Onward and Slightly Upward

The night before we started the Inca Trail all three of us slept terrible. The room was hot, and at one point I woke up from a dream where I had woken up at 8 am with the sun streaming through the window and our bus long gone. It was actually only 1:30 and we will had three hours until we needed to get up. Finally 4:40 came, we got up, ate, and waited in the still dim streets for our bus. As the bus began the ascent out of Cusco, Jim and Lauren became more and more excited and the volume of their voices rose.

About half-way through our bus ride we stopped for a snack alongside the road. The bathrooms were closed, so we took turns standing guard and running around the building to answer natures' call.

Finally we rolled up to Km 82: the start of the Inca Trail. After standing in line to check-in and standing under signs for photos, we finally crossed the river and began!

The first half of Day 1 was easy because the trail was only 'undulating' (as our guide said), yet hard because it was only the first day and Jim kept stopping people to take more photos (it wasn't until Day 3 that I finally took the camera away from him). We all became super excited during lunch as we ate the hot soup, beef with fries (lomo saltado), and cooked vegetables. This first meal was just a sampling of the wonderful ones to come! After a quick afternoon nap we continued on our way. Towards evening the trail pointed steadily up, so we stopped for frequent breaks on the stone stairs (yes! built by none other than the Incas themselves!) Eventually we stumbled into our camp as the sun started to dip behind the mountains. Much to our pleasure, cookies and popcorn with tea or hot chocolate greeted us in the food tent. Our sleeping tent opened out on the mountain range; we could see the ice glaciers on top of the higher mountains from the door.

That evening in the eating tent we shared stories of one of the favorite places we had visited. People named places from Hawaii, Argentina, Africa, and Asia.