# data[].attributes.body
Hiking the Inca Trail, a so-called "bucket list" item for some people, is not nearly as easy as people think.  For every one of the positive, upbeat "you can do this!" pieces I encountered on the web, this personal reflection of a husband and wife's failure to complete the hike and what they would have done differently, is a noteworthy, cautionary tale.  Packed with useful information on how to prepare for the arduous Inca Trail hike, this article is worth reading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
There is a really good chance that this post contains affiliate links. If you click one of them, we may receive a small commission (for which we are deeply grateful) at no extra cost to you.

We're sitting in a restaurant in Aguas Calientes, the gateway to the Inca Ruins of Machu Picchu. Around us are five couples, two solo travelers, and two tour guides. All fourteen of them are tired, dirty, and covered in dried sweat. They just finished the 4-day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu hike and experienced a life changing experience, an incredible physical and mental challenge that had bonded them as lifelong friends.

As we watch them drinking celebratory beer, retelling stories, and soaking it all in, I'm reminded: this was supposed to be us.

But instead of having a spiritual pilgrimage, we had an expensive failure on attempting to hike the Inca Trail. Instead of hiking to Machu Picchu, we turned around and hiked back after the first day. Here's why.
Estimated Reading Time: 30 Minutes
Psst: Planning a trip to Peru? We've got a few other posts that might be helpful!

The 4-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu Hike

We decided to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu months before we started our year-long trip and backpacking South America.

We chose the classic Inca Trail hike: a 4-day, 3-night trek through the Andes that ends at the Sun Gate, an exclusive entrance to Machu Picchu. The trail is part of an ancient pilgrimage, a path walked by thousands of ancient holy men, shamans, and great Incan scholars.

Completing the path is a bucket list item, a dream come true. We were stoked.

Machu Picchu Hiking Tours

After a lot of research ( by Lia, the bigger nerd of the two of us), we booked our trek with Alpaca Expeditions, one of the highest rated tour companies. Alpaca Expeditions is amazing.

Their prices are super reasonable, and the services included in your trek are far above the other tour companies. They provide porters for anything you need carried. They bring a chef - AND a sous chef.

The staff are all paid fair wages, and the company is founded by two former porters themselves ( a big problem with tourism in the Sacred Valley is the exploitation of the impoverished local populace, so this is a huge deal).

All of their porters are from the Sacred Valley community. All meals, snacks, camping equipment, and purified water are provided. Hikers just need to bring a day pack with rain and sun protection, while the porters carry everything else.

Makes the Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu sound easy, right? We made the same mistaken assumption. Spoilers: we were wrong.

In addition to an excellent company, our tour guide, Jose, was one of the best natural storytellers I've ever had on any tour. He was engaging, passionate, incredibly knowledgeable, and funny. Mind, you we didn't get to enjoy much of it.

What to Expect on the Inca Trail To Machu Picchu

Even with an awesome tour company, the 4-day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is no joke.

It's an incredibly difficult hike. Different companies take slightly different approaches to the trail in regards to the length of each of the 4 days, and Alpaca Expeditions happens to have arguably the hardest - something we didn't realize when we were booking 8 month ago. Cool.

While most companies start short and increase their hiking distance each day, Alpaca Expeditions optimizes campsites to avoid crowds.

Machu Picchu Hike Itinerary

Day 1 is the "training day"; an 8.7 mile long warm up hike. The bulk of this section is lovingly referred to as Andean Flat - meaning, well, not flat. If anyone in Peru ever describes a hike as "mostly flat," you can safely assume they actually mean "mostly uphill."

The last stretch of day one is a steady ascent uphill for roughly an hour and a half.

Somehow, we looked at the altitude map of Day 1 and thought, "that doesn't look too difficult." Day 1 seemed like a piece of cake. Yup: wrong.

Day 2, we thought, is the big one. It starts with a nearly 4000 foot climb straight uphill - literally stairs - for about four hours, to the cheerfully named Dead Woman's Pass, situated at 13,500 feet of elevation.

From there, it's down-up-down on more stairs. The whole day is about 11 grueling miles long, at the most difficult and challenging altitude of the entire hike.

Day 3 is a short 6 mile half day in preparation for the mad dash to The Sun Gate first thing in the morning on Day 4.

We figured, as long as we can get through Day 1, we'll be OK - it's just Day 2 we have to worry about. Of course, we were totally wrong and underestimated the Machu Picchu hike difficulty.

Training to Hike the Inca Trail

I know that some of you are only reading this to make sure your Inca Trail hike won't befall the same fate as ours. (Which is smart. Keep reading!)

Training for Machu Picchu was definitely part of our failure. But not in the way that you might think. The problem wasn't that we didn't train for the Inca Trail, or that we were overweight (although yes, in the interest of full disclosure, we're both mildly overweight).

We trained hard for our backpacking trip ... but our Inca Trail hike was 4 months into our trip.

When I signed us up for the hike, 7 months before our trip, failing to complete the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu didn't even cross my mind as an option. We were regular hikers at home, taking advantage of the myriad hikes around the Bay Area on a weekly basis.

We added backpacking into the mix and hiked with heavy packs on. For almost a year leading up to our travels we also worked out regularly at the gym, doing at least 3x a week of strength training, powerlifting, and cardio to prepare for our Machu Picchu trek. We timed our hikes, aiming continually for a 20-30 minute mile, adding elevation gain and mileage regularly.

We felt fit. We felt ready. And then we left for South America.

In the months leading up to the trek, we planned various hikes and treks throughout South America: La Cuidad Perdida and the Valle de Cocora in Colombia, the Quilotoa Loop in Ecuador, and Laguna 69 and Colca Canyon in Peru.

Our goal was to train steadily over our 4 month trip to work up to the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, as it is by far the hardest hike we have ever attempted. It all seemed so doable. One trek a month or so. No big deal.

The Reality of Training in South America

The thing is that we could barely handle our training hikes. The hiking in South America is so much more difficult than we had ever experienced.

From the altitude, to the heat, to the actual trails themselves - which seemed to alternate between knee-deep rivers of mud, slippery sand or shale, or just unmarked landslide-covered mountainsides - we were woefully ill-equipped.

We were used to Northern California hiking, with it's temperate weather, low elevation - except for the challenging mountain peaks, which we of course hadn't attempted - and well-marked, comfortable sand or packed dirt trails.

Within the first 2 weeks of our South America trip, we called off our 6-day Ciudad Perdida trek based off of our miserable experience during the relatively "easy" hike to Parque Tayrona.

We managed to hike only half of the Valle de Cocora, defeated by mud, slippery hidden rocks, and our own slow pace.

We successfully hiked 2 out of 3 days of the incredibly difficult Quilotoa Loop trek - if by "successfully hiked" you mean got lost, crawled up a mountainside on our hands and knees, and injured ourselves. On day 2, we took a taxi. By day 3, we were limping so badly that we hitchiked for the last mile of our hike.

Only one of us managed to hike Laguna 69, our first and only high-elevation hike ever, while the other one suffered in bed from debilitating altitude sickness.

By month 4, when it came time to do the 4-day Colca Canyon trek, we opted to take a bus instead. Fit hikers? Ha. Not anymore.

Hiking in South America turned out to be WAY more difficult than hiking in the States. Needless to say, after 4 months of almost no training at all, we were not ready to hike the Inca Trail.

Hiking to Machu Picchu: Off to a Bad Start

I could tell we were out of our league when we showed up to our debriefing session at Alpaca Expeditions the night before the start of our hike of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

Everyone but us was in perfect shape. You could just see rippling abs bulging out from every Patagonia and North Face jacket in the room. One guy was casually telling stories about various marathons he'd completed and the time he summitted Mount Fuji. Another couple was late to arrive because they were finishing up another multi-day trek.

It was like walking into a Cross-Fit gym in stained sweats holding a donut and a milkshake. We were in way over our heads.

As we sized up our fellow hikers in dismay, I'm sure they were looking at us with the same dissappointment. As one uber-fit fellow travel blogger put it, there's "nothing worse that having an out of shape Debbie Downer hiking with you for 4 days in the Peruvian mountains." Her Inca Trail Trek was far more successful than ours, of course.

Day 1 of the Inca Trail hike is called "Training Day," and it's meant to illuminate the difficulty of the trek before you get into the really hard stuff.

Our big problem when it comes to hiking is that we hike SO SLOWLY. We've heard so many well-meaning people who successfully finished the Inca Trail trek be like "Oh I'm slow too, it's no big deal! You can do it!" It's nice, but it's wrong. In the words of Beyonce, "You must not know 'bout me," because we take slow to a new level.

We let our guides know in advance that we are incredibly slow, and they both told us not to worry.

Day 1 of Our Machu Picchu Hike

So as we began our hike to Machu Picchu, we weren't surprised to find ourselves falling back regularly behind the rest of the group.

The first part of Day 1 is supposed to be from 9 AM-1:30 PM, then an hour break for lunch.

The historical lessons that Alpaca Expeditions includes along the trek ran a little longer than planned, so the group got to lunch around 2 PM. Well, everyone except us, that is.

While the group were sitting down to enjoy a well-deserved break and deliciously cooked meal, Lia and I were slowly making our way up an Andean Flat stretch that became infinitely more difficult because the sun was burning us to oblivion.

We expected rain the whole hike, but instead we were given unrelenting sunshine. I wasn't sure what I would have preferred, honestly. We were dressed for rain, not sun, and it felt like we were dragging ourselves through the desert in 800 degree heat.

We huffed and puffed and sweated the whole way up what was supposed to be an easy, "flat" section of the Inca Trail. We finally rolled up to lunch just before 3 PM and got the dregs of the leftover food.

I was so exhausted I barely touched the delicious fresh trout. Minutes later, the porters were tearing down, packing up, and ( literally) running to set up our camp. Break over.

Our Uphill Battle Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

We didn't get any time to relax before we had to follow the rest of the group back up the trail.

Franz, our assistant tour guide, was a trooper. He gently strolled alongside us as we huffed and puffed uphill for the next two and a half grueling hours. He was our personal chauffeur throughout the whole ordeal, in charge of our safety and health as the last 2 stragglers in the group.

The section of hike after our lunch break was the beginning of the climb to Dead Woman's Pass, the section that's notorious for making the Inca Trail difficult.

The hill alternates between stairs that go up to your knee and an incline so steep that it would make San Francisco say "Nope."

Franz gave us the advice to take the hills in a zig-zag. This helped a little, but my knee injury was returning mere minutes into the hill (thanks a lot, Quilotoa Loop). The pain sparking in my leg was only mitigated when we were passed by three fabulous, fluffy llamas.

