Inca Trail

Many people believe that the inca trail have only few kilometers from Cuzco city to the Machu Picchu ruins, the true is that this roads system has more than 23,000 kilometers of built paths, this roads were build on a strict harmony with the natural environment, great aesthetic design and deploying a marvelous inca architecture skills for its construction.

The stone paths in the plain areas could we from 6 to 8 meters wide, as the inca trail goes more hight in the highland the path get shorter, up to one meter wide around mountains and dangerous cliffs, all the roads are build with stone blocks placed in order to create the road, bigger stones to build the stairs and bridges of stone, wood or other strong materials.

The European way of straight and flat roads, did not apply to the incas necessities, because the incas did not know the wheel and they did not have horses; The incas use the llamas as pack animal, the llamas are great climbing stairs, so the incas build roads with stairs in straight lines, throughout mountains and valleys, fact that reduce up to one quarter the length of the road, but increasing its difficulty.

The inca trail was not use commonly by the standard inca people, the incas use the trails to move large communities of people thought out the kingdom, in order to repopulate certain areas, but ones the incas set a community in one place, they did not move any more; The incas mainly use this roads for transfers of authorities, the royal families, communications and movement of armies around the kingdom.

The inca trail was mainly design for communications purposes, they place pit stops call Tambos with food, water and place to sleep; The incas had a royal messenger call Chasqui, this men were excellent athletes, because they must run from tambo to tambo whit messages, ones the chasqui gets closer to the next tambo, he play a Pututu, that is a trumpet made of a conch shell; So ones the next chasqui hear the pututu, he gets ready and the information is pass on, so the new chasqui start to run to the next tambo and so on.

The distances from Tambo to Tambo are approximately 200 Km, so you must consider the strength and speed of this men; It is known that the chasquis were capable to bring fresh fish from the coast to the inca king, in only two days; The romans using horses were lucky if their messengers travel 160 Km in one day; The chasquis on foot, were capable to run throughout mountains twice faster than the romans.

The popular inca trail that everybody knows to reach Machu Picchu, was not build for communications, this inca trail was design for religious and ceremony purposes; The road has sacred points of stop, to pray to the mountains and the nature, this road has an absolutely amazing view and collection of wild life that you have never seen before.

The trekking adventure to Machu Picchu is not as easy as it sounds, it will be 42 kilometers of walking in the most diverse temperatures, you will go up to 4200 mt over the sea level, cold and worm valleys with impressive views of the mountains; Walk this lands with your back pack could be very difficult, but not for the people that live in this area, they walk almost bare food with three times their weight on their back and some times, they are running passing you by like bullets.

For the inca trail adventure, I truly recommend you to prepare your self, if you smoke I recommend you to make some cardiovascular exercise in a gym, the same advice for the ones that are not use to have big efforts; For your own good train a little bit running or fast walking to increase the cardiovascular resistance of your body, besides the physical preparation I recommend you to mentally prepare your self to the fact, that you and your tour guides will be absolutely alone in the middle of the highlands.

It is important to take care of your self with wise decisions, carefully walking in this roads is very important because this roads were not prepare for people like us, they were prepare for physically advance people; Think about this, the incas walk all their life, run, eat healthy, live in the highlands, they are use to low amount of oxygen in the air and many other facts that make them physically superior than us; So be careful because for people like us, it is a challenge.

I recommend you to take serious the inca trail trekking adventure, because this adventure will be real, you will be expose to moderate climate conditions, but for normal people like us, this moderate could become heavy, so please take care of your self and listen to your guide at all times, they are people from this lands and they will recognize if you are receptive to enjoy the spiritual experience or if you just went to walk, it is up to you.

By the way if you are planning this adventure give to your self at list three months or more for booking a spot in a group, because the Peruvian government has put a maximum of 500 people using the inca trail per day, including guides, cooks and porters, so this let you a small window of only 200 tourists per day; So now you know, prepare your self, concentrate and book early.

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