Oct 31 Inca Trail Day 1

With a very bad feeling I am getting into the taxi at 4:05 and at the meeting point we meet Ben, who is also very pale. He tells us that he had been sick before and he is scared he won't make it. Well, that makes two of us. 

Everybody except for the two Canadian girls, which were already late for the briefing yesterday is on time. We also have some of the porters on board who will carry everything the same way we walk. We are on the bus for about 2h before we have breakfast in Ollantaytambo. The restaurant is open air and it is very cold. Since it has rained all night, it is also damp and I still feel sick, uncomfortable and not ready for a four-day-hike. My tablemates try to convince me to eat something to get some energy, but all I want to do is go back to Cuzco. We go to Ruben and Arzu explains that we are not sure whether we are fit enough to do the trail. He is very understanding and tries to tell us that everybody manages and we shouldn't be worried. We should try and until the second day it is possible to rent a horse or a donkey to come back if it is really not possible. After that there are the porters to carry someone out in case it is necessary. I am now thinking that I will at least try and I buy a banana to have some food for later when I can eat. The last 20 min on the bus. Everyone starts to get ready at km82, we are the first group to arrive. The porters pack their bags. We get a big plastic foil to put our things on while we buy the last necessities for the hike from the local women.

Here we go... I see the sign and we start the hike with a group picture.

Now I can't go back. It is cold and still cloudy and before I even realize it, Carlos stamps my passport with the first checkpoint stamp. I am on the Inca Trail. Now the only way to keep my self-respect is by ending it in Machu Picchu. I still don't feel well, but decide to walk it off.

We start easy and take several breaks on the way. So far it is going ok. When we stop at the first big Inca site, I am hooked and want to do this. The site looks amazing from above and Ruben explains why it was built here, what the different buildings mean and that you can see the shape of a snake surrounding it.

By lunchtime we already did half of our goal for today and it has not been that bad. We are greeted with a bowl of water for everybody to wash our hands and faces which is very welcome because it is sunny out and although it has not been that bad yet, we are all sweating.

We don't expect much to come from the cooking tent, but are all extremely surprised when we get handed little saucers with guacamole, grated cheese and a Nacho. Wow! And this keeps going. We get extremely delicious soup, trout with vegetables and rice and a vegetarian option and in the end Andean Peppermint tea for our siesta. It is amazing what can be done with a portable kitchen!

We keep walking and soon get passed by the 22 porters with all our things. Each one of them carries up to 25kgs on his back, all the way up and down just like we walk. They carry tents, our things, food, cooking gear,... Only the water comes from the mountains and gets filtered and boiled for us whenever we stop somewhere.

We walk past amazing mountain scenes and a camera cannot in any way catch the atmosphere.

After lunch we start going uphill and it gets a little more strenuous, but with all the good food in my stomach, I feel fine.

The group gets divided in two, the runners and the slow ones. I am finding myself too slow for the runners, but too fast for the slow ones and so I am walking alone.

Arriving at the first campsite I am amazed. It is beatifully located and has a great view into the valley we just climbed. I get some hot water and a towel to wash myself and use it extensively, also to dunk my feet. :) The tents are set up, the duffle bags with our belongings are waiting.

Before Happy Hour everybody is standing around in a circle talking and we notice that most of us are wearing Llama socks and Flipflops. It looks very funny and will probably be the sight for the next couple of happy hours we will have.

Happy hour consists of tea/ Milo (hot chocolate) or coffee with cookies and popcorn. This is the appropriate way to end a day of hiking.

We go from Happy hour straight to an amazing dinner and from there straight to bed. Everybody is dead tired from getting up so early and at 8 everything is quiet, literally.

What a good first day considering my doubts in the morning!

Mixed Feelings

I am writing this post on the night before the Inca Trail, but it will not get published until after...

It is 8pm...

This morning we went to the office of our tour operator to pay and rent the rest of the things. They gave us a map and we see how exactly we will hike the next couple of days. So it looks like the first day will start ok-ish with 12km, the second day looks like a night mare of 4h steep uphill, 2h downhill, 2.5 up and 1.5 down, all in all 16km. The third day is ok with 9 km more or less down and the last day is anyway when we are at Machu Picchu in the morning after a 5km hike.

So we have our moment but convince each other, that it will be ok. We can easily do it.