Trying to Remain Optimistic

Lagging behind and struggling, we were already feeling defeated. I asked Franz about the logistics of turning back the next day. Being the determined "we-can-do-it" one on our hikes is usually my job, so we both knew we were in trouble.

But Franz remained optimistic, telling us that our pace was slow but steady, and assuring us that we could do Dead Woman's Pass. Alpaca Expeditions never wants to send people back (imagine the pain of losing your entire trek fee AND failing at your once-in-a-lifetime bucket list dream - trust me, it hurts), so Franz kept pumping us full of hope.

As time stretched to an hour and a half of slogging up the hill, we found a slow, methodical groove. I was feeling almost meditative, slowly putting one foot in front of the other as we climbed stair after stair with no end in sight.

As the waning sun disappeared behind the majestic mountains apathetically observing our slow struggle, Franz pointed up and around a bend. Finally, he said the words we'd been waiting to hear for hours: "there's the camp, ahead." The end was near!

In a last ditch effort to cheer us up, he added, "I actually think you guys can do it tomorrow." We huffed and puffed and limped into camp, visions of finishing the Inca Trail, arriving at Machu Picchu, and accomplishing the impossible dancing in our heads.

Happy Hour on the Inca Trail

We arrived at camp about 45 minutes after everyone else. It was already dark outside. The porters probably set the tents up 15 minutes after they left lunch, because they're insanely bad-ass (I'm not exaggerating when I say they were literally running up the trail).

So when we got to camp, everything was already set up for us in our spacious tent. We gratefully accepted a bucket of hot water to soak our feet in and tried to catch our breath.

The group was supportive and friendly, avoiding the slow elephant in the room, and instead asking things like "did you see those fabulous llamas?" It was a forced comradery - they'd just spent 8 hours bonding and chatting as they hiked, while we'd only interacted with them for a few minutes the entire day - but they were a really polite group.

Jose came by our tent and let us know that "happy hour" was in five minutes, followed by dinner. He said we didn't need to come to happy hour if we needed rest. Then, ominously, he added "After dinner, we need to talk. I will give you suggestions." Unsure what this meant, we went to happy hour.

Happy hour was hot chocolate, tea, popcorn, deep-fried cheese wontons, and crackers. Honestly, much better than any booze-centric happy hour (especially at 10k feet above sea level).

Dinner, like all Alpaca Expedition meals, was fantastic. We had Chifa style chicken, fried mashed yucca patties, rice, veggies, and fried cheesy cauliflower. Dessert was banana flambeed in pisco tableside.

As we stuffed ourselves, Jose gave the group a pep talk about Day 2: It's the hardest day of the Inca Trail hike. 5am wakeup. 4 hours of climbing stairs. High altitude. You'll likely feel sick. You'll probably lose your appetite. You might throw up. Most of your extremities will be tingly and numb. Drink a lot of water. You know, the usual.

If you read that and thought "oh my god, that sounds like actual hell on earth," you know exactly how we were feeling.

Facing Reality: Accepting Our Inca Trail Failure

After we ate our fill, Jose pulled us aside. He gave us two options.

Option A was that we pack up that night, sleep in our hiking clothes, and get started on the trail at 4 the next morning to continue our Machu Picchu hike. At our pace, he estimated, we'd be hiking until after sundown.

14 hours of hiking. 4,000 feet of climbing. 14,000 feet above sea level. Oh god.

Option B was that we turn around and hike back. Franz, our assistant guide, and a porter would go with us carrying our stuff. We would spend one night in Ollantaytambo and one night in Aguas Calientes, just outside of Machu Picchu.

On Day 4, we would take the tourist route - the train - to Machu Picchu and reunite with the group early in the morning. "In time for pictures," Jose assured us, in a voice that hinted that in case it helped ease our pain, there'd be a photo that made it look like we'd hiked the whole way too. Thank god, nobody on Facebook has to know about our failure on the Inca Trail.

I guess that's probably important for some people, but our first question was: how much is this going to cost us? $400 extra - on top of our $1,200 trekking fee - was the estimate. Ouch.

Deciding to turn back

We took a hard look at ourselves.

I was full on limping. Neither of us have ever hiked for 14 hours straight, much less on such a difficult and high-altitude trail. Lia is about 18 times slower than I am, and I'm slower than everyone else we've ever met.

We were both filled with dread at the thought of Dead Woman's Pass. Our optimistic visions of completing the Inca Trai hike faded and vanished.

With a heavy heart, we told Jose we would be leaving the next day. Our failure on the Inca Trail was set in stone.

Return Hike to Ollantaytambo

We had breakfast with the group and told them we wouldn't be joining them that day. They were understanding and sympathetic. A few of them definitely saw it coming. Jose gave us each a bagged lunch and wished us well.

The way back was much easier. Maybe it was because we knew that once we were done hiking that day, we were done hiking for a long time. Maybe it was because the way back is all downhill.

Either way, we returned to KM 82 (The Inca Trail trail-head) in just 6 hours, compared to yesterday's 8.

At the trailhead, we were joined by a Danish couple who had turned around due to altitude sickness: they'd spent night 1 throwing up. The four of us, our porters, Franz, and some others from the small town jumped in a combi and headed to Ollantaytambo.

Ollantaytambo, Peru

When we arrived, we got a surprise from Franz - and it wasn't just 2 bright green t-shirts proclaiming that we'd "Survived the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu." Thank god, no one at the gym has to know about our failure on the Inca Trail!

No, the surprise was that apparently we were expected to pay for Franz's hotels and transportation during the 3 days while we were off the trail. Surprise! We were pissed. We didn't even NEED a guide, and we were already out enough money (*cough*$1,200*cough*).

I guess if you're the kind of traveler who flew into Peru just to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu (which describes everyone else in our hiking group) you might feel more comfortable with a guide tagging along, but we were 4 months in and perfectly capable of finding our own way.

The two Danes, who were on their honeymoon, got a nice hotel. We - on our much grungier honeymoon - found the cheapest piece of crap hotel we could. $5 for Franz, $10 for us. Sorry, Franz. If we're paying, you're roughing it too.

Exploring Ollantaytambo

We also, inadvertently, discovered what some people already know: Ollantaytambo is the cheapest place to stay close to Machu Picchu.

Although it's not quite as close as Aguas Calientes, it's still on the train line to Machu Picchu and makes for an excellent base for visiting the Sacred Valley - which is the same conclusion that Amateur Traveler came to in his guide to planning a trip to Machu Picchu.

Ollantaytambo is quite similiar to so many Peruvian small towns we've been in. There is a main square surrounded by local restaurants and traditional craft markets. There is a looming mountain covered in picturesque ruins that we were in no mood to explore (side note: the Ollantaytambo Ruins are actually awesome, and make a great - and cheaper - alternative to Machu Picchu, as it turns out. Oh well. Next time, I guess.)

Trying to make the best of a bad situation, Lia and I tried some Alpaca Saltado, one of the local typical foods. We've been asked repeatedly if we've tried any bizarre foods in South America. Alpaca now tops the list. But it was super gross. It tastes like gamy overcooked beef. We like alpacas way better alive.

We bought our tickets for the train to Aguas Calientes and spent the rest of the day trying to find a cell phone charger and a wi-fi signal.

We drifted off to sleep around 8pm, only to be awakened 3 times ( 3 TIMES) by the owner of the hotel, who apparently thought we were going to bounce without paying.

He would shine a flashlight in our room, ask if we were still there or when we were going to pay, and then shuffle off. Early in the morning, he knocked on the door with the same routine. We eventually found him sitting motionless outside of our room, waiting to take his money. I guess not many gringos go with the super cheap hotel option in Ollantaytambo.

Aguas Calientes, Peru

We boarded a train the next afternoon across from the Danish couple. We enjoyed the scenic ride through the Sacred Valley from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, despite the awkwardness I brought on by bragging about how cheap our hotel was ( theirs wasn't, and we ended up looking like cheap traveling dickbags. New blog name?)

During our train journey, as we sipped our free passion fruit juice and nibbled our free cookies (actually, "cookies" is a stretch. It was stale bread with 4 chocolate chips on top) we passed the beginning of the Inca Trail again.

You know that feeling when you spend hours hiking a difficult trail, only to drive past it on the way home and realize it only took you 10 freaking minutes by car? We watched 16 miles and 14 difficult hours of our life pass by us in the blink of an eye. No wonder they stuck a train track on one of the most-used Inca Trails to Machu Picchu.

Arriving in Aguas Calientes

When we arrived at Aguas Calientes, Franz met us at the station. We had pre-booked our beds at Super Tramp, a hostel that was in partnership with other hostels we've loved in Cusco and Arequipa. Again: we were in major penny-pinching mode.

Franz escorted us through Aguas Calientes to find the hostel, making himself as useful as he possibly could. Turns out we'd managed to out-cheap him: he took one look at the graffiti-covered hostel filled with grungy lounging backpackers and announced he'd booked his own hotel. We were off the hook for his room bill! I guess he didn't want to stay with us in a 10-bed dorm. Can't blame him.

As for us, we took one look at Super Tramp hostel - with its graffiti and travel-quote covered walls, free breakfast, and crowds of friendly lounging backpackers - and thought, oh thank god, we're home. (Every time we stay in a hotel, we end up missing hostels. Seriously!)

The town of Aguas Calientes is actually pretty cool looking. It's built in the rainforest at the base of a waterfall. Due to its location, there are no cars in town, so the streets are narrow with tall buildings. The only vehicles in town are buses to and from Machu Picchu.

The downside of staying at a tourist hotspot

The major downside to Aguas Calientes? The price.

The entire town is marked up like crazy to take advantage of the crowds of tourists who tromp through on their way to Machu Picchu and have no idea what a regularly priced Peruvian meal is like. Hint: it's usually a lot less than 30 soles for a plate.

Franz offered to take us on a 3-hour hike to see a waterfall or to visit the local thermal baths. I'm sure those things are lovely, especially for people who are only in Peru to see Machu Picchu, but we were short on cash and ... I realize this sounds super obnoxious ... we've seen a lot of waterfalls and thermal baths during our 4 month backpacking trip through South America.

Also, we were cranky. Sorry, Aguas Calientes. We opted to sit inside the hostel doing absolutely nothing - and trying not to dwell on our failure on the Inca Trail - and it was great.

Finally in Machu Picchu

We woke up at 4am the next morning, along with everyone else in our 10-person dorm room, and scarfed down the super early free breakfast from the hostel.

