I felt a little funny wearing my hiking boots to work every day, even when it wasn’t snowing. But there were only two weeks left before my flight to Peru, and these suckers had to be broken in by then. A blister would definitely not be tolerated during my four-day Inca Trail trek. I couldn’t really think of a better way to prepare myself for what lay ahead, so made sure to religiously wear the boots as often as possible. Other than that, I hadn’t given the trip much thought.

I initially signed up to do the thirty mile Inca Trail because, well, I had never done it before. I had done some hiking around New Hampshire and was looking for a South American vacation for a couple of weeks. It was certainly not a unique decision: regulations instituted in 2001 ensure that only two hundred trekkers can be on the trail each day, limiting visitors to almost 75,000 per year. Alone was something I was not. Tens of thousands had walked these steps before me, and while I knew I was just another cog in the tourist wheel, I imagined people must be flocking there for a reason. I was ready to find out what it was.

My travel companion Rita and I arrived in Peru without incident. We followed instructions to spend a few days acclimating to the altitude in Cuzco, and passed the days visiting nearby ruins, making friends with locals in town, and devouring stories of recent Inca Trail adventures from returning tourists. At some point during the acclimatizing process, I realized I was about to spend the entire 4 days without my cell phone or access to the internet. It was possible this was going to be the first time ever I’d be deprived of both connections to the outside world for such an interminable amount of time. In a true showing of denial, I skillfully masked my panic as concern for my parents. I certainly don’t need to check my email while I’m away, I told myself. But how will Mom and Dad know I’m okay?? I prepared them for the disconnect, knowing on some level I actually needed it more for myself.

Our Trail departure day arrived with its own drama; I had a debilitating stomach bug the day before, rendering me incapable of finishing the Sacred Valley day trip with a group. Instead, I took a cab back to the hostel and spent the rest of the day confined to the bathroom floor. That evening, determined not to be robbed of my Inca Trail experience on such short notice, I consumed an emergency cocktail of five kinds of medications and a gallon of Gatorade before going to sleep. Miraculously, it worked, and when the alarm went off at 4:00 am, I was up and ready. Sort of.

The next few hours bore a striking resemblance to the first day of camp: A group of strangers piled on the bus with their luggage, half asleep but humming with anticipation. We awkwardly introduced ourselves; friendly and curious, knowing we were about to spend the next four days together. We met our guide, cooks, and porters, wondering why our unassuming group needed such a huge team of locals to escort us.

The sun rose and excitement on our little bus built as we realized we had gathered all 8 hikers in the group and were headed to Ollyantambo, the town where we would start walking towards Machu Picchu. On the advice of one of our local friends from Cuzco, Rita and I purchased bamboo walking sticks for the trek. It was a modest amount of support, but better than nothing; $1 for a steady hiking partner didn’t seem like a bad deal.

The bus finally parked after what felt like the longest, windiest ten miles in history. As we disembarked I realized I really hadn’t given this whole experience much forethought. We lined up at passport control to officially register as trekkers and were led through the gate and across a small bridge.

The large wooden billboard squashed any doubts of where we were or what we were about to do: "Camino Inka - Inka Trail", it read. "Bienvenido-Wellcome-Bienvenu-Bienvenuto". Well thank you, I thought. Apparently we had arrived.

Our obligatory first group picture was taken in front of the billboard; a group of happy, well-rested, clean and crisp tourists waiting to see what magic was waiting for them on the other side of that sign.

And so we were off.

