- potties.' Yes, this was camping in style, sans showers or baths. The difficulty of this hike was the many peaks and valleys (elevation gain of around 4,200 ft.) that kept us constantly climbing up, then back down, then up and back down and so forth. The hiking poles that were issued at the beginning really helped in going up and down on all the different terrains throughout the hike. The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is so much more than just a hike. Our guide who was born and raised in the area, stopped at so many fascinating sites along the way, explaining the many Inca ruins, their religious beliefs, archaeological sites showing how the people lived, how they would grow their crops at different elevations for different foods, and so much more. Another amazing wonder was how they were able to move and place the huge stones that weighed thousands of pounds and have them fit so perfectly together that you could not even put a piece of paper between them. Our guide told us that for any medical condition they might have, the plants in the jungle cured it — it was all right there! Day two was the toughest hike of the trip, but so rewarding! We hiked 10 miles and reached the highest point of the journey at "Dead Woman's Pass" at an elevation of 13,828 feet. It got its name because when seen from the valley below, it resembles a woman lying down. This was certainly one of the highlights of the trip, leaving a feeling of real accomplishment after the physically- strenuous trek to reach The Summit. We took a well-deserved break here and celebrated the moment. We continued on, stopping at more Inca ruins and two beautiful waterfalls before finally arriving at our campsite by early evening. Later that night after dinner, we did some stargazing and our guide pointed out the Inca constellations that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. It was incredible! Day three was a little easier, we hiked along the Urubamba River and saw the beautiful snow-capped mountains of the Sacred Valley, and caught a glimpse of the mountains of Machu Picchu, the next day's hike. Day four, we departed early at 3:30 am with headlamps to our final destination, Machu Picchu or the Lost City of the Incas. We arrived around 8 am at this breathtaking city beneath the clouds and spent the next few hours touring Machu Picchu with our guide. Machu Picchu was built by the Incas around 1450 and was occupied until approximately 1532. It was believed to have been a summer Retracing Ancient Footsteps Top of Huayna Picchu

• Cover