We met with Franz and waited in the long line for the bus to Machu Picchu. The bus was bouncy, but the scenery was beautiful: low-lying fog nestling up against gigantic, steep mountains blanketed with rainforest.

Anyone who has ever been to Disney or somewhere similarly packed with tourists knows that whenever people flock to a tourist attraction, they turn off their brain and tend to believe this experience is just for them. Arriving in Machu Picchu felt just like that.

In the low season, 3,000 people are let into Machu Picchu a day - 5,000 in high season.

After the 45 minute wait for the bus, 30 minute wait in the line, and 20 minute crowded uphill walk to Machu Picchu, it was...disappointing.

Why Machu Picchu wasn't all we thought it would be

Don't get me wrong. Machu Picchu is beautiful, and a truly breathtaking sight. But it's so crowded.

In order to appreciate the quiet majesty of the ruins, you have to avoid selfie sticks, tour groups, and hoards of people trying to take THAT picture. Which is impossible.

Without firsthand experience, I think it's safe to say that Machu Picchu is way, WAY more satisfying after a grueling 4-day pilgrimage along the Inca Trail.

After kicking out a couple who were attempting to meditate in one of the most popular designated picture spots, Franz helped us take our own obnoxious Machu Picchu picture.

We got a few minutes to explore the Guard's House - hands-down the best spot for photos AND the least crowded, as it's all the way up the hill - before finally reuniting with our group as they walked down the hill from the Sun Gate, the entrance from the Inca Trail.

Reuniting with our tour group

The group was starry-eyed and excited. They were seeing Machu Picchu with completely different eyes than we were. And we felt the difference.

Despite their friendliness, it seemed like we were being pitied. Our questions of "Oh my god, was it amazing?" were met with a polite and uncomfortable "so how was...your time? Was the town nice?"

We also stupidly wore our complementary "I Survived The Inca Trail" t-shirts... but nobody else did. Awkward.

We took our group picture, imagining that for years to come, whenever the rest of the group shared this photo with their impressed friends and family, they'd say, "See those two in the bright green "I survived the Inca Trail" shirts? It's so ironic. They were the only ones who didn't make it."

The group left us again to check in at the office. In the meantime, Lia and I got to do what we were looking forward to the most: making llama friends.

As anyone who has been to Machu Picchu will tell you, there are llamas everywhere. The llamas even have the right of way throughout the ruins. We found some particularly friendly llamas (that's a lie, all llamas are sassy and rude and it makes us love them so much more) and finally got the picture that we'd always dreamed of.

The best way to experience Machu Picchu

Once Jose and the group returned, we were treated to a two hour tour of the village of Machu Picchu.

Everything Jose said put the group in awe and built upon 4 days of in-depth cultural lessons that we had missed (and I do mean in-depth. Jose went to college for this. He is insanely knowledgeable.)

As we passed ruin after ruin, not quite grasping the significance of subtle architectural details that made the rest of the group gasp in delight, I realized that everyone else had experienced Machu Picchu the right way.

The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu was a pilgrimage, and here they were reaping the benefits.

4 days of dust, sweat and tears. 4 days of viewing progressively larger and more interesting ruins, and hearing the stories of the people who once lived there. 4 days of fully embracing Pachamama and deeply resonating with how Sacred the Sacred Valley truly is.
All we'd done was sit around bored for 2 days.
After the tour, most of the group continued to Wayna Picchu, an hour hike ( more stairs!) uphill for a sweeping view of the village and surrounding area.

You know that tall pointy mountain in the back of any photograph of Machu Picchu? That's Wayna Picchu. We decided not to do the hike, because it's extra money and who are we kidding.

Instead we opted for the Inca Bridge, a derelict stone pathway that hugs the side of a cliff face. As we hiked the hour to the Inca Bridge, we realized we were both feeling the same disappointment about not finishing the trail.
We hadn't just failed at hiking Machu Picchu. We had ruined our destination, too.
Return to Aguas Calientes

We left Machu Picchu before most of the others, sick of the crowds and the overall feeling of regret.

Jose told us to meet at a restaurant called Tupana Wasi. If there was any doubt that Alpaca Expeditions is used to gringos with money, this restaurant confirmed it. We took one look at the menu and nearly choked: it was SO far out of our budget.

We spent the hour waiting for the rest of the group eating raisins and nuts like chipmunks storing up for winter so we would be less envious of everyone else's food.

As the others arrived, hugs were had, beers were consumed, and contact information was exchanged.

Well, except ours.

This was the most awkward part of the entire day. The group tried to be polite about avoiding getting our Facebook information, but I'm pretty sure they didn't even remember our names. Which is OK, because we didn't remember any of theirs, either.

It felt like we had stumbled into the cast party of a close-knit group of actors in a play we'd only caught the first 10 minutes of. We sat awkwardly trying to join in as much as we could as the rest of the group retold stories, shared laughs, and reveled in the life changing experience they had shared. I mean literally life changing, you all. One couple in the group actually got engaged at The Sun Gate!

We killed time in town after lunch until our train ride. Finally, after four days of lucky weather, the skies had opened up into the torrential rain we'd been expecting all along.

On the train ride back to Ollantaytambo, we passed KM 82 and the start of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for the FOURTH time. It was like we were reliving our Greatest Hits of Inca Trail Failure over and over again.

Finally, after four hours of transit, we arrived back in Kokopelli Cusco, finally done with one of our most expensive failures ever.*
*Surprisingly, this was not THE most expensive failure we've had. We once bought a used car for $5,000 cash. It lasted for 2 months, then inexplicably died. RIP, Loretta the Jetta.
How to Not Fail on the Inca Trail Hike: Tips For Machu Picchu

The 4-day Inca Trail to Machu Piccha is no joke. It is a grueling four-day fight against time and altitude.

Of the group who actually completed the Inca Trail, 3 felt the effects of altitude sickness on Dead Woman's Pass, and 1 spent a whole day throwing up as he hiked. I mean, he DID finish, though.

If you plan to take on this challenge, here are our tips for hiking Machu Picchu. Follow our advice and you'll be far more prepared than we were!

Arrive in Cusco at least 4 days in advance in order to acclimatize. We gave ourselves 5 days and did not feel any of the effects of altitude sickness.

Take altitude sickness pills, from the time you arrive in Cusco up through the ascent to Dead Woman's Pass.

Hit the gym. The Machu Picchu hike is insanely difficult and gets even harder if you happen to be overweight. At a minimum, you should be able to run a mile without needing to stop (which we still struggle with). You should be able to do around an hour on the Stairmaster (especially helpful for Dead Woman's Pass). When it comes to strength training, focus on your hamstrings, quads, and calves. We recommend deadlifts, squats, and weighted calf raises. The stronger your legs are, the less likely your knees will get injured.

Train like your life (and your trekking fee) depends on it. At a minimum: hike like crazy. Hike weekly. Hike for speed, hike for altitude, hike the hardest hikes you've ever done and master them. If you've never done a 4,000 foot incline (and decline), find one and do it. If you can find some high-altitude hikes to do - even a gentle stroll at high altitude will help - do them as often as you can. We've also heard swimming can help with altitude training, so long as you're working hard and holding your breath at the same time.

Train with a respiratory restriction mask, like this one. Wearing this ridiculous looking mask might make you feel like Bane from Batman, but it'll turn you into an altitude-mastering hiking beast. If I had 1 thing that I'd try if I could go back and do it all over again, it would be to buy one of these and wear it on every single one of my training hikes. Altitude was by FAR the most difficult factor in our Inca Trail failure, and if you're training at a low-altitude area like we were in California, this will be crucial to make sure you're able to complete your hike to Machu Picchu!

Research the hiking route. This is something we didn't do - we assumed all trekking companies did the same route on the Inca Trail from day to day. We didn't realize we'd be covering more ground than every other company in the first 2 days. Many companies spread the 26 miles out evenly over 4 days, or give you 2 days of warmup before a long day. If 12 hours of hiking (the plan for day 2) sounds like too much, go with a different company than Alpaca Expeditions.

Consider your options for hiking Machu Picchu. You should know that the 4-day Inca Trail is not the only way to hike to Machu Picchu. There are other treks that get you to Machu Picchu, like the Lares Trek, the Salkantay Trek, and the Inca Jungle Trek, just to name a few. There's also a 2-day Inca Trail hike option. It is my understanding that these all end at Aguas Calientes, then a bus continues the trip to Machu Picchu. The 4-day Inca Trail is the only one that ends at the Sun Gate and continues straight into to the ruins of Machu Picchu.

Choose your tour company carefully. If you are planning on doing the Machu Picchu hike, you'll find many options for tour companies. I can't praise Alpaca Expeditions enough. They were open, honest, patient, and helpful, from booking to when we were dropped at our hostel. With most South American tour companies, you get what you pay for. But with them, it felt like we got more than we paid for. We are big proponents of sustainable and equitable companies. Alpaca Expeditions are one of the only Machu Picchu tour companies to treat their porters fairly, and it shows in the happiness and demeanor of the porters.

Do some reading to prepare for visiting Machu Picchu. I don't mean like reading a blog post, y'all. I mean books! I highly recommend this excellent, expertly-researched primer on Incan culture and history: The Incas by Terence N. D'Altroy. No book opened my eyes to the incredible, forgotten reality of how insanely advanced, high-tech, and populous pre-Columbian societies such as the Incas were prior the invasion of European colonists more than 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. And if you're looking for something a little less research-based and a little more humorous, Turn Right at Machu Picchu is a fantastic read.

Inca Trail Packing List That Will Get You To Machu Picchu

One thing that we felt well-prepared with was our hiking gear! Peru, much like the rest of South America, is the land of every kind of weather you can imagine.

It's hot during the day, cold at night, even colder if you climb higher, and can rain in an instant - which becomes even more likely depending in the time of year you choose to hike the Inca Trail.

You'll need to bring gear that can withstand anything that gets thrown at it, and keep you comfortable to boot.

Here's what we recommend throughout all of our trials ( and failures) hiking both in the US and in South America.
Note: we had a porter carrying our belongings, which we STRONGLY recommend - even though some companies charge extra for this service, it is worth it.

50-100oz of water: We have a Camelbak Hydration Pack that fits 100oz of water, snacks, AND has some room for gear, too. This was all we carried with us during the day, to keep things as lightweight as possible.

Trekking poles are a huge help when it comes to tricky terrain and climbing both up and downhill, such as Dead Woman's Pas. We brought our Black Diamond trekking poles with us, folded down and tucked into a side pocket of our backpacks, for our entire 5 months in South America and they were SO useful on hikes.

