Heading out on the trail tomorrow!

Hi all,

We are heading out on our Inca Trail trek tomorrow at 5:20 AM. There won't be any connectivity out there, but we will be excited to post about the adventure on Sunday. 

A certain someone (Jeff) will also be celebrating his 30th birthday on the 2nd day of the trip. This, coincidentally, is the hardest day.

Here is the brief outline:

Day 1- Picked up at 5:20am and drive two hours to the town that we start the trek from, Ollantaytambo, and go 12k on the first day. 

Day 2- We start hiking at 6am and hike up to about 14,000ft and over the highest mountain. We go 15k that day.

Day 3- This is also 15k over some more mountains. We get pretty close to Macchi Pichu on the third day. That way, we can get in early and see the sunrise!

Day 4- We rise at 3am to eat breakfast and hike the last 3k before sunrise. We then have the morning and midday to explore. In the afternoon, we walk to some thermal hot springs to relax (I'm already looking forward to this). Then we take an hour bus ride to the train. The train ride is about two hours and then a car brings us back to our hostel.We arrive about 11:30pm.

We are really excited and just finalizing our packs now. 

We bought a new little duffle and luggage lock so that we can leave anything that's not critically important behind. Most hostels around here let you store luggage if you are trekking, and ours doesn't charge for it!

Neither of us are bringing our jeans (they are heavy!) and I ditched things like shampoo and perfume. It's going to be a gritty 4 days.

I've been working to get my pack as light as possible, and that's the part I'm most worried about. We went to our briefing at the tour office and I'm the only girl from our group so far that is carrying her own pack. They've hired porters. 

But, Jeff reminded me today that this trek is something like being chased by a bear.  You don't have to be first, you just don't want to be last.

So, the final hours are upon us. 28 miles at extremely high altitude in 4 days. The starting point is about as high as the summit at Northstar in Tahoe.

Wish us luck! Love you all.

We will post again on Sunday.

-K