I awoke at 5am and lay there listening to the rain. I had had a fitful sleep and the outside of the sleeping bag and inside of the tent was damp with droplets of condensation. There was a rush of water immediately outside the tent and really close to my head. Then I heard an eerily plaintive moan and I thought ‘What the actual fuck?’

Maybe it was the altitude I decided. I was having auditory hallucinations. Waterfalls that weren’t there. Strange noises. Then realisation dawned.

I unzipped the front of the tent and stuck my head out into the darkness. And there she was, standing outside the front of my tent, close enough to touch if I reached out my hand. (It had to be a she with those eye lashes.)

I was kneeling inside my tent with my head poking outside and looking no doubt rather foolish and I m afraid the llama had this self same thought because she pointedly ignored me. She remained perfectly still and allowed me to study her profile.

She was poised and imperious, standing there under a sky full of stars. Then she emitted that strange strangled cry again. Was she calling for a mate? Communicating with the others who stood over at the edge of camp together grazing on some grass? Was she saying ‘Will you look at this twit with her head sticking out of the tent!’

So we stayed like that for a time the two of us. Me quietly watching her, she quietly ignoring me. I could hear the snoring of one of the men and the sleeping ventilations of the other in the tent beside me. All was perfectly quiet and still otherwise.  Then she sat down with a grunt, more or less dismissing me and a friend or relation came to join her and they lay there doing absolutely nothing.

Her Highness. Note that sneer!

 After a time the birds woke up and gave us sweet little trills and whistles. People started to stir. I withdrew back into my tent and lay there swaddled in my sleeping bag. I was wearing all my clothes.

I’m not gonna lie, I felt a little manky. My personal grooming had suffered during the course of the three days I m afraid. Every night I wore a pair of leggings, two base layers and my socks to bed. I brushed my teeth before I went to bed and first thing. I had a quick wash every morning with the warm water that Mariano brought to the tent but it was just a quick top and tail. I hadn’t washed my feet in days because then you’d have to use the same little bowl of water to wash your….well you get the idea. My hair was greasy and I was down to my last base layer. I was sorry I hadn’t brought my Chanel number 5. I hadn’t wanted to bring a single item of vanity that another would have to carry but in retrospect I m sure the porters wouldn’t have minded carrying the tiny bottle if it meant that the only Gringa in the group smelled like a meadow rather than a wet blanket.

But I quickly cast these concerns of vanity aside after I dressed and wandered outside. Alfredo had been looking forward to showing us this vista.

The clouds had shrouded us entirely the previous evening but now the wisps of vapour started to separate. I walked down to the edge of the camp with an air of expectancy. Alfredo had talked endlessly about this, his favourite camp and favourite view.

Suddenly the cloud lifted and parted like an opening night curtain. I practically gasped. I was standing tiny and insignificant above a wide valley through which white clouds rolled through like a river. All around in every direction stood the Andes mountains, their peaks probing an endless sky.  Timeless. Immutable. Mind-bendingly beautiful.

I ignored the clanging sounds behind me of a nearby group of porters preparing breakfast and I stayed very still. I tried to make a mental imprint that would stay behind my eye lids to be taken out whenever I wanted. I had no interest in taking a picture. No picture could have captured the way I was feeling. The exhilaration of it. I had never seen anything so beautiful. I felt emotional. Small and insignificant but nonetheless part of this wonderful world we call nature.

That moment was my moment on the trip. The one I will remember and cherish.

The guys finally wandered over to join me and imbibe the scenery and Alfredo noticed us and captured the above picture. I finally and reluctantly tore myself away from the view and went back to get ready for that day’s walk. I was feeling remarkably buoyant. The sun was beginning to show its’ cheery face and the damp of the night before was already a dim memory. Joints were limber from use and I felt like a spring rabbit as I bounced away from the camp and started down the steep steps towards the next ruins which were called Intipata

                   

Intipata. Sunny Slope.

 I was very smitten with the broad green terraces and stone steps of the Intipata ruins which obviously had an agricultural function. I marvelled again at the sophistication and ambition of Incan agriculture and what they managed to produce high in the mountains in cold thin air with a lot of precipitation all year round.

 They created these broad terraces to increase the area of flat land on which to grow potato, quinoa, and maize and at every Inca site you will see these large impossibly verdant giant stone steps carved out of the rugged mountain environment.

They built irrigation channels on the terraces to divert water to wherever it was needed and coax  water away from where it was not. They also constructed these terraces in layers so that water running down these steps soaked into top soil, then into a bed of sand below and underneath that a foundation of fine gravel, probably the leavings of the stone work. This ensured that a lot of the water got sifted down into the earth rather than waterfall off the terraces. In this way the clever buggars prevented erosion.

They made intelligent use of crop rotation and had a massive talent for food storage, building thousands of storage silos all over their vast empire in which they stored freeze- dried food to protect against drought or famine.

The rulers provided seeds and basic tools and in turn the farmers were expected to be self sufficient but to supply their labour when needed for big building projects. This is the tax system I mentioned before, a sort of socialist model or reciprocal exchange between individuals where your taxes due were a labour obligation. Whether this was Shangri La for the ordinary people or a repressive autocratic system is not certain but it seems to have been successful.

Llama and Alpaca were used for meat, hide and to transport and distribute the produce around the system on their extensive network of roads, one such road being of course the Inca trail. How wonderful to walk along a road that was built 500 years ago and where the ghostly whisper remained of thousands of feet that had walked here before us.

I marvelled at the fortitude of the Inca people, fighting an ongoing battle with nature and the environment, dragging bounty from these mountains in the harsh Andean eco system. To increase their chances of good luck, they sang while they worked and prayed to their Gods of nature, the sun and moon Gods and offered sacrifices on stone altars. Llama and Alpaca were choice sacrifices and I m afraid children who were considered pure and therefore a perfect gift to appease the ever hungry Gods.

Trying to imagine these lonely misty terraces bustling with people working the land.

(I look like a person from Lilliput who has fetched up in a giants garden.)

 It all worked somehow and agriculture here was so successful that there are many projects around Peru now employing these self same methods and restoring Incan systems of farming to improve production.

Once again a couple of Llama were the cause of a diversion when a large animal that had been grazing amongst the ruins, decided to descend the stone steps behind me. Darren called out a warning as this beast of a thing started to canter down the steps at a good clip and I managed to step out of the way before I was wiped out. These animals are as harmless as sheep but getting hit by one at speed would be like being knocked down by a Mini. I’d never live it down. Tourist mowed down by Llama recovering in hospital with 37 broken bones…..

The next ruins of the day were the hugely impressive Winay Wayna (Forever Young).

More cleverly constructed buildings connected by steep stone steps. More sweeping lush green terraces.  Maccu Piccu and the end of the trail was only a short distance away now and myself and the boys were feeling strangely giddy.