Rain Gear: We love our Ultra-Light Packable Rain Jackets (His & Hers) and we bring Waterproof Socks to wear under our Trail Runners, just in case. These are small enough to roll up and tuck right into our CamelBak.

Hiking Clothes: We prefer wool hiking gear thanks to its ability to cool you down in the heat and keep you warm in the rain - totally necessary for high-altitude hiking in Peru, where the weather can change in a minute. We've tried a lot of different hiking clothing over the years, and these are our favorite tried and true picks.

Hiking Shoes & Socks: We both hike in Trail Runners rather than heavy duty hiking boots - they're lightweight and travel friendly, more flexible and comfortable, and they dry super quickly when it rains or after a water crossing, so your feet will stay toasty and try. Pair them with well-made wool socks. Our favorite wool sock brand is Darn Tough: soft, durable, and they come with a lifetime guarantee in the event of holes (that's how you know it's real).

Coca Leaves to chew during your hike. The guides will give you Coca Tea and a special hand spray that will help clear your lungs on day 2, but bringing extra Coca Leaves to chew as you walked will really helped with the altitude. You'll find Coca Leaves all over Peru, including mercados and even supermarkets. If the leaves are too gross for you (they taste like ... well, leaves) there's also Coca Leaf candy and gum.

Sunscreen and a Hat or Sunglasses: Many parts of the Inca Trail are exposed and sunny.

Camera: Machu Picchu is stunning, so don't forget to pack a camera for that once-in-a-lifetime shot! We recommend bringing a tiny, lightweight GoPro - the wide panoramic angle is perfect for the sweeping wide-angle shots of Machu Picchu. Our other fave is the Canon Powershot. It's the perfect lightweight, hike-friendly camera that takes amazing photos while still fitting comfortably into your pocket. We used this camera exclusively during our 5 months backpacking South America and were extremely pleased with it.

An Honest Assessment of Our Utter Failure on the Inca Trail

So you might read this and think we're saying not to try hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. In fact, the opposite is true. We now firmly believe that Machu Picchu should be done by way of the Inca Trail, if possible.

Seeing the ruins through a crowd felt cheap and touristy, and much of the magic and awe shared by the rest of the group was lost on us (in hindsight, I wish we'd known more about making the most of Machu Picchu in a day).

It felt like our hiking group truly earned the sight of this ancient village. We just showed up and tagged along.

On a positive note, our love for hiking hasn't been dampened by our failure on the Inca Trail. We plan to continue slowly plodding along on progressively more challenging hikes, keeping our expectations reasonably low to match our abilities.

So if you're reading this and wondering, " Should I hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu?" Well, we really can't answer that for you! We can only speak for our own experience. The only one who's really able to assess your physical abilities is you.

If you think you can do the Inca Trail, and you're committed to trying, we wholeheartedly say "go forth and f**king slay, you athletic warrior god/goddess!"

But if you're not feelin' it after reading our experience ... well, that's OK too. You can sit with us at the "maybe one day" table and we'll all have a beer and hang out.

We hope reading about our failure to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu made you laugh. Or maybe it helped you assess your own physical abilities. Either way, let us know in the comments!

Psst: Planning a trip to Peru? We've got a few other posts that might be helpful!

FOLLOW US!

Did you get a sick sense of satisfaction from reading about our failure on the Inca Trail? (Hey, that's what we're here for.) Share it on Pinterest or Facebook so everyone else can judge us, too!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Hiking Machu Picchu: Failure on The Inca Trail

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There is a really good chance that this post contains affiliate links. If you click one of them, we may receive a small commission (for which we are deeply grateful) at no extra cost to you. We're sitting in a restaurant in Aguas Calientes, the gateway to the Inca Ruins of Machu Picchu.

# data[].attributes.headline
Taika Waititi: Why humor is key to creativity.

# data[].attributes.subject
Taika Waititi: Why humor is key to creativity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Taika Waititi: Why humor is key to creativity | TED Talk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this hilarious talk, comedian and director Taika Waititi considers the factors that drive an artist to make work, arguing that creative work needs to be fueled (to some degree) by fun -- and why a little humor can go a long way.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals | Stephen Duneier | TEDxTucson

# data[].attributes.body
Stellar local podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1963, Northern California's first African American State Assemblymember, Byron Rumford, championed a Fair Housing Act designed to prevent racial discrimination that severely limited where people of color could live. This bill, and the national laws it helped inspire, banned property owners from refusing to sell to potential buyers on the basis of race. As the Civil Rights movement gained momentum through these legislative victories, the end of segregation seemed within grasp.

But now in 2020, amidst a tech-fueled real estate boom that's sent home values soaring, the Bay Area is re-segregating as Black populations in wealthy areas dwindle and "neighborhoods with low pollution, high-quality schools and other resources have become increasingly inaccessible for African Americans." In Byron Rumford's former hometown of Berkeley, the percentage of African American residents has dropped from a high of nearly 25% during the 1970s to less than 10% today.

The problem isn't limited to California. According to The Center for Investigative Reporting, "a new epidemic of modern-day redlining has crept quietly across America. The gap in homeownership between African Americans and whites is now wider than it was during the Jim Crow era." More than half a century after the Civil Rights Act was supposed to end housing discrimination the problem is getting worse in some ways. So what went wrong?

The new episode explores this question through interviews with William Byron Rumford III, former California State Assemblymember E. Dotson Wilson, documentary filmmaker Doug Harris, and historian Ryan Reft. Listen now to learn what Byron Rumford's story can tell us about why racism and real estate are so hard to untangle.
East Bay Yesterday can't survive without your support.

According to housing discrimination historian Ryan Reft, "If you look at the Home Owners Loan Corporation maps from the 1930s, many of them really resemble what the cities look like today. This long history is hardwired in." To hear Reft explain the role the HOLC played in embedding institutional racism in the housing market, listen to the new episode.

Following passage of the Rumford Fair Housing Act, the California Real Estate Association funded the Proposition 14 campaign to essentially re-legalize racial housing discrimination. Ronald Reagan rode a wave of support he generated as a spokesman for this successful campaign to the governor's office in 1967. [Image courtesy of Calisphere]

Former State Assemblyman E. Dotson Wilson remembers when Byron Rumford's business served as a hub of community organizing back when Sacramento Street was the main corridor of Berkeley's Black community: "His pharmacy not only became a successful business, but was also a focal point and a place for people to congregate."

Please donate to keep this show alive: East Bay Yesterday can't exist with your support! If you enjoy the episode, please donate: www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday www.patreon.com/eastbayyesterday

This photo of Byron Rumford is from an exhibition currently on display at the Berkeley Historical Society. "African Americans in Berkeley: Four Families" will be running through April 4, 2020. To learn more about the pioneering lawmaker, check out Doug Harris's film, "Fair Legislation: The Byron Rumford Story."

This statue of Byron Rumford entitled "A Man for the People" was created by Dana King and erected across the street from the site of Rumford's Pharmacy, near the intersection of Sacramento St. and Ashby St. in Berkeley. The building where the pharmacy was located now houses the Byron Rumford Medical Clinic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1963, Northern California's first African American State Assemblymember, Byron Rumford, championed a Fair Housing Act designed to prevent racial discrimination that severely limited where people of color could live. This bill, and the national laws it helped inspire, banned property owners from refusing to sell to potential buyers on the basis of race.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
2015 is my 25th year of adjunct teaching. In the fall I will teach my 500th three-credit college course. I have put in many 14- to 16-hour days, with many 70- to 80-hour weeks. My record is 27 courses in one year, although I could not do that now.

I want to share my thoughts on adjunct teaching. I write anonymously to not jeopardize my precarious positions. How typical is my situation?

Some adjuncts have full-time nonteaching jobs that provide economic security and health insurance. Other adjuncts have spouses or partners providing financial support and benefits. I have tried to survive just by teaching.
How Could Anyone Teach So Much?
People may think, "Surely those courses can't be of good quality. Surely he or she must cut corners."

I have worked very hard to maintain high levels of quality and not to cut corners. I remember the early days of online courses with 25 students in a class with only a couple days to submit grades. Several times I found myself weeping in the computer lab as I graded a dozen five-page online assignments, only to have another dozen submitted, then another, and still another class to look at.

My bread and butter have been eight-week courses that meet for four hours a session, requiring only eight commutes. A MWF course would be 45 commutes. I have taught lots of online courses.

On student workload, I have followed Aristotle's "Mean between extremes." That is my target. I wish there were effective ways to measure and compare my workloads so I knew where I stood on this.

My goal is a rigorous student workload with a great learning experience, sometimes with students with weak academic backgrounds, often with students holding full-time jobs. For evening classes, many times I was the last teacher in the building, everyone else having ended class long before the 9:30 scheduled time.

I have taught in two disciplines and done cross-discipline courses, so I have repertoire of about 60 different courses. I created some 25 new courses, including courses on New York City after Sept. 11 and New Orleans after Katrina. And I have had a good student following. My elective on the Middle Ages once drew 30 students, not the norm for that institution.
My Numbers
I have taught at seven local colleges and universities, at 16 campuses. Most of my work has been at two universities. At University A (a major religious university in a major city) I have taught more than 210 courses. At University B (a liberal arts university with a large business school) I have taught more than 200. At university A, I twice taught 14 courses a year, twice taught 15 courses a year, and taught one year each of 16 and 17 courses. My status was part time: no health insurance and no security that I could keep that number of courses and income.

Are my numbers unique or not?

I am reluctant to share these numbers. Colleges create policies to limit adjunct workloads. But such policies hurt the adjuncts who are trying to survive this cockamamie system. When adjunct limits are put in place, are any full-time positions ever added -- even nontenured teaching positions?

And we bear the risk. I understand the need to limit or cut small classes. Yet for multimillion-dollar institutions, when a course get cuts we at the bottom bear the cost. In the 2014-15 academic year canceled courses cost me $7,000. Yet finding a replacement course can take several semesters or even years.
Adjunct Discrimination
I have repeatedly experienced discrimination as an adjunct. Are my experiences typical or not? Adjunct discrimination happens when full-time positions are available. I think long-term adjuncts should be told about job openings in a department in which they have successfully taught and be interviewed for positions for which they are qualified.

Unless an adjunct regularly checks the university job listings or the professional association job listings, an adjunct of many years would not be aware of openings for which he or she was qualified. Even if you have repeatedly expressed an interest in full-time work, no one tells you. And twice I have submitted letters and CVs by the deadline and not received a letter that my material was received or that I did not get the position. They did not get lost in the mail. They were hand delivered!

