The Alpaca Expeditions van arrives promptly at 5am to pick up Kyle, Justin & Corey (herein known as “the hikers”) with me only having gotten 1-2 hours sleep.  We settle in for a two hour drive towards the Inca Trail entrance. I know that I desperately needs sleep but I’m wide awake and way too nervous to go back to sleep as I stare out the window and wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself into. 

We arrive at a place called the “Porter’s House” for breakfast and to collect the gear and porters for the trip.  It’s not named after the steak but for the housing unit for the team of porters who will carry 25 kg (50+ lbs) on their back up the mountain.  If you are wondering how much weight that is, try to pick up a 50lb dumbbell the next time you’re at the gym.  It’s freaking heavy.  I’m feeling sorry for these guys already. 

I’ve signed us up for a group hike but the group consists of only us three and one other person. When I learned there was only one other solo hiker who was from Russia with us, that didn’t help my anxiety any. “Anyone who flies from Russia to Peru by themselves to hike the Inca trail has to be a hard core hiker,” Kyle points out to Leanne the night before. 

Breakfast is awkward as Kyle is too nervous to make small talk and the Russian doesn’t say a word. At the end of breakfast, the Russian excuses himself, ducks outside and lights up a home-made cigarette.  Ok, maybe this guy is not such a hard core hiker after all Kyle observes with a degree of relief.   

We pile back in the van and arrive at the entrance to Inca Trail in a short 45 minutes. As soon as we get out, the Yuri the Russian is lighting up another of his cigarettes. At this point, Kyle’s anxiety is inversely proportional to the number of cigarettes Yuri smokes. Maybe, just maybe, Yuri is might actually going to be slower than me?  One can only hope. 

As we are waiting, Robinzon approaches Kyle and asks for our passports. Simply put, “oh shit.” The Alpaca Expedition office checked our passports and made copies.  I assumed this was sufficient and they never said to bring the actual passports.  I am obsessively careful about the passports as losing one can submarine the trip and there was no way I was going to risk losing them on the Inca Trail.  Besides, we’re hiking not taking an international flight, why do they need our passports?

But no worries, I’ve got it handled.  I tell Robinzon that I have electronic copies and he says that will work. I pull up Dropbox and try to open then the passport pdfs but there is no cellular or wifi and Dropbox informs me that the passports haven’t been synched for offline viewing. The all too familiar Peru sweat over my eyebrows has made a return appearance. Robinzon is trying to reassure me all with be all right when I get a flash of brilliance.  When maybe brilliance is too strong a word but I go to photos on my iPhone and search for passport. When applying for our Egypt visas at Christmas, I had to take new photos of our passports.  Sure enough, my search pops up pictures of all our passports. Crisis averted although I can’t help but wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off getting rejected from the trail and joining Leanne on her train ride to Machu Picchu.  

As we clear the Inca Trail version of customs, Robinzon shows us displays in the visitor’s center indicating what we might see on the trail including mountain lions, grizzly bears and rattlesnakes and I’m thinking it’s a good thing the girls didn’t sign up for this madness. 

We start the trail with gorgeous views and Robinzon tells us this is the easy day and we will all be good. So far so good as the initial trek is a wide, flat path and I’m thinking I could do this all day long.

Robinzon stops to show us the various flora and fauna on the trail.  First is an aguave plant from, which he breaks the tip and pulls a thread out showing us how to make a needle and thread if necessary on the trail.  Next, he takes some leaves that we suck on that taste like liquorish and are used to  make liquor Absinthe.  

After that, our trusty guide scrapes a white chalky substance that is a parasite off a cactus into his hand.  He smooshes it with his finger and the white explodes into a blood red pool of liquid.  “Who wants to be an Inca warrior?” Robinson exclaims. The Russian immediately declines and moves safely down the path out of harm’s way. Justin politely declines but Corey steps up and gets two blood stripes on his forehead and cheeks. He turns to Kyle who says, “when in Peru do as the Peruvians do” and gets his stripes. 

Next, Robinzon takes waykato leaves and says that if we are going to eat guinea pig in Cusco, we need to make sure to ask for these leaves as flavoring. Not sure if we’ll brave GP for dinner but good advice.

Next, he shows us a hanging plant that he tells us that if you smell this, it is a drug that renders you senseless and semi-conscious for 24 hours. It is the drug of last resort for those going down in flames on dead woman’s pass tomorrow. Robinson tells us how thieves use the plant in Colombia to approach you as if selling flowers and then blow the drug from the flower on you rendering you dazed and confused and then they rob you for everything you have. Geez Colombia is now the country Kyle is officially the most scared of. 

Next, we stop at a stand that a local Quetchuan woman is selling various items. Robinzon tells us that cocoa leaves are an absolute necessity for making it through Dead Woman’s Pass. Cocoa leaves are the raw ingredient that ultimately produces cocaine.  Peru and Bolivia are the only two countries in the world where it is legal to own, carry and chew the cocoa leaves. 

