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The Briefing
LUIS, Amy and I returned to the hotel just in time for the briefing. The rest of the group were already sitting on couches in the briefing room under the glass walkway between the reception and my room. A fire was lit and roaring in the fireplace creating a very welcome warmth. In front of the group were two very fit looking deeply tanned men who had just arrived and were now ready to start briefing us. They handed out a map to each of us and introduced themselves.
Wilbur presents the briefing |
The chief guide was Wilbur. He had a chiselled face and was wearing a New Zealand black silver fern shirt under his orange polar fleece top. Intriguing. He performed the entire briefing. His offsider was his assistant guide Carlos who didn’t say much during the briefing. As far as I could tell, they both looked like genuine Incan descendants.
Wilbur took us through what to expect each day. The first day will be mostly a well graded track passing through arid farmland owned by Incan descendants. The trail will start by following the Urumaba River downstream before we turn off up a tributary. On the second day we will be going through more remote mountainous territory where we will be climbing over the first two of three passes on the trail. The first pass is the highest, which we will be crossing on the morning of the second day. This will be followed by a steep descent to a campsite where we will have lunch before crossing the second pass to our campsite for the night. The first two days will have about eight hours walking each.
Studying the maps |
The third and fourth day will be about four hours each. The third day will be through forest going over the third and final pass, although there is almost no climb to reach the top. Over the pass it will all be downhill over a thousand metres down to the next campsite. The fourth day will take us through the Sungate, then onto Machu Picchu.
Wilbur handed out duffel bags for us to fill with our sleeping bags (which he also handed out for those of us who hired them), clothes, and whatever else we wanted to put in them. We could put anything in our bag so long as it didn’t weigh any more than six kilogrammes. The porters will need to carry them, and unlike Mount Kinabalu, the porters had a weight limit with not being allowed to carry any more than twenty five kilogrammes each. If any porters are carrying any more than the allowed twenty five kilogrammes, the tour company will be fined.
Eating Guinea pig for dinner |
Most of the others in the group hired hiking poles. I had brought my own pole with me, though I still didn’t have a rubber tip which was compulsory here. I had tried getting one back at home, and again in the camping store I had visited in the shopping centre at the edge of the cliff in Lima, but neither store had them even though they knew exactly what I was talking about. I hired a sleeping bag. I could have brought one back home to use for travelling, but I find these are very bulky especially as I was only using it for a few days. Weight and space are critical in packing for travel, so anything I can leave at home and hire when needed gets left at home.
Wilbur and Carlos handed out our hired gear outside in the courtyard a few minutes following the briefing. It was completely dark now and across the garden we had an amazing view of the constellations of street lights over the hills on the other side of the city.
Once we were all equipped and had taken our stuff back to our rooms, we went out for dinner to a restaurant where we ate guinea pig and alpaca meat.
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