Here is our meal plan of dinners for the week! For breakfast, my husband eats cottage cheese and I usually have coffee. Lunches are generally leftovers from the night before. We also like to leave two nights open each week for either going out (take out for now, of course) or catching up on leftovers.
Saturday: Leftovers
We still had ground beef from taco salads on Thursday so we made these into nachos! An easy, and tasty, Saturday night dinner to enjoy while watching a movie (Goldeneye, which for the record is not very good lol).
Sunday: Egg Salad Sandwiches and Chips
Admittedly, this is a little weird as a dinner, but I had a craving. I love egg salad and add both red and green onions to give it flavor and crunch! This egg salad on ciabatta bread with those Hawaiian Sweet Maui Onion chips was totally droolworthy!
Monday: Smoked Brisket, Potato Salad, and Hawaiian Rolls
Here’s a fun fact about me: I don’t really care to eat smoked meats, but I love smoking meat. I love tedious recipes that require a lot of time and attention so smoking meat (we have a small smoker so it is somewhat high maintenance) is right up my alley! Today I smoked a 2.5 lb brisket which took about 8 hours. We paired this with store-bought potato salad and rolls, but I would not purchase these again. The potato salad (Resers brand) was weirdly sweet, even after I added salt and a couple extra hard boiled eggs.
Tuesday: Cilantro Lime Chicken & Pasta Salad
This dinner brings such a smile to my face! I was having a rough day due to work issues, so I was a real crabby Patty. My poor husband has to deal with my sourpuss attitude and I wasn’t very friendly when I got home. To cheer me up, he made this pasta salad with alphabet shaped pasta and I just love it! The pasta salad is actually this recipe, with pasta subbed for the quinoa. The chicken (which I HIGHLY RECOMMEND!) is this recipe, and was so delicious! We used chicken thighs and it was the perfect compliment to the lime-y marinade.
Wednesday: Stuffed Peppers
Stuffed peppers for me are one of those things I hated as a kid. I don’t think I have touched one since I moved out of my parent’s home. Recently though, I’ve come to find I really enjoy bell peppers so I figured I would give these another chance. I used this recipe, but with just ground turkey (the chorizo blend from Jennie O), split among only 4 peppers, and used a LOT more garlic because of course I did lol. They were great and I definitely can imagine we will add these to our list of easy meals. The one thing I would note is that while they don’t take much effort, they do take a good amount of time since they bake for ~45 minutes after stuffing.
Thursday: Leftovers
Nothing exciting to mention here… Normally we would have leftover for lunch, but we knew we really wanted to get poke for lunch on Friday. Since we still had cilantro lime chicken and pasta salad, we had this for dinner tonight instead.
Friday: Cheese Plate
We accidentally ended up eating lunch quite late today so dinner was a thrown together cheese plate, and I ain’t even mad. I grabbed poke for our lunch since I had to go into my office, but I didn’t get home with it until 2:30pm. Since we ate lunch so late, we decided on a lighter dinner and settled on a cheese plate to share. This was very much a “whatever is in the fridge” version so it is nothing fancy, just salami rounds, apple, cheddar, colby, and pepperjack cheeses with crackers. This, with a glass of La Petite Perriere Sauvignon Blanc, made for the perfect end to the week!
Hi, friends! Friday marked Week 10 of working from home for my husband and I, and our state (Washington) has had strict Stay Home Orders for much of this time. So this combination means that my husband and I are getting a lot of time near each other, but our typical date nights aren’t happening and we are having to get creative for quality time. Enter: Quarantine date nights!
I think a lot of us know how easy it is to fall into the habit of eating dinner in front of the TV, maybe even playing on your phone, and the next thing you know it’s bedtime. I know we certainly are familiar with this! For me, that proximity doesn’t equate to valuable together time so we are still setting aside our one or two date nights each week. I’ve been trying to get creative since we are a little limited, and here is what we’ve been up to so far.
Top Chef Night
You can make this one as easy or challenging as you would like. For us, it is easier to have one person assigned to dinner and the other dessert. You choose two or three ingredients for your partner to use in their assigned course and they do the same for you. Now, are you going to be nice and assign him chicken and that kale that needs to be used up? Or are you going to assign him kimchi and Cap’n Crunch? Mwahahahaha.
