Nom Nom Nom Nom: The Inca Trail Edition

Mel: Snacks, snacks, snacks! They really are one of the most important things to think about when planning a trip. This photo shows what we brought for our Inca Trail hike: peanut butter sandwich crackers, chocolate chip granola bars, Tropical Fruit and Berry trail mix, Monster Mix (trail mix with M&M's, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips).

Kate: But of course the healthier of the two trail mixes we never ate. We were exhausted and starving but trail mix without PB chips and M&M's is just a bad idea and something you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Not sure why we ever bought it in the first place.

Mel: Yeah, I just noticed that the healthier trail mix says "Low-Fat" on it. We should have known better. The last thing I was worried about on the Inca Trail was a few extra calories. Nope, I was more worried about things like falling off a cliff, getting caught in a rain storm after my poncho blew away, or shitting my pants since there never was a bathroom when I really needed one.

And I will say that our "healthy" option was still more appealing than the boring snacks that most of the people on the Inca Trail were eating, like Cliff Bars and bananas.  They were probably so jealous when they saw us eating our Monster Mix.

Kate: OMG do we have any other photos of us with snacks? I look like I have bells palsy.

Mel: Well, you had just hiked 26 miles at 13,000 ft with a beast of a backpack.

I wish we had a photo of the yogurt pretzels. Did we eat all of them before we even left for the hike?

Kate: I bet we ate all the pretzels before the plane took off.

Mel: Too bad - because I really did love the story we made up before we left about how when we are at our lowest moment on the Inca Trail and on the brink of ruining our friendship, the only saving grace was going to be finding one lone yogurt pretzel in our bag and splitting it. Although in reality, that one yogurt pretzel probably would have been crushed into a million pieces at the bottom of our backpack but I guess we could have split the crumbs.

Kate: We can reenact the scene in Morocco... maybe a gif of us being mad and then smiling while sharing the last yogurt pretzel.

About Kate

Mel: Kate is the ultimate city bitch abroad because:

She can pack for a two week trip in the time it takes to play a Michael Jackson song.

Kate packing for our South America trip while listening to Bad. Yup, she packed for the entire trip in 4 minutes and 7 seconds.

Kate: Omg these pictures are the definition of hot mess. I also love that my reading material for the trip was apparently an issue of Marie Claire with Mary Kate on it and The History of Love. The absence of US Weekly or In Touch is troubling.

Mel: We can only hope I was carrying the other trash mags. 

She's tough enough to carry a backpack that’s twice the size of her.

Kate hiking the Inca Trail. Badass.

Mel: I love how I can barely see you in these pics because the backpack is insanely huge. Also, the woman on the left clearly opted to pay a porter to carry her backpack because she was smarter than us. And I think the porter on the right is actually carrying less than you!

Kate:  I'd like to clarify that not only did we scoff at the people who decided to pay a porter to carry their bags but we also thought it would be genius to swap off carrying one ginormous bag with both of our sleeping bags rather than us each carrying one normal size bag of our own. #lessonlearned

Mel:  A small part of me still stands by our backpack idea but that might just be because I got to see the porters laugh at you every time they passed by.

Kate: The only time I really regretted that decision was when we were going down the "gringo killer" stairs and the bag was so big it got stuck while I tried to climb through a cave and then about 15 porters came barreling down the hill at me. I always wondered how frustrated they must have been with us tourists. Here we are with hiking boots and walking sticks struggling and they're basically running the entire thing in flip flops, while carrying all our food and shelter.

stuck in the cave 

Mel: Although to be fair, we didn't actually have hiking boots. We were probably the only gringos doing the trail in gym sneakers.

Kate: And everyone else was decked out in North Face and EMS gear while we're rocking Old Navy performance fleece and Goodwill flannel. However, we were the only ones who were prepared with ponchos, so that has to count for something.

She also does an EPIC Hammer dance.

Mel: One of my only regrets from our travels is not getting photos or video of your MC Hammer Dance. I'm sure I would have if the dance hadn't been suddenly interrupted by the person knocking on our door to get us to be quiet in our guesthouse in Chiang Mai. You have to promise to do it again on our next trip so I can get some video of it - people really need to see it.
  
Kate: Let's be honest. I love doing the Hammer dance and wearing big pants so the chances of you getting on video at some point are pretty damn good. Do you think it would become a "meme"? Am I using that word correctly?