I’m torn between walking the straight and narrow path and heeding the guides advice that these leaves will be critical to surviving the trek. Robinzon asks if I’m going to be drug test back in the states as the cocoa leaves can be a problem. “Nope, dude, I won’t be back in the states for five months and I’m retired,” I responds. 

The woman actually has a bag of white powder that I can only imagine is a more processed form of cocaine closer to the street drug.  Robinzon tells me, “this woman has everything you could possibly need to make it to Machu Picchu.” As much as I am scared to death of the rest of the hike, I can’t bring myself to buy a bag of cocaine in front on Justin and Corey.  “I have to draw the line somewhere,” I tell myself as I buy two bags of cocoa leaves but decline the white powder. 

We arrive at the first Inca site. I welcome the break as our guide educates us on the history of the Incas and this site in particular. I make sure to ask a lot of questions to extend the break.

Everything is going ok until we hit a hill.  A steep hill. There is such a huge difference between hiking on flat ground and a steep incline. “Oh crap, I thought this was supposed to be the flat easy day,” I’m thinking to myself as I start huffing, puffing and wheezing. 

We reach a second Inca site and Robinzon says, “I’m going to look for a black widow spider for you, I’ll be right back.” Hmmm, I am thinking that maybe our guide has spent too much time at too high altitudes.  After a few minutes, he returns with his hand closed in a fist and wants to know who wants to hold the black widow. The three of us quickly decline while the Yuri the Russian steps forward and says I will. Ok, wait, this dude ran away from red plant paint but he’s going to brave a black widow.  Robinzon places his hand over Yuri’s, let’s go and steps back as a harmless stick bug is staring at us from his hand. Ok, two things I’ve learned: one, Robinzon has a sense of humor and two, Yuri is totally wise to Robinzon’s tricks for better or worse. 

Next, we hike over to a walled site overlooking the valley below.  We sit on the grass and Robinzon begins firing questions at us.  “What is the difference between alpacas, llamas, guanacos1 and viscanos?” “How did the Inca’s conquer the pre-Inca people?” “How did the Spaniards conquer the Inca’s?” We’ve had a lot of guides on our journey and most are good but then drone on and on with their prepared speeches.  I must admit, it’s refreshing having a guide who is not afraid to barrage you with questions, quiz you on info he’s already mentioned and harass you if you don’t remember what he told you. I’m giving Robinzon a double thumbs up and it’s only the first day.

We arrive at lunch and the porters have already well beat us there and set up camp.  We settle down for lunch and the boys look at a bowl of red sauce and white chunks and ask what that is.  Robinzon says with a straight face, “it’s condor meat, we in Peru eat it as a delicacy.” To the boy’s credit, they help themselves to the condor without question. “Wait, isn’t the condor a protected species?” I ask Robinzon.  He bursts out laughing and shrieks “got you!” Ok, this is definitely the guide with the best sense of humor so far on our trip.

Lunch ends and so does the fun.  We begin a steep ascent up.  I’m am feeling the pain as I look up at this straight up ascent. “It’s just a gentle upward slope,” Robinzon tells me.  To me, that’s very far from a gentle slope so I’m not sure if Robinzon is blowing smoke up my ass or he really thinks this is an easy upward slope.  The latter scares the hell out of me more than the former. 

This is where things get bad. To me, it’s straight up and seems never ending. I’m breathing so hard & loud that a different group of hikers stops and looks back to make sure I’m not having a heart attack.  Comrade Yuri who has already smoked a pack of cigarettes and not taken any altitude medication me Kyle a look of sympathy that says “I’m glad I’m not you dude” and turns and continues to zip up the hill. I’m guessing he’s about 25 years old but how the hell is he doing this?

We arrive at a trail map board which shows we are here. In terms of the map, it looks like we’ve barely ascended from the bottom and even worse, it shows tomorrow’s ascent up Dead Woman’s Pass as a line almost straight up.  This is the point at which it becomes abundantly clear to me that I have no business being on this mountain.  Almost 50 years old with no training at altitude is not getting me up the ascent I’m staring at on the board.

We continue on and hit another uphill terrain. I throw in the towel and stuff a bunch of cocoa leaves in my mouth. There’s a bit of psychology here as I desperately want it to be the panacea that gets me through this but I can’t really tell if it’s making a difference. I convince myself that it has made a difference, but weather that’s true or not, after another hour or so of uphill, the pain is back in full effect. 