In the beginning, we were running on pure adrenalin. There’s no turning back now, I whispered to Rita as we passed Quechua women, children swaddled in brilliantly colored fabric on their backs, leading mules strapped with belongings. The elevation was steady and views beautiful. The dirt path wound between jagged mountaintops and lush green vegetation. We passed a series of ruins, our guide stopping to explain Incan mythology and terrace farming (a practice that allowed for planting crops on steep terrain). Before we had time to get tired, we arrived at our first stop for lunch and tea. Confusion set in upon arrival as we realized our porters had run far enough ahead of us to set up eating tents, cook a more gourmet lunch than I’m accustomed to at home, and set the table. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of food...all I knew was that it would be taken care of and we wouldn’t be hungry. I was hoping for hot at best, canned tuna at worst. A three-course fare of asparagus soup, grilled chicken with veggies and pudding rendered me speechless. This trip would not be without creature comforts; quite the contrary, we were 5-star campers. I was equal parts relieved and embarrassed. I wasn’t used to people waiting on me at home, doing it here in the mountains just seemed wrong. We sat, drank our tea and snapped pictures. Operation: Unplug From Society had officially begun.

After lunch and only a couple more hours of hiking, we arrived at our campsite for the night. Tents had already been constructed and bags (which porters were carrying) placed in their respective homes. There was an illusion that we, the hikers, were the ones working hard here - constant food and water breaks, reassurance from the guides that we were making great time. The irony of this illusion was not lost on anyone.

The night was spent resting, eating and drinking coca tea. The campsite was nothing out of the ordinary, except for a tiny stand serving beer and water, complete with a sign that read in handwritten paint: "We accept Visa, Mastercard". I was pretty sure it was a joke, but it was hard to know for sure.

Lacking TV, my phone, all but one of my friends, and any real form of entertainment, I spent the later part of the evening contemplating my circumstances. I had always loved hiking and camping, but something about this felt different. Even the word ’trek’ carried a connotation that was new to me: it was goal-oriented. This was the first time I’d been on a journey that was not just for the sake of exercise, isolating myself in nature or chasing a beautiful view from a peak (though those were all happy side-effects). Nor was it a roundtrip walk that would land me back at the parking lot where I had left my car. Here, we had one thing in mind: Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu. It sounded like a cool place. It looked surreal in pictures I had seen online. While in Cuzco I learned that an American historian had discovered the ’lost city’ in 1911. Hundreds of years beforehand, when Spain was colonizing Peru, Incan cities were either destroyed or used as grounds for a church (note: I also learned that week that the number one way to conquer a civilization is to take away their religious institutions and replace them with your own. What better way to demoralize an entire culture?) Archeologists and anthropologists still cannot agree what exactly Machu Picchu was. Some say it was a jail. Some say it was a place where human sacrifices, virgin wives to the gods, would live before their duties were fulfilled. Some say it was a place for high priests and the Incan emperor to retreat in the face of outside threats. Whatever the original purpose, it was now world-renowned as being one of the most astounding living pieces of old world architecture and culture nestled in a breathless backdrop of the Andes. The Incas had their own reasons to visit this site. We had ours. And we were literally walking in their footsteps to get there.

We left the next morning in rainy conditions for what we were warned would be the most physically challenging day of the trek. After sharing a night and a few meals together, the group was beginning to feel more like a cohesive team than a bunch of strangers who had met the day before. We walked together, chatting and eagerly anticipating what we would find on our arrival. By lunchtime I had found the word to describe what this journey was about to become: a pilgrimage.

pil⋅grim⋅age

Definition: n.

1. A journey to a sacred place or shrine.

2. A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.

That seemed accurate enough. What we were doing had all the elements of a classic pilgrimage: seekers coming together from different backgrounds in search of a common goal, a test of character and strength, a journey towards a significant destination. I recognized the near-absurdity of the fact that in practicality, Machu Picchu bore no religious, spiritual or otherwise personal significance for me. But by pure virtue of the fact that I was putting myself through a personal test of strength to get there - and sharing that test with others - I was infusing meaning into our destination. Something spiritual. Something special. We were fighting to get there, so all of a sudden it didn’t really matter where "there" was.

And fight we did. Our second day on the trail was excruciating. The guides warned us we would climb over 3,000 stairs that day, but it was harder than I ever could have imagined. At close to 14,000 feet, every step was a struggle as my heart rate soared and my lungs ached. A pack of four of us banded together to push each other through the hardest parts, stopping every ten steps to rest and motivate each other, repeating our new mantra "onward and upward!" each time someone was ready to give up. We walked up into a cloud and the rain began, but now we really had no choice. One. More. Step. And then again. And then again.

