The Inca Trail

Back in May 1981 my wife, Jude, and I headed down to Peru to backpack the Inca Trail. We took the train from Cuzco to kilometer marker 88, and started hiking from there. Five days later we arrived at the fabled ruins of Machu Picchu.

The train left Cuzco late, and after it dropped us off under a starry night we saw a lonely flashlight moving up the tracks towards us. A man guided us to a small platform suspended by a cable over the raging Rio Urubamba. He bid us to hang on to our packs, then released a latch then sent us sliding over the foaming river. Some men hauling a rope on the opposite side completed our river crossing.

My wife was shocked that I ate an entire baked potato on the train, including the skin! (Hey, but it came off a hot bin of coals.). Sure enough I came down with a raging case of Pachacuti's revenge. In the morning I was too sick to carry a pack so Jude used her conversational Spanish to negotiate with a Quechua Indian farmer (who also spoke Spanish as a second language) to lug my pack for the first day, to the base of Dead Woman Pass.

I was fine by that evening, and so began a fantastic hike through the Andean cloud forests to Machu Picchu.

Attached is a 6-minute video album from slides taken on that trip. There are two options: first the Google video, which should be available in all browsers. Second, you can view the much higher resolution Photodex show, but that requires intstalling their plug in. The quality is hugely improved however.

Low Resolution Google Video Album

Widescreen High Resolution Photodex Video (Requires Plug In)

Images

Peruvian Cloud Forest

Vilcabamba from Inca Trail

Ruins of Winay Winah

Comments

[ Post a Comment ]

Viewing: 1-4 of 4

Aaron Johnson

Interesting

Voted 10/10

Good overview and interesting to watch!

Posted Jan 8, 2007 12:54 am


	Nelson	Re: Interesting
	Hasn't voted	Thanks Aaron. First one of those I've ever done. A lot of effort into 6 minutes of video! But it was really fun and I can see this becoming a new hobby. It looks great on DVD, as you know from the stuff you have produced.
		Posted Jan 8, 2007 10:25 pm

schmid_th

Good idea!

Voted 10/10

Interesting film for dreaming of Peru! I enjoyed it!

Posted Mar 2, 2007 1:32 pm


	Nelson	Re: Good idea!
	Hasn't voted	Thanks much! The program I used is fun to use and has a lot more features, some of which I am learning now. Definitely recommended.
		Posted Mar 2, 2007 8:45 pm

Viewing: 1-4 of 4