Themed Date Night
Ok, so this may or may not be born out of my love for themed dressing. (I just needed an excuse to dress like Joan from Mad Men, ok??) The theme can either be a time or a place, or a time and place for extra credit. I have a fondness for time period themes since I can research what kinds of meals were being cooked, and I can research what kinds of outfits were being made. For an easy start, a 1950s diner themed date allows for cheeseburgers and maybe a milkshake with two straws?
Strip Card Games
An oldie but a goodie. Honestly, when was the last time you played Strip Poker? Now how about strip Go Fish, Uno, or Blackjack? You might not actually finish the whole game on this one, but I can’t imagine anyone will be too mad about it. 😉
Plan Your Dream Vacations
Where have you always wanted to go? What do you want to do there? Pull out your phone or laptop and find the amazing hotels, restaurants, and activities that your dream locale has in store for you. Together, plan your dream trip to each of your favorite locations.
Take Glamour Shots of Each Other
This is a silly one, but if you are up for it you can have so much fun and maybe find your next Insta pic. Each of you get gussied up in your most extra outfit, feather boas STRONGLY encouraged, and the other takes photos of you in your most glamorous poses.
For a more serious, and perhaps more useful take on this, you can purchase an inexpensive tripod and bluetooth camera remote to take your own couple’s photo session. You might be amazed at the quality of photographs that can come from just your phone on a tripod in your backyard!
Style Each Other
This could be either from the clothing in your closet or dream outfits. Hop on Pinterest and search for outfits for your partner. Pin them as your come across them and present them to your partner. It’s always interesting to see how your partner views you so ask them what about each look they like and think you would look good in. Maybe you’ll learn like me that your partner loves a part of you that you are insecure about (hello, it’s me and my legs). You may also learn about a style your partner finds particularly sexy and maybe that might influence your purchases in the future? Unless your partner is like my husband and thinks capri pants are spicy. Sorry, babe, not happening.
Plan Your Perfect Weekend
My husband and I did this recently and it was funny because it showed the differences in our personalities and priorities (spoiler alert: my husband LOVES going out to brunch). Go through a Friday- Sunday discussing all the fun activities you would love to do, either when the world opens back up or maybe you can do a variation now. My perfect weekend includes a night out with the girls on Friday and Saturday/ Sunday spent in Vancouver, BC with a lot of sushi!
Learn How to Dance
You know what’s crazy? The fact that we basically have all of human knowledge in our pockets. Take advantage of that and hop on Youtube to learn a dance. There are lessons for tango, foxtrot, and waltz which will have you grooving in no time. If you have a Chromecast or ability to display the lesson on the TV, even better!
Workout Together
My husband would tell you that he hates working out and, ok, that is true. But he hates it a lot less when we do it together! You can use an app (I love, love, love the Peloton app and it has a generous free trial period) or use Youtube videos. Many classes require nothing but a workout mat (use a towel if you don’t have one) and your bodyweight. Get your sweat on and get those endorphins pumping!
Virtually Explore Your City
Raise your hand if you find yourself frequenting that same half dozen restaurants in your area. Just me? No, probably not. It seems like every time I’m out and about I notice a new restaurant that’s actually been there for years (I need to take “good at noticing stuff” off my resume). So for this date night, hop on Yelp or Google together and explore the restaurants, cafes, bars, and stores within your city. You may very well find a few places you want to try either with takeout or when they reopen!
Q&A With Bae
Ok first, can we just appreciate how cute the title of this one is? I’m v proud of myself for that. So – remember those “Get to know me” questionnaires from the days of Myspace and Facebook? They were a list of 50+ questions asking all sorts of random trivia about you like your first crush, have you broken a bone, etc. The point is to ask your partner (and they ask you in return) all these questions and get the stories behind the ones that are new info. Now for a twist! Think you know your partner really well? Have them ask you the questions and you answer for them. To make it spicy, you can remove an item of clothing for every one you get wrong or that will be one chore (load of dishes to unload or laundry to fold) for the wrong answerer to do. Here are a couple lists of questions to get you started (list one and two), but you can always find more on Pinterest or Google.
Design Your Dream House
To start, find houses that look like your dream or sketch one out yourself. You can start a Pinterest board together where you can pin homes that have characteristics you love. Then go room by room picking out the aesthetic and features of the room. It’s fun to see what each of you wants in a home… like maybe you want a pot filler over the stove and someone really wants a farmhouse style sink even though you think they look like bathtubs built into your counter. It’s also neat because you may get inspiration on ways to make your current space more useful or attractive.
