Salkantay Trek Day 1

Up at 4:00am, put our big packs in storage at the hostal and waited for our pickup, which came at 5:00.Took a bus to Mollepatta, where we got the horses packed with our stuff and headed off maybe around 9:00ish. A total of 14 of us in the group.Lots of shops to buy water, snacks, soda, chocolate, beer, etc. on the way.After 3.5 hours hiking, we stopped for lunch, which was awesome. The chef did a great job of a hot lunch.After lunch, it started raining and hailing and we hiked through the storm, our shoes getting soaked. Even people with waterproof shoes were soaked.While we were hiking, we were talking to our guide about Salkantay versus the Inca Trail. He mentioned that horses are not allowed on the Inca Trail, so you have to either carry everything yourself or hire a porter to carry your stuff (including extra clothes, sleeping bag, sleeping mattress). Of course, porters have be hired to carry all the food, tents and stuff like that. Lisa's friends, Jodi and Cam, chose to carry everything themselves when they go on the Inca Trail tomorrow.We got to the campsite about 4:30ish. The tents got setup in a huge shelter, which was cool. We got to eat in the shelter as well, out of the wind and the rain.Based on first day, this tour is pretty good, including really good food. The prices for Salkantay ranged as high as $475, and we paid $190, so we weren't sure how well it would be run.We had tea around 6:00pm, then supper around 7:45 and to bed after 9:00 sometime. Supper was amazing, a chicken drumstick with fries, rice and some veggies. Very tasty.A family lived at the campsite and had a little store there. There was also a cat, very friendly, who loved to hang around the tourists and sit on their laps and stuff. At supper, the cat was really aggressive at trying to get some chicken. He jumped up on Thomas's lap and started trying to get his chicken leg with is claw, meanwhile Thomas is freaking out, holding his chicken leg way up in the air, trying to keep it away from the cat. It was hilarious. Finally Thomas managed to swipe the cat from his lap, and he's like "Man, I almost lost my chicken."When we started the trek, another smaller group from another tour agency was also starting their trek. They had a really old lady from Brazil in their group of 7. We hadn't even walked out of the town of Mollepata yet, not even a kilometre into it yet, and she was already huffing and puffing and WAY behind the rest of her group. She would literally walk no more than 5 steps (going up a slight incline in the road) and stop for 10 seconds and catch her breath. Her group had to wait for a long time for her to catch up, even at the very start of the trek. We hiked past the other group as they were waiting for the old lady and continued on. The other group (minus the old lady) passed us again on the way to lunch. A few hours later, as we were getting close to the lunch place, a motorcycle drives by with the old lady on it. Hahaha. She was the laughing stock the whole trip. The guide of the other group had to call a friend of his and ask him to come with his motorcycle and drive the lady up the mountain. The other group had to wait for over 30 minutes at the lunch spot before they could eat, waiting for the old lady to show up.After lunch, after the road had ended, the old lady was on a horse. Unfortunately, the horse can't do certain, rocky parts of the path with weight on him, so she had to walk a lot of it. When we stopped at the campsite, one of the guys in the other group who had walked ahead was LIVID that this old lady was even allowed to come on the trek. The other group had to wait 1.5 hours before they could eat supper, waiting for this old lady.