9th September - Inca Trail

I could hear Chris stirring on the far side of the room but was refusing to be awake until the alarm went off. Showing a complete lack of consideration he turned the overhead lights on. I said nothing, because I was still asleep.

"What time have we to be at the office?"
"5"
"My watch says it's 5:30"

There followed a number of expletives as the time was confirmed. No-one is quite sure what happened, but my gut feeling is that I forgot to turn the alarm on when I had set it the night before. After waking the other room, we quickly packed the last few bits and bobs (not including the alarm clock, which was put in the bin) and then Chris and I raced down to the SAS office.

We bundled in completely out of breath and with a feeling of complete and utter dread. Carlos was in the office again and reassured us that all was not lost. He set about organizing a bus to take us to Km82 and getting the tickets arranged. It took about 2 hours of waiting, but eventually everything was sorted and we began to chase after the rest of the group.

We had only just got outside of Cusco when we were pulled over by the police. We were worried that we had been stopped for speeding or wreckless driving (although by Peruvian standards we weren't really particularly guilty of either), but it later transpired that it was a stop to see who was on board the bus.

Shortly afterwards, we were all back on board and hurtling on towards Km82. We made it as far as the village where the others had had their breakfast before we hit our next problem. The road to Km82 was closed each day between 7am and 12:30pm for roadworks. We were given the option of waiting for the road to reopen and then taking the bus, or walking to the other side of the roadworks and getting a bus there. We decided to press ahead and walk.

Aldo carried the girls' rucksack and we all marched through the roadworks at a fast pace. After walking for about an hour, we found a house with a bus and Aldo organized it to take us to Km82. It was a rough and bouncy ride along the single track road, crossing the railway every now and again as we wended our way alongside the river.

Aldo pointed out the bus that the others had arrived on up ahead in the carpark, but, before we reached it the road was yet again blocked by a truck unloading fertilizer into a field. We had to wait about 5 minutes until they had finished before we continued up into the carpark.

For some reason, we had all assumed that we would be playing catch-up with the rest of the group during the rest of day one. It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to arrive and find 10 group members, 2 guides and countless porters sat in the carpark waiting for our arrival. Knowing that they had probably been there for quite some time and guessing that, as we were responsible we wouldn't be flavour of the month with them, the group decided to send me off the bus first to see what kind of mauling I would receive before they would attempt to disembark. Indeed, there was a certain tension in the air - one person claiming that they had been waiting 6 hours (actually, it was 3, but either way, it was still a long time). There were few cheery 'Hellos' and so we busied ourselves getting our sleeping mats tied onto our rucksacks and stowing the snack bags we had been given.

We headed down to the river and arrived at the control point into the Inca trail at Km82. Each person was given their ticket and had to sign in. While we were waiting I got talking to Australian Rebecca and American Leslie. Once Lyndsey and I had signed in, we wandered over the rickety bridge together (Lyndsey not being a fan of the old string and rotten wood construction). We waited for quite a while on the other side and later discovered that this was because there were two tickets made out in my name. Zoe didn't have a ticket of her own and so ended up trying to pretend that she was Mrs D Gowdy.

We headed up the hill into the forest and walked for about an hour until we arrived at a small village. Lyndsey spotted a couple of pigs and, thinking of the great photo opportunity, began to make arrangements for a photo. Unfortunately, the bigger of the two pigs spotted the snack pack hanging from Lyndsey'd wrist and, mistaking it as an opportunity to get more food, went in for the kill. There then followed the interesting spectacle of Lyndsey being chased around the village by a big pig and his little pig accomplice. A great ice breaker with the rest of the group. Eventually, tiring of this game, the pigs moved on to attack James's rucksack in the unending search for food. Such fun!

We walked for another 15 minutes to the lunch site. Two tents had been erected in the base of a little valley for us. We dropped the rucksacks on the tarpaulin and then all sat down in the dining room tent (18 camp seats and a table with a tablecloth, no less). We were served soup, a main course and a desert! Sadly, Rebecca wasn't feeling too good and so she decided to lie under the table instead (perhaps a normal custom in Australia, I don't know!).

Once lunch was finished we continued on up the hill. Unfortunately, the rain came on and we all ended up quite wet. We saw the first set of Inca ruins, Willkaraqay - a terraced village at the junction of the Rio Kusichaca and the Rio Urubamba. It wasn't that much further up to the campsite at Wayllabamba, but the constant rain made spirits a little low. Everything was already set up when we arrived at the campsite and so we selected 3 tents side-by-side and began to unpack our things. Unfortunately, with the exception of a 4cm2 patch in the middle, my sleeping mat was soaked. James's sleeping bag was similarly sopping wet. Luckily, Augusto spotted the problem and promptly had the offending articles removed to the kitchen tent, were they were dried by the porters and returned in pristine condition later that evening.

We had another fabulous 3 course dinner and then returned to our tents. The girls joined James and I in our tent in an attempt to get warmed up (all above board and Presbyterian). My -17'C rated sleeping bag proved a real boon and was soon unzipped and spread across the tent, with everyone trying to suck out as much heat as possible from it!