I’m breathing as if I’m suffocating, moving in slow motion and my head is spinning. Black lines have formed around the edges of my vision. The rock formation ahead transforms into a couch and I ask the Robinzon if I can rest on the couch and watch a little TV. In response, he busts out the device that measures oxygen levels. I’m at 89 which Robinzon says it’s normal and all good.  Except it’s not. In Tibet, I’d researched all about oxygen levels and altitude sickness. Normal is considered 95 to 100 anything below 90 is considered low blood oxygen known as hypoxemia.

Robinzon tells me I need to be in the 60s before he’d be worried. I respond, “dude, at that level, I’ll be in anaplastic shock. Trust me, just like Tyrion Lannister, I drink and  I know shit.” I can tell by his confused look that he doesn’t watch Game of Thrones.  No matter, with that clarified, I stumble off in search of my couch leaving poor Robinzon shaking his head wondering what the hell I’m talking about.

Robinzon starts calling for more frequent rest breaks for me. I think this is the point when more confusion sets in. Robinzon bears a similarity in looks to our guide Bemba in Tibet or at least I think he does. Yes, I’m definitely confused thinking to myself, “what are we doing back in Tibet? We’ve already been to Tibet. I wouldn’t go back to the same country.”

Bemba, or Robinzon as the case may be, sees me walking in a zigzag motion as if I’d drunk a bottle of tequila and breaks out a mini-bottle of yellow liquid. “This is llama piss, pour it on your hands, clap them together and inhale deeply.  This will get you through the trail.” In retrospect, I know I must have been in bad shape because I didn’t even question the jokester and it didn’t even seem strange to me that I was inhaling llama piss on a mountain.

We finally make it to the campsite where the porters have already set up our tents.  “This was supposed to be the easy day?????” I exclaim and collapse on my sleeping bag.

Justin and Corey, who had no trouble with the first day, wake me up for dinner. The nap has helped mental state and I’m so relieved to have made it to the camp that I’m actually talking again.  I pepper the Russian with questions and we learn that he is a software engineer in Moscow and the company he works for is letting him work remotely while he travels. He has been to Asia, generally followed the same route in South America exploring Patagonia, taking an Antarctica cruise and now in Peru.  All very cool, although it is clear Yuri is not a naturally social person.  He doesn’t ask any questions of us or Robinzon and he answers questions in one simple sentence.  As such, it took me about 50 questions to get the information above out of him.

We have a little ceremony where the 11 porters stand up and introduce themselves and we can ask questions. The porters are all indigenous Quetchua people who are descendants of the Incas. Their first language is Quetchua but the speak Spanish as well. They speak in Spanish and Robinzon, who speaks English, Spanish, Quetchua and German, translates for us. We pepper them with questions and then it’s our turn to introduce ourselves.  Justin and I give our intro in Spanish.  My Spanish is still rusty as heck but definitely improving. 

At last, I fall into my sleeping bag. Sleep will be critical since I only got a couple hours the night before.  Just as I’m drifting off to sleep, “Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap! Yap!”  I snap back awake thinking what the hell.  There is a dog yapping and then a couple dogs at another campsite start yapping back. It turns out that our campsite is at the base of a house up above which apparently has a dog that finds it amusing to bark once it gets dark and torture hikers before the night before they have to do the Dead Woman’s Pass. 

Finally it stops, I fall asleep again only to be snapped awake 20 minutes late by the damn barking dog.  This pattern repeats itself until 12:30am. In Beijing, we had the fireworks torture where as soon as we’d fall asleep, fireworks would start and wake us up.  We called it the Chinese Fireworks Torture, worse than Chinese Water Torture. That only lasted 2 hours, however, this dog has been going on for over 5 hours and I’ve gotten no sleep. 

At 12:30am, things go from horrid to horrendously bad. The dog has decided that 20 minute rest breaks are no longer necessary and he starts yapping non-stop.  Forty minutes of non-stop yapping later, I have my first of what will be many mental breakdowns. I get out of the tent with my flashlight, go to the base of the hill where the house is, shine my light on the terrace and just start screaming at the top of my lungs “shut that fucking dog up or I’m going to kill it!” over and over. The porters who apparently can sleep through World War III actually awaken and start scrambling around. I don’t know how long I was screaming at the house but at some point I got dizzy, gave up and went back to my tent. Not my finest moment, but wouldn’t you know it, low and behold five minutes later it worked. The barking stopped as someone apparently took the dog inside the house. 

Amen! Thank God the almighty above, now I can get some sleep.  It’s 1am so hopefully I can salvage some of the night with sleep.  No sooner than I think this than the heaven’s open and rain explodes down upon his. The rain is drilling the tent making a “splat! Splat! Splat! Splat! Spalt!” sound that is almost as bad as the dog yapping. I lie awake terrified that the rain will still be pounding down in the morning.  I revoke my thanks as apparently God has decided to substitute torturing me with the dog yapping with torturing me with rain pounding on my tent.  Suffice to say that sleep never pays me a visit me on the night I need it most.