4 months ago i bought my permit to hike el camino inka ("the inca trail"), and it was hard to believe that it was finally happening for real. on monday july 23 i began my journey along this famous trail to the lost inca city of Machu Picchu. at the "orientation" the night before, i was under the impression that i would be picked up at my hostel at 5:20 am in the bus that would take us to the beginning of the trail. well, what really happened was 2 peruvian men ended up walking me across downtown Cusco to find the bus near the Plaza de Armas. and so my hike had already begun.
once on the bus i somehow was wide awake and trying to remember everyone´s names - Megan, Jessie, Mark, Xavier, Andrew, and Teresa from American University in Washington DC who had all also been studying in Santiago de Chile; LeAnn who just graduated from UC San Diego; and Ramin, the 47 year old gay dentist from Chicago
the travel agency with which i booked my trek is called SAS Travel. i have no idea what SAS actually stands for, but overall they are a very reputable company. they were one of the most expensive companies to choose from and it was definitely worth every dollar. we all had personal "chasquis" (meaning "trail runner", and a much more respectable word than "porter" which most companies use), who carried all of our things - clothes, tents, food, etc. and always made it to camp way before everybody else. this was extremely impressive because i was struggling only carrying my daypack. our chef also cooked gigantic meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. they were all delicious but i had to limit my food intake so i wouldn´t hike too slow
we had two guides that hiked with us, Saul (the main guide) and Reynaldo
my first impression of Saul was that he was pretty funny, sorta cute, spoke good english, and very badass considering he did an inca trail MARATHON which he completed in 5 HOURS. this same path our group would take 4 entire days to complete.
my first impression of Reynaldo was that he was shy and quiet.
both of my first impressions drastically changed throughout the course of the trek, stay tuned for the juicy details.
highlights of day one:
- hiking through the Andes and passing through rural peruvian villages
- llamas and cows and donkeys and mules and horses
- little girl on a pink tricycle flying down the trail and yelling "weeeeeeeeeeee!", and then climbing back up the hill again while we all preceded to curse her if she beat us up the hill. she was like 3 years old.
- learning about some of the inca kings
- learning the various meanings of the valle sagrado ("sacred valley") -- very suitable for agriculture, located in the "Cuzco" region which means "center of the world" because it was the first city closest to the equator, and the glacier water sustains life
- beautiful stars, the milky way, and some amazing new constalations including the LLAMA!
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