We had to leave our training wheels behind in Pisáq (Písac).

“Phew! We must have done like what, 6km?!” I ask Aly, panting to catch my breath as we explored ruins in Pisáq (Písac), an hour or so from Cusco. A quick fitness check before we started the Inca trail the next day.

He snickered. “Just 3.5 km!”.  The realization that we might be a tad bit in over our heads began to dawn on us.

“Sooo…” my friend asks. “There isn’t like a donkey service back down if we can’t make it to the end?!”.

Aly - a young, charismatic Urubamba native who switched between Quechua and Spanish with ease - was our guide and we were his girls. Twelve of us.  My initial team of 20 ladies had dwindled down to four when they discovered that a four-day arduous hike was in order.  We joined up with eight others – Brits, Scots, 1 Canadian, and 1 American. Earlier in Lima, we’d been briefed that a couple guys had indeed signed up but had chosen to ride the train up to Machu Picchu instead, bypassing the 4-day trek.

“Baahaha! the boys took the train!” never got old.

We’d flown into Cusco two days earlier to acclimatize ourselves; popping Soroche pills like candy and chugging mate de coca. I added raw coca leaves to our ritual; chewing them like an alpaca. I kept running out of breath just chewing the darn leaves.

Cusco itself was postcard perfect at every turn; the kind of blue skies and puffy white clouds that make every picture look effortless. A small, walkable city with its hilltop terraces and houses that were reminiscent of old Italian villages, Cusco is just so cute. After washing down grilled alpaca with Inca Kola for lunch, the tour briefing continued at our hotel. Our porters were only allowed exactly 6kg per person. Everything else we wanted to bring, we needed to carry ourselves or leave behind. Thus began another challenge - squeezing sleeping bags, therma rests, and clothes into a small duffel bag.

The scale had to have been rigged as it frustratingly lingered between 6-7 kg for over an hour!

We struggled with the altitude those first 48 hours. By the time we hit Písac and Ollantaytambo the next day to test out our Coca-Soroche filled lungs, and still felt incredibly winded, the boys’ decision to take the train seemed quite attractive and not so puny. Our minibus hit a ditch and blew something on our way to Ollantaytambo. Luckily, we were within two kilometers so we burst out our trekking poles and hit the pavement towards town, shooing away mangy free range dogs en-route. The scenery through the Sacred Valley was spectacular and we knew we were in for a treat along the trail.

Dinner was somber amongst our foursome. There was no turning back now. We’d only done 3.5 km of easy terrain and had to look forward to 13 grueling kilometers the next day….

[ View some pictures from my Peru Gallery ]