5am at Peru Treks office to catch the bus...apparently they only like picking people up from hotels right in town, so we walked down. Breakfast at Ollantaytambo and chatted with our group after the sleepy bus ride. 14 in total: Ryan, Michelle, Andy, Chris, Edwin, Amy, Casey (we later found out his name was James...? haha) from the US; Anu and Succy from th UK; and Tanya, Sheets, Rag and us from Australia. Awesome crew. Mike and I packed super light just adding sleeping bag and mat at the trail head. Most of the others took day packs plus bags for the porters to carry...we would not have felt comfortable making someone else carry our stuff. Walked 12km today, 500m of uphill. Stopped off at a grassy camp site in someone's backyard. Then we discovered how they treat you on these treks - no joke, you get pampered with food served silver platters!!!! We sit like kings in a big game of thrones banquet tent while the porters present a 3 course meal they took more than 3 hours to make. Not only dinner do you get treated like this, but breakfast and lunch. We felt a little uneasy because of the divide between walkers and porters...you feel like royalty and we didn't get introduced to the porters and cooks until day 3. Mikes Spanish helped out so he was trying to chat with them...which they laughed at and probably thought it weird that Trekkers were talking to them. Slept in tents on the soft grass after some peppermint tea before bed.
