8. Inca Trail — Machu Picchu to the left series

I went in to pay for the balance of my Inca Trail two days before the trekking. The agency office was slightly out of the Cusco city center. It took me around 20 minutes walking over. Once I was out of the most touristic part of the city (which was also pedestrian-only area), the streets got much busier with traffic. The cobblestone roads were usually single lane, so it could be very jammed at certain hours.

When I arrived, there were already a group of people being briefed by a guy wearing the red jacket of Llama Path. I had a quick glimpse and my heart sank. Those people looked very un-hiker. I didn’t want to team up with a bunch of slow people for four days! Also my experience was that slow people complained a lot. Another guy working there greeted me and led me to sit on the other side of the room.

He turned to the screen of the computer, “Ok. So the other people in your group have already paid the balance. And this time for this trekking it is a very small group. Only five people, including you.”

“Great, I’m not teaming up with those people.” I was thinking to myself.

I was then briefed of the itinerary and signed the waiver and other documents.

“Do you want to have a single tent or a shared one with another? You need to pay for extra if you want to have your own tent.” The guy asked me in the end.

When I signed, the other four signatures from my group were above mine. I remembered the first two names were of same hand-writing and another two were of the same. They should be a boyfriend-girlfriend duo and two girlfriends or a lesbian couple combo. “If the other people in my group share the tents and I’m left alone, do I need to pay extra for a single tent?” I asked.

“In that case, no. Let me check”, the guy turned back to the screen, “You are lucky. You can have your own tent without paying extra.”

Perfect. I didn’t think there would be a lot of people travelling this far to do a four-day trekking by themselves. But it worked for me.

On the day to set off, I got up early. I packed my backpack and the duffle bag. The duffle bag would be carried by porters and it will arrive at the camp each day before me. In Viv’s word, this trip will be a “glamping”. Your camps will be set up ready when you arrive; each meal will include starters, 5-6 main dishes, dessert and drinks and the menu will change every time during the 4 days; what’s more, you will be served hot water to wash your face while you were camping in the middle of nowhere! I didn’t feel particularly excited. Part of me thought Viv was exaggerating. She was always a giggle person when she described something to you. I had a similar hiking-camping experience in Lombok of Indonesia four years ago. The experience was amazing. We hiked to the second highest active volcano of Indonesia in three days. I can never forget the exotic views along the trail. But I also can’t forget the horrible conditions those porters were of. On the first day it started pouring after lunch. Those poor porters were only with normal shorts and t-shirts. After 4 hours hike in the rain, everyone was freezing. Back then I didn’t hike with water proof gear and didn’t expect it could rain. When I made to the camp ground, three of my fingers were already numb. Yet the camps were not ready as some of porters were shivering so badly to help set up the camp. Me and a bunch of other hikers who arrived earlier had to wait under the shack for another 30 or 40 minutes. None of us complained. How can we complain to those poor porters who themselves were suffering too? But we did feel extremely angry towards the tour operator. We thought he was like a greedy vampire, sucking blood from every breathing creature. He charged western prices from hikers, paid each porter an unbelievable US$ 1 for the whole trip and didn’t even provide proper equipment to those porters. After I came back from the trip, I posted an angry review on TripAdvisor recommending people avoiding this graceless tour operator. This memory was absolutely nothing to do with “glamping”. I just hoped this time could be less guilty.

I arrived at the boarding place as instructed from the email. It was a small plaza hidden behind the main plaza. I quickly spotted two girls with red duffle bags. I came up and said hi. Turned out they were two of my teammates for this trail, Anna and Sandy. They were two friends from Colorado. One was a surgeon and one was a nurse. Then we met another two teammates, Matt and Rebecca, a newly wed. They will move to New York from San Francisco. Matt was an IT guy and Rebecca just finished her social works study from Berkeley. Finally, it’s our guide Russell. He got the typical Indigenous features, not tall but looked very sturdy.

Now we were on our way to this trip of life.