Thu 5 April – Ollantaytambo to Inca Trail, 1st day

The first day of the trek… Kicking off with a 7:20am bus to a rundown soccer field at km 81, where we handed our red bags over to the Porters for them to carry for the remaining 46 km, highly likely for a pittance. Usually the bus would take us to km 82, however with roadworks required, we were made to walk an extra km.

Km 81 was at an approximate elevation of 2.7km – over the next 48 hours, we would climb to a maximum of 4.2km

We eventually walked onto the trail at 9:50am, after a few delays involving our tickets for the trek. The first session was pretty solid, finishing at 1. In cricketing parlance, I would have said I had reached 1/80 at lunch on the first day – a good solid start, although we had been made truly aware of how difficult the entire trek would be.

Also in cricketing parlance, the runs that had been freely flowing for the past couple of days had dried up in a manner Pidgeon (G. McGrath) would have been proud of.

After taking an hour for lunch, the rain immediately set in for about half an hour, making certain sections of the largely uphill path quite treacherous. The afternoon session lasted until 5:15, when we reached our overnight camp (14km hiked; elevation 3.3km – the highest so far), about 1km short of our intended site of Yuncachimpa. The rain, which had ceased for most of the afternoon, developed into a continuous shower quicker than you could say, ‘gee, it’s going to piss down’.

Despite the fact that we were out in the wild, the feeds on this trek would be big and quite good, and day 1 was no exception. Our group of a dozen were supported by 18 porters and 1 chef, thus we were well and truly looked after.

In to bed at 9 for what would be a nights sleep as uncomfortable as sandpaper undies; the thin mattress failed to hide most undulations in the earth below, and it wasn´t until day 2 that we were told of the idea to fold it over to double the cushion for everything above the waist.

As well as the lack of sleep, there is a distinct lack of quality about the toilets on the trek. Generally, one either went out into the bush, or if they ventured into the official ‘toilets’, squatted over a hole in the ground, holding yourself erect via the walls. Toilet paper was also non-existent, and not to be flushed down the pipe; this was what the bin in the cubicle was for. We had been advised of such conditions; but it still didn’t stop the shock of such conditions.