 November 6th to November 16th of this year, 2023. You are invited to join us on an epic adventure, a trekking adventure in the beautiful country of Peru. We are going to Peru to hike and trek the classic Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. If you've been following me for a while, this is an adventure that I did back in 2018. I absolutely fell in love with Peru and with this trail and I am so excited right now to be able to recreate this adventure and share it with you and revisit some of the most beautiful places in Peru that really marked my heart. So this trip is something that I've been talking about for a couple of days right now. We're going to Peru to hike the classic Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and this is going to be the highlight of this 11 days adventure. So today in this video, I want to share with you some details about the itinerary day by day and I also want to answer some of the questions that I've been receiving about the hike or the entire trip to Peru. And so if you guys have any questions about this group trip, please feel free to leave them in the comments. I will be tackling them one by one. Okay, so to begin with, I want to make sure that I'm clear. This is a trekking adventure. There's going to be a lot of hiking and I do receive some questions about whether how hard is the Inca Trail? Is this something that I can manage? And I want to say, this is going to be a string with adventure. It's going to be very demanding, not for everybody. So you're either somebody who's very interested in hiking, you love being at high elevation, or you are someone who's ready to take on a big challenge and push yourself out of your comfort zone and try something for the first time. Okay, so just to start right now, November 6th to November 16th, we will have a bunch of people flying in from different parts of the world. And so the plan or the goal is to be in Cusco. So Cusco is one of the most important cities in Peru. And this is where most of our adventures are going to be starting. And the goal is to make it, and for you to be in Peru by November 6th. So everyone will be flying in from a different country. There will be transfers that are included from the airport to make it to the hotels. Hotels are also included. So we transfer you to the hotel. And now when you arrive to Cusco, there's something pretty interesting about the city. The elevation is pretty high, 11,000 feet. More than 11,000 feet is the elevation of Cusco. So it's very common when you land in Cusco, you're going to feel some headache. Some people do, some people don't. But most of people experience some headache the first one day or two days at the very least. So when you go to the hotel, it's very common for them to welcome you with some coca tea to help with the headaches and the high elevation sickness. So we arrived to Cusco November 6th and that's where we will be meeting the group. We will all meet up for our welcome dinner for our first day. And the next day, day two is going to be mostly about exploring the city of Cusco. Why? Because before starting any hikes, it's important for you and your body to adjust to high altitude or high elevation, especially for somebody who's flying from sea level, for example, that elevation change through more than 3,000 meters can be a little bit hard for your body. So before we start our big trekking adventure of four days on the Inca Trail, it's important to take some time to acclimatize. And so that's why in the itinerary, I made sure that we have some time to really just hang out around the Cusco at around 11,000 feet. So the second day is going to be, half of the day is going to be about exploring the city of Cusco, which is a beautiful city. I remember spending so much time around Plaza de las Armas, absolutely beautiful. So that first day is going to be exploring a historic Cusco. And then the second half of the day is going to be about visiting some of the monuments or the Incan sites, because Cusco is surrounded by a lot of Incan sites. So we will visit four of them in that second half of the day. The most known one is called the Saxai woman. I think a lot of tourists just say sexy women to remember the name. But there are three other sites that we will be visiting that second half of the day. And that will wrap up all of our adventure for day two. Some meals, most of the meals are included. So for example, for day two, it's breakfast and lunch are both included. So that's our second day of the trip. The third day, we will start getting our feet wet with some hiking around the area. And we will be taking the day trip to go to Lake Humantai in Spanish, they call it Laguna Humantai. And it's one of the most beautiful lakes that I've ever seen. If you guys have been watching my stories for the last few days, it is incredible. I'm going to share some more photos from Lake Humantai. But it's basically this beautiful lake that you have to hike to. It's a glacier lake. So you can imagine how clear the water looks. It's honestly one of my favorite places in Peru. So we will start super early in the morning. There's gonna be a lot of waking up early in the morning. And then we will take our van to the trailhead of Laguna Humantai. Now we get to the trail and then we start climbing. It's all steep climbing. I think we will probably be gaining about 1,000 feet of elevation gain on that hike. So it's not easy, but it's not extremely strenuous. And I planned it in a way that the hike to Humantai Lake would be kind of our acclimatization hike. So we will just walk all the way up steep until we get to the lake. I don't remember exactly when I did it back in 2018. I don't remember exactly how much time it took, but I would say two hours max to make your way to Laguna Humantai. So you hike all the way to Laguna Humantai. There's a lot of wildflowers I remember on that trail. And we'll come across some animals like cows. I don't think there were any llamas or alpacas on that trail, but mostly cows. But I remember beautiful whiteflowers. It's absolutely beautiful. So that day will be just for Laguna Humantai. And then we will return back to Cusco because Cusco is going to be our base. After that will be day four. So day four we're going to be exploring the Sacred Valley. And Sacred Valley is not that far from Cusco. So we're trying to keep it a little bit slow and low profile on that day. