Inca Trail -- Day One

I woke up a tad nervous but ready for my four-day hike to Machu Picchu. Kim woke up with a nearly unbearable altitude headache. She did her best to shake it off, but it became clear that medicine was going to be needed. Luckily, Ozzie --our awesome tour guide, carries liquid magic in his bag that Kim was advised to huff. Immediately she felt better. They wouldn't tell her what was it in, but I snooped around and found the main ingredient was alcohol. Who knew you could snort alcohol? I could have saved a ton of money on cups in high school.

Here is our starting photograph.

Mount Veronica loomed in the background.

We followed this river for a good half of the morning. It was beautiful.

About three hours into our hike, Craig's hiking boots fell apart. The soles totally pulled away from the shoe. He had to hike the rest of the five hours that day in his sandals. The Peruvian porters were able to stick the sole back on and it held for the rest of the trip. They have mad skills and can fix anything.

No matter where I go in the world -- including the middle of nowhere Peru -- I will stumble across a group of over-excited Japanese tourists. The picture above is where they found me. I heard them snapping photos and yelling 'HI" a good quarter-mile away.

This is what our unpolitically correct tour guide Rosa told us: I am so happy I am not leading that group. They would want to stop every two minutes to take a pictures. We always have to hike so slow with them because they only go single file. I would have to spend most of my time practicing English grammar and explaining words. Also, it takes about 30 minutes for them to put on Geisha makeup.

They followed us for about four hours. Every time they would come across something cool we would hear them scream "ooohhh" and "aaahhh" in the distance. Crack me up.

Shots along the path.

While everyone was oogling the fruit trees I happened to look down and spotted this tarantula. I do not like spiders. This one looked dead but I didn't get close enough to double check. This was especially disturbing when later that night we discovered out tent didn't zip up and anything could crawl in and kick it with us while we slept.

I'm sure you're wondering why I took so many photos of animals near the end of the day. I'll be blunt: I had severe tummy troubles that required me to spend a lot of time in the bushes with the wildlife. Food wasn't going in and anything that did came right back out.

I did manage to get some energy chewing on cocoa leaves. They basically make your face numb and give you crazy energy. They were super disgusting and I couldn't stand the way they made me feel or how they tasted. I found out later that after chewing them you can test positive for cocaine up to a week later. YIKES. I had no idea. They put them in everything in Peru so I didn't realize they were a big deal.

We finished out the night with a grand game of soccer -- porters versus trekkers. I cheered everyone on from my tent. I have no idea where they found the energy.