Get Your Birth Chart
Astrology is fun because it’s just vague enough to fit pretty much anyone so you can relate to your star sign (even though I’m a total Scorpio). In just a few minutes though, you can have your birth chart made for free with Cafe Astrology. They provide your chart, and then go on to explain what each item means for you. Read the interesting bits to each other and see if yours fit you!
I hope I’ve convinced you that Quarantine date nights don’t have to be a Netflix movie and takeout (although no shade if that’s your preference). If you try any of these please let me know either in the comments or on Instagram! And remember, these aren’t just fun while we are forced to be home. These are fun things you can do together whenever, and since most of them are free, are great for when you are trying to stick to a budget.
Here is our breakdown of dinners for the week! For breakfast, my husband eats cottage cheese and I usually have coffee. Lunches are generally leftovers from the night before. We also like to leave two nights open each week for either going out (take out for now, of course) or catching up on leftovers.
Saturday: Air Fryer Chicken Parmesan and Gnocchi
This is one of those “clearing out the pantry” dinners since we had Trader Joe’s gnocchi and Primal Kitchen tomato sauce hanging around for a while. For the chicken, we just dredged chicken tenders in egg and then Italian breadcrumbs before putting in the air fryer at 370F for 14 minutes.
Sunday: Korean Spicy Pork
I love watching Marion’s Kitchen on Instagram and used her recipe here for this! It was very good and not terribly spicy. We served it with rice and roasted broccoli.
Photo from Marion’s Kitchen
Monday: Greek Chicken Salad
One of my great loves in life is marinated grilled chicken, and this recipe from Danae is perhaps my very favorite. We put this chicken on top of romaine with feta, cucumbers, red onion, and (store bought) tzatziki.
Photo from Danae at Recipe Runner
Tuesday: We Went Out
Sorry, folks, no recipe for today. We ended up getting Sizzle & Crunch and it was fantastic. Think Chipotle, but for Vietnamese food! I get rice as a base with grilled pork, all the veggies (except tomato), an egg, and their amazing cilantro sauce.
Wednesday: Basil Parmesan Salmon and Risotto
If you haven’t tried Skinnytaste recipes yet, you gotta get on it! I love this recipe for basil parmesan salmon, since it’s so easy and fast! We paired it with this super easy parmesan risotto and a small salad. Warning though: this risotto recipe makes a TON. I only made half of the recipe and we still had enough for this dinner, tomorrow’s lunch, and another dinner with a different main.
Thursday: Taco Salads
Does anyone else find themselves drawn to dips like a moth to a light? This past weekend I had purchased a pretty big (considering we are only two people and don’t snack that much) container of 5 layer bean dip on sale. I really wanted to use it up, so I put taco salads on the menu with the bean dip as a dressing. This dinner is super duper easy as it is just ground beef cooked in taco seasoning (highly recommend making your own instead of using pre-made since the sodium content is so high in them!), with romaine, cheese, and the bean dip as the dressing. I love crunch so I add cucumber to pretty much all my salads.
Friday: Scallops and Risotto
I warned you that the risotto would be making another appearance! To use up the remainder of the risotto, we decided to pair it with another seafood entree while also going through some of the freezer items. This evening we had scallops, which I just seared in the cast iron with butter (just make sure your scallops are really dry by patting them with a paper towel!), and then used the same pan to simmer more butter, white wine, and a spring of remaining basil. This dinner took all of 15 minutes to make and was quite good, especially with a glass of sauvignon blanc!
Every December I like to set out my intentions for the upcoming year, and this year I get to share them with you. I am a big believer in putting things out into the Universe to help manifest them. Of course you have to work towards your goals too, but it doesn’t hurt to have the idea out there. I’m pretty sure the book The Secret is a philosophy similar to this, but I never actually got around to reading it. Maybe that will be something on my 2021 list of intentions. 😉
Intentions for 2020
Get into an maintain an exercise/activity routine. I really let this slip in Q3 2019 and I want to get back to it so the physical benefits and for my mental health.
Publish more consistently on the blog. My publishing schedule has been lax at best, and I want to shoot for weekly content.
Reduce spending and be more proactive at paying down debt and sticking to a budget.
Set aside time for my husband that is spent engaging with one another with no screens allowed. At least weekly.
