Tour Company: G Adventures
Tour: Amazon to the Andes
Time of Travel: Late July (Dry Season)
Max Temp: 21 degrees celsius (70 degrees fahrenheit)
Min Temp: 1 degree celsius (34 degrees fahrenheit)
Number of wet days per month: 2
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I decided to put this page together because we struggled to decide on what to wear / pack / bring along on the Inca Trail and had to read a number of different websites to finally decide.
We did the Amazon to the Andes tour package, which includes a trip to the Amazon Rainforest after the completion of the Inca Trail. For the purpose of this specific post, I'm going to ignore that part of the trip completely. I have included the days we spend in Lima, Cusco and Ollyantatambo as I don't believe G Adventures has any trips which do not include a few days in those cities as they are meant to be days to help to to acclimatise to the higher altitudes.
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Tour Itinerary
Your G Adventures Duffle Bag
Medication
Overall Packing List - His and Hers
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Tour Itinerary
Day 1 - Lima
This is the day that everyone arrives and will usually gather in the hotel for a briefing session in the evening around 18:00 or 19:00. At this time of year Lima is chilly but not freezing (16 - 19 degrees celcius). We did a walking tour during the day and it was mostly overcast.
He wore: Jeans, tee, hoodie, runners.
She wore: Jeans, tee, hoodie, urban shoes.
Day 2 - Lima / Cusco
Day 2 starts EARLY. We left the hotel around 5:30am so it was chilly, but again, a hoodie was sufficient. When you arrive in Cusco, you're already 3,800m above sea level. The wind is nice and cool but during the day there is almost no cloud cover and you're significantly closer to the sun. That means sunscreen! Today was just a casual walk around the town and that's about it.
He wore: Jeans, tee, hoodie (in the shade / at night), runners.
She wore: Jeans, tee, hoodie (in the shade / at night), urban shoes.
Day 3 - Cusco / Ollantaytambo
Travel by bus from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, visit some ruins on route and also at Ollyantatambo itself. Nothing difficult.
He wore: Quick dry hiking pants (with zip off), tee, hoodie (in the shade / at night), runners.
She wore: Quick dry hiking pants, long sleeve, quick dry / clima cool hiking shirt, hoodie (in the shade / at night), runners.
On the hike
He wore: Quick dry hiking pants (with zip off), long sleeve, quick dry / clima cool hiking shirt, hiking boots.
She wore: Quick dry hiking pants, long sleeve, quick dry / clima cool hiking shirt, hoodie (in the shade / at night), runners.
At Night (in camp)
Temperatures drop to around 1 degree so required clothing changes quite a bit!
He wore: Quick dry hiking pants (with zip off), tee, long sleeve, quick dry / clima cool hiking shirt, hiking boots plus hoodie, UNIQLO Ultra Light Down Jacket and beenie
She wore: Quick dry hiking pants, long sleeve, quick dry / clima cool hiking shirt, runners plus hoodie and Columbia's Alpine Action Omni-Heat Jacket (inner only).
Sleeping
We hired sleeping bags from G Adventures themselves and they are down mummy sleeping bags that are good all the way to -18 degrees celcius. We both slept in the bags, just with the UNIQLO Heat Tech Thermal pants and long sleeve top.She wore: Quick dry hiking pants, long sleeve, quick dry / clima cool hiking shirt, runners plus hoodie and Columbia's Alpine Action Omni-Heat Jacket (inner only).
Sleeping
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Your G Adventures Duffle Bag
Your G Adventures Duffel bag. All packed with sleeping bag and air mattress on the right.
Depending where you are with your research, you may already know by now that you don't have to carry all your gear yourself. There are porters to help you. G Adventures will provide you will a small duffle bag which you are allowed to put up to 6kg worth of stuff.
Now - assuming that you aren't bringing any of the following items from home, you would hire them off G Adventures:
- Sleeping Mat (included in the package)
- Sleeping Bag (you can BYO)
- Air Mattress (this is really not optional. i.e. you can't sleep without it - don't try.)
- TOTAL WEIGHT: 3.5kgs
This means that you can pack up to 2.5 kgs of your own items in the duffle that you give to the porters. But don't get too excited, 2.5kgs does not add up to much. For us, this was:
- 1 x pair of pants
- 1-2 x shirt / top
- 1 x set of thermals (top and bottom)
- Daily change of underwear + socks
- Sleeping bag liner (ours were cotton and approx 500g each)
That meant that Tim's day pack probably ended up around 6-7kgs, while mine was about 5-6kgs and this is what we packed:
- Hoodie
- Outer jacket (down jacket / heat jacket as mentioned above)
- Basic toiletries in mini / travel sizes (eg toothbrush + toothpaste; mouthwash, wet wipes, moisturiser, sunscreen)
- Medication + insect repellent (we'll talk more about this in a bit)
- Snacks
- Water
- Toilet Paper
- Snack Pack - provided by G Adventures
Note on water: I found that you really don't need to be carrying more than 1L of water most of the time. Each time you stop for lunch or camp, there will be boiled water available and you can top up your water bottle. At a number of the rest spots as well for the first couple of days, there are also little pop up shops where the locals sell snacks and water. For example on day 1, you walk (gently) about 3-4 hours before you get to the lunch stop, and in between that, we also made one rest stop where there was a shop to buy snacks / water from, so I felt a bit stupid lugging around an 2L of water. Just remember to check with your guide at the start of each day how far off the first stop will be, if water is available at that stop, and gauge from there.
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G Adventures provided snack pack which they give to you on before you depart km82. Those Casino biscuits are awesome! If you get the mint ones - yum! they are the best. On top of this, I also brought a few mandarins I bought from the local supermarket in Cusco. Honestly they were a bit weighty. Tim carried some extra muesli bars. But there are a number of stalls along the way you can buy additional snacks from - even Snickers bars and small tins of Pringles!
