Most Inspirational Moment
Reaching Maccu Piccu. After 4 days trekking seeing these ruins was a deserving reward. The second day of the trip was the hardest but was not as hard as I had feared. This was when we reached the highest altitude of the trip and the walking on this day was all up hill, trekking up steps and quite rough terrain. Throughout the trek there were so many highlights and it was amazing walking along and then suddenly you would turn a corner and there would be some Inca ruins! The fourth days trek was very relaxing with the surroundings being more like a rainforest.
Thoughts on Group Leader
Our group leader, Holgar, was amazing and we could not have asked for a better leader for our trek. From the beginning he was very knowledgable and wanted to share as much information as he could and show us as much Peruvian culture as we could fit in. On the trek he set the pace to make sure that we would all finish the trek. The first day there were points were we thought that we could walk quicker but walking slowly was a good way to ensure that no-body suffered from altitude sickness. Our leader told us that anybody could complete the trek regardless of age as long as they took it slowly. All of our group completed the trek but we did see other people coming down as they could not complete it. Our leader stopped to show us points of interest along the trek and gave us a very detailed and thorough tour of Maccu Piccu the day after we arrived there.
Advice for Potential Travellers
The toilet facilities whilst trekking are very basis and I would advise to bring toilet paper. A strong torch is also needed as it got very dark at night and if you needed the toilet in the middle of the night then you definately needed a torch to find the way and make sure that you did not fall off the mountain!The trip notes say that you need water purification tablets and I bought these but you do not need them. Whilst trekking the chefs purify all of the water and when not trekking bottled water is available to buy. I took walking poles as recommended and was glad that I had them as going uphill I found they took some of the pressure off and going downhill they helped to steady where you were walking. The weather was normally cold in the morning and at night but hot in the day so you needed clothes to cope with this i.e t-shirts, fleeces, waterproofs etc.
Suggestions
This holiday was everything that I had hoped it would be. I was told by friends before I went that I would lose weight as we were trekking for 4 days but I think the opposite was true as there was so much food and I was very impressed with what we were given. Each day we had breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and were given a snack bag each day. For breakfast we had something different each day either porridge, pancakes, french toast and scrambled eggs. For lunch it was normally soup and bread and salad. Once we arrived at the campsite we had tea at 17:00 each day which comprised of a hot drink and either biscuits, popcorn or cheese straws. Dinner was 3 courses with normally soup to start, then dishes like bolognaise or fish and vegetables, followed by dessert. The snack bags contained a cereal bar, chocolate bar, some sweets and a piece of fruit. I never went hungary!! The wake up call was at 06:00 each morning and we were woken up with a cup of tea, followed by a bowl of hot water to wash in! Whilst we were trekking it was one member of the groups birthday and the chef made a sponge cake covered in chocolate icing - none of us could get over the fact that he had made a cake on the top of the mountain - it was delicious and definately a highlight!