Inca Trail, Day 1: Time to Get Trekking
Rise and shine, it’s Inca Trail time! We both barely slept… Britt because she was afraid we were going to sleep through our alarm and me because I was nervous about the four days ahead. I had to say goodbye to my hairdryer, which I wasn’t very happy about… Guess it’s time to embrace au natural.
We were picked up by Peru Treks just before 5am and boarded a mini bus with our fellow hikers. We wanted to get a look at who we’d be spending the next four days with but it was dark and the bus was quiet, so we didn’t have a great opportunity. After picking up a few more trekkers, we made the hour and 45 minute trip to Ollentaytambo, where we stopped for breakfast and had a chance to buy any last minute hiking necessities. During breakfast our group started to mingle and introductions were made. There is a group of four women, who met living in Dubai, three are from England and one from Australia. There’s a family…mom, dad, daughter and daughter’s husband from Arizona, but daughter and husband live in Houston, where they are getting doctorate degrees at Baylor. A solo female traveler from England and a group of three from the Philly area, husband and wife who now live in North Jersey and their friend who lives in Germany with her husband, who was supposed to come as well but he broke his ankle and couldn’t make the trip. There are 14 of us in total, with two guides, Percy and Yaneth, 22 porters and our cook, Milton.
After breakfast we drove another 45 minutes to the town of Piscacucho where the Inca Trail officially starts at kilometer marker 82. Unfortunately it’s raining and overcast, but the clouds encircling the stark mountain peaks might just make the rain bearable. It’s so mystical! We got off the bus and had about twenty minutes to get organized, aka, put on all of our rain gear as it didn’t look like it was going to stop anytime soon. We watched the porters load their sacks and instantly felt terrible that we’re making them carry so much of our stuff.
And then Percy rounded up our group and we were off! The rain subsided shortly after we started our trek and the sun came out, which required all of us to take off the rain gear, put it away and strip off a few more layers as well. Of course everyone was already sweating and we quickly realized we’re just going to have to embrace the BO. We’re walking on a bed of mud, aka, dung… but hey, I guess that’s just part of the great outdoors. We followed the trail along the Urubamba River and Percy made the mistake of pointing out a secondary trail on the other side, called the Social Inca Trail, that would allow us to arrive at Machu Picchu in six hours, as opposed to our four day trek. Now that’s just cruel, lol. But it’s all about the experience, right??
We arrived at the lunch site around 1:30pm. The porters had a tent set up for us with two small tables and portable stools. All 14 of us had to squeeze around the tables that would have comfortably seated six, so we were about to get to know everyone in the group on a different level. The cook prepared a delicious three course meal.. This is like gourmet camping! Avocado, trout, rice, potatoes, quinoa soup with condor egg… I was a little nervous about the egg and asked those around me what it tasted like. Jim from Arizona said a baby condor flew out when he cut into his… glad to see we are among those with a sense of humor. The porters brought the food over to our tent and the plates were passed down the table and then as we finished, we passed them back.
It started raining again during lunch, so we had to put all the rain gear back on before we headed off. We have another hour and a half of hiking until we reach our campsite for the evening at Wayllabamba. It stopped raining again about half way through and the guides told us we are really lucking out with the weather. Apparently earlier this week, it rained for four days straight and the hikers never saw the sun.
When we arrived at our campsite, the tents were set up and our duffle bags the porters had carried were laid out for us to claim. Britt and I chose our tent and started setting up inside. There’s no running water… Just a toilet in an outhouse that requires you to pour water into the bowl in order to “flush” it. This is all so new to me… Definitely a far cry from the Marriott. We “showered”, aka used wipes to wash down and changed out of our hiking clothes. Now what?? Lol, it’s only 4:30pm and dinner isn’t until 6:45pm.
We hung out in our tent… Brittany read and I wrote in my journal. And all of the sudden it was dark. Nightfall comes quick in the mountains. We all gathered in the eating tent for dinner, which consisted of minestrone soup, chicken, rice and more potatoes. We learned that there are 5,000 varieties of potatoes in the world and 3,000 of them are grown in Peru. I’m guessing we’re going to be eating quite a bit of potatoes over the next four days. For dessert, we had a banana with caramel sauce. Our guide, Yaneth, gave us the run down for tomorrow… We will be woken up at 5:40am by them coming to our tents with tea. She joked that we get room service in the city and here we get tea service at our tent, haha. She also calls us family, which sounds like “fam-a-lee” with her accent and warms my heart.
Luckily we’re both exhausted, but even so, there’s nothing to do anyway… so going to bed at 8pm didn’t seem that crazy of an idea. I’m relieved to see no snakes can get in our tent, but I’m sure a bear or puma could figure out how to break through if they wanted in. Not going to think about that… Night!!
This blog entry was originally posted on www.MayerTwinsTravel.blogspot.com