Inca Trail: Intipata and Final Night

 We had hiked a long day--through fog, rain and slippery rocks on the trail.  Our reward was Intipata, an impressive set of ruins consisting of dozens of agricultural terraces built by the Inca.

From here, we could see the valley floor where we would make our final camp.

 As Freddy promised, the final camp was crowded with 200 other hikers and about 300 porters, guides and cooks.  

The bathroom situation was atrocious.  There were no toilets--just a recessed porcelain hole into the ground.  Those who could not squat had a problem.  There will be no pictures but you can imagine what the floor looked like.  Every once in awhile, we heard screams and yells from failed attempts.  It was funny but not funny.  We all vowed to wait until we reached the tourist toilets on the next day at Machu Picchu.  

That night, we had a special dinner with the cook baking a celebration cake for the last night.

It is customary to tip the porters and cook on the day before Machu Picchu.  There were six porters.  Before the tipping ceremony, there was a group photo.

Everyone worked extremely hard for us during this trip.  Freddy suggested a tip of $25 for each porter and $50 for the cook.  After the photo, each porter told us where he was from and about their family. Freddy translated as none of the porters spoke English.  Spanish was a second language, as their first language was Quecha, the language of the Inca still spoken by eight million people living in the Andes.

The porters would not be traveling with us on the next day.  We would need to get up at 4:30 a.m. so that the porters could break camp and hike down to the town below with our gear.