Medicine
There are so many things that can happen while you're trekking the Inca Trail - you get the common cold, you get food poisoning or gastroenteritis, or plain old altitude sickness. The latter is the most common and having a high level of fitness does not mean you will go unaffected. Four of the 13 people on our trip (myself included) were affected by the altitude in one way or another. All of us had fairly mild symptoms, and over the course of his 300+ treks on the Inca Trail, our guide has never had to evacuate anyone before. But medications can be a God send, especially on Day 2, which is the hardest day with a 5 hr up-hill climb. In case you were wondering, altitude sickness can cause the following (according to the internet):
- headache.
- nausea and vomiting.
- dizziness.
- tiredness.
- loss of appetite.
- upset stomach.
- feeling unsteady.
- shortness of breath.
Generally, each time before we travel, we visit the Travel Medical Vaccination Clinic (TMVC), if we are in Australia, or the Tan Tock Seng Travellers' Health and Vaccination Clinic (TTS THVC), if we are in Singapore. Check your local city for something similar. They'll sort you out with your vaccinations. If you are in Australia, you'll also be able to buy a nifty travel kit from the TMVC, which comes with all the awesome drugs you'll need. The TMVC will arm you with some antibiotics as well, although not all countries will, I know Singapore doesn't.
We purchased the Explorer Kit from the TMVC, which (as of Feb 2016) comes with the following:
- Apo-azithromycin (active: azithromycin) - antibiotic for diarrhoea.
- Gastro-Stop (active: Loperamide Hydrochloride) - for diarrhoea relief.
- Zofran (active: Ondansetron) - for nausea. This was my lifesaver on the hike.
- Hydralyte - rehydration salts
- Roxithromycin Sandoz (active: Roxithromycin) antibiotic for chest, sinus or skin infection.
- Paracetamol - for headaches and the usual.
- Pseudoephedrine - for colds / sinuses.
- Mini Abrasions Pack
- Ayomine (active: Promethazine Theoclate) for allergy, hayfever, nausea and travel sickness
- Tinidazole - treatment for giardia
- Antiseptic- for cuts and scrapes
- Soframycin - antibiotic drops for ear and eye infections
The most useful was the Zofran, which treated nausea and vomiting. At the end of Day 2, I was unable to eat dinner and went to bed feeling quite unwell. While I was much better the next day, I was still feeling the nausea. But having not eaten in 12 hours and having to hike for another 12 hours was not ideal. The Zofran worked almost instantly and I was able to eat and keep my breakfast down. The hydralyte was also useful to replenish fluids after I had thrown up. Fortunately for us, no one got a stomach bug, but we do know someone who did the trail a few years ago who did! So gastro-stop and antibiotics are definitely worth packing something.
Paracetamol (Panadol) was included in our pack of course and our guide recommended that the moment you feel a headache coming on, just take one. If you wait too long then it will just get worse and trekking will be a pain.
Altitude sickness tablets: These are not included in the Explorer Pack, but we saw a doctor (in Singapore) and we got a prescription for these. He did warn us that there is no guarantee that it would work. He prescribed 1/2 size doses starting the day before we reached altitude (for this trip, you should start taking it the day before you get to Cusco as it is 3,600m above sea level), everyday while at altitude, and the day after descending. Tim was fine but obviously I was impacted a little. Who's to say that I wouldn't have been impacted if I had taken a full dose instead of just 1/2 doses? Other members on our team also had these, but they were told to take them as needed. So advice will vary from doctor to doctor - so visit your doctor, hear what he has to say and decide on what you want to do.
Another suggestion is to pack and anti-inflammatory such as Neurofen (contains ibuprofen). You can take it at night if you have very sore muscles so that the ache doesn't keep you awake.
And as a closing caveat: we're speaking from our experience on the Inca Trail. We're not medical professionals so remember to see one before you go!
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Overall Packing List - His and Hers
| His | Hers |
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Other items and notes:
- Hiking pants - you can probably go 4 days wearing one pair but it's always good to have a spare - imagine if it had rained.
- Footwear
- Tim opted for hiking shoes as they are lighter and tend to be softer than hiking boots, although they offer less ankle support.
- I've never been one for heavy shoes. While I had hiking boots, I decided to forego them and use what I was most comfortable with. I ended up using my New Balance 880v6 and it was great. One other member of our group also wore running shoes but I should point out and say that we were hiking in dry season and it did not rain.
- Torch - we had normal hand held torches, but realised that headlamps come in handy when you're using the toilet and there's no where to put your torch.
- 2 x power banks - we were using our iPhones as cameras so these were useful. Although, I had my phone set on flight mode and it lasted two full days, almost three, before it needed to be charged. You'll need extra batteries for your camera if you bring one.
- Olloclip Active Lens with telephoto and ultra-wide angle lens for the iPhone as we decided not to bring an additional camera.
- Cash - for water and snacks along the way.
Hello, I found this very helpfull! Can I ask how much it was to rent the sleeping bag ect? x
ReplyDeleteHi Tanisha, glad you found the post helpful :) I can't remember the exact figure but I want to say around USD$40 or less will cover you for the sleeping bag, air mattress and walking poles for all four days.
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ReplyDeleteSalkantay trek is the alternative to the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was recently named among the 25 best Treks in the World, by National Geographic Adventure Travel Magazine.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the good information. I am leaving in 2 weeks and will benefit from your insight.
ReplyDeleteHi John, thanks for the comment and for reading - sorry I only just saw this!
DeleteI checked out the photos on your blog and it looks like you had a great trip too - nice and dry!