The Inca trail: Preparation
The Inca trail was our main visit to South America. Eug has ALWAYS, for as long as I´ve known him, wanted to go to Machu Picchu. So in the Summer of 2004, we decided that we´d go for it but would have to start preparing from then! Most of our weekends since have been spent sweating and puffing up hills and mountains in England and Wales, with nights spent confined to sleeping bags and tents.
It´s not all been bad as our home countryside is so beautiful anyway. And it´s given us a brilliant excuse to see a bit more of our “trainers” Rich and Susie, and to give our good friend Paul a ‘window’ to go walking and for a few beers one weekend! All this training informed us of what we might need for the Inca trail and got us used to a lack of water and flushing toilets!!!
Planning the Inca trail ourselves was fairly out of our hands as these days, as a matter of conservation, you HAVE to do the Inca trail with a tour company. We thought it was best to register with the company weeks before as they have to sort out permits, porters and passport information. And of course, there are a whole host of companies specialising in the Inca trail, making the choice even more difficult.
We spent quite a lot of time on the web reading other people´s reviews of the Inca trail and their companies. The Rough Guide and Lonely Planet books held a lot of company information which we also examined on-line, but in all honesty, they all look pretty similiar and the prices are quite similar too. Emails back from companies were quite telling as we sensed different levels of service and enthusiasm from this – and a no reply was definitely a bad sign!
Eventually, we chose SAS Travel as all guides and most internet write-ups have given them a glowing report. Plus their emails were very informative and helpful. They agreed to our request of a private tour. This would mean just Eug, me, a guide, a cook and some porters in our “group”. We´d learnt during our hiking weekends at home that my “old ladies knees” were never going to keep up and down hills with a group of other fit and able folks – and we´d both get annoyed about feeling rushed and/or having to continually hold conversations with other group members when we were in such a very special place. So, the four days and three nights cost us quite a bit more than you would expect to pay as part of a group but we´d worked hard for this and it was very important that everything was right.
Tags: Peruvian tales
mihai