My word for 2020 is “Effort”. I want to put more effort into my relationships, work, and financial life. Things have gone fine while I’ve essentially been on cruise control, but I know that I am capable of more and want to ensure that I am giving my best to my coworkers, family, friends, and you.
I hope you have set out your own intentions for the New Year and that you achieve them throughout 2020. If you would like to chat about them, please reach out, but otherwise HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I love to go out of town for my birthday, because a. travel is my fave, and b. it feels so much more special and I’m a baby who loves to feel special on their birthday 😉
When we decided to hike the Inca Trail, the first available date for departure was my birthday, October 27th. Of course, I took this as a sign and we booked the trip. I will go over the planning and costs associated in the next post, but this one will be about how we spent our time in Cusco.
On Wednesday, October 23rd, we left Seattle for Cusco with layovers at LAX and LIM (Lima, Peru). The total flight time was about 12 hours, but almost 20 hours of total travel time. Fortunately, the time difference in Cusco is only 2 hours ahead of our normal. We landed on Thursday, October 24th around 11:30am.
I’ll be the first to tell you I got a little bit too cheap with the airport transfer and booked one for $14 on TripAdvisor. The irony of this is that it would have been cheaper to take a cab *facepalm*. They were not waiting for us upon arrival as expected, so we had to call their office line. After a few tries, we were able to get through, and fortunately my husband speaks Spanish well enough to get them to send someone over to help. This person put us in a taxi, lol.
I’ll go over our reasoning for the hotel choice in my next post, but we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn both before and after our trek. It isn’t in the main plaza, but it is a very short walk and a good way to get used to walking around in the altitude. We really loved the hotel, and would absolutely stay there again!
The view from our room at the Hilton Garden Inn
After dropping off our luggage, we walked in to town and decided to look for some food. The great thing about Cusco is that the food is incredibly fresh. The organic movement in the USA should take notes, because the quality is amazing. In fact, our first restaurant choice was a cute little (and I mean little) place called Organika. We ordered the alpaca and trout and both were very good, if you can get past eating a cute alpaca.
One of the things I love most about new cities is just walking around. I love to get lost in the alleyways and Cusco is especially great for this since so many shops and cafes are hidden away. While exploring, we came across a chocolate museum, Choco Museo, and decided to take a chocolate making course.
This class was so much fan and surprisingly hands on an educational. We learned about the chocolate making process from bean to candy bar, and were able to go through the entire process ourselves. We peeled beans, roasted them, made them into a paste, and then made that into a hot chocolate drink. After this, we had chocolate that we were able to make into molds and add things like nuts, candies, and coconut to. We also were able to sample every variety of chocolate that they sold in the shop.
After class we made our way out to the Plaza de Armas in the city center to enjoy the sun and architecture. The city is home to a number of gorgeous churches and the building style is unlike anything I had seen before. The Spanish colonists built directly on top of Incan construction so there is a clear foundation on many buildings made up of Incan building materials.
A famous example of the Incan construction as foundation. This is near the 12 angled stone.
That evening, we had the check in meeting with our Inca Trail tour operator, so we had a quick dinner at a pizza restaurant near their offices, La Bodeguita 138. The pizza was quite good, but the white sauce it was served with was excellent. I will warn you of two things though: 1 – the pepperoni is more like hot dogs that what is served in the US and 2 – Inca Kola tastes like bubblegum and is truly foul. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for bed.
Friday, October 25th
The next day, I really wanted to go on an ATV tour, but our trekking company had strongly discouraged this. So my new goal for this day was to find an awesome souvenir to bring home. I knew that ideally I wanted to look into an alpaca wool item. We would pop into the alpaca wool shops as we passed them (Highly recommend Kuna and Sol Alpaca!), keeping an eye out for something that looked interesting. At one of the Sol stores, I tried on a few items and narrowed it down to two coat options.
I decided on the red one, because it is more interesting and I already have black coats. If you are looking for alpaca items while in Peru, Sol is a great choice as the price is reasonable for the quality, and there is a lot of variety in the items offered.
Once I found my coat, we decided to celebrate with a quick Starbucks break. I will not be the person to tell you that Starbucks has particularly great drinks, but remember I am from Seattle so this is like a little piece of home that we can find nearly anywhere in the world.
