Difficult beginning

We are back from the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and I think it was one of the best things we have done so far, but it did not start easily:

We were supposed to have our first meeting with the group on the 5th, but on the same day we decided to finish visiting the sights in the Sacred Valley, so we went to Ollantaytambo first, which is very nice, but most people appearently don't leave the place around 1, when we planned to. The only way to get back to Cuzco was to take a common taxi with an Argentinian and a Peruvian guy, who wanted to visit three more things on the way. First we were not too happy, but finally we saw an amazing array of salt pools, and inca agriculutral lab, that looked like an alien landing pad and even a church. The only problem was that we almost missed our meeting, but our great driver got us to the location on time. Needless to say that the meeting started 15 minutes late.



At the meeting we had a first chance the meet the others:

• A girl and two guys from Miami, who were sponsored (?) by a fitness regime. (They said that if you don't throw up you don't train hard enough)
• Two mountain guides from Colorado, who live above 2000 m all year round
  
• A navy guy and his wife, who got 7. at the Athens Olympics (sailing but still!), their common hobby was triatlon
  
  - At this point we started to think that we made a serious mistake when signing up -
  
  
• 4 Australian guys, but only two were present at the meeting, becasue one of them broke his hand in a barfight the day before. (all four were participating in the walk)
• Finally a normal couple with the husband working on a research project in Irak

It was a great team i have to say.

At the meeting we were introduced to our guides Fredd and Dalmiro, got some details about the trail and were given matrasses and sleeping bags + the porter bag. The company is providing porters for the really heavy stuff like tents, food and cooking equipment, but if you want to have a light bag you can rent your own porter, for 60 USD / 9kg (not that the porters would carry only 9 kg - far from it). We rented one for two, which was a good decision, because only the sleeping bags were 3kg each.

The next day we were ready to take the bus at 6. To be continued...