I'll be posting my amazing Inca Trail experience in daily installments, kind of like an original Charles Dicken's novel. Or Bridget Jones' Diary for that matter. You'll just have to stay tuned for the next 4 days to get the full story. Enjoy! I know I did.
Day 1: Kris and I had to meet our guide in the main square at 6:30am. Sadly, this is only a half hour before I usually teach my first class, so I really didn't have to get up any earlier. Somehow, we managed to get a guide all to ourselves. We camped and ate meals with another group, but we had one guide and two porters just for the two of us. I don't know how I managed that, but it was really nice. We didn't have to wait for other people, or feel like we were holding anybody up. As our guide, Armando told us, we were the bosses.
When we arrived at the head of the trail, we had to show our passports at the checkpoint. Only so many people are able to enter the trail a day, and you have to make reservations ahead of time, so we had to show passports and paperwork before we could get started. Then we were off, while a Peruvian woman snapped photos of us beginning our hike. I felt like I had just entered an amusement park and would have the opportunity to purchase the photos at the end of the day.
The first day was the easiest day on the trail. The day was overcast, but perfect hiking weather, with snow covered mountains in the distance. There were a few Incan ruins along the way, and it was a fairly easy hike. A little up and a little down. I was most impressed with the porters racing by us. Tiny Peruvian men hunched over with the weight of tents, food, propane for cooking, and anything else hikers didn't want to carry. And many of them wearing nothing but rubber sandals (and very deformed feet).
We ended up arriving at the camp site a full hour before anyone else. It was pretty chilly, so I had to don the long underwear I purchased from El Molino a few days prior. (Somehow, I managed to figure out how to ask for long underwear in Spanish. Ropa termico, in case you were wondering.) Dinner was with a group of about 11 other hikers. Five Argentinians, two Brazilians, two Italians (who spoke Spanish with an incredibly strong Italian accent and talked about nothing but Italian food), a Chilean/Swiss, and a Swiss. The dinner conversation was in rapid Spanish, with everyone talking over each other, so I really didn't stand a chance. The Swiss woman was the only other quiet one at the table, so we talked to her for a bit. After dinner, it was bedtime at 8pm, but we were going to need all the sleep we could get. It was straight uphill for day 2.
Tomorrow: Inca Trail, Day 2. If the altitude doesn't kill me, that stink in the bathroom will.
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