The story

There was no space on the Inca Trail. "Estás seguro?" I pleaded with dormant Spanish, or "Are you sure?" in English. I was sitting face to face with the ninth Peruvian salesman that day to offer the same answer. He was positive. No space on the Inca Trail, entering Machu Picchu via the Sun Gate, but his alternative trek was the real deal, he said.

I said, "Gracias," grabbed my bag and went trudging out the door and back into the rain.

At this point, I could not remember the smile I wore just hours before as I boarded my New Year's Eve flight and watched Atlanta grow smaller below me -- four days trekking in the Andes, a new adventure! That smile had vanished, the woman who grinned it, gone. In its place, a miserable downtrodden troll with fiercely angled brows, standing in the middle of the Plaza de Armas in Cusco, Peru -- with no Inca Trail booked. Read full article »

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