Inca Trail - Day 1

It was a rainy morning - I waited outside the Hostal at 5:30 in the morning for the bus to pick me up. I was closest to the office so I was the last one. As I got on I could see some very tired looking people. We drove to Ollantaytambo to grab some breakfast (another scenic drive, but I was sleeping, and it was still dark, and it was raining...did catch it on the way back)

the motley crew

After breakfast (I had 2) we got back on the bus and drove a little more to the "start" of the Inca Trail - technically it´s called km82 - it was still raining. Once there we organised our gear, the trail operators gave us our sleeping bags and mats. Then off we went. There were 13 of us in all (yes, I was the odd man out) and all of us were from one place, but living in another, and all but 4 of us had opted to carry our own gear.

- you do have the option to hire an extra porter to carry your gear for you as long as it doesn´t exceed 4 kgs -

There were 24 porters (runners they prefer to be called) to carry all of the stuff we would need - tents, tables, chairs, food, gas (wood fires are not allowed), etc. That´s a lot of people.

The first day is classified as "easy", meaning mostly flat - mostly because nothing is flat in these parts. We were moving from 2600 - 3100m above sea level. After an hour, my pack was already heavy - what was it going to be like for the next 3 days?! The rain subsided and we did get some sunshine - how quickly temperature changes, one minute you´re wet, cold and miserable, next you´re sweaty, hot and miserable. We had 12kms to do this day and there were some very steep "flat bits", but the scenery was beautiful - the mountains kept us all in line.

We did have lunch along the way that day, but quite frankly I can´t remember it at all. When we stopped that evening at our campsite we were all pretty wiped out - we had walked from about 9 to 4:30. Food never tasted so good and the hot soup that kicked off dinner was a huge success. During our after dinner tea, Juan, our guide, mentioned that this was the last opportunity to hire a porter....and that day 2 was going to be harder. Gulp. It rained through our dinner and then it rained all through the night. But I think that we were all so tired that we all slept like logs.