We spent the rest of the day just walking around and exploring the city. We also made a trip to the bank and I was able to stumble my way through asking to exchange money for smaller bills. With how poor my Spanish is, this was quite the feat.
After my success at the bank (lol), we went to visit Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun. This was at one point the most important temple of the Incan Empire, but it was significantly damaged during the war with the Spanish. What remains today is primarily the Incan foundation with a Spanish cathedral built on top. It has beautiful artwork, and a lot of religious imagery and artifacts, but if you are looking for Incan history, it may not do it for you.
Saturday, October 26th
Our third, and last day before our trek, was very much food themed! We started out with avocado toast at the aptly named Avocado Toast & More. This was another great example of the freshness and high quality of the food in Cusco. Avocado toast is a simple food, but the avocados used were so fresh and creamy, and the aguas frescas was the perfect compliment.
Now time for a coffee break! We are in a coffee growing country so we really wanted to try the local product. To this end, we went to both Black Panther Coffee and Museo del Cafe. The Museo del Cafe is a great place to spend some time relaxing, learning about coffee, drinking it, and getting a snack. They also have restrooms and wifi if needed.
This evening we took a night food tour with Curious Monkey Food Tours, which I would highly recommend! Not only does the tour take you deeper into the city than you may explore on your own, but you also get a great amount and variety of food. We had tamales, grilled meats, empanadas, churros, donuts, coffee, chocolates, and more.
Thursday, October 31st
Once we were back from our trek, you may imagine that we were beat! We spent our first day back in town just walking around and exploring the areas that we had gotten accompanied with on our food tour. We also went to the San Pedro Market which was fantastic! I so wish we had discovered it sooner, and if you go, please don’t wait until you are about to leave to go. It is a large market full of small stalls selling all sorts of items. Meats, cheeses, breads, grains, souvenirs, and stalls selling fresh smoothies and lunch items. We were overwhelmed with choice, but had a delicious smoothie since we weren’t at a point where we could eat a meal because we had reservations that evening and wanted to save room!
Since I spent my actually birthday on the Inca Trail, we didn’t really celebrate until we returned. On the night of the 31st we went to a special dinner out at Uchu. This was an excellent decision. We enjoyed steak and wine while sitting in a beautiful dining room. It felt SO nice to sit and enjoy a meal at a real table after our time on the trail.
We were so lucky to be in Cusco over October 31st and November 1st! The night of the 31st the city was jam-packed with people, most in costume, for entertainment in the Plaza. It was both overwhelming and exhilarating being among such a huge crowd of people celebrating.We loved getting to watch the dancers in the plaza and seeing all the cute kiddos running around dressed as Spiderman!
Friday, November 1st
For our last day in Cusco, we had the morning and early afternoon before we had to catch our flight. The hotel was kind enough to hold our luggage for the day, and I was able to book a pretty last minute class with Ronal (link here). I won’t lie to you, I 1000% booked this course because it was the cheapest one offered, but damn am I glad we did it! Our group (me, my husband, and another couple) were led to the San Pedro Market to pick up supplies. While we were there, we got to sample a few types of fruits and breads. Then we went back to the shop where we had a hands on class making pisco sours, trout ceviche, and papa rellena (stuffed potato). The food, due to Ronal’s guidance, turned out fantastic and we had a great time meeting our new friends and cooking.
And that was our time in Cusco! We loved our time there and would love to spend a month or two there to get to do more. If you need any further recommendations, please reach out!
Hi Friends! Let’s chat today about the Inca Trail and how the hike broke down by day.
For background, we trekked with Alpaca Expeditions on their 4 Day/ 3 Night group tour. We chose them due to their fantastic reviews, community involvement, promotion of women throughout the company, and the fact that they bring toilet tents to the camps. If you choose to not go with Alpaca, there are toilets available at camp, but they tend to be very dirty/muddy and you will probably need your own toilet tissue.
If you are looking for ideas on how to spend your time in Cusco, check out this post, and if you are interested in how we trained and packed for the trek check out this post!
Day One
Hoo-boy, this was an early wake-up call! We were scheduled to be the last people picked up (another benefit of staying at the Hilton Garden Inn!) at 4:30am. We woke up at 3am, showered, and tried to get hyped for the day. By 4:10am we were in the lobby checked out and waiting for our group. Quick note: we chose to return to the Hilton Garden Inn after the hike so they were kind enough to store our luggage in the meantime.
