What a wonderful experience!

day one we left early in the morning, a bus came to pick us up at 5 am . I was ready! A little plastic bag contained my reserve cloths and my sleeping bag, it was to be carried by a porter, I had paid for that. My own little back pack only contained water, a light snack, a rain poncho, and a warm sweater. We were all a little sleepy in the bus, 2 hours to drive, a stop for a light breakfast, and finally we reached "kilometre 82' where our trail starts. 

There, time to organise. The porters were there already and I saw their huge backpacks that they were filling, trying to organise the loads so that each would not have more than 20 kg on his back. The portable scale was going from hands to hands. I thought, these bags are heavier than that! Our group, five german handsome young men, 25-27 years old, all friends, and five lovely looking young women, same age, two from the USA, two from The Netherlands, and a German. Thee were "the young". There were two Argentinians, 30-35, a German of 40, a Brasilian man 65 who walked really fast, and me . The 15 of us, with Wilbert the guide (is that a Peruvian first name?) and Torivio his assistent, the cook and I don't know how many porters. Finally we were ready to go, it had started to rain, and I thought, am I really doing this?

Day one, easy. Wilbert our guide called it "Inca flat";-) It was not flat at all but it was ok, we had many stops, in fact he was evaluating the group, seeing if we were ok for day two! On the way, we saw ruins, and Wilbert told us all about it. Sometimes it had just started to rain, and I admit we would have preferred to walk than to stand there shivering and not really hearing what he said because of the wind ;-) but we had also dry even sunny stops! 

I quickly became "the last to arrive", I did not want to force, so I listened to my heart and if it went too fast I just went slower. I was much slowlier that the others, but Wilbert assured me I was stil well in time, so I did not have to worry! 

Around noon I reach the lunch camp . Amazing! Two tents, one a kitchen, one a dining tent, table ready. Salad, soup, full main dish with lots of vegetables, rice, meat and an extra, empanadas, and coca tea to end. How do they do that! we ate deliciously, and then, took our back packs and started to walk again, while behind us the camp was broken up, loaded and mid way we were taken over by the running porters. We enjoyed the walk, had some rain again, but by the time we reached the camp the rain had stopped, the two big tents were standing, as well as all our little 2 persons tents! Tea time with biscuits and an hour later, a full delicious meal! By 8 pm we were done, hop in the tents and sleep like a baby! we knew we were to be waken up the next day at 5 am!

Nice day, nice group, and I felt a little more comfortable. I can do this ;-)