We reached the first peak with little fanfare and absolutely no visibility to reward our efforts. Our downsized group was only motivated enough to snap one single picture before starting what would be another two hours of walking down stairs. Nobody told me going down is actually harder than going up after a climb like what we had just experienced. I was still waiting to be somehow rewarded for making it to the top, but instead of an easy descent, my knees and ankles began buckling with every step. They literally couldn’t sustain the weight of my body anymore as I leaned on that $1 walking stick for dear life. With each passing step, I found new ways of putting the entire weight of my body on that stick, switching from a blistered right hand to a blistered left, then using both at the same time and stepping down sideways. How had all those 75,000 people made it through this? Miraculously, we stepped foot into our campground for the night, weaving our way through the hundreds of tents that were home to trekkers from other groups, until we finally found the porters we had come to recognize. All I felt in that moment was sheer exhaustion, only wanting to crawl into my tent and die for a few hours. Physically unable to do anything else, sleep conquered all and I was out.

Two hours later, my bladder woke me from my nap and I unzipped my tent to go find the latrine. In a haze, my mind had forgotten where I was. As I poked my head outside to get my bearings, I was immediately awake and absolutely overwhelmed - instead of a computer, window, bookshelf and mirror, I found distant snow-capped mountains, low hanging clouds, sheer cliff walls and pointed peaks. I had seen a lot of beautiful things in my life, but this felt like seeing the world for the first time. Humbled and in awe, I crawled onto the grass and cried. The sight had pierced my heart, ripped it open, and given it new life.

I took it in for twenty minutes until clouds rolled in, covering nearly the entire mountaintop on which we sat. I stood and thanked whatever force had woken me up in time to catch the perfect view when I could, and headed to the food tent for dinner.

We had transformed from hikers to pilgrims. The group sat around the dinner table, drinking tea and eating salted popcorn, sharing war stories of the day like soldiers. Some people had fought through severe altitude sickness near the peak. Some had needed porters to help them up the final few stairs. All had pushed themselves beyond their limits. And all of us were ready for more.

We bundled up to sleep as temperatures dropped to almost freezing that night, and even laying absolutely still in my sleeping bag, my heart was racing. I couldn’t tell if it was the altitude or the anticipation. I barely slept.

Day Three was upon us. It brought a second peak, lower in altitude than the first, but our muscles and joints were still recovering. Another 3,000 steps needed to be ascended and descended. Although a more shallow climb than the previous day, the distance was greater. The group was now a family, and as we walked we giggled and bickered and pushed and supported each other.

Ten hours passed. It was getting dark and we hadn’t yet reached the camp. By now the group had splintered into multiple pieces, me and the Onward-Upward pack leading up front, the guide and an injured hiker holding up the rear, with the rest of the trekkers scattered in between. In shadows it was harder to find our footing and we briefly worried that we had taken a turn somewhere and were walking in the wrong direction. Eventually the village of tents appeared, and we were directed to campsite number fifteen to find our crew.

We settled in for the night and walked around the grounds. There was a building at this campsite where hikers were gathered to drink, use the showers and socialize. I went inside briefly to find a bathroom and was immediately overwhelmed by the sight of so many people. It had only been two days since I’d left ’civilization’, and I already felt like I didn’t belong. It was too loud. It was too mundane. Didn’t these people know where they were? Couldn’t they see outside? How were they not as overwhelmed as I was?

Nightfall was haunting as the sky turned a deep shade of blue behind white mountain peaks. The moon slowly lit up and rose in the sky. People gathered to watch and take photos like the moon itself was a celebrity that rarely came out of hiding. There was a collective excitement tonight, not just among the hikers in our small group but among all the hikers in the village. This would be the last night of the trek. The plan for the morning was a 3:00 am wakeup call, followed by a 4:00 am departure to arrive at the Inca Sun Gate by 6:00 to get our first peek of Machu Picchu at sunrise. We had come all this way and would finally see our goal for the first time from afar, in a place where the Incas paid tribute to the light of the sun. Ignoring the fury from the party down the road, we sat and ate dinner together for the last time, thanking the cooks and porters, taking pictures together inside our tent, and reminiscing on what had felt like lifetimes longer than 72 hours. After all we’d been through together, was that really how long we’d known each other?