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to see incredible sites. Sacred Valley is absolutely beautiful. They have these salt mines called Maras Salt Mines. And they are managed by some of the locals there in the Sacred Valley. And the view with all the mines looks absolutely beautiful. So we will go there and we will meet some of the working women in the weaving community around the area. This will be our way to support the communities there in Peru and hang out and really get to talk and spend some time with the local. So that will be the first part of our adventure where we, our main goal other than seeing the sites and spending time together and making friends and getting to know other people. But also to acclimatize to the high elevation. By this time our bodies will be more adjusted to the change in elevation. And we will be ready to tackle the highlight of our adventure, which is hiking the classic Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. So here I'm gonna try to give as many details about the hike as I can, but I will have a live stream in the future where I talk specifically about the hike and we go in depth. But please, first, thank you so much for joining the live stream and if you have any questions about the classic Inca Trail to Machu Picchu or this trip in general, feel free to leave comments. I will answer them towards the end. So the hike on the Inca Trail. The Inca Trail, there are so many trails that you can take to get all the way to Machu Picchu. But what we are doing, we're doing the four day classic Inca Trail. We start at this spot called Kilometer 82. And then for four days we are trekking in through the Andes until we make our way to the Machu Picchu site. So we are taking the longer route to get to Machu Picchu, which is not, a lot of tourists would go to Tupero or Cusco. You take the train and then the bus and then you just go to the site, see the site. But we are going to go deep into the ancient path of the Inca. We will trek through some lush green forest. I remember my time there on the Inca Trail was amazing. So during these four days, we will be spending three nights camping. And we will have porters on the trail that will be helping us to carry tents, sleeping bags and provisions. So every team, our team, which will be a maximum of 12 people. This is the limit that I set up for this group. 12 people, we will have guides on the trail. There will be a main guide and then a secondary guide. And then there will be porters who will be carrying the heavy load and the heavy gear. So every hiker on those four days on the Inca Trail, all you have to carry is your day pack. So your day pack is where you will have your water for the day. You will have some snacks, maybe a poncho. You will also have your small emergency case. Like really just everything that you would need to have with you, maybe a rain jacket because it does rain at times. So everything that you will need to have on a day hike. And from kilometer 82, we will start trekking up. It is pretty steep. And for this type of trek, it's important to take some time beforehand to train. Whether you are an experienced hiker or you're just hiking this for the first time, it is very important to train and take training seriously. And I'm gonna talk more about training towards the end. So we start our first hike. The first days go, we go into average about six hours of hiking until we get to camp. And like I said, it's going to be steep. Six hours is just average. It just depends on your pace general pace of the group. Sorry, so sometimes in the group, we don't really know if everyone's pace is going to be similar. So it's common to split into a group with the lead guide in the front and another group with a different guide in the back. So that's pretty common. So they one, you hike six hours. We have lunch on the trail. We get to camp. We have dinner there. So all of the meals are included on these four days on the Inca Trail. All of the meals are going to be included. They even have the porters or the team of the porters. They do have a chef who will be preparing some meals once we get to camp. And sometimes they are fast and used to the elevation that the porters will be hours ahead of us to set camp either for lunch or dinner, prepare food. So that by the time you get to camp, food is going to be ready. So that's day one. I'm not going to share the exact names of the spots where we will be camping because I'm still working with the guide to finalize some of these details. And the second day, we would average around 16 kilometers. So we can take from 10 hours, maybe a little bit more. We climb all the way to the highest point on the Inca Trail, Dead Women's Pass. So Dead Women's Pass is higher than 13,000 feet. We're looking at more than 4,000 meters. It's not quite to 14. It's not hitting 14,000 feet, but it's the highest point on the track. And it's notorious for having a steep incline. So we're going to be doing a lot