South America
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Hiking the Inca Trail – DAY 4
We woke at 3:30, and quickly vacated our tents and ate breakfast. We travelled for about 10 mins from base camp in the dark to the checkpoint. This checkpoint was an admission gate to Machu Picchu which opens at 5:30 am, so we waited. Our group at first walked together slowly, as one group member had badly twisted her ankle. After several groups passed us, many of our own group members started to move ahead as well. It wasn’t a far walk to reach the Sun Gate however the trail was surprisingly thin and did require a lot of attention, which is likely why they do not permit hikers on…
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Hiking the Inca Trail!
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Hiking the Inca Trail – DAY 3
We woke up early again to get a head start on the LONGEST day! 16KM! We had a steep 400 M incline ahead of us, followed by a steep 200 M decline, 200M incline and the rest of the route was a decline, but it was very technical and I was grateful for my hiking poles! The first 400 M felt like they were a straight-up staircase! We climbed slowly and steadily! I did have altitude troubles near the top, and our lead porter came and grabbed my bag for me for the final 20 m! He was a god sent! When we reached the top we rested and had a lite…
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Hiking the Inca Trail – DAY 2
On day 2 we woke at 4 am, had breakfast at 4:30 am and were off to begin our day! Part of our plan to complete the difficult day ahead of us was to get out earlier than originally planned, earlier than half our group as well! We also were able to pay a porter to carry most of our day pack items, our guide arranged this for us the night before as it is not included in our tour and from what I understand they hired a porter to come in for the day for this job. We ended up deloading 21kg of items to him and paid $150…
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Hiking the Inca Trail – DAY 1
Our first day on the trail was filled with deep breathing! The trail went from easy to hard to easy to hard, varying mostly on how well we were breathing! We had planned for a nice stroll with lots to see and look at. We did think that if this is what the trail was like, we would be ok! This day was not easy for us. We needed more time perhaps to adjust to the elevation. We were not really prepared for how much work this little “easy day” would be for us! There were definitely times of self dought. The steeper incline at the end was hard! I…
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Hiking the Inca Trail!
We did it!! Before starting our trip we did have hesitations about our physical abilities. We knew we should / could have been in better shape, but so many people said to us they knew older people who completed the “hike” or people with knee problems etc. This made us feel a lot better, however, we did mentally prepare for the difficulty that laid ahead of us, focusing on day two of the “hike”. I am putting hike in quotations as this four-day journey is definitely a TREK. Put aside the distance, the steep inclines and the steep descents, we were not mentally prepared for how technical the trail was.…
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Hiking the Inca Trail – DAY 4
