Personal Narrative: Hiking The Inka Trail

I am the youngest of three in my family, two older brothers. I am the youngest out of all my relatives as well. I have always been viewed as the little girl and I probably always will be considering I am five foot. This past summer I had the opportunity of a lifetime to hike the inka trail in peru. When first heard that this was going to happen I wasn't exactly surprised as most families prefer going to beach resort each year and relaxing while being catered pina colada my mother sees to it that we see every square inch of the place we visit, even if that means hiking 10 miles to see a random rock that is supposed to have some historic significance that we easily could have googled an image of to get the full effect. To further prove this, she believes hotels are only for sleeping. On our flight to peru I really didn't know what I was in store for. I thought this hike of the Inka trail was going to be a piece of cake. The morning before our five day camping excursion I woke up with the worst pain I have ever felt in my lower stomach. I layed on the cool tile floor of our hotel twisting to find the position that would relieve my discomfort. My mom dismissed my complaints as just anxiety over the hike. Although I was feeling a little apprehension about hiking 6

I celebrated 4th of July at the peak of Dead Woman’s pass, 14,000 ft above sea level surrounded by foreigners. On the second day, the group split up into the different walking speeds, naturally; The crazy athletic young ones taking the lead, both couples including my parents taking up the rear, and the middle of the bunch iin between which included myself. The middle bunch became my family for the next couple days while my parents were walking behind us. That day we had to walk 4 hours straight up and 3 hours straight down. One would assume the journey up would be harder but in fact the downthe groups were really