of steep climbing. And then the descent is going to be also demanding. So a lot of work on the knees, which you can work on during your training. The third day, we're going to be averaging about five kilometers, five hours of hiking. And then the last day is when we get to the site of Machu Picchu, about four hours perhaps on that day. We get to the site of Machu Picchu. You will be so impressed at the view. If the weather is great, because a lot of people would go there and it's just foggy. You can't see it. You have to wait for a little bit, but it's still so stunning. Now, when you get to the site of Machu Picchu, I mean, you see the pictures on the internet, but you don't appreciate how beautiful it is until you are right there. But the great thing about hiking the Inca Trail, because like I said, you can take the bus and just show up there and see the site, but it's not the same. When you are hiking, you feel like that's such great reward. I mean, you worked so hard for four days and you are finally there. You feel so accomplished. And that's one of my favorite things about long distance trekking like this. So we get to the site of Machu Picchu and there is usually a tour around the site because it's quite large. So our guide is going to be given as after we take a break, he's going to be giving us a tour around the Inca site. It's about two hours, maybe a little bit more. We enjoy the site. We learn about the history and the historical value of the Inca sites right there. And then we wrap up our adventure on the Inca Trail, take the bus and then the train and then head back to Cusco and that will be it for our four days on the Inca Trail. So obviously after all of this hard work, it's going to be pretty tough to do anything really. So the next day, which is day nine, we will be taking most of the day to just relax and recover from all the hard work and celebrate with the group. And towards the end of the day around the evening, we will be meeting again if you're feeling up to it and if you have the energy to do it, we will be meeting again for a cooking class. This is something that I really wanted to add to the itinerary because it would be nice to familiarize ourselves with authentic Peruvian cuisine. Not only try and taste it, but make it and make memories, making food together. So I was really working with the managers and the guides that I'm working on. I was like, no, please make sure that we are including this cooking class in the itinerary. So that's happened. So that's on day nine. We will enjoy the food that we made with our hands with the group and we will wrap up for day nine. After that, day 10, and we're getting close to the end of our group trip, day 10 is actually an adventure that I'm really, really excited for everyone to see this place. We're going to Rainbow Mountain, the famous Rainbow Mountain. You might have seen pictures of this mountain. It's one of the most visited sites in Peru. And I remember before I went to Peru, I saw it on the internet, a lot of photos on social media. And I thought to myself, you know, this is going to be so crowded. I don't know if it's really worth it. And I remember Alex and I were just walking in Cusco, found a tour company, and I was hesitant about booking it. And then we said, you know what? It's gonna be busy, whatever, let's do it. So we did it and I'm so glad I did because it was so impressive. So Rainbow Mountain is this colorful mountain in Peru. If you haven't seen the photos, I will be sharing them on my stories and here on Instagram later on. The hike is pretty strenuous. And I remember I felt strong headaches when I was on Rainbow Mountain because again, high elevation. And even though you spend many days before hiking, it still is hard in some sections. But from the trailhead, there are actually options for people to rent mules. You can rent mules if you don't feel like you can do it. You're already beat up from hiking the Inca Trail. You can't really push anymore. You can take the mules to make your way all the way up to the saddle. And that's the stopping point for the mules. And then from the saddle, you can hike on your own all the way to the peak, which is not a very long hike. But you will be rewarded by some incredible views, I promise you. And there is another place that not a lot of travelers talk about. And it's right in the area of Rainbow Mountain. It's called the Red Valley. And that is the place that I'm most excited to show you guys because the views from there, it is so red, the colors of the mountains, so red that you wouldn't even believe that it's real. And it's basically just a side hike. You make a turn, a left turn from the Rainbow Mountain Trail, you go in there. There is a fee. I remember we paid the fee, but you don't have to worry about any of these because they're going to be included in the price. And the view opens up to this incredible place that looks absolutely out of this world. It's called the Red Valley. So I made sure to include that in the itinerary. So most of the 10 Rainbow Mountain, Red Valley, and we will finish the day and make our way back to Cusco again. And it will be the last day of our adventure. We will have a goodbye dinner with the group, say bye to all the friends and people that we met on this trip. And the next day, day 11, we will be scheduling transfers to take people from the hotel in Cusco back to the airport. Now, some people, from my group trip to Bali in May, I remember there were some people who showed up earlier. Our trip was May 7, so some people would show up earlier, hang out there on their own and then join the group on the start date. And some people choose to stay even later if you just want