This morning we arise at 5 am for our 5.30am pick up. For a full itenery of the tour, including the days treking scenes and what was included each day, see the following link:
http://www.sastravelperu.com/english/program/339/inca-trail-classic-4d3n-group-service
We get our duffle bags (which we are giving to the porters to carry on our trek for us – US$60 for the 4 days) and head outside to wait for the bus. When the bus arrives the two attendants pick up our bags and say to us that they think the bags are over the 9 kg weight limit. Both Ann and I doubt this but we agreed and we continued onto the bus. The duffle bags will be weighed just before we start the trek, so if they are overweight we will take some stuff out and put it in our day packs. We drive for an hour and a half and we stop for some breakfast. We are given a cheese and ham sandwich and a banana. We then jump back into the mini-bus to drive the last half an hour to kilometre 82 which is the beginning point of the trail. We arrive and our team are porters are already there packing up the tents and gear for the trip. Our bags are weighed to ensure that the weight is not over 9kgs. Sure enough Ann’s bag weighs exactly 9 kg and mine weighs a mere 8 kg. These attendants that picked us up don’t know what they are on about! The porters then head off to the control point so their bags can get weighed. They are not allowed to carry more than 25kgs on their backs. The porters also need to go through the control point and show their passports, and pay an entrance fee to the Inca Trail. Once the team has gone through the control point, it is our turn. We line up and show our tickets and passports, which also get stamped. Interesting, I didn’t know passports could get stamped for any old reason. Pretty cool though, it’s a good souvenir, I’ll take the stamp! We then begin our trek of the Inca Trail. It’s a great feeling, I have been looking forward to this for a wee while now. The four day trek to Machu Picchu has begun!!! For a guide on the contour of the trek, see the following link:
http://www.sastravelperu.com/images/programme_339_2.jpg
The beginning of the trek is very easy, a very slight uphill climb eases us into what will eventually be a tough days hiking. During the morning we stop at various points, including a spot where some Inca ruins are. This is a nice spot, with some fantastic views, but just a starter to what was to come during the trail. After three hours of hiking, we reach a spot where we have lunch. Our porters had got to this spot and had set up a tent for us to dine and for them to do their cooking/preparation. Lucky the tent was up as the rain was falling constantly. The lunch we received was fantastic, a two course meal including soup for starters and a buffet lunch for mains (can’t remember what we had, but I bet Ann’s blog has exactly what was on the menu – and that will probably be the case for the four days on this Inca Trail). After about an hour for lunch we then continued on our way on the Inca Trail, passing beautiful and interesting sights (including a tiny ‘shopping area’ where you could buy some Peruvian souvenirs, some snacks or some drinks). During this walk our porters passed us (running). They had cleaned our dishes, packed up the tents and were running towards our camp, trying to beat us there in enough time so they could set up our camp. We arrived at the camp site for the first night for all of the other tours. We had a small break here. Our tour company was not lying, this place was the pits! Ann made a pit stop here and made a huge comment saying they were the worst toilets she had ever been in. Big call, but she said the donkeys loo was in better condition than the loo she used. I can’t comment as I went to nature’s playground. I have forgotten to mention our group of trekkers. There are 15 of us in our group, two New Zealanders (Ann and myself), 4 Canadians and 9 Americans (one of these Americans is originally from Brazil but now lives in the States). Ann and I were certainly the odd ones out but it was good though, we were also the youngest, but in saying that the majority of the group were late 20’s or early 30’s. Everyone in the group was very nice, so it made the trek even more enjoyable.
