Trek Day 1
Sun 7-13-08
We had a meeting yesterday afternoon to debrief about our trek. I may have written abou that already. Anyway, our group of hikers is mixed in age. 4 men who are dads just turning forty, away from their families for our trek to have some guy time. They went to high school together and kept in touch. They, as well as two other gals who are also named Amy are from Boston. There is a couple from Australia, Robin and Bruce, as well as two other guys from there. The rest are Canadians, one of whom is more Swiss than Canadian as she lived there longer. Anyhow, there are 17 of us, including our guide Carlos and assistant guide Admiel. Bigger group than on our trek last year when we had eleven in Canada, but I think this will be another great chance to learn things about other areas of the globe.
We take off on a bus ride toward Macchu Picchu with a stop in a village to pick up needed items at six thirty from our hotel…. yes, that means getting up about five forty… aye…
(Now I´m adding to this post after the trip)
Okay, this is how Sunday morning really went… Saturday night I´d set my watch alarm for five forty so wé would have plenty of time to check for missing items and to grab something for breakfast upstairs in our hotel before the bus got here. Somehow I had not set the darn thing correctly, and thankfully Paula woke at six, and we literally ran around throwing things together to make it in time for the bus. We made it just in time! Other people had similar problems, but at last we were on our way! Yaee!
The bus ride was good… I was looking forward to leaving the city for a few days, and escaping the street vendors who were always trying to sell something. ¨Cocoa tea miss?¨or massage miss? Anyway, the funny part was, as we stopped in this store area toward the mountain, as we got off the bus, there were I swear the same collection of women saying ¨pole tips miss¨or ¨cocoa leaves miss¨… quite ironic… but it´s just part of life here. People can do that kind of business randomly, something in the US that is controlled more.
On the ride, we passed by villages and saw the snow capped mountains, reminding me that it is winter here. (I´m still thankful for the cool weather change)… yaee! People in outlying areas of Cusco were waiting for busses for work, or walking along the road.
It was funny, Paula and I were already expecting things from our last tour, where in the van last year driving in Canada we were able to talk with bus mates and get to know one another as we drove. Here on this more luxury bus, we couldn´t see one another, unless you talked to the person beside you… hopefully we can get to know each other each day we camp….
5 p.m. Whew, we got through the first attempts to climb at altitude. We all took a group photo at the entrance to the Inca Trail when we began hiking around eleven this morning. I think we finally got here to camp by 3 or half past. On our first hill I felt I was so out of breath, so out of shape. I knew this was going to happen, no matter how much I trained at home… but I decided today that it´s not worth rushing myself and feeling horrible. If I´m the last person in line, so be it. At least I´ll enjoy the trek more.
Carlos´s talk about the Incas confirmed for me that they indeed were peaceful conquerors. He says they embraced the people who either came to their area, or the areas they traveled to. They welcomed the people, then taught them their practices, essentially conquering them without them knowing they were being conquered. It´s quite a contrast to the wars we see today…. if only things could be that way…. then again, the Spanish eventually dominated and anhilated the Incas anyway, so even if you´re a peaceful conqueror, things don´t always remain peaceful. Too bad.
We have porters carrying most of our belongings except for jackets and water and other frequent necessities we´re toting in our day packs. These porters are amazing, carrying huge sacks on their backs up the mountain! It is incredible! They have a weight limit, somewhere around 20 Kilos. I don´t know how they do it!
When we got to camp, the porters had already set up our tents. We just have to adjust air mattresses, put out our sleeping bags and shuffle around our duffel bags to make room in the spacious tents. Paula and I are together, and pretty much everyone else has 2 people per tent, with one guy being on his own.
It was so funny. About five o´clock we were called to the dining tent. I thought for some reason this was supposed to be dinner. So the assistant chef and Admiel bring out these crackers and jam, and this other bread we´d had at our hotel in Cusco. And, tea. So we all were thinking for a while this was dinner. I thought, okay, glad I brought snacks! Then, after we all sat around chatting and snacking, Carlos annouced that dinner would be in another hour and a half, and that he was sorry that it would be so long but the cook was not ready to serve dinner. We all kind of chuckled that we had been thinking our snack was dinner, and most of us were tired of sitting so retreated to walking around camp or going back to tents to snooze for a while.
Tomorrow is day two of the hike on the Inca trail. Carlos says it´s going to be tough, but to just take our time. He reminded us it´s not a race… gosh, after adjusting to the altitude hiking today, I´m not worried about racing at all!
Tags: Travel
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