Usually minorities are the victims of discrimination. We adjuncts are the majority. In 25 years at Universities A and B I have known only one adjunct to work his way up to full-time status. Being a great and devoted adjunct seems a barrier to tenure-track positions. When they hire, they look elsewhere. The bird in the bush always looks better than the one in the hand. Only at the third place I teach (a college with a professional program) are there several tenure-track faculty who were once adjuncts.
Tenured Faculty
I do not fault the tenure system. I know full-timers are under all kinds of pressures, stresses and micromanaging. They are often squeezed unmercifully to do more, produce more, document more with fewer resources. I doubt teachers in general would be better with a nontenure system. I am grateful for tenured faculties with faculty senates as a counterweight to administrations.

Some full-timers appreciate us and treat us as equals. Thank you so much! Most ignore us and ignore our contributions. Many do not realize their job situation is dependent on us adjuncts. And we are the future.
Second-Class Citizens
At one university the Teaching Excellence program has special programs, classrooms and awards that are only for full-timers. On a level playing field for the awards, how would the full-timers fare against adjuncts? But we never get an equal chance.

Research grants in general have no provision for adjuncts, many of whom are very talented and want desperately to write and research. Research grants often do not have the kind of income supplement that adjuncts need to work on their research. It would not take much money to supplement an adjunct so he or she could get some research done along with teaching.

Adjuncts often are limited in what they are allowed to teach. At one college I have taught over a hundred sections of 100-level courses. Occasionally I get a 300 level. I have never gotten a 400 level, and of course a graduate course is out of the question. Yet the full-timers are not more capable than I am.

I always wanted to feel a part of a university. Going to graduation ceremonies just makes one feel on the margins. Full-timers typically make no effort to connect with adjuncts in their own departments. The work colleagues that I have turn out to be on the library staff or in the computer labs.
Free Stuff
Financial issues are important, but often the lack of the free stuff gets to an adjunct. One university has a yearly ceremony that recognizes long-term employees. Part-time years are counted, which is nice. When I told the chairman that another adjunct and I were up for the 20-year award he said, "And nobody cares." Fool that I was! I thought he might say thanks or send an email mentioning it to others in the department.

At one university only full-timers get counted for years of service with their photos on the wall in the administration building. But I look at the photos and think, "I have out-taught all of you."

At another college the department chair repeatedly says, "We really appreciate what you are doing here. And the students like you." Such courtesies mean so much. And they are free.
The State of Universities
Sadly universities follow an economic model that squeezes everyone up and down the line. A few at the top do well; the rest work harder and harder with less reward. And we adjuncts compete with an oversupply of people who want to teach college and who will take anything that comes along.

In business, the goal is to make a profit. What you do to make a profit is far less important. But this is education. The product -- educated students -- is what matters.

Also, as colleges have adopted the business model, did anyone notice that over time colleges have had a very low failure rate? Many colleges have long histories. Businesses, on the hand, have a very high failure rate.

And something else has changed. Universities seem less willing to experiment and try new things.

We know the history. Once teachers had control, then administrators got control, then the financial people. But beware, the beast is mutating! Micromanaging organisms are now chewing up the life of anything independent.

At one college, the required boilerplate clauses for syllabi meant my syllabus ran to eight pages. The students do not read that stuff. Why not put it online? And we were required to put the class schedule with the assignments -- the most used part -- at the bottom of the syllabus. The chair told me I should not have students read All Quiet on the Western Front in an ethics course since it was not part of curriculum.
Online Courses
I have taught many online courses. We have tapped about 10 percent of the potential of online courses for teaching. But rather than exploring the untapped 90 percent, the college where I taught online wanted to standardize every course with a template designed by tech people with no input from instructors.

I want to design amazing online courses: courses so intriguing and intuitive and so easy to follow no one would ever need a tutorial. I want to design courses that got students eager to explore new things. Let me be clear, I am not talking about gimmicks and entertainment; I am talking about real learning. Is anyone interested in this?
Nothing Is Secure
Despite all my years, I still have to keep looking for new work, although it gets harder to find new courses. I have known both an insurance agent and an independent business consultant, so I have a salesman's paradigm that you can never stop trying to make new sales.

I do good work, with great student reviews. Lots of students take several of my classes. Yet I have been let go a dozen times. Something changed -- a new program, a new chair, a full-timer needed courses, a program got cut, a department created big lecture classes to get rid of adjuncts -- and my courses got cut. New bosses are always a fear. You build a relationship with a boss, then a new boss comes along and you lose everything. But I recognize that these risks are typical of any work situation.

For 11 years I taught in an interdisciplinary program. The program got cut, I lost five or six courses a year, and no one even bothered to tell the instructors. We found out six months later. At one college I was banned from teaching in my discipline because I did not agree with the then chairman's radical views that almost no one else in the discipline held. He is gone, but a dozen years later I still cannot teach courses in my area at that institution.

In the last years, University A did not even discuss scheduling with some adjuncts. The yearly schedule was put out and I saw my assignments. I had built up a large number of courses with consistently good student evaluations, yet my course load has been cut several times, but no one ever had the decency to even tell me. Instead of being rewarded and encouraged to be a good teacher, I have felt punished for working so hard. I went to talk to the chair to express that I was finding the situation difficult. As a result of that meeting, I lost all my future courses. I had taught more than 210 courses over 25 years at that university. Its mission statement speaks of promoting justice.
The Wall
I have hit the wall. I can teach five courses a semester, but no more. Yet I cannot earn enough on five courses. Years of stress of having too much to do, or worrying about not making enough money, have taken a toll on my health. I now understand how karōshi can happen.

Ironically, a big difficulty for me is the debt I owe for my children's college tuition. Adjuncts receive no discounts.

I am desperate for a new course. I am an innovative teacher who creates new courses that attract students, but it has been five years since I was allowed to do a new course. I cannot remember the last time I was asked, "What would you like to teach?"

I thought I could to it: teach a lot of courses, manage the load, do great work and have a decent income. I have failed.
Treadmill to Oblivion
I love teaching, but I also want to be a scholar. Time is running out. So I gave up my modest apartment and moved in with a friend so I can get by on five courses, get some research completed and try to avoid my treadmill to oblivion. This is not "publish or perish." It is "publish or be stillborn."

"Treadmill to oblivion" is borrowed from the autobiography of radio star Fred Allen (1894-1956). He produced very popular radio shows for many years but in the end found himself forgotten.

But is it a treadmill to oblivion? Oblivion for my professional career, perhaps, but at least some students will remember me. Hopefully they will have fond memories of learning interesting things. But I want to leave behind interesting writings as well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Essay by an instructor who has taught as an adjunct for 25 years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
2015 is my 25th year of adjunct teaching. In the fall I will teach my 500th three-credit college course. I have put in many 14- to 16-hour days, with many 70- to 80-hour weeks. My record is 27 courses in one year, although I could not do that now.

# data[].attributes.headline
How Does the Film Industry Actually Make Money?

# data[].attributes.subject
How Does the Film Industry Actually Make Money?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's the Economy

Fans line up to see "The Hunger Games" at a theater. Credit... John Minchillo/Associated Press

I've been trying to come to terms with two seemingly irreconcilable facts. First, "Men in Black 3" has made more than $550 million worldwide. Second, while a representative from the parent company of Columbia Pictures told me that the movie is now "in the win column," it seemed until recently as if Columbia might actually lose money on it. How could that be? It's not so complicated. Its production costs were close to $250 million; worldwide marketing most likely added at least that much; and a big chunk of the ticket sales go to theaters and distributors.

There must be an easier way to make money. For the cost of "Men in Black 3," for instance, the studio could have become one of the world's largest venture-capital funds, thereby owning a piece of hundreds of promising start-ups. Instead, it purchased the rights to a piece of intellectual property, paid a fortune for a big star and has no definitive idea why its movie didn't make a huge profit. Why is anyone in the film industry?

All business requires guessing, but future predilections of moviegoers are especially opaque. If a large company wants to introduce a new car, it can at least base its predictions, in part, on factors like where oil prices are headed. Movie executives, on the other hand, come up with a host of new theories each summer about what audiences want - 3-D tent poles, 2-D tent poles, vampires, comics, board games and so on - then, sometimes over the course of a weekend, ricochet toward a new theory. Will the tepid economics of "Men in Black 3" spell trouble for "The Amazing Spider-Man," this holiday weekend's big release? Who knows.

Unlike other decades-old industries, Hollywood not only has a hard time forecasting, but it also has difficulty analyzing past results. Why was "The Hunger Games" such a big hit? Because it had a built-in audience? Because it starred Jennifer Lawrence? Because it was released around spring break? The business is filled with analysts who claim to have predictive powers, but the fact that a vast majority of films fail to break even proves that nobody knows anything for sure.

Making matters more complicated is that the industry is filled with professionals - starting with the lowliest junior agents - adept at explaining why they were responsible for a project's success. This self-mythologizing has real economic impact. Most major brands spend lots of money ensuring that people have a positive association with them, but most people don't even notice which studio made which movie. (Disney and its Pixar subsidiary are notable exceptions, "John Carter" notwithstanding.) In fact, movie studios are much better at helping brands they don't own - certain stars, directors, producers and source material, like "The Hunger Games" - capture a huge chunk of the money.

The reason a majority of movie studios still turn a profit most years is that they have found ways to, as they say, monetize the ancillary stream by selling pay-TV and overseas rights, creating tie-in video games, amusement-park rides and so forth. And the big hits, rare as they may be, pay for a lot of flops. Still, the profits are not huge. Matthew Lieberman, a director at PricewaterhouseCoopers, expects growth over the coming years to be somewhere around 0.6 percent.

Hollywood is, somewhat surprisingly, a remarkably stable industry. Over the past 80 years or so, its basic model - in which financiers in New York lend money to creative people in Los Angeles - has been largely unaltered. Partly as a result, today's biggest studios - Columbia, Disney, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal, 20th Century Fox - have been on top since at least the 1950s. This stability is initially puzzling because movie studios don't have many assets. Worse, every one of their projects is a short-term collaboration between a bunch of independent agents.

A modern studio's main asset, however, is its ability to put together these disparate elements. They know how to get Tom Cruise to do a film, how to get it into theaters around the country and whom to call to set up a junket in Doha. They also know the industry's language of power, with its ever-changing rules about which stars, restaurants and scripts are cool and which are not. It's the stuff of easy parody, but it's worth billions.

