Trekking the Inca Trail ... Vamos! Let's Bounce!

OK... the start of the Inca Trail! We (us 4) were pretty beat from the walk the day before ... ok maybe just us girls ... eitherway we woke up in the morning with a fresh start and couldn't wait to get started. Steve and Helen was hoping that their runs were done and needed to fill up on electrolytes. As we were out there getting our drinks and hats... we saw our van...with our duffle bags!!!! YAY! We saw many of the buses coming through and knew that the strike must be over. We piled in the van and went our way towards the start of the first checkpoint on the Inca Trail. Eva and I have been waiting for this day to come since planning so we were totally exicted!

We met our porters (there was about 21 porters) and transferred what we needed between our bags, got some bandanas, stretched...whatever we needed to do to get ready. The porters feverishly packed our duffles within a bigger duffles and next thing you know it they were off! We had to wait to get to the checkpoint and get our passports stamped ...crossed the bridge and begin the trek! It's so great that they get to stamp your passports so that you can always have something tangable to remember the great accomplishment (you get another stamp when your done).

The start for me was a bit challenging as I was still tired from yesterday and really ... I have no excuses ... I'm just really out of shape!!!! Everyone did well ... the Aussies were up there leading our pack and good on them..Scott too! These guys were pretty much out there in the front the whole trek all the way to Machu Picchu.

It was pretty much up for a while ... straight for a bit ...down...and up...and down and up and up...etc... you get the point... there were resting places and places where you can replenish your fluids and even go to the bathroom ... for us ... the porters always got their first and we would have snack (popcorn, crackers, tea) be off and then have lunch (and they were always good food!) and be off again til we get to the campsite for the night. This was the usual drill. Then later we would have snack again (same) and then dinner at 7pm. 

We have been lucky that the weather cooperated with us during the trek and we only had one really wet rainny day. The other times, it was occassional rain for a while though the first 2 nights we had heavy rain at our campsites.

This first campsite gave us a feeling of what we would expect. We picked out our tents and got ourselves ready for the night. We usually get to the campsite early afternoon around 2-3pm most days. Migel had a great idea to take pics of everyone in their tents so I followed suit. It's a great idea to chat with everyone and get to know everyone. I didn't get Margaret and Liam as I found out later that Margaret wasn't feeling so well after the day of hike was through. Steve and I got to talking with Aussies Shaun and Caleb and even had a little girl try to sell chocolates to us during our conversation. As for the bathrooms, the bathrooms wasn't so hot but you make due. We didn't use the bathroom til later that night just before we slept - we had a fun time going to the bathroom this night ... 

It was our first time using the bathroom ... there was a toilet at the top of these steps and just a bit closer was an outhouse (which was really out of the question to use cause it was totally gross but if you're a guy ... eh ... you can go go anywhere really and do it with ease...this of course if number one only ;) ) Anyways ... everyone was already in their tents to get ready for bed and an early wakeup call. It was heavily rainning by now. We were wearing our ponchos and thank god for that cause the ponchos kept us dry and hid us squatting). We were at the top where Migel and Tammy were going to the bathroom but in the dark ... imagined worse when we first saw the outhouse so we were laughing and debating to go to the bushes. I think we laughed so hard that everyone can hear us though wouldn't know the reason why. We were trying to pick our "spots" ... Eva went first as she wanted to go and get it over with and picked a spot... however she forgot where specifically cause the other spots we wanted were full of dog shit as we found so we all had to in a way go to the same area where Eva did it and she couldn't remember where specifically and we all didn't want to stand on her piss and on and on.... man I think Migel and tammy think we were all loco at this point! Darn Edmontonians! ... or maybe typical Edmontonians! It felt like forever really but we did what we had to do and hey at least we had a laugh doing it ... not so much Helen as I know she woke up very early in the morning with the runs still ... what a trooper!!!!

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