Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu! - OVERVIEW 1

So this is an attempt at an overview of the Salkantay trek which ended at a town called Aguas Callientes. This town is at the base of Machu Picchu. The trek is a total of 70km (might I point out that the Inca Trail is only about 40km) with a peak height of 4600m, a new record for us. It was just stunningly beautiful at points and perhaps the most rewarding trek I've done, though it was really very difficult at times. We were lucky to have an excellent group that were almost always in good spirits and incredibly supportive. OK here goes -

The group! Minus Clay who is our photographer. Senor Steve the punk rock journalist from South Africa in the green, Ash and Luke from Ireland/Aussy in the front right corner (IT and psyc don't seem to do them justice... perhaps they're professional partiers), our well-supplied humour department in the form of Adam the radio host/very serious political journalist (sorta) from Aussy is sitting above them, Carmen in the top left corner was the retired mama from Spain with pipes of steel, and sitting next to her is our guide Henri who I'm pretty sure has some walking/flying combo worked out considering how fast he can go. And me in the middle! The first day was the hardest for me. The three hours in the afternoon had a fair bit of up and shocked my muscles pretty good, making me rather dead for the three hours in the afternoon. The reward for the day was the beautiful glacier looming in front... I tried hard not to think about how I was going to get around it the next day.
Me after the first set of switchbacks on day 2. DAMN I was exhausted, but really ridiculously proud of myself. I gotta say, I brought my A game to this day. This probably had nothing to do with the mad amounts of coca, tylenol, diamox, arnica, and chocolate that I ingested. Clayton crossing the valley towards the second round of up that brutalized me a fair bit more. Clay was lucky enough to be born with some sort of powerful jet engine that allows him to powerhouse up hills at supernatural speeds. Jerk (said with love). This engine theory probably explains the funky noises that he often makes. In any case, the entire group made it up to the 4600m pass in about 3 hours from a starting height of 3700m, with varying amounts of pain. I had been absolutely terrified of this part of the trek and was really proud of all of us for givin'er so hard.

Side note: givin'er and giv'er are apparently Canadian terms. For those unaware, they mean to work it, basically. To be hardcore and determined. You can giv'er on a trek, on an assignment, on a night out drinking, in bed, etc etc.

Day 2 wore on and on. I think we hiked for about 11 hours; 3 up and the rest down. By the end of the day I don't think any of us could have managed to walk through Cuzco, much less further along the trek. The change of terrain was really interesting, going from the alpine pass which was pretty devoid of life, through valleys/bogs with HUGE rocks randomly scattered about, and down into cloud forest. The last bit was rather dangerously steep with lots of loose rock but we all made it down alive. The joy of this campsite was the hot spring pool nearby. We sat in there during a thunder storm and were totally surrounded by mountains being lit up by thousands of fireflies. It was a pretty spectacular way to reward your sore muscles, though I think we all could've used a few more days of rest and recouperation there.