Another reason these studios remain at the top is that for most entrepreneurs, taking them on isn't worth the risks. (Even big hits often take years - sometimes a full decade - to break even.) "If I'm sitting on $2 billion, will I invest in a Hollywood studio?" asks Anita Elberse, a Harvard Business School professor who studies the entertainment industry. "Many other industries have a higher return on investment." Billionaires like Anil Ambani, who is a partner in Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Studios, presumably invest because the glamour helps them with their other businesses.

People have predicted the demise of the film industry since the dawn of TV and, later, the appearance of VHS, cable and digital piracy. But Fabrizio Perretti, a management professor at the Università Bocconi in Italy, says that Hollywood is now actually destroying itself. Because it's harder to get financing and audiences, companies are competing to make bigger, costlier films while eliminating risk, which is why ever-more movies are based on existing intellectual property. Eighteen of the all-time 100 top-grossing movies (adjusted for inflation) were sequels, and more than half of those were released since 2000.

Predictability might win the weekend, Perretti says, but it could eventually make people weary. Meanwhile, Lieberman, from PricewaterhouseCoopers, sees significant growth in another entertainment business that's constantly experimenting with different models, distribution methods and ways of telling stories. Maybe TV is finally going to kill movies after all.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Does the Film Industry Actually Make Money?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's the Economy I've been trying to come to terms with two seemingly irreconcilable facts. First, "Men in Black 3" has made more than $550 million worldwide. Second, while a representative from the parent company of Columbia Pictures told me that the movie is now "in the win column," it seemed until recently as if Columbia might actually lose money on it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Machu Picchu was a once-in-a-lifetime, truly unforgettable experience. (So much so that I've written about my experience visiting it as a solo female for Intrepid once before.)
But I didn't float up to that beautiful site, I hiked there, and it was at times a little painful. Like most painful things, the memories fade with time and I only remember the good bits. However, there are a few things that I wish I had known, ones that would have made those tough moments more manageable.

I've listed them below (you're welcome), so you'll be able to concentrate on the beautiful views over the blisters, and your new friends over your achy muscles:

Stay hydrated and well-fed

Drink lots. Then drink more. And take sachets of hydration salts just in case. When you're walking you're going to get sweaty and you need to replace those losses. Also, staying hydrated is an awesome way to reduce your chance of experiencing altitude sickness. So make sure you have a good (reusable!) bottle or a hydration pack to put in your day-bag (Platypus and Camelbak are both great brands for hydration packs).

Now, food. Altitude actually slows down your digestion, which might lead to a lack of appetite. If you're acclimatizing well then this won't last long, but even if it does, it's worth eating more than you think you need to.

So, don't forget to take snacks in your bag - if you have a yummy Snickers or Mars bars tucked away you're likely to munch on it even if you don't feel particularly hungry. This isn't always a good thing in life, but it is when hiking Machu Picchu!
CHECK OUT INTREPID TRAVEL'S RANGE OF TREKS TO MACHU PICCHU
Get your passport stamped

This is a great insider tip - you can get your passport stamped at Machu Picchu! Remember to ask at the gates.

Be ready for all four seasons

As you gain altitude, temperatures become more extreme. In one day you can experience everything from a freezing chill upon awaking, to boiling hot sunshine while you walk. Even without sunshine, the steep ascents will have you sweating. The answer to this? Layers.

For the cold night time take thermal base layers and pick up some Alpaca gloves and a hat in Cusco - stalls line the streets so they won't be hard to find. Pack t-shirts that will fit over your base layers for when you get started in the morning, a fleece and rain jacket for the wind and rain. As the day progresses and you emerge from the shade into the sunshine, you'll be peeling everything off. At this point remember sun cream and a sunhat. The sun is stronger up high, so make sure it's a high SPF. You don't want to be red and peeling in your photos on Machu Picchu (or in your photos posing with llamas!).
INSPIRATIONAL READ: THE ROAD TO MACHU PICCHU STARTS AT 385 LBS
A final tip on what to wear relates to shoes. Of course you will need well broken-in walking boots to support you through the day's hike (and I mean well broken-in - a friend of mine lost four toenails from wearing boots that she hadn't worn enough before the hike).

But something I wish I knew was how good it feels to take off those boots when the walking is done so your feet can breathe. Pack flip flops or light sandals for evenings - something you can slip on over socks (yep, sandals with socks, I said it).
WANT TO VISIT PERUVIAN RUINS WITHOUT THE CROWDS? CHECK OUT KUELAP IN NORTHERN PERU
Also on the point of socks - take loads. Don't be thinking that you can wear the same pair more than once because they'll be stinky, and starting your day with fresh socks is way better than starting stinky. And on the subject of stinky - take plastic bags, because not only your socks but your clothes in general will be wet and smelly from sweat and possibly from rain, and you'll want to separate these from your nice fresh clothes.

Porters are the most badass people you'll ever meet. Period.

You'll be huffing and puffing your way along the trail, congratulating the hell out of yourself for reaching the lunch spot without collapsing. All the while, the porters will have woken up before you, cooked you a killer breakfast, taken down your tents, carried all of the tents/food/chairs/etc. and reached the lunch spot before you, AND cooked you a delicious lunch in time for your huffy puffy arrival. They're super humans.

Remember to take cash along to tip your porters at the end of your trek. Believe me, any apprehension you may have before the trip about shelling out extra dollars will be dispelled when you see how hard they work.
READ MORE: 7 THINGS NO-ONE TELLS YOU ABOUT THE INCA TRAIL
Remedies for altitude sickness

"I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes..." No, this isn't about love or Christmas. A tingling sensation in your fingers and toes is a side effect of Diamox (also known as Acetazolamide), the medication prescribed for soroche (altitude sickness). Make sure to seek the advice of your doctor, as these must be prescribed. If you do use Diamox, you'll also need to pee much more frequently than usual - so prepare for some midnight dashes.

Talking medication, consider taking anti-diarrhea tablets (Loperamide) along with you too as this is a common side effect of altitude (and being in a foreign country, for some).
READ MORE: WHAT HIKING TO MACHU PICCHU AS A SOLO ADVENTURER IS REALLY LIKE
Alternatively, the locals swear by coca leaves to relieve the effects of altitude, and in more rural areas you'll see Peruvians chewing away with blackened teeth. On the trail you may be offered mate de coca (coca leaf tea). It doesn't taste fabulous so add in some honey, and you've got yourself a natural remedy.

Do you know what really bugs me...

...forgetting to take insect repellent to Machu Picchu. There are SO MANY mozzies up there. Don't make the mistake I did in assuming that because you're so high up there won't be any. There are.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER FOR TRAVEL INSPO, GIVEAWAYS, COMPETITIONS & MORE
In the words of Scar: "Be prepared..."

Do some training hikes. You don't have to be an Olympian to do the Inca Trail, but you do have to be fitter than your average couch potato.

As well as training physically, be prepared by booking early. For preservation purposes, the Inca Trail is restricted by how many people can be on it at a time. This means it books up around six months in advance. However, if you miss out on the Inca Trail, remember you can also get onto the Quarry Trail to Machu Picchu with Intrepid. It offers the same magnificent Andean scenery but no crowds, lesser-known archaeological sites and no permits required!
READ MORE: BENEFITS OF TAKING THE QUARRY TRAIL TO MACHU PICCHU
Expect the view to be indescribable

This requires little explanation. And it's not really advice. But do brace yourself to be so in awe at the top that you'll be lost for words. There really is no sight as breathtaking as Machu Picchu.
Ready to book the trek of a lifetime? Check out our wide range of Machu Picchu treks and tours. (Image credits from top to bottom: Jen Welch, Intrepid Travel, Jen Welch, Intrepid Travel, iStock, Jen Welch)
-

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What I wish I knew before hiking to Machu Picchu

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Machu Picchu was a once-in-a-lifetime, truly unforgettable experience. (So much so that I've written about my experience visiting it as a solo female for Intrepid once before.) But I didn't float up to that beautiful site, I hiked there, and it was at times a little painful.

# data[].attributes.body
First Person Plural

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
A review by Arthur George Sedgwick

The verdict which public opinion has pronounced, or, rather, is from time to time pronouncing, on the writings of George Eliot is certainly a very complicated one. That she is an acute delineator of character, a subtle humorist, a master of English, a universal observer and a comprehensive student, a profound moralist,--all this is part of her established reputation. That she is, besides this, a poet of great force and originality would, if we took as the test the most widely published criticism, be also established. That she has also succeeded,--in an age in which the public has been satiated with novels, and critics have begun even to doubt whether novel-writing were not a thing of the past,--if not in founding a new school of novel-writing, at least in proving that this literary form could be adapted, in skilful hands, to purposes which her predecessors had never dreamed of. Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer, Disraeli,--between them and George Eliot there is no relationship; and yet George Eliot, in the hold which she maintains upon the public interest, is certainly their successor. But is this all? Does not everyone who reads generalizations like these involuntarily say to himself, this is nothing? To say of an author like George Eliot that she is distinguishable by this or that abstract quality is very much like trying to revive the effect produced upon our imaginations by a broad and majestic river by describing the general direction of a body of flowing water, the height of the banks between which it flows, the measurements of its soundings taken by the latest hydrographical survey. When we think of all the immense variety of her books, from the Scenes of Clerical Life to Middlemarch, of the range of feeling and thought that they cover, and the wonderful manner in which the work has been done, one is tempted to give up the task of studying this student, of observing this author who has devoted her life to observation, or of analyzing this professor of analysis.
Several critics have agreed, and it is almost becoming the fashion to say, that the leading trait in all of George Eliot's works is the constant presence of the idea of Fate or Destiny, of the helplessness of man in his pitiful attempt to struggle with the eternal forces of nature; and no one will dispute that both The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch have given undue reason for this opinion. But the idea of fate is very different in different minds, and it seems to us by no means clear that the fate of George Eliot is of a sort of which has hitherto been known to literature. The conception of destiny with which we are most familiar is that of the Grecian tragedies and myths,--an individual fate, or at most a family fate, which attends, during a long succession of years, a particular man or family. They are born into the world together; they move through life together; perhaps even, they struggle for the mastery: at last the fate is accomplished, whether for good or evil. In the Arabian Nights we find a conception of somewhat the same kind in the story of the young prince who is fated to die on coming of age, and whom his father, the king, sends out of the kingdom to an island, where he is to live in a subterranean palace until the fatal moment is past; but to the same island comes by accident a traveller who discovers the prince's retreat, and lives with him on terms of great intimacy and affection, consoling him for his solitude. At last the prince's birthday--the last of his imprisonment--arrives, and the king's vessel is descried above the horizon coming to take his son home in safety. The moment, however, has come; the prince, reclining on a sofa, asks his friend for a knife from a shelf above; there is a misstep, and the king arrives to find the fate fulfilled.

