Thanks for BUNDLES of info, sounds like the GAP tour you did is the same one I'm doing!
Did you get to go pirhana fishing ??
Okay, no sprinting up stairs- check.
Carry packs on front
will be interesting to see if I can SEE over mine... check.
... Would you recommend walking poles/staff for the descents? I hear they can be pretty brutal on the knees and mine play up in the cold.
SO EXCITED to hear there is a bar at the last campsite
Ps. Would you advise taking a full pack (65L) for the trek or just a day pack (35L size). I'd rather carry my own, feeling bad for the porters but don't want to get caught out with the altitude... On that note, did you take a suitcase with a pack inside it for the trip or just a pack?? Debating whether to go out and get a decent 35L and shove it in my suitcase or just travel with my 65...
HI,
We took 2 big duffel bag/holdall type things for our whole trip, don't know the liter size, but about the same as a big suitcase.
We packed everything for the USA part of the trip in one bag, and everything for the Peru GAP tour in the other. That way, we only had to keep working out of one bag at a time.
We took a very small day pack each that spent most of it's time packed away in the holdalls.
On the trail, especially as you are going with a tour, you don't need to worry about hiring a porter or worry about what they need to carry. The guide will have already arranged all the porters and they hire enough to cover the group. We had 14 porters for a group of 8 of us, so no need to worry about overloading them. These guys are totally awesome. I raced one for a bit and he shat all over me, I was fit, light pack and proper shoes, he was old, weathered, massive amount of gear on his back and old leather sandals stuffed with straw! He took off and had the lunch stop tent and lunch cooked well before we caught him back up. These guys are seriously awesome.
You hardly need anything for the trek. They will give provide you with a small duffel bag and a weight limit for the porters to carry, (can't remember how much, 7kg seems to ring a bell). You'll leave your main luggage with GAP in Cuzco, then pack some dry warm clothes for sleeping in, toiletries and the sleeping bag, (which you can hire from GAP), in the duffel bag for the porters. In your day pack, you just want a light fleece, water proof, first aid things like compeed blister plasters, pain killers etc and water, (and loo roll). You really don't need to carry much at all with you, nor in the duffel. There's only showers on day 3, (and when I say showers, it's a diverted mountain stream and is the coldest thing on earth, only me and one other guy were brave enough to have a go). You'll basically walk most of the day, get to your pre-arranged night spot where the porters already have dinner on, eat, chat and bed early. You really need very little with you. I think the GAP info has pretty good lists on what to pack for the hike etc?
If you're only doing the GAP tour, I wouldn't bother taking your own sleeping bag. It's so cheap to hire one, and easy as the guide arranges it for you. Just take your own liner, that's all we did. There's a launderette in Cuzco that everyone uses at the end of the hike to launder the hired sleeping bags, so we just washed all our gear there at the same time. It's so cheap
A couple of important things though, pack a head torch in the porters duffel. Also, DO NOT FORGET YOUR PASSPORT. They will check your passport at the start of the hike, if you don't have it, you ain't hiking. We saw one guy get turned away, his group tagged onto to another group and he and his guide high tailed it back to their hotel to get it. I don't know if he made it or not. Also, take plenty of cash. We had not been told about the porters tips, so we struggled to cough enough cash up between us to give a decent tip. If you get onto the GA forums, people can give you an idea of how much to tip, I've forgotten what we tipped, but we ended up only having enough left for about 6 beers between the 8 of us at the last night.
Walking poles - I can't stand them, they just annoy me having to carry them, but then again, my knees are pretty good. Emma and I hired one each, Emma swore by hers, and by the end of the second day she was using both mine and hers as the downhill sections were really killing her knees. She swore she wouldn't have managed without two poles, so my advice is, if you have bad knees then definitely hire a pole.
Oh, and I think they've outlawed piranha fishing....we weren't allowed to do it. Didn't detract form the trip though. We got to canoe across an oxbow lake full of the most amazing fish. Loved it.
