Wake up call was at 5am, breakfast by 5:30 and on the road by 6am. We had a 1.5 hour bus ride to Ollantaytambo, 30 minutes in the main square, then another 40 minutes to Piskacucho (also known as Kilometre 82 on the railway line) where the trail proper starts.
Our guide's name is 300, since he has a somewhat Spartan beard. We also have an assistant guide (Eliasar), 18 porters and a chef - not exactly roughing it.
We got our names checked off at the checkpoint, got the stamp in the passport and we were away. The entire trek will take about 3.5 days - the 2nd is supposed to be the hardest with a vertical climb of just over 1000m for the day, with a maximum altitude of 4200m.
The 4th day is only small, but we start walking at 4am to catch the sunrise at Macchu Picchu.
The record set by a porter to do the entire trail was 3 hours and 45 minutes! After seeing the porters in action, I can see why - these guys fairly sprint past on their way up the track, and they're all carrying around 25kgs.
The porters leave after us, pass us on the way, setup tables and tents for lunch, applaud us when we arrive for lunch (!), wait for us to finish lunch and leave, the pack everything up, pass us on the trail again, setup the full camp, applaud us again when we arrive, and then start cooking. It's a mammoth job, and really quite humbling to see in action.
In terms of the actual trail for the first day, there was nothing particularly challenging, but enough to keep people on their toes.
The scenery has been pretty amazing - since the trail starts in the sacred valley, it tends to follow the river for the first stage (across the other side is the railway line). Behind is a snow-capped mountain, and ahead the valley is a lot greener than any other countryside we've been through so far.
This particular section is National Park, but it's shared with the local communities who still farm in here. The path is not actually part of the original Inca Trail (that starts on day 2), but a track that the communities use to commute to the town below.
We stopped off to look at an Inca town built into a mountain in the valley below, which still looked incredibly preserved.
After another 1.5 hrs or so, we caught up with the porters who had prepared lunch - ham and potato soup, beef stew and rockmelon for dessert.
After lunch, the track started to veer away from the main valley, and into a smaller one - again, no huge inclines, but still a steady gain in altitude. The surrounding fauna definitely became more lush as we climbed. Towards the top, we stopped off at a local hut, and 300 gave us a taste of some corn beer - the best way I could describe it would be cream corn soup that has been left out for a while, with some beer mixed in. Definitely an acquired taste.
We reached our campsite for the night about 10 minutes later, where again everything was already set up. We then had a proper meet and greet with our entire party - the oldest porter with us is 57 years old! They are all extremely friendly and eager to please.
A local farmer arrived on the scene about 10 minutes later with a bucket of water, coke and beers, which we were all quite happy to relieve him of. 300 then announced it was happy hour - when we went to the dining tent, there were platters of fresh popcorn and hot chocolates for everyone.
After a bit of general relaxation, we were called back in for dinner - celery soup, grilled trout, hot corn syrup jelly and tea to finish. The food so far has been completely amazing, especially considering what the chef has to work with.
It's now 8:30, and pretty much everyone has gone to bed - the porters will be waking us at 6:15 tomorrow morning with a hot cup of tea, and then we start the hardest day of all - conquering Dead Woman's Pass. 300 seems to think we can get it all by 2pm tomorrow afternoon - I suppose time will tell.
By jove, might have to look into a couple of these porter chappies, doncha know! Mother would be ever so grateful.