Perhaps the destiny which appears in Scott's novel--in the Bride of Lammermoor, for instance, or Guy Mannering--is of the same essential kind as that of the Greeks, but the coloring is totally different; while the Mohammedan, with his "will of God be done," has given to the idea a religious character, again of a quite opposite kind. The idea takes a thousand different forms, which a scientific treatment of the subject would no doubt show in their real order and historical sequence.

The fate of George Eliot is not one of them. Hers is a more modern and truer conception. The destiny which surrounds her characters, which leads to their several allotted ends the lives of Tito, Maggie Tulliver, Tom, Hetty, Romola, Lydgate, the Vincys, or the poor drunkard whose last agonies are described with such minuteness in Middlemarch, is the compounded destiny of natural laws, character, and accident which we call life. It leaves nothing out of view; neither the material nor the moral forces; neither the immutable fixity of physical succession, nor the will. Man is, in these novels, neither a creature who controls us and who controls nor who is controlled by nature; he is himself part of nature.

We would not, however, overlook the fact,--which is of the first importance,--that George Eliot's fate is a moral fate, or, to put what we mean in other words, that the moral lessons enforced by life are the most important lessons for her. It is not the strangeness and awfulness of life, it is not the joy of life, it is not the misery of life, nor the absurdity of life, that is first with her: all these she understands and feels; but what she most keenly understands and most keenly feels are the lessons which all this strangeness, awfulness, joy, misery, and absurdity bring for those who will read them aright, as well as the obligation that she herself is under to help others to read them aright. This is not merely saying over again that she is a moralist. There have been many moralists in literature, particularly English literature, who would have been quite at a loss to understand the meaning of this morality; moralists to whom the bare idea of fate or destiny was anathema, and who could not have even imagined the connection between it and duty.

That fate should, in English hands, assume a moral color is natural enough; but if we compare the novels of George Eliot with those of a Continental writer whose novels have a distinctly fatalistic turn, we shall begin to doubt perhaps whether this view of life is the growth of any one soil. Turgenieff's character, or at least some of his characters, are the playthings of fate quite as much as any of his English contemporary. And Turgenieff, too, is impressed with the moral side of his subject. His Liza, if it were not for the pervading sadness of the book, might be distributed as a tract among refined people. Yet, after all, the sadness is more fundamental than the morality, and perhaps it would be fairer to say that there is a general way of looking at life, peculiar to modern men, which Turgenieff happened to take in Liza, although he certainly did not very distinctly grasp it, as George Eliot always does.

And what is this modern view of life, which is different from all others,--so sad, and so moral, so ironical, and so didactic, yet so undogmatically didactic? M. Taine, in his English Literature, after speaking of Byron's unhappy career, and that of the poets whom he calls "romantic," answers this question in a way that, whatever may be thought of the criticism in other respects, is complete: "So lived and so ended this unhappy great man; the malady of the age had no more distinguished prey; around him, like a hecatomb, lie the rest, wounded also by the greatness of their faculties, and their immoderate desires,--some extinguished in stupor or drunkenness, others worn out by pleasure or work; these driven to madness or suicide; those beaten down by impotence, or lying on a sick-bed; all agitated by their acute or aching nerves; the strongest carrying their bleeding wound to old age, the happiest having suffered as much as the rest, and preserving their scars, though healed. The concert of their lamentations has filled their age, and we have stood around them, hearing in our hearts, the low echo of their cries. We were sad like them, and, like them, inclined to revolt. The institution of democracy excited our ambitions without satisfying them; the proclamation of philosophy kindled our curiosity without contenting it. In this wide-open career the plebeian suffered for his mediocrity, and the sceptic for his doubt. The plebeian, like the sceptic, attacked by a precocious melancholy, and withered by a premature experience, delivered his sympathies and his conduct to the poets, who declared happiness impossible, truth unattainable, society ill-arranged, man abortive or marred. From this unison of voices an idea sprang,--the center of the literature, the arts, the religion of the age,--that there is, namely, a monstrous disproportion between the different parts of our social structure, and that human destiny is vitiated by this disagreement. "What advice have they given us for its remedy? They were great: were they wise? 'Let deep and strong sensations rain upon you; if your machine breaks, so much the worse!....Cultivate your garden, busy yourself in a little circle; reenter the flock, be a beast of burden..... Turn believer again, take holy water, abandon your mind to dogmas, and your conduct to hand-books.... Make your way; aspire to power, honors, wealth.' Such are the various replies of artists and citizens, Christians and men of the world. Are they replies? And what do they propose but to satiate one's self, to become beasts, to turn out of the way, to forget? There is another and a deeper answer, which Goethe was the first to give, which we begin to conceive, in which issue all the labor and experience of the age, and which may perhaps be the subject matter of future literature. 'Try to understand yourself and things in general.' A strange reply, seeming barely new, whose scope we shall only hereafter discover. For a long time yet, men will feel their sympathies thrill at the sound of the sobs of their great poets. For a long time they will rage against a destiny which opens to their aspirations the career of limitless space, to shatter them, within two steps of the goal, against a wretched post which they had not seen. For a long time they will bear, like fetters, the necessities which they must embrace as laws. Our generation, like the preceding, has been tainted by a malady of the age, and will never more than half be quit of it. We shall arrive at truth, not at calm. All we can heal at present is our intellect; we have no hold upon our sentiments. But we have a right to conceive for others the hopes which we no longer entertain for ourselves, and to prepare for our descendants the happiness which we shall never enjoy."

But we have not yet reached the fortunate isles. The future may have in store for those who are to come after us a thousand blessings of which we can only dream; for the present we live in a period of intellectual and moral tumult of revolt against the old, mixed with dread of the new, indeed, not half understanding the new, but half loving the old. Science has opened the portals of knowledge, and we are not scientific; science has revealed a new harmony of the feelings, and yet in our dull ears the old, incongruous, sentimental melodies go on ringing. Science offers us the key to the moral law which governs the world, yet we cannot bring ourselves to turn it. Is it any wonder that, amid this doubt, hesitation, and, it may be, despair, we find a wonderful zest in humor, in analysis, in irony, in the purely critical study of the world? Such a life as ours is too complicated, too revolutionary, too full of sudden surprises and absurdities, too sad, too merry, too horribly real, too shamefully false, to admit of that repose which furnishes the only sure foundation for happy art. Our business is not creation but criticism.

When we have said that George Eliot is almost an inspired critic, have we not said what is really the most important thing about her? No doubt at such an opinion thousands of her admirers would hold up their hands in horror. "Inspired critic!" they would exclaim; "how can an author of singular dramatic power, and of equally singular power of human delineation, be called a critic?" This, however, is the question. If George Eliot has real dramatic power, and has imagined real characters, there is no doubt that it is folly to say that she is primarily a critic. But we think she has not. What she has done has been to describe, with such wonderful minuteness and ironical force, the thoughts and feelings which, under given circumstances, a certain kind of person might have, that we are forced to admit the possibility of the picture, or, to speak more accurately, the reality of the report. Besides this, she has a wonderful power of reproducing scenes of every sort, with which she is familiar, or, rather, with which her audience is familiar,--a faculty which seems to us, at least, not a pictorial or imaginative one, but rather that faculty of description which comes of the observation and general power of statement. That this is true may be occasionally seen when George Eliot attempts remote studies, like that, for instance, of the mediaeval Italian barber shop in Romola,--a shop in which we feel too acutely sensible of the daylight of the English intellect of the nineteenth century, as well as the keenness of George Eliot's humor, to make ourselves quite at home. Even in the English scenes, as has been well said by a recent critic, we are from time to time oppressed by a sense that the village worthies who make reflections on life and on each other are, after all, only masks through which George Eliot is ventriloquizing.

To turn to the more noted and distinct characters,--are they characters?--no one, we suppose, except a woman would claim the actual existence for Adam Bede, or Felix Holt, or Will Ladislaw; but there are, besides such failures as these, remarkable successes in Maggie Tulliver, in Arthur Donnithorne, in Hetty, in Tom Tulliver, in Philip, in Tito, in Romola, in Lydgate, in Rosamond Vincy, Dorothea, and a very long list besides. But if an artist were to be asked to illustrate these books, would he not find considerable difficulty in drawing these characters, so that they would be recognized? Would he not find, for instance, a strange family likeness between Romola and Dorothea? Would not Rosamond Vincy with a few slight touches (an alteration of coloring or outline), change into Hetty? Would not any one of a dozen Englishmen do for Lydgate? And can the other characters we have mentioned by fastened upon, and their likeness really kept? Perhaps Maggie, Arthur, Philip, and Tito make more against our theory than the rest; but though their psychological situations are always interesting, they seem always to be doing the work of representation of man or woman,--not that they are types, but that their movements seem a trifle too much in the control of the wonderful exhibitor who is half concealed behind the show. Romola was once illustrated; but the illustrations were rather of the situations than of the people. Thackeray's characters and Dickens's caricatures live and move of their own accord. Compare Becky Sharp with Rosamond Vincy,--both women in whom selfishness is the moving principle, and whose married life is the principal subject of treatment. If we were to meet Becky we should know her at once; Rosamond we should be perfectly certain to mistake for some one else. The honest farcical countenances of the members of the Pickwick Club are as familiar to us as those of own acquaintances; but Mr. Brooke, who is really almost as farcical, would not have the slightest difficulty in proving an alibi at any time.

To be sure, it may be said that Thackeray has been educated as an artist, and that he illustrated his own books. But he was an artist because it was his disposition to see certain things picturesquely or pictorially, and this is not George Eliot's disposition. Thackeray used to say, in reply to people who complained of Esmond's "marriage with his mother-in-law," that he had done nothing to arrange the match; he could not prevent his characters doing what they chose. Nobody can conceive of George Eliot's being able to make such a reply as this; yet both Thackeray and George Eliot are moralists. Thackeray was a moralist of the old school, however, his vanitas vanitatum was but the echo, after all, of the vanitas vanitatum handed down to us by tradition,--a charming echo, but still an echo. George Eliot is a moralist because her epoch is a moralizing epoch: it is her profession, her life.

The author of these volumes is a critic. Her maxim--"Know thyself and things in general"--she has taken profoundly to heart, and as a result we have a body of what might be called sympathetic erudition such as no one else ever dreamed of. History, science, art, literature, language, she is mistress of. Upon all these fields she draws. Human life, however, is her interest; in this all her studies centre. Her observation is always beginning, never ending. Certainly if writers are divided as Goethe somewhere suggests into those who are born to say some one thing, to produce some single literary flower and die, and those whose life is one constant development, like that of Nature herself, in which education and production go on side by side to the end, George Eliot would be included in the latter class. Goethe himself belonged to it, and, as M. Taine says, Goethe was the first of modern men to appreciate the changed relations between man and nature which the new renaissance was to introduce.

