Inca Trail, Day 1
Well, the day began with quite the excitement. I was sent down to deal with checking out while everyone else finished packing up their gear. For some reason this was a difficult process. Admittedly, the desk guy’s English wasn’t the best, and my Spanish wasn’t working very well that early in the morning… but it was apparently just easier if I left a bag in storage, and thus could postpone payment until we came back. Fine, whatever, a little less weight I have to carry, and a bit of extra cash for the time being. In the midst of this, Peru Treks showed up to pick us up, and there was some scuffle between them and the desk guy. Something about the door getting shut on them, and always getting treated poorly by this same guy at the hostel every time they go there. I don’t know, I didn’t quite get it, but I just knew to hurry and get everyone outside and make sure we were square with our bill for now, and try to make sure they’re expecting us when we get back from the trek. He said everything was ok… but for some reason I have my doubts…
We made it out and onto the bus finally, where we were then en route to our first stop Ollyantambo, where we were promptly bombarded by sellers of walking sticks, water bottle slings, coca leaves, alpaca clothing, food and water, and anything else that everyone will “need” for hiking the Inca Trail.
After a half hour stop, we reboarded the bus to continue to the trailhead. The bus drivers are just as crazy as the car drivers in Cusco. They barrel down these narrow dirt roads, up and down mountains… and if another bus is coming, they just continue on their way, right at each other, until they’re inches from each other… and then wait until someone gives up and back up enough to let the other bus through… sometimes causing multiple cars of traffic behind them to do the same. But again, I have to say, the drivers are quite skilled at their job. We hugged the river for a while, ducking around corners barely wide enough for the bus, almost certainly about to fall in… but never a problem… until we got stuck in some mud. I saw it coming though the window… we just weren’t going fast enough to make it. Some of the porters immediately jumped off and gave it an extra push, and we got through. Yay porters! Their first feat of many.
Upon arriving, we geared up, were given our sleeping pad and a snack, and again had to fend off merchant woman selling sun hats and straps to attach the sleeping pads. This is obviously quite the lucrative spot for them… about 125 new trekkers every day, and they know exactly what all of them are going to need. Luckily, my pack was well equipped to deal with the pad. I did, eventually, buy a hat, though. I figured it’d be a good idea for the sun, and they had some made of alpaca in Peruvian handicraft style, which I much preferred over the standard Safari style hat also available. I don’t do much souvenir buying, but I figured I’d go for the hat. We were briefly on the way, far enough to get the obligatory photo in front of the trail sign.
There were 15 in our group, Blu, Lindsey, Joe, myself; Adam, Allie, and Gianna (next to Allie) from Connecticut; Michael (behind Gianna) from Wisconsin; Erin, UK; Tim, UK; Cyril and Iris from Ireland; Phil and Rachel, UK; and Keith, also from UK.
But were quickly halted again so that everyone could go through the passport control. They’re very strict about making sure everyone on the trail is legit. We had to give Peru Treks our passport numbers when we reserved the tour, and it’s printed on our ticket… which then had to be confirmed with our original passport at the checkpoint. Hey, if that’s what they have to do to ensure the preservation of the trail, so be it. If nothing else, I got a cool stamp in my passport for it. And finally across the bridge to begin the trail.
As modern of a bridge as that may look (especially in comparison to some of the one’s we’ll cross later), it sure didn’t feel like it. It wasn’t actually attached to the ground… the suspension kept it up, and the bridge definitely was touching the ground on each end… but as people walked across, it slapped up and down. I wasn’t worried… the river didn’t look too deep… though it was moving pretty fast…
As we got going on the trail, we started figuring out what our pace was going to be, having to carry these packs for the next 4 days. After some adjusting, mine worked itself into a comfortable place. I knew to pack as light as possible, so hopefully I did good enough. All I had with me was the clothes I was wearing, 1 change, some rain gear, sleeping bag and pad, and some medicine… and several pairs of socks. I decided I could go extra with those, because hiking with wet socks, or not sufficient padding of the feet could be brutal if things go bad. Oh, and quite a bit of power bars, which I’ll soon discover were not needed.
As we walked, our main guide, Victor, told us about various vegetation and plants we saw on the trail, and some of the history. One particular fruit we got to try was the tuna fruit, from the prickly pear cactus. It was really sweet, and delicious. We hiked til lunch, with a couple rest breaks in there. This was our first taste of what we’d be eating for the next 4 days… and I really wasn’t sure how it was going to go. The porters made it to the lunch camp long before us, and had a dining tent set up and food ready when we arrived. Yay porters again! We started out with a soup, which was delicious, and was then followed by more and more food. And it was all fantastic. Going hungry was not going to be a problem, and I almost felt ready for a nap afterwards… but knew that was not going to be in the cards. There was still several more kilometers to hike for the day.
As we went, I tried my best to ignore the growing weariness by soaking in the beautiful mountains and ruins we were walking through. The Andes Mountains are different from other ranges I’ve seen. They are huge and rocky, but not with as sharp features as the Rockies. They’re very green, but not coniferous… it’s a mossy and grassy green.
Victor led us about an extra half hour for the day because we were keeping a pretty good pace. That’ll give us just a bit extra of a start for Day 2… said to be the hardest day, because it’s uphill, up stairs, ALL DAY. Of the 15 trekkers in our group, the 4 of us, 3 folks from Connecticut, and one bloke from England were carrying our own packs. Everyone else hired a personal porter. The option was given to hire a porter just for the second day because it was so difficult. The Connecticutians took the offer, but we held strong… determined to hold our pride as we climbed the mountains… we may very well regret that decision…
Our camp was made on the edge of a mountain, in a cloud forest, with a river running below us.
We ate our dinner and were introduced to all our porters before heading to bed… at 8pm! Nobody could believe how early we were going to bed, but we were all exhausted, and were going to be awaken at 5 am, anyway, to get an early start on the trail.
Tags: Inca Trail, Peru, porters, South America, Travel
nerokerr1
Hi mate, great postings about inca trail, i plan on doing it myself in 2009, your writings gave me a great insight on the trail, thanks a lot. Cheers.
PS. if you could give me some pointers besides what’s in this blog please write me, advices about the trip, how much to tip the porters etc, stuff like that, thanks again.