A group of Alberta women recently returned from the trip of a lifetime traversing the old Inca Trail in Peru to see one of the world's great wonders, Machu Picchu.
As part of a group of 15 women, with six from Cochrane, Samantha Teskey shares the story on how her group recently traversed the Andes for a journey to the "lost city."
Teskey explained that the idea to visit the popular historic site first came around when she was younger, following a trip she made with her husband to Africa.
“When I lived in the UK, my husband and I wanted to go on a bit of an Adventure; so we decided that we would go and hike up the Kilimanjaro,” Teskey said. “We had lots of things on our side, youth being one of them, and it was just before we had kids. When we came back from that trip, we said – where else do we want to go hike?
“And for me, Machu Picchu came on my radar straight away,” she added.
At the time, Teskey was unable to follow that dream because she was too busy raising her family. After her children had “flown the nest,” Teskey decided it was time to do the number one thing left on her bucket list.
Teskey and the 14 other women decided to make the trip together on Sept. 10.
“For us, it was a 26-mile hike, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but there was a lot of elevation and the landscape was challenging with so many physical steps that the Incas made back in the day,” Teskey said.
Although her original plan was to make the trip just with a friend, she later decided to reach out on social media and see who else would be interested in going with her.
“I just thought ‘I’m going to put it on Facebook and see if anyone wants to come,’ and within two weeks I had managed to fill that group,” Teskey said.
In terms of the actual trip itself, Teskey explained that it took four days and three nights to traverse the height along the Inca Trail.
“Each day we hiked between 12 and 16 km,” she said. “I think over the distance of the Inca Trail, we went over 11,621 physical man-made steps that have been there for a very long time. And they’re uneven, narrow, some are wide, so it wasn’t like going up to the Ranche.
“It was a bit of a white-knuckle ride with lots of elevation. I think on the second day we got up to 4,200 metres over something called Dead Woman’s Pass, and on the third day we were walking for around 12 hours because of the landscape and elevation.”
On the final day of the journey, Teskey’s group set off a few hours after midnight to reach the 15th century Incan citadel.
“We had a 3 a.m. start to get to Machu Picchu itself and start at the Sun Gate, which you hike up to, and then we had the unique view heading down into Machu Picchu, where we joined 4,485 other people who were there that day,” she said.
Although the trip was somewhat physically demanding, Teskey said it was nonetheless an incredible experience.
“It was hard on our bodies, very long days, and some of the ladies really haven’t camped before,” she said. “[…] But I think the unique thing about our group of ladies was the massive amount of support everybody gave each other.
“At some stage during the trip, everybody had something going on, whether it was a little bit of altitude sickness, a stomach bug, or nausea, and everybody stepped up to support each other at some stage.”
Looking back at her journey, Teskey said she is saddened that it is over, but feels it was a very fulfilling experience. She hopes other women can be inspired by her journey and pursue their own adventures.
“I just want to see lots of other women go out there and live their dreams and tick their bucket lists if they can,” she said. “Whatever it is, just get out there because life is short and at the end of the day, we don’t know how long we got.
“So just try and reach for your dreams.”
In closing, Teskey said she would like to thank G Adventures, the group of ladies that travelled with her, and all the guides and porters who supported them through their journey.