November 28, 2007
From SATA-Peru-2007
This morning we had our briefing for the Inca Trail by our guide-to-be Pepe. We got an overview of each day on the Trail and also a list of recommended things to bring. The meeting ended just before classes started, and I think everyone was very excited about the trip and confident that it would be well-run and organized after the meeting.
After classes and lunch, everyone rushed to get everything packed up before dinner. This is maybe a bit more time-consuming than it sounds. We not only have to pick out and pack everything that we want to bring on the trip, but we also have to pack up all our remaining stuff just in case it has to be moved out of our rooms for other guests if the hostel gets a surge of tourists for some reason. I guess it’s not really that bad, just kind of annoying.
Before, after, or during this packing, many of us also worked to finish or come close to finishing our final essay for Ethnohistory so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it when we got back from the Trail. It’ll be good to have that out of the way.
After all of this chaos, we prepared for our farewell dinner with Varun at Los Perros restaurant and our last night in Cusco. The food at Los Perros was delicious and everyone had a great time. It was sad to have to say goodbye to Varun, but he’s supposedly going to be coming to Conn this spring, so we’ll be seeing him again soon. After dinner, some decided to continue the fun later into the night, but most of us headed back to the hostel to get a good night sleep before the busy day tomorrow: the beginning of an epic Andean adventure…
