Fresh and ready to go!!!!
Day 261
Camping at Kilometer 82 Llactopacta, Cusco, Peru
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Machu Picchu Trek - a 43 km hike from Cusco to Machu Picchu. Built in stone by the Wari´s and extended and improved by the Inca´s in the Andean Mountain Range.
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Day 1 of Machu Picchu Trek on the INCA TRAIL - 8km´s
This morning we awoke in our hotel at Ollanyaytambo Lodge in the Sacred Valley, to the sounds of the girls next door busily showering and talking..the room, once again, was not sound proof. And we hadn´t slept very well, due to getting excited about the trek, and becoming accustomed to the altitide. Greg seems to sleep really deeply, and stops breathing, then suddenly seems to gasp for for the thin air! He then gulps, and repeats the deep breath holding exercise.
The girls used all the hot water (both rooms must have the plumbing connected!) so we, once again, got cold showers. Is this a Peruvian thing?
Last minute preparations were conducted...filling water bottles from the water provided by the Trekking company, stuffing all the trekking stuff into our duffle bags.
Mine incluided my sleeping sheet, spare shoes in case mine got wet (Greg only took one pair, the pair he was wearing!), raincoat, beenie, spare clothes, dillybag stuff, headtorch, my warm sleeping bag i decided to use instead of the trekking company´s.
They provided a warm jacket and a sleeping mat which saved us having to carry that as well.
We packed one lot of spare clothes to go into a joint duffle bag so we could have a fresh lot of clothes after not showering on the trek for four days (this was to go on the train to Machu Picchu whilst the porter were to carry the gear we needed for the trek).
We also needed to prepare our two backpacks to send back on the train to Cusco (to be collected when we arrived back there after the trek) and repack our two front packs that we were taking with us on our backs on the trek.
Seemed like a lot of organising actually...and as we´d gone out the night before to a restaurant that had a 3 piece (out of four) band..including a pan flute, guitar, drums and had a reasonably late night, we´d decided to leave all the re-packing for the morning! (By the way, the band was so good we bought their CD!)
My stomach was churning a little with nerves so i had a light breakfast. I wasn´t sure how i´d go on this first day with a full stomach as i´d started realising Greg and i were not quite as prepared as the others who were going on the trek.
As we were preparing over the last day...we´d learned that Jim and Carly had been in training for a 100km walk in Sydney and David and Nada has been ´in trek training´ and we´d learned from Barb and Trish that they were experienced trekkers, having walked the Milford Sound Trek and the Anapurna´s in Nepal.
Were we frightened?
YES.
Amy was at the breakfast table, Jose´s wife, and she brought her delightful daughter Sophia to meet us. She was from New York and was full of life. I could see how Jose would fall in love with this energetic and vibrant woman. She´d done so much for her local community, providing a library service for about 200 kids. I really connected with her and thought her and Jose made such a gorgeous couple.
I felt safe in Josés hands and after meeting her. She seemed to put me a bit more at ease.
Soon breakfast had finished, there a little time to go back to our rooms, do our last minute tooth brushing and deep breathing before we headed to the gate to get our boots walkingª!
We adorned ourselves with our little backpacks full of extra water, (about 2 - 3 litres just until lunchtime when we could do a re-fill!) our walking poles, and our water bottles in straps and did a last check of double secured shoe laces. Nada tied a tornaquet around her wrist. I later found out this was so she didn´t have to keep taking tissues out of her pocket to wipe her nose. Something i found was a great idea and something i wished i had known about as well. (We learnt a lot of tricks like that from these experienced trekkers by the end of the trek!).
Jose had our stash of ´Snacks´ which consisted of chocolates, peanuts and raisins, birdseed bars, dried fruits and brasil nuts wrappped in ziplock bags. Greg put his in his front pack to consume...i put mine in my duffle bag and that was when i met the porter of my bags. He´d claimed Greg´s and my duffle bags and we were hoping both of them didn´t go over 25kg. Each porter is only allowed, by regulation, to carry a maximum of 25kg.
The next thing we were all ushered into our little mini bus, all dressed appropriately in our travel pants with pockets holding tissues, money and lip balm and wearing our bottles in our ´cusco peru´ textile drinking holders and laden with our packs full of water and cocoa leaves for ourselves and the porters to chew on!
We, the ¨unprepared¨ had about 2 - 5 kg worth of stuff in our little packs....Others, ¨the prepared ¨ had about 5 - 8kg worth of stuff, including a water bladder, (David and Nada) a spare set of clothes, extra cocoa leaf lollies, extra altitude pills, this that and everything else......!
Jose had the medical kit and about 20kg worth of stuff in the bag he was carrying...
After weighing our bags i think i had the lightest at about 2.5kg! I wasn´t going to risk falling behind due to extra weight on my back!!!!
The takeoff point for us was Chilco. It was 9am.
The first 3.5km from Chilca station went smoothly, being a pretty even ground. We were all estabishling our `places´on the trek. We seemed to be second last of the 4 couples. And that suited us...we weren´t the leaders, nor the tale end charlie.
Arriving at the entrance to the Inca Trek, Km 78 near the bridge on the Urubamba River was the first realisation that THIS WAS IT. It was the passport check and the start of the trail.
We stopped for lunch at our first checkpoint, Camp Veronica earlier than we thought. 12 oclock. This was in a registered campsite that had a secure hut with kitchen facilities and a small toilet facility. It all looked very civilised. Lunch was fulfilling...soup and bread and chicken and vegetables. We soon realised food was not going to be an issue. There was a cook, and assistant cook and an assistant to the assistant! In all, we had 11 cooks and porters plus the guide. And eight of us doing the trek!
Along the way we passed donkey´s carrying logs and supplies, porters practically running along the path, heavily laden and wearing sandles, local mothers and their children, locals laden with really heavy goods for their families. It looked like the regular peruvian highway!!
At one stage we had a great outlook of one of the mountains and when we asked Jose what it was called he said it was the, ´JAMITA¨mountain. It stood for Just Another Mountain In The Andes!!
We saw old Ruins which were the Father of the Incas (ruins built by the Wari´s who were here long before the Inca´s).
We walked another 4.5km across relatively flat terrain to the Llactapata archaelogical complex.
We could see snow capped peaks and glaciers of Mt Veronica (in Quechua it´s called, ¨Huacayhuilca¨which is 5750m high.
We could see it from the road.
And we could see our camping site. A camping ground called Kilometre 82. The altitude was creeping. At this level it was already 2750 m.
The tents were being set up by the porters as we arrived. Our individual tents peaked out at us and beckoned us to join them...
And we did....after dinner we dropped to bed at 8.30pm..more from the exhaustion of getting prepared for the trek and the relief at knowing day one had passed without a hitch..and from the pure tiring altitude that was stealing our breaths away!
We learned over dinner..that stoic David had been throwing up all day from an upset stomach.........and had commenced a cronic case of the runs. The cooks knocked him up a brew of avocado concoction which consisted of avocado juice..which was made from toasting the seed, cutting it, boiling it..then drinking itª Oh yum.
Nada was suffering cronic headaches due to altidude sickness...
And Trish and Barbara were concerned about their knees which were feeling the pinch...
Dinner that night was chicken, corn, veges and a local caramel dessert.
Us in our tents on the first night!!!!!
We slept fitfully on Cusichaka River, in our tracksuits and warm alpaca hats and gloves.....the night was cold!
So far, Greg and I, had endured day one..without feeling too much strain.
But it was ONLY DAY ONE!ª