At 5 we have the briefing and get to know our guides and the group. Both guides are young and the group is also relatively young. There is one older guy, but the rest looks like to be in their 20s and 30s. Now Ruben starts to explain and I feel like I am getting more and more dizzy when I hear him talk. At one point I almost need to get up and go outside to get some fresh air. I feel sick. I don't know how I am supposed to hike uphill 6h in one day being a person that doesn't hike ever. What was I thinking? Everybody looks very confident and so I try to catch my breath and calm myself down. It sounds like once we survived the second day, it is a piece of cake. I don't dare to ask what happens if you get sick and cannot go on and noone else seems to think about it.

We come out of the meeting and I am ready to faint. Maybe my body will get sick tonight already so I can't go? What about Arzu? Will she go alone then? Did I really go that far and now I am giving up? NO! I will do this! We got all the equipment, we are ready and we will do this.

Now I can pack my bags.

Oct 30 Cuzco, getting ready for the Inca Trail

I wake up from the smell of nailpolish. It is 7am and Lady Arzu is having a beauty salon in her bed, doing her nails. Really? Yes!

I fall asleep again and we don't leave the hostel until 10 to have coffee and breakfast at Jack's again. It is really nice there, good atmosphere and good coffee, although today I already know about Starbucks so I am fine. :)

Breakfast for me means either some eggs, toast with jam, muesli or Pancakes/ French Toast... Breakfast for Arzu means cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers and this morning it means Steak sandwich with fries and mint lemonade. 

After we laugh off the cultural differences we head to the Llamapath office to pay the rest of our trip. We also rent the sleeping bag for Arzu, walking sticks and more comfortable mattresses. Now all my cash which I collected in the ATMs all over Ecuador is gone... Maybe not the worst since ATMs here seem to work and once I am in the US I won't need all those dollars in cash.

We get a little pamphlet with the details of the trail and we are both a little more shocked than we want to admit. We will walk more than 1000m uphill, not in length, but in height!!! What were we thinking? We are not hikers and we think we can do this?

But none of us will admit this to the other one and so we follow our shopping list and get snacks, medicine, rain ponchos, coca candy, baby wipes, deodorant,...

For lunch we sit on a nice balcony, just for the two of us, overlooking a busy street and of course we are spending some time in Starbucks and some time shopping souvenirs and a new jacket for me since Delta apparently never found mine which I left on the plane. 

Then I decide I still want that bag from the one shop and we have to go back. He let's us pay in Euros and this way we easily change some more money. 

We are not hungry yet and so we go back to the hotel to pack our things into the duffle bags we got from Llamapath for the porters to carry.

And this is where the big mess starts. I decide to take this opportunity to pack everything plane ready, especially the souvenirs I didn't send home. So I unpack literally everything, dust off my backpack from the Bolivian desert and start all over.

Arzu is doing the same thing. By 10pm we are ready, have taken showers - the last ones for a couple of days - and turn off the light to try to sleep. I hear Arzu dozing off, but I am wide awake. This is bad. I need to sleep. So I am watching a show on my ipod to make me sleepy, but it doesn't work. I get more and more worried that starting a four day hike with no hiking experience at all might not have been the smartest idea. The later it gets and the more I watch Arzu sleep, the scarier this whole thought gets and I am working myself into a nice panic attack. All of a sudden I am sitting in bed, breathing heavily, heart pounding very fast. I cannot breathe anymore, I get dizzy and don't know what to do anymore. I have never experienced something like this. I try to think that these are only 45km I need to walk in 4 days, so it is really no big deal. Slowly I get calmer again and try to sleep. 11:50pm, 01:30am, 2:15am, I am still awake and the heart starts pounding fast again. I try to calm myself down by reading about people who thought they couldn't do the Inca Trail and find a blog by a girl who also thought she was not fit enough. But did she also not sleep the night before the first day? I am hungry and I feel weak. I have no energy to even get out of bed to go to the bathroom. This way I will never make it and I am thinking of ways on how to explain to everybody that I cannot join. I am wondering if Arzu will still go and I am hoping she will. She should't miss this experience because I am too weak to go.

At 3:30am the alarm clock goes off and Arzu wakes up. She sees me sitting in bed, breathing heavily and I tell her I can't go. I have a very strong feeling that I cannot come and I won't make it. She tells me to finish packing my things and at least come to the bus to talk to the guide. My heart is pounding fast and when I come out of the bathroom I have to sit, I cannot breathe and I really don't want to go.

I know from my nightly online research that the first two days you can be brought back by horse if you twist an ankle or can't do it anymore. With this knowledge and Arzu's motivational speech I am at least willing to come to the bus.