It was still dark when we woke and were rushed out of the tents in preparation for the sprint to the Sun Gate. This was literally a race against the clock: the check point didn’t allow hikers onto the last section of the trail until 5:00 am; the sun would rise close to 6:00. If we didn’t hustle, we might miss it. People dressed in near silence, quickly ate their pancakes in the dining tent, filled water bottles and packed bags. There was an urgency today that had been missing on previous days. Excitement bordered on stress as our guides yelled that we were taking too long. We finally left camp as the second to last group, got in line behind a hundred other hikers in pitch black, and waited for the gates to open. We spoke in whispers, like children scared to get reprimanded for talking in the library, giggling under our breaths, shining our headlamps on the path ahead, excited to take the final steps of our collective path.

The gate opened and the best we could do was not trample each other. Hikers flew through the checkpoint one at a time and immediately broke into a solid run, single file, along the dark trail towards Machu Picchu. Now everyone was focused. It was how I imagined military training camp to be: each hiker keeping pace with the person in front of them, eyes focused on the trail so as to not lose their footing, running in the absolute silence of contemplation and exhaustion. Four days of small talk and gossip dissolved into labored breathing in the intense anticipation of finally reaching our goal. The only noise I could hear was my own panting, escaping through lips that were parted involuntarily in a smile, and the pounding of feet against dirt.

Nobody said a word, other than to help each other over rough terrain, and suddenly it was light out. Headlamps were put away and we knew we were getting close.

Finally, without warning, we had arrived. Since we’d left last, we’d arrived last, and stumbled up a hill to find everyone facing where the sun would rise, cameras in hand, walking sticks and backpacks finally at rest on the ground. A hundred seekers stood together, waiting for the sun to come up and reward our journey, now bonded together by this shared experience. I was so focused on the light shining out of the faces of my companions I initially didn’t even notice Machu Picchu in the distance.

A member of the group finally pointed to Machu Picchu down below, signifying the end of our trek. The 8 of us sat together on the edge of the stone Gate wall, feet dangling, absorbing this moment. We had arrived.

For me, seeing Machu Picchu for the first time that morning was not about history, or archeology, or anthropology. It was the all-encompassing ecstacy of being a part of something exhilarating, of being a seeker, of reaching my destination, of setting a goal and accomplishing it. It was the visceral pleasure that can only be experienced by conquering something that seems just out of reach. This was an important place to the Incas for reasons nobody might understand, but it became sacred to us that day because it embodied whatever it was each of us was seeking: athletic accomplishment. A photo. God. Bragging rights. Machu Picchu was whatever each of us needed it to be that day, and for that reason alone, it was sacred.

I walked around the ruins all morning, marveling in what we had just done, trying to imagine what Machu Picchu must have looked like through the eyes of people who had taken the bus up the mountain - their experience was in no way inferior to ours, but it was different. We were seekers at the end of a pilgrimage. Our journey’s purpose had been fulfilled.

It’s nearly impossible to return to a routine, a job, a life after a trip like this one without feeling a sense of loss. My emotional ability to experience joy had literally been stretched to new highs. And all of a sudden, I was home.

I was home, but I was still me. And I sit at my cubicle, look at the photo of the Andes as my computer’s wallpaper, and I close my eyes and clearly see what I saw that second evening after innocently poking my head outside the tent. I hear the feet pounding on the ground in the dark as we ran towards the Sun Gate. I can relive it all in an instant, and know that capacity for joy is still inside of me. All I need to do is let it out.

Next Chapter: India: Not My "Eat Pray Love" Experience