At almost exactly 4:30, our tour group arrived and we were on our way in the van! Our first stop was a couple hours later at the Alpaca Expeditions homebase in Ollantaytambo where the porters and guides stay in between treks. Here we had the chance to eat breakfast, use the restroom, and meet our group and guides. Our group had 12 people and we had two guides (Nelson and Toro).
After breakfast, we drove to the checkpoint where we started out trek! The first hour or two start very easily. It’s nearly all flat and relatively even terrain. After 2 hours or so we stopped for lunch, prepared by the wonderful porters and cooks.
Oh these two have no idea what’s coming!
After lunch, we continued onward. Honestly, this is where the altitude started getting to me. It’s nearly all uphill and I am way to used to sea level! The important thing is to just keep going, take deep nose breaths, and make sure you enjoy the scenery as it really is beautiful.
We arrived at camp after a few hours, tired and ready for dinner and bed! Since my husband and I were the last group to camp, so we were warned that we would be getting an early start the next day. Honestly, this did not bother me at all! If waking up 30 minutes early means I can go at my own pace, sign me up!
Walking distance: 8.7 miles/14 km (6-7 hours) Campsite altitude: 3300 meters above sea level Fitbit Recorded Steps: 27,932
Day Two
We were up early today! Our call time was 3:30 and after packing up our gear, we set out for the day. It was just my husband and I leaving early and I will tell you, that extra time was nice because this was the toughest day for me (spoiler alert: tomorrow is the hardest day for my husband!). We are heading up, up, up to Dead Woman’s Pass (4215 meters/13829 feet). SO. MANY. STAIRS.
Ascending (left) and celebrating making it over Dead Woman’s Pass (right)
After Dead Woman’s Pass, we head downhill for another 1.5-2 hours where we were able to rest and have our lunch break. Our lunch breaks are generally about an hour and every minute of just getting to pause and enjoy the view is thoroughly enjoyed!
Descending Dead Women’s Pass
The second half of hiking today (this is our longest day by far!) was ascending the second pass in a couple hours to get to the ruins of Runcu Raccay, descending an hour to the Inca site of Sayacmarca, and then a relatively quick 30 minutes or so to the campsite for rest and food!
The top of the second peak of the day and I’m already over it.Descending the second peak
Ruins along the way. There are several Inca sites along the trek, and the guides provide a history lesson as you explore them. Making friends along the way!
Walking distance: 9.94 miles/16 km (7-8 hours) Campsite altitude: 3600 meters above sea level Fitbit Recorded Steps: 20,904
Day Three
Now THIS is what I’m talking about! As I mentioned, day two was really tough for me, but day three was the challenge for my husband. It is mostly downhill, but down very steep and large rocks serving as stairs. We are so glad we opted to rent hiking poles, especially for this portion.
Alpaca kisses
The first two hours of today are at a gentle(ish) incline, or as our guide Nelson referred to it, “Inca Flat”. The incline takes us into the jungle (aka Cloud Forest), and over the last pass of Phuyupatamarka (3600 meters). And now we start our descent.
The views from this area though are insane and, as we head to camp, we pass two Inca sites Phuyupatamarka (Town in the Clouds) and Intipata (Terraces of the Sun).
After a relatively short day of hiking, we are at the campsite for the rest of the night! We get to eat lunch and rest for a bit before an excursion to nearby ruins.
View from the tent this evening. Even I could get used to camping for this!
We head out for our very short walk to the nearby Inca ruins of Wiñay Wayna. This site is gorgeous, the views are amazing, and fact that this was built so far from anywhere else is just mind boggling.
The rest of the evening was spent visiting with our group mates, eating an awesome dinner (and birthday cake for me and another group member who had a birthday on the trail!), and an appreciation ceremony for our porters and rest of the team. It is during this ceremony that we provided them with tips for their hard work. Honestly, the more you can tip the better. You will quickly realize how hard these folks work when you are struggling on the trail and then realize they make the same trek with 50lbs of equipment, and they do it faster.
It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for… Machu Picchu!!
We woke up very early, this was another 3:30am wake-up time, to break down camp and have a quick breakfast. Then it’s hurry up an wait as you stand in line until the checkpoint gates open at 5:30. This is a great time to make sure your jacket is accessible! It’s very cold this early in the morning, especially since you’ll probably be sitting on the dewy ground.
