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The next several hours brought me one of the strangest sequences I've ever witnessed.  The taxi dropped us off at the Plaza de Armas, where a bus, other backpackers, and a half-dozen tray-wielding vendors awaited us.  The vendors tried to sell us candy bars and other junk (who eats candy bars at 5 in the morning?).  We stood oustide in the morning cold as, one by one, taxis arrived and dropped off additional trekkers.  After a good while, we were finally asked to hand over our backpacks -- which were attached precariously to the top of the bus -- and get on board.  Now, you would think that after everyone got on board, we'd soon have hit the road, right?  No.  With about thirty backpackers all on board and accounted for, we ended up witnessing a strange scene: an odd assortment of locals (apparently including tour guides, though the one we met Monday night was nowhere to be seen) shuffled onto and off the bus.  A man sleeping a couple rows in front of me was yelled at, woken up, and summoned off the bus; guides got on board and read the same misprinted, mispronounced names over and over again; every guide/local got on and off the bus repeatedly.  After almost an hour of this, with everyone on board in uncomfortable crowdedness, the bus began pulling away -- and even then, an older woman screamed through the bus's open door, which the lanky kid standing right in front of me (robbing my leg room) struggled to close.  It was absolute, unmitigated chaos.

What was hardest to believe, though, was that this craziness was only the beginning.  Just when we thought we'd be on the road for good, the bus stopped next to a shack right outside the Plaza.  The aforementioned combination of locals and guides filed back out of the bus and ran over to the side of the street, where elderly women were holding big bags and buckets full of what looked like trash.  The dudes loaded this junk onto the bus -- a process that took almost ten minutes.  Finally, with this new cargo and all the Peruvians on board, we set off again on our way.  But, in what felt like an awful, awful dream (compounded by the delirium from the extreme sleep deprivation), it was just minutes before the bus stopped again, and the process of people shuffling off the bus to retrieve and load junk repeated itself.  This cycle of junk-loading happened seven or eight times, for 5-10 minutes apiece -- with a stop at a run-down gas station mixed in for good measure -- and each cycle was separated by a short drive paired with bad American music blaring from the bus's speakers. 

By the time we were on the road for good, it was past 7 AM, and I was numbed from sitting through all this mindlessness.  As the bus sped on, I drifted into sleep.  In fleeting moments of consciousness, I caught glimpses of the snowy Salkantay mountain peak -- first on the horizon, then closer and closer.  When the bus pulled off onto an unpaved dirt road and began ascending, I was rattled awake. 

The bus went up the winding one-lane roads and switchbacks in one big cloud of dust.  We passed by a couple rustic-looking mountain towns.  After dropping off a group of trekkers at a roadside shack, the rest of us arrived at our destination: the town of Mollepata.

The remaining two groups filed off the bus and into a restaurant.  One of the Peruvians walked in with us and introduced himself as Fabian/Pio (he went by two names, he said), our tour guide (he was not the guide we met Monday night, nor did we ever figure out who that guy was).  We sat down for breakfast.

Fabian asked us all to introduce ourselves.  What happened next was possibly the weirdest turn of events -- and certainly the most random -- on what was already a very bizarre day.  The first person to introduce himself had looked awfully familiar earlier in the morning, when we were boarding the bus.  Knowing the odds were virtually impossible, though, I had thought little of it -- till I heard this guy say his name.  Ken Lopour, fellow member of the Laguna Hills High School Class of 1999 and La Paz Intermediate School Class of 1995, had ended up in the same trekking group as me!  Considering there are dozens of groups that leave for Machu Picchu on an assortment of trails every single day, the chances of this coincidence were truly, truly infinitesimal.  I hadn't seen Ken since the end of high school in 1999, and the last place you'd expect to run into a familiar face is a ten-person hiking group seven years later on another continent.  But, as it turned out, the Salkantay trek offered an unexpected opportunity to catch up with an old friend.

The rest of the group consisted of: Dana, Ken's girlfriend; Nir and Nyah from Chicago; Natalie from Manchester and Sorcha from Ireland; and Mariano and Mercedes from Spain.  Everyone was in their 20s, and each person had an interesting story.  As the coming week would show, it was a great group.  Pio asked us to come up with a group name, but we concentrated more on eating; we dined on pancakes and omelettes and sipped coca tea (you put the coca leaves in hot water, producing a concoction that supposedly helps counter altitude sickness).

After breakfast, we convened outside to load our packs onto a waiting group of horses (I decided to wear mine for the day -- nothing like 35 liters' worth of weight on your back for a good workout).  The group name "Gringos" was suggested; Pio countered with "Condores" (a Peruvian national icon that, we suspect, doubles as the name for a not-insubstantial number of trekking groups).

With logistics out of the way, we officially started our trek by walking from the restaurant to a street down Mollepata.  We made a pit stop for the group to buy walking sticks and coca leaves, and to take our first group photo:

From here, the trek got underway in earnest.  We walked uphill, out of Mollepata, and into the adjoining hills. 

Feeling the ill effects of the increasing altitude (and the lack of a post-breakfast break), Tammy slowed a bit, stopping intermittently to catch her breath. 
I went back to keep an eye on her and was rewarded with a frightening and prolonged chase, as a humongous black bee apparently thought me or my backpack would be a fun thing to attack.  After I ran for a bit, the bee finally stopped chasing me, and my first Peruvian death scare thankfully came to a conclusion.

Our group continued on the path,

which took us past wild animals,

pack-carrying horses,

and some pretty spectacular views.

After a while, we got our first on-foot glimpse of the Salkantay mountains -- the same ones we'd seen from the bus in the morning:

After a few hours of trekking uphill, we stopped for lunch.  We crowded around a small table, and the meal started off with one of the tastiest bowls of soup I've ever had.  Its deliciousness may have in part derived from the ardor of the morning trek, but really it was just the opening salvo in a weeklong series of sumptuous dishes served up by our pair of cooks.  Following the soup was some yummy spaghetti.  We ate, drank tea, and took a breather..


..but soon, it was time to hit the trail again.

It was almost 3 PM, and with the sun to set at about 6 PM, time -- and the diminishing daylight -- was of growing importance.  Tammy trailed the group, and Fabian and I walked just ahead of her to keep an eye on her.  We took in more of the flora and fauna,

which was headlined by a bull right on the trail (Pio assured me it wasn't dangerous, so I took these photos):

The trail went on and on, and the sun continued to slip away.

After chatting with Pio about everything from his job (he's led treks for seven years) to Peruvian wages (an average of 400 soles a month -- or the equivalent of $133, in US dollars) to deportes (futbol being his obvious favorite) to Tammy (just a friend; my girlfriend, Victoria, was back in SF), his responsibilities as our guide -- at the moment, to help set up the campsite, were calling.  So he pushed on ahead; a while later, just after nightfall, the last of our group finally arrived at the campsite at Soraypampa.  We all convened inside a candlelit enclosure that shielded us from the wind and cold outside.  Hungry, cold, and tired from walking an entire day with my pack, I plunked down for some soup and a drumstick.  Shortly after, I was inside a tent, with my sleeping bag and layers doing all they could to fend off the night cold.  From our campsite, we could see the moonlit peak of the Salkantay mountains.  The next morning, we would be hiking right up to the base of that snowcapped peak.  It would be the hardest part of the entire trek.

Map of Peru