Training for the mountains

Thank you to Teresa Thompson for contributing this post to GoGirlfriend. We’re a community-based travel blog and we welcome submissions from everyone. Whether you’re a budget-baller or a first class only kinda traveler, we’d love to hear from you. Visit our Writer’s Guidelines and learn how you can share your travel advice, stories and adventures!

Teresa Thompson is a traveler at heart, rather than a tourist. She gets out there, experiences, and lives a destination. We've been chatting with Theresa about her trip, so be sure to check the previous posts if you've missed them.

• Part 3: Transforming the idea into a plan
• Part 2: Coordinating 4 schedules
• Part 1: Flight schedules and travel insurance

GoGirlfriend: When you finally arrived in Peru, was there an acclimation period for the weather, culture, etc?  

Girlfriend SupportTeresa Thompson: All of us except Betsy were arriving from sea level to 10,800 ft, so we were a little apprehensive about altitude sickness. Betsy was coming from about 7500 ft in Colorado so she was more ahead of the curve than the rest of us. We all brought prescription altitude meds, but decided to take a wait-and-see approach.

We followed a local tradition of drinking tons of coca Beautiful Perutea (dried coca leaves submerged in hot water). I called it my little morning cup of crack. The locals swear by it for just about everything but, most importantly, for dealing with the altitude. While I didn't find it very tasty at first, it grew on me. The locals even chew on the leaves as well, but I stuck to the tea.

Cusco is on the same time as US Eastern Standard so except for the fatigue of the travel time, I was lucky to get into Peruvian time fairly quickly.

We did go light on alcohol the first couple days (because of the altitude) and felt great.

GG: For the hiking part of your adventure, had you trained at all? 

TT: We all trained pretty hard for this trip. Lisa and Kris hiked the mountains of the Pacific Northwest as often as possible all summer and Betsy and I hiked at least 3 days a week in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of south-central Colorado, where she lives and I have a summer place. I even climbed two 14,000-ft peaks this summer (my first).

We all love to hike so it didn't really feel like training. Just imagining us all on the Inca Trail was a great motivator!

GG: Were there any issues about keeping up with each other?

TT: Betsy and I solidly brought up the rear on the entire Inca Trail. We pace each other well and I'm a picture-taking freak so we were very comfortable at the end of the pack. Lisa and Kris stayed mostly in the middle of our group of 10. We all ate 3 meals a day together and are pretty independent women so the system worked well for all of us.

Thinking about your own girlfriend adventure getaway? Send us your questions and Teresa will answer them in a future post.

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