The hike this morning is pretty easy, an Inca Flat hour or so to the Sun Gate. This hike is pretty take as far as incline, but there is one area in particular referred with nearly vertical stairs (I believe these are lovingly referred to as “the Gringo Killer” by locals) that I highly recommend climbing like a monkey using your hands and feet.
After you reach the Sun Gate, it is a pretty easy peasy downhill walk to Machu Picchu. The only trouble spot of this area is sharing the trail with the folks who bused into Machu Picchu and are heading up to where you just came from.
Almost there, I’m coming for you Machu Picchu!
Once we made it to the ruins, our guide took us on a tour and explained the mythology and history around the ruins. I will say, the one downside of having hiked the Inca Trail to arrive at Machu Picchu, is that the ruins are a little underwhelming once you arrive. You will have already seen a half dozen other sites along the way so, for myself, the magic has worn off a tad. It was still absolutely worth doing, and I would enthusiastically recommend it to anyone, but I’m just sharing my honest opinion with no harm meant.
We were in Machu Picchu for about two hours before our guide rounded us up to head into the nearby town of Aguas Calientes. We took the bus down and had lunch in a restaurant as a group. Unfortunately, after lunch we didn’t have time to explore town, and had to head to make our train.
Aguas Calientes looks super cute! I wish we could have explored more.
The train back was a relaxing 2 hour ride with wine available, if you were so inclined (spoiler alert: I was). Once at the station, we were met by drivers for Alpaca Expeditions who loaded us onto buses based on our hotel. Back at the Hilton Garden Inn, we collected our bags they had stored for us, and ordered a well deserved pizza!
So, let’s start at the very beginning… In May of this year my husband and I were at lunch and chatting about places we would like to one day go. A goal of ours is to see all the Wonders of the World, although this is a bit of a moving target since there is no official list as far as I know, and the items on each version of the list vary slightly. Oh well, I guess that just means more traveling for us!
We decided to look into Machu Picchu as a travel destination and I did a quick Google search to see how feasible that is (I know, I’m so rude to be on my phone at the table!). In my search I learned that Machu Picchu is unfortunately suffering from damage due to too many poorly mannered tourists (like these folks) and it is possible that the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu itself could be strictly limited or even closed entirely to tourists at some point in our lifetime. We definitely wanted to go sooner rather than later! Also, we had decided that we wanted to hike the Inca Trail to get there and, to be frank, we wanted to do it while we were in decent shape.
After some internet research, we decided on the 4 Day/ 3 Night trek with Alpaca Expeditions because we loved that they provide local children the ability to see some of the local historical sites they may not afford to otherwise, were one of and maybe the only company I saw with women guides, had great reviews, and provided toilet tents at camp. I won’t lie to you and say that the availability of the toilet tents didn’t mean more to me than it should have.
To start your planning, you need to check the availability of the tour on the date you would like to leave. The tours fill up quickly because the trail requires a permit for each person and limits these to 500 per day. So, even if your tour operator is available, there may not be permits available. The next available tour start date for 2019 was October 27th, my birthday. Obviously, this was a sign so I submitted the inquiry and we got the planning process started!
Training for the Trail
During the months in between, we worked on improving our cardio and strengthening our legs in the gym. This included A LOT of stair climber work since a large portion of the Inca Trail is made of steps, and a good amount of calf strengthening since sore calves make for misery. I will tell you, we did NOT regret that leg work! In retrospect, I wish I had done more cardio since it’s so much tougher to do really anything at that altitude. We hiked around our area, but we are basically at sea level so very different!
Our workouts during this time were a little something like this with an occasional hike every other weekend or so thrown in:
Monday & Friday
8 min warmup on treadmill or stairclimber
3 x 15 hip thrusts, barbell squats, leg press, goblet squats, leg ext.
4 x 20 dumbbell calf raise
2 x plank for time
10+ min on stairclimber, as long as possible
Wednesday
Kickboxing! I love this class at our gym 😊 It’s def a cardio class.
Tuesday
8 min warmup on treadmill or stairclimber
3 x 10-15 incline dumbbell press, lateral raises, ez bar curls, hammer curls
2 x 8-10 heavy Arnold presses
4 x 10 superset preacher curls & weighted bench dips
3 x 20 plank ups & weighted Russian twists
10 + min on stairclimber, as long as possible
Saturday
8 min warmup on treadmill or stairclimber
3 x amrap pull ups (using a machine because I can’t do a real one!)
