Two weeks of not very good Peruvian food had left me feeling lethargic and unready for doing a 4 day hike the day before the Trek. At our starting point at Kilometre 82however, I felt my strength and excitement returning. (In our group of 5, of which I was the youngest, everyone had at least one day when they felt unwell so I wasn´t alone). Our first day was designated the 'easy day´and after a 4am pick up the first four hours were spent leisurely walking by the river Urumbamba with a gradual rise. After lunch, and an afternoon nap on air mattresses thoughtfully laid out in the sun by our porters, the real march began and we began to climb. By 4pm we had reached the site where most groups camped but we, the ´super hikers´, were literally going the extra mile. We faced a slow 2 hours gruelling hike, up steps all the way to our campsite as the sun started to disappear and the cold draw in. I began to realise what my walking stick was for as I used it as an extra leg to get me up the hills. The sight of our first camp with the porters applauding us in as the dusk drew around them was like a glimpse of heaven . In our dining tent later we were too tired to eat the amazing spread of food in front of us and fell into our tents exhausted at 8pm. Our guide warned us not to get up at night due to a ´bad Andean wind´ that could strike us down with illness, the only cure being administered by an Andean medicine man. There was no fear of us budging from our sleeping bags until our wake up call at 4 am by a smiling porter bearing a steaming cup of tea.
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