to spend some time by yourself and then leave Cusco later. We'll still have to let us know all these details about what time you're showing up, when are you leaving, so that we can help you with transfers back to the hotel. And this is pretty much everything on a nutshell about this group trip to Peru. If you guys have any questions, please let me know in the comments. I wanna talk now a little bit about the training for the classic Inca Trail. Again, like I said, whether you are an experienced hiker or non-experienced hiker, it's important to train. Why? Because you push your body a little bit and condition your body to be able to push when you are on the mountain. And yes, you can just show up and take it as a challenge and push yourself. But I promise you, you're gonna be probably miserable almost every day. But your goal when you travel the distance and invest this time and effort and money is to really enjoy your time on the mountain. So the more you train before, the more of a pleasant experience you will have on the mountain. So training, you can come up with whatever works for you. But I always say there are three aspects that we should focus on. This is pretty much for every trekking adventure. You will have to focus on strength, cardio, sorry, let's start. Cardio, strength and endurance. So cardio, you can start with walking on the treadmill, fast with an incline or go for runs. It doesn't matter if it's like to start with one kilometer, two kilometers, three kilometers and then build up. So really, that will be cardio for you. Strength, everything that will make your knees mostly because I mentioned there are going to be a lot of stairs on this adventure. So work on your knees, try to use the Stairmaster. I think it's a great training. I remember we did that when we were training for this trek before. Fill up your backpack with some weights. And if you're gonna be bringing a 30 liter backpack or 40 liter backpack, make sure that you kind of assimilate the conditions on the mountain. Okay, am I gonna have three liters of water? I'm gonna have this much snacks, am I gonna have a jacket? Fill up your backpack, go to the gym, Stairmaster and do it. So that would be strength and really anything that's going to make your lower body or upper body or strong and able to handle. But like I said, focus on your legs and focus on your knees. That's what you will need the most on the mountain. And endurance is basically being able to continue hiking with an incline for an extended amount of time. So you can start with going to the gym, the treadmill with an incline and I just walk and walk and walk for hours. One hour, two hours, three hours if you can and if you have the time. Better yet is to look for mountains or hiking trails in your area. In my opinion, this is the best training. Find hiking trails near you with some elevation. If you can even get up to 13,000 feet, 12,000 feet. I know it's not always the case depending on where you live in the world but try to see at least if you never experienced being at high elevation, try to see how your body handles high elevation just to have an idea. Okay, at about 8,000 feet or 10,000 feet I start feeling some headaches. I start feeling nauseous because with the human body around 8,000 feet things can start feeling weird but some people don't feel anything and some people don't struggle until like 12,000 feet. So yeah, but we will do a good job with acclimatizing if from the itinerary that I explained we're taking enough time to really just adjust which would be very helpful but if there are any mountains near you make sure that you go there for day hikes and yeah, these three components are very important. When you book your reserve your spot because like I said, this is limited, 12 spots only. So if you're joining us and you know you're coming from November 6th to November 16th, I highly, highly encourage you to go and request your spot right now because these spots are filling quickly but once you request your spot I will be adding you to the existing group of travelers who are coming in this adventure and we will start working together to encourage each other to trade. So it's really motivating when you have a support system per se or community of people who are group of people doing the same thing. So we'll talk about what we're doing for training and try to encourage each other. And better yet, if you are in a corner of the world where there are other travelers coming with us you can go and tag along and probably hike together. I think that will be great. So that's pretty much everything for the training. I think most of the questions that I received were around the hike and how difficult it is can I do it, can I not do it? Like I said, I cannot tell you if it's something that you can do or you can't do but if you want to take it as a challenge if you're not a hike before this is your opportunity we still have time between now and November you can still take some time to train and make it happen and I've talked to so many people when we're doing this hike the more you train beforehand the easier of the time you will have on the mountain. Hi Helma, thank you. Hello, hello guys. I'm so happy to see everybody here and I'm really hoping to see some familiar faces on this group trip. I think it's going to be incredible. I think this takes care of almost all of the questions that I received, all the itinerary but if you have any other questions please feel free to send me a message at any time and if you are interested in joining us also send me a message so that I can send you a link to request your spot and I hope to see you guys in Peru and I will see you in the next live stream. Bye.