When we left the campsite, we had a very steep climb to get to our campsite. Just after our short break we arrive at a checkpoint where the porters have to weigh their packs, just to make sure they meet regulation (by not being over 25 kg). At this point a couple of us decide to weigh each other. I was interested in my weight considering I had spent alot of the last ten days on the toilet. If you can work out my weight, well done. I will write it in Spanish. My weight at this checkpoint was ochenta y cinco punto nueve kgs. We began our climb at 3,000 metres above sea level, and where we were staying was 3,300 metres above sea level, so a climb of 300 metres, expected to take an hour or so. This was a good thing as the next day we would climb up Dead Woman’s Pass to 4,250 metres above sea level, so we were getting about a quarter of the climb out of the way. About three quarters of the way up, we are all having a break and waiting for the rest of the group to catch up and we look over to the other mountain and we can see our porters. They yell out something to our guide (in Spanish of course, so don’t understand what they are saying). Our guide then says, “there are three bears and a mother bear, let’s go!” The guide starts walking and he starts to quicken up his pace. I’m not sure if we are hurrying away from the bears, or if we are running to them! But we all follow at the same pace. Then all of a sudden we look up and 10 metres away there is a bear. He is just a baby. He is yelling out something. We assume trying to find his mother. The bear starts to head down towards the track. Then we look down and there is another baby bear very close to us. The bear above then crosses our track and heads to his brother. We try to take photos but they don’t come out very well. The bears are quite quick! We continue walking until we get to where the porters were yelling out to us. We look over to the mountain and we can see the bears have found their mother and they are heading up the hill, far away from the humans below. It was incredible to see wild bears in their own habitat, also quite nice to see them running away from us aswell. Was not too keen to have bears around the campsite overnight! Shortly after we arrive at our campsite to a rousing reception from the porters, they are all clapping as we walk passed the finishing post for day one. I find this quite ironic as we should be the people clapping them as they have walked here much faster than us with a 25 kg pack on their backs. In saying this I lap up the applause as I feel satisfied with my day’s efforts. Further to the porters beating us to camp by a long way, they have also set up our camp for the night. Our tents are up, the dining tent is up and popcorn and drinks (pre dinner snack) are only a few minutes away. We are given another two course meal with soup and then a main course, once again I’m sure you will find the menu on Ann’s blog page. Bed at 8pm tonight, another early morning tomorrow and also everyone is pretty exhausted after a good day trekking.
http://www.sastravelperu.com/english/program/339/inca-trail-classic-4d3n-group-service
We get our duffle bags (which we are giving to the porters to carry on our trek for us – US$60 for the 4 days) and head outside to wait for the bus. When the bus arrives the two attendants pick up our bags and say to us that they think the bags are over the 9 kg weight limit. Both Ann and I doubt this but we agreed and we continued onto the bus. The duffle bags will be weighed just before we start the trek, so if they are overweight we will take some stuff out and put it in our day packs. We drive for an hour and a half and we stop for some breakfast. We are given a cheese and ham sandwich and a banana. We then jump back into the mini-bus to drive the last half an hour to kilometre 82 which is the beginning point of the trail. We arrive and our team are porters are already there packing up the tents and gear for the trip. Our bags are weighed to ensure that the weight is not over 9kgs. Sure enough Ann’s bag weighs exactly 9 kg and mine weighs a mere 8 kg. These attendants that picked us up don’t know what they are on about! The porters then head off to the control point so their bags can get weighed. They are not allowed to carry more than 25kgs on their backs. The porters also need to go through the control point and show their passports, and pay an entrance fee to the Inca Trail. Once the team has gone through the control point, it is our turn. We line up and show our tickets and passports, which also get stamped. Interesting, I didn’t know passports could get stamped for any old reason. Pretty cool though, it’s a good souvenir, I’ll take the stamp! We then begin our trek of the Inca Trail. It’s a great feeling, I have been looking forward to this for a wee while now. The four day trek to Machu Picchu has begun!!! For a guide on the contour of the trek, see the following link:
http://www.sastravelperu.com/images/programme_339_2.jpg