3 x 7-12 barbell row, rope lat pull downs
4 x 6-10 dumbbell single arm row, chest supported row, cable row
3 x 10-12 preacher curls and hammer curls
3 x 20 plank ups & weighted Russian twists
10 + min on stairclimber, as long as possible
Please keep in mind that this is just what we did, and is not necessarily a great training schedule for you nor am I certified to advise anyone. Fitness and exercise is just something I enjoy and this schedule is what works for me.
Insert obligatory gym selfie!
Packing for the Trail – What we did and didn’t need
We are not especially light packers, and we had 5 days of time to spend in Cusco, so we each brought one checked bag. I know some people make this trip with just their trail hiking pack holding everything, but I guess I just require more clean clothing than that would allow. Fortunately, our luggage had no issues arriving with us, but we did have a couple days before the trek started to allow for the luggage to arrive if it did get lost. (For a breakdown of the trail by day click here, and for a rundown of what we did and ate in Cusco click here!)
We trekked in October and below is what we brought in our packs (with links to faves!). The tour company we went with carried our tents and sleeping bags so you will notice they are not listed. Remember that everything you pack has to be carried, so the lighter you pack the better!
What We Brought:
4 changes of pants <- 2 pairs of leggings and 2 pairs of hiking pants (These)
1 sweatshirt (I brought a water resistant Lululemon and I definitely recommend one that is easy to take on and off! This one is expensive, but I have worn it so much)
Buffs (Like this. I wore mine a lot after my ears were sunburnt)
Sunglasses
Sunscreen & bug repellent
Deodorant
Medicines in a pill case (Aleve/ibuprofen, Immodium, Tums)
Ear plugs (highly recommend if you are a light sleeper and I stored these in my pill case so they didn’t get squished)
1 Water bottle for drinking around camp
Headphones & my phone for music. I brought wired headphones rather than Bluetooth so I had fewer things to charge.
Baby wipes for dirt and some semblance of bathing
Dog poo bags for collecting trash
Compact rolls of toilet paper
Battery pack (mine is this one and it charges my phone multiple times)
Snacks! Cliff bars mostly.
Hiking boots, we choose boots over shoes for the ankle support since the trail is very uneven. We LOVED our boots (here) and our guide was wearing the same ones. They are pricey, but were so worth it for us, and we have used them a lot since!
Hiking Pack with hydration pack and bladder (mine was 2 liters)
Hiking poles (we rented ours from the company since we don’t use them at home. VERY glad we did! They helped so much for the downhill days.)
What I Would Skip:
Skip the rain jacket and just bring a down jacket with a hood
All but 3 pairs of pants. I only ended up wearing 3 of the 5 pairs I had on me (including the pair I wore on day 1 that wasn’t in my pack at the start). I would bring two pairs of leggings and one pair of hiking pants.
NO t-shirts! The long sleeved shirts were perfect for sun and bug protection and breathable enough to not overheat.
Toilet paper, or maybe just bring one roll. Our tour company provided it and I never needed to use mine.
Reduce snacks to just a couple Cliff bars. They fed us plenty and I only needed a snack a couple times, and it was just half a bar.
The water bottle for camp. We were provided a cup for water at camp and it was perfect for our needs. In the tent we could drink from our packs.
Regardless of the time of year you are trekking, I strongly encourage you to wear long sleeves. The sun is very, very strong and both my husband and I were burned even with sunscreen. And please don’t skip a coat/jacket of some sort, because it gets so cold at night and some places where you will rest are at very high altitudes so you don’t want to freeze.
The last thing I recommend you do for prep is to make and download a killer playlist for the hike! There are some parts that are really difficult so having music that hypes you up helps you to push through. My playlist includes a lot of Britney Spears, Lizzo, and early 2000s jams that energize me. I also downloaded a few episodes of podcasts, which were particularly nice to listen to when going downhill since you are moving slowly and your focus is on balance rather than stamina.
I hope this helped you to plan your trek and please let me know if you have any questions!
Welcome to Christine In Between! I’m Christine and I’m a late 20s, mid size woman from the great Pacific Northwest. I write about fashion, light money (I’m no Graham Stephan!), home life, food, fitness, and travel. I hope you decide to follow my journey and I hope I can be a bright spot in your day. Thanks for tagging along!
