Day one, hour one: we are waiting in the hostel lobby at 5:20am. The tour picks us up and we are off. There is no turning back. It’s still dark out, but there is no way I can sleep anymore. I’m filled with a mixture of excitement and sheer anxiety. We have a two hour bus ride to the trail head.
We realize quickly that everyone on the bus is speaking English. This comes as a relief. Attempting Spanish all the time gets exhausting! We come to learn that our group includes a group of 4 girls from Montana and Oregon, 1 Australian, an Irish couple, a mom and daughter duo from Chicago, a Swiss couple, and the biggest surprise, a couple from San Mateo (which is less than an hour from Santa Cruz towards San Francisco). Including Jeff and I, we make a group of 15. We are introduced to our guide, Juan, and assistant guide, Marco and we are off.
Juan starts to run through the pre-trail check for documentation, gear, and passports.
Everyone tries to settle down and rest because after the two hour ride, we will be on the trail for 4 days.
We arrive at KM 82, the iconic starting point for the Classic Inca trail. We all disembark the bus and start to organize our packs. I put mine on and try to mentally prepare for the fact that it’s about 20 lbs and will be strapped to me for the next 26 miles (42k).
We have to pass through a control point and get our documentation checked before we start the trail. As we are walking to the control booth, we walk next to the train that takes people who don’t choose to hike the trail to Machu Picchu. They are waving at us like a bunch of tourists. Our guide, Juan, smiles and waves back and turns to us and says “Ok, guys. Wave at all the lazy people”. So, we did.
We get through the checkpoint and take our first “family photo” and then we are off.
This is the awesome group that we will spend 4 days with. This is the only time we can stand this close without smelling terrible.
We have 7 miles today, and it’s supposed to be a warm-up day.
The only trekking picture with my hair and clothes passably clean. This was the bridge to the trailhead.
The hike is quite nice. We meander along the river for a while, which is providing a life-altering breeze on this hot day.
The Urubamba river
After a few hours of gradual rolling hills, we come to the wall of a canyon. Looking up the Incan staircase is practically like looking directly up at the sky. Our group is grumbling as we gather at the foot of the steps. Juan laughs at us and informs us that this is only the beginning, and that this measly climb is nothing. It will take us less than 5 minutes, and “see you at the top”. We realized then that Juan could almost afford to take a nap as he waits for us to complete difficult challenges before he starts to “bring up the rear”. As we climb, a few of us realize that we are missing the mother-daughter duo from Chicago. When we reconvene at the top, we can look down to see Juan running backwards along the river trail. He, too, must have noticed that we were two short. The Chi-town mom had been feeling a bit woozy at the last stop. You can hear the murmurs grow more and more worried as the minutes pass. Soon, we see Juan and the younger Chicagoan trudging up the hill, mom-less. We learn that Mom had to turn back. Our assistant guide was getting her a horse back to the trailhead and she would meet us at Machu Picchu in a few days. It was a bummer, but as the days unfolded, probably a blessing. She had an asthma attack and a severe case of altitude sickness. Those things combined would have made for a miserable trip. I couldn’t help but be a bit jealous that she both gets a leisurely horse ride AND doesn’t have to endure the demon-stairs we just scaled. But, when I turn back to the trail, I am greeted by one of the first breath-taking views of the hike. Down by the river on the other side of the valley is a fabulously preserved set of Quechan ruins.
We take a seat in a circle at the edge of the cliff and Juan tells us the story of this village. We also learn that we are walking on the only remaining Inca trail that leads directly to Machu Picchu. While there are several other trails in the area, none lead directly to the majestic city. That’s all it takes to make us feel inspired.
Photo credit to our trail mate, Megan, who knew I would love this candid picture within 3 hours of knowing us.
We are on the trail again.
From here, we hike through some switchbacks to the river once again and across to our lunch spot.
We see our group of porters, marked by the trek company’s yellow gear and flags, and are greeted with a cool glass of juice. One of the porters has set out small tubs of water and is waiting for us to queue in front of him for some soap and a hand washing. We take our seats in the dining tent, elbows touching in our first group mealtime huddle. None of us knew quite what to expect of the food. Chatting amongst ourselves, we all agreed that if left to our own devices, we may be eating cereal for every meal. The level of surprise was surpassed only by excitement as the waiter brings out the appetizers. Wait, appetizers? Score! We are served halved avocados stuffed with fresh salsa picante, and an avocado has never tasted so good. It was delicious. Next up was hot corn chowder (also scrumptious) and then cooked trout and veggies. Whatever doubts we had about the food quickly disappeared. This meal was one of the best we’d eaten in Peru yet. What a pleasant surprise. How do they do it, prepare such a decadent meal in the middle of nowhere? That question would prove to be a theme when it comes to the porter team on our adventure.
After a brief siesta, we are off on the trail again. We came about 7k (4.5mi) before lunch and had 5k (3.1mi) more to go before camp. Since we were a bit behind schedule, we needed to get a move on it to make it to camp by dark.
I think we all learned the first hard lesson of the trip on day one after lunch: just because the food is glorious, doesn’t mean we have to stuff our faces. The whole lot of us were a bit sluggish after our lavish lunch. Somewhere along the way, Jeff started feeling a but under the weather. He was getting a headache, despite drinking lots of water, and was growing a bit woozy. Our guide stopped us and let us know that we should think about hiring a local porter for our bags the next day, if we weren’t feeling well. It would be a grueling day of climbing to the first summit and then descending down into the next valley. We decided to take it slow for now, get to camp, and address our baggage in the morning.
When we finally made it to camp, dusk was just setting and the last 5 minutes were really steep. We arrived to find a little village of tents already set up for us. The porters are magicians. It’s really quite incredible the way they carry 50lbs of gear each, leave lunch camp after us and reach camp, set up, and start cooking dinner before we arrive. It’s right about then that the second miracle happens. There is a little old man selling cold beers. I think every single person in our group cheered. Jeff decided to have a nap before dinner in hopes of feeling better. Don’t worry, I had no trouble finishing our beer for the team.
Dinner was, yet again, the best thing I’ve ever eaten and after dinner, the whole group practically fell comatose into our sleeping bags. Jeff took some Ibuprofen and Diamox and we both went to sleep.
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