Inca Trail Day 1. The Inca Gods must think I have a fat ass....

We loaded into the bus to take us to km 1 of the 46 km, 3.5 day hike. Of course, this being a Kim travel adventure, things went wrong... we got a flat tire and had to get out and hike BEFORE we even started the hike. Sweet merciful crap.... it was already hot and I wanted to hitchhike. The locals in the town we had to haul ass through were laughing hysterically because they normally only see the tour buses (in working condition) fly by... like i need a warm up walk before the trek! Eventually, about 30 minutes down the road, our bus came flying by and picked us up.

We arrived a the official first check point, got some snacks and a banana from our guide, and the porters took off running with the rest of our stuff (we have 11 porters, 2 cooks, and 2 guides for 11 of us tourists!) and off we went. It was a beautiful sunny day, and as we hiked we thought... `this isn´t so bad...`. The first day was hot and had a few hills, but since we all work in various office settings we clearly assumed that somehow we were magically prepared for the challenge ahead. We arrived at our first stop for lunch.... the porters had got there hours earlier and set up a table and cooked a 3 course meal for us! We continued to hike (6 hours total today), passed through more ruins, and then got to our first campsite (again set up by the porters hours earlier than we arrived... they basically RUN with 25kg of stuff each!). In celebration of completing our first day , we had some beers (sold by a local woman... she had to go back down the hill 3 times to get us more beers... I think we put her kids through school that night!) and played cards. All the girls stopped drinking any and all liquids when we saw the state of the `bathroom`(term used very liberally..). It was a weird shack that had a indescribable smell and had bugs crawling everywhere! We dressed in our long johns and got into our tents, ready for the famous `day 2`of the trail tomorrow.