The beginning of the trek is very easy, a very slight uphill climb eases us into what will eventually be a tough days hiking. During the morning we stop at various points, including a spot where some Inca ruins are. This is a nice spot, with some fantastic views, but just a starter to what was to come during the trail. After three hours of hiking, we reach a spot where we have lunch. Our porters had got to this spot and had set up a tent for us to dine and for them to do their cooking/preparation. Lucky the tent was up as the rain was falling constantly. The lunch we received was fantastic, a two course meal including soup for starters and a buffet lunch for mains (can’t remember what we had, but I bet Ann’s blog has exactly what was on the menu – and that will probably be the case for the four days on this Inca Trail). After about an hour for lunch we then continued on our way on the Inca Trail, passing beautiful and interesting sights (including a tiny ‘shopping area’ where you could buy some Peruvian souvenirs, some snacks or some drinks). During this walk our porters passed us (running). They had cleaned our dishes, packed up the tents and were running towards our camp, trying to beat us there in enough time so they could set up our camp. We arrived at the camp site for the first night for all of the other tours. We had a small break here. Our tour company was not lying, this place was the pits! Ann made a pit stop here and made a huge comment saying they were the worst toilets she had ever been in. Big call, but she said the donkeys loo was in better condition than the loo she used. I can’t comment as I went to nature’s playground. I have forgotten to mention our group of trekkers. There are 15 of us in our group, two New Zealanders (Ann and myself), 4 Canadians and 9 Americans (one of these Americans is originally from Brazil but now lives in the States). Ann and I were certainly the odd ones out but it was good though, we were also the youngest, but in saying that the majority of the group were late 20’s or early 30’s. Everyone in the group was very nice, so it made the trek even more enjoyable.
When we left the campsite, we had a very steep climb to get to our campsite. Just after our short break we arrive at a checkpoint where the porters have to weigh their packs, just to make sure they meet regulation (by not being over 25 kg). At this point a couple of us decide to weigh each other. I was interested in my weight considering I had spent alot of the last ten days on the toilet. If you can work out my weight, well done. I will write it in Spanish. My weight at this checkpoint was ochenta y cinco punto nueve kgs. We began our climb at 3,000 metres above sea level, and where we were staying was 3,300 metres above sea level, so a climb of 300 metres, expected to take an hour or so. This was a good thing as the next day we would climb up Dead Woman’s Pass to 4,250 metres above sea level, so we were getting about a quarter of the climb out of the way. About three quarters of the way up, we are all having a break and waiting for the rest of the group to catch up and we look over to the other mountain and we can see our porters. They yell out something to our guide (in Spanish of course, so don’t understand what they are saying). Our guide then says, “there are three bears and a mother bear, let’s go!” The guide starts walking and he starts to quicken up his pace. I’m not sure if we are hurrying away from the bears, or if we are running to them! But we all follow at the same pace. Then all of a sudden we look up and 10 metres away there is a bear. He is just a baby. He is yelling out something. We assume trying to find his mother. The bear starts to head down towards the track. Then we look down and there is another baby bear very close to us. The bear above then crosses our track and heads to his brother. We try to take photos but they don’t come out very well. The bears are quite quick! We continue walking until we get to where the porters were yelling out to us. We look over to the mountain and we can see the bears have found their mother and they are heading up the hill, far away from the humans below. It was incredible to see wild bears in their own habitat, also quite nice to see them running away from us aswell. Was not too keen to have bears around the campsite overnight! Shortly after we arrive at our campsite to a rousing reception from the porters, they are all clapping as we walk passed the finishing post for day one. I find this quite ironic as we should be the people clapping them as they have walked here much faster than us with a 25 kg pack on their backs. In saying this I lap up the applause as I feel satisfied with my day’s efforts. Further to the porters beating us to camp by a long way, they have also set up our camp for the night. Our tents are up, the dining tent is up and popcorn and drinks (pre dinner snack) are only a few minutes away. We are given another two course meal with soup and then a main course, once again I’m sure you will find the menu on Ann’s blog page. Bed at 8pm tonight, another early morning tomorrow and also everyone is pretty exhausted after a good day trekking.
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