It would be a mere waste of time to go into a minute criticism of Middlemarch. The plots are too numerous, the characters too multitudinous, and the whole too complicated. Out of the history of Dorothea's marriage and domestic life, Lydgate's marriage and domestic life, Bulstrode's crimes and hypocrisy, the love-affair of Mary and Fred, and the adventures of Ladislaw, a library of novels might be made; while on the humor, the observation, reflection, and suggestion contained in the book a regiment of writers of social articles might support themselves for a lifetime. It is an interesting question, whether this Study of Provincial Life is success or a failure; whether it is a work which, judged by its own standard, reaches or falls short of that standard. This question, however, we must leave to others to answer, partly because it seems now a little too soon to make up our minds, and partly because we find great difficulty in knowing what the standard is. It is A Study of Provincial Life, but this is about as indicative of the character of the books as romans nationaux are in the case of Erckmann-Chatrian. It is, says one critic, the study of the effects of the narrow English provincial life of forty years ago on the characters of the story which interests the author, and therefore should interest the reader. If this is so, we say that, somehow or other, the effects of this narrow provincial life on the characters is the last thing in the world we should have supposed the central point of interest. In Cranford, this is undoubtedly the main thing, and we think we may with great safety ask any one who has ever lived in a village--a real village, we mean, not a "quarter section" of town lots--to say in which book the relation in question is brought out most distinctly. In Cranford, do we not feel in every line the remoteness of the world, the whimsical pettiness of the interests, the eccentricity of the characters, the village life, with the thrill of reality which real art always produces? Of course, Middlemarch is not Cranford: Middlemarch is a county, Cranford is a village; but ,after all, a county is a place, and there is, for some reason or other, no locality whatever for Middlemarch. Someone else says that it is Dorotheas' life which is the main thing; the struggle of an ardent, impassioned, and noble nature with surrounding obstacles; with a pedantic sham of a husband, with her own duty to this husband, with her love for Ladislaw, with her sense of duty to her family, and, in short ,with provincial life. But though there is certainly some reason for this opinion, there is just as much for the opinion that Lydgate is the central figure. Probably a good deal of difficulty of the same kind would be found in some of her other books, in Adam Bede, for instance, and The Mill on the Floss. Is Adam the principal figure in the first? If he is, it is in the same way that the figure-head of a ship is. What is the esoteric meaning of The Mill on the Floss? Certainly, compared with one or two of the former novels, Middlemarch is not a success. There is no such Satanic omniscience shown as we had in the analysis of Arthur Donnithorne's unhappy conscience. There is nothing here like Tito or the pathetic yet beautiful description of the gradual alterations in the relations between Maggie and Tom Tulliver. Yet Middlemarch is certainly infinitely more interesting than Felix Holt.

And yet,--and yet these rambling suggestions seem only worth making that we may take them all back in the end. In the attempt to play the critic of such works as these, one cannot help feeling that to properly analyze and explain George Eliot, another George Eliot is needed, and that all suggestion can do is to indicate the impossibility of grasping, in even the most comprehensive terms, the variety of her powers. An author whose novels it has really been a liberal education to read, one is more tempted to admire silently than to criticise at all.
Arthur George Sedgwick, The Atlantic Monthly, April 1873.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A review by Arthur George Sedgwick The verdict which public opinion has pronounced, or, rather, is from time to time pronouncing, on the writings of George Eliot is certainly a very complicated one. That she is an acute delineator of character, a subtle humorist, a master of English, a universal observer and a comprehensive student, a profound moralist,--all this is part of her established reputation.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ecological Design a Material Investigation

# data[].attributes.subject
Ecological Design a Material Investigation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abstract

Trees, and their derivative products, have been used by societies around the world for thousands of years. Contemporary construction of tall buildings from timber, in whole or in part, suggests a growing interest in the potential for building with wood at a scale not previously attainable. As wood is the only significant building material that is grown, we have a natural inclination that building in wood is good for the environment. But under what conditions is this really the case? The environmental benefits of using timber are not straightforward; although it is a natural product, a large amount of energy is used to dry and process it. Much of this can come from the biomass of the tree itself, but that requires investment in plant, which is not always possible in an industry that is widely distributed among many small producers. And what should we build with wood? Are skyscrapers in timber a good use of this natural resource, or are there other aspects of civil and structural engineering, or large-scale infrastructure, that would be a better use of wood? Here, we consider a holistic picture ranging in scale from the science of the cell wall to the engineering and global policies that could maximise forestry and timber construction as a boon to both people and the planet.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The wood from the trees: The use of timber in construction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Trees, and their derivative products, have been used by societies around the world for thousands of years. Contemporary construction of tall buildings...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Looking for all the essential information to plan and prepare for the Inca Trail hike? You'll find it in this post.

Hiking the Inca Trail is an experience which should inspire excitement, invoke a little bit of fear, stoke jealousy amongst your friends, and stir a sense of wander in your soul.

One of the most popular things to do in South America - and one of the world's most famous hikes - the Inca Trail is the sort of singular adventures for which we all travel. The hike itself, which brings you along ancient narrow paths deep into the Peruvian countryside and high into the Andean mountains, is gorgeous; perfect Incan ruins, cloud forest, and majestic valley views laid out like breadcrumbs along the way to perhaps the greatest end-point of any multi-day hike on earth, the iconic Machu Picchu.

After our own hike, we wanted to share our hard-earned insights, advice, and tips to help you plan and prepare for your own successful Trail experience - all neatly whittled down into this comprehensive guide.

So, whether you're heading there in high or low season and want to understand the camping and accommodation situation better, have no idea what to pack or how to get a permit, are worrying about whether you're fit enough, will get altitude sickness or if it's too late to book a spot on a tour, then this post will provide you with all the necessary information answers from experienced fellow travellers (and, we hope, quite a bit of excitement and inspiration for the hike itself!).

Ready? Here's everything you need to know before doing the Inca Trail hike. Let's go!

What Exactly Is the Inca Trail?

The Inca Trail is a well-established and iconic 4-day, 3-night hike which leads travellers from km.82 (the start point 40 minutes outside the town of Ollantaytambo) all the way to Machu Picchu via its exclusive Sun Gate (also called Inti Punku).

The good news is that it's a lot shorter than you may expect at only 40 kms (25 miles). The bad news? A significant chunk of that 40 kms is up steep, narrow Andean mountain paths at altitude.

The Incan Empire (which at its largest joined Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and central Chile and a small part of southwest Colombia) created thousands of kilometres of trails to link its important settlements and centres of civilisation, but it is this specific 4 day route which is known as the one and only 'classic Inca Trail'.

Do note that if you see a tour with fewer days offered, then you are only going to be hiking a small section of the route.

Why Is It So Popular?

The Trail is Peru in a microcosm; lush green cloud forest alive with birds, Andean peaks and steep mountain passes, a landscape dotted with centuries old ruins, accessible only to those that follow this most famous pathway.

However, as truly beautiful as the hike may be, the real reason for its popularity lies at the very end of this four day adventure; passing through the Sun Gate for that first magical sighting of Machu Picchu in the distance. Only Inca Trail hikers can access the Gate at sunrise, and it is this crescendo, at one of the new seven wonders of the world which makes this hike a feature on so many 'South America bucket lists'.

The Inca Trail hike marked our second time visiting Machu Picchu, and arriving via the Sun Gate with sweaty brows and tired feet rather than taking the morning bus from Aguas Caliente with thousands of others clearly underlined to us that it is the best way to arrive at one of the world's most iconic attractions.

You will not regret it.

Booking the Inca Trail Hike

What Are Inca Trail Permits And Do You Need a Guide?

Since 2002, access to the Inca Trail has been limited to 500 people per day (roughly split between 200 tourists and 300 accompanying guides and porters), no matter the time of year. This means it is necessary for everyone to obtain permits in advance to do the hike.

Securing a permit is only possible with an approved tour provider, who buy these daily permits in advance. This means that - although many of Peru's best hikes, like the Colca Canyon, are possible to do independently - you can only do the Inca Trail with an approved tour company and spaces are capped.

What is the best time of year to hike the Inca Trail?

Peru has two seasons - dry and wet - and it is possible to do the Inca Trail in either. Each however, come with their own pros and cons.
Dry Season (May - October)
Pros | The chance of rain, as the name would suggest, is significantly reduced and you can expect hot, dry mornings and afternoons.

Cons | Dry season also coincides with high tourism season in Peru (June - August), so the Inca Trail will be at full capacity each day. This means fuller camp sites and more traffic along the Trail (although the tours do try and stagger this out). Demand for tours also increases in dry season, so you really need to book your own tour further in advance (a rule of thumb is six to seven months, but we have met people who booked a year in advance to assure themselves of a place). Lastly, our guide told us that the nighttime temperatures in dry season drop significantly, so expect cold nights in the tent.
Wet Season (November - April)
We hiked with G Adventures in early December, so we were ready for some rainy days. Thankfully, the weather gods were rooting for us, and we only had one bad rain shower and a single morning of dense mist to contend with - as our guide told us, this won't always be the case for those hiking the Inca Trail in rainy season.

Pros | A less popular time to hike, so the number of people you're sharing the Trail with is notably reduced, as are the crowds at Machu Picchu. Tours are slightly cheaper and easier to book with only a few weeks notice (a guy on our tour booked his place only a week before the trip began). Temperatures at night are also less chilly.

Cons | Hiking and camping in the rain for four days is never fun, so you are increasing the chances of that. If there is notable rainfall, then hiking conditions become slippier and more difficult.

Note that the Inca Trail is closed in February for everyone in order to allow it to replenish.

If you're reading the above and thinking that neither sounds appealing now, then please don't be too despondent - the Inca Trail can be hiked year-round and we've just outlined the worst cons of each season so that you don't have any nasty surprises!

Do You Need to Book an Inca Trail Tour in Advance?

In short, yes.

If you're hiking in the dry (high) season, then you should be making a reservation sooner rather than later (i.e. right now). If you'll be taking an Inca Trail tour in rainy season, a little more spontaneity is possible, unless you have very specific dates in mind where it makes sense to get your booking in sooner rather than later.

Reading this and hoping for a last minute spot? It's is certainly possible to find one but your options on tour companies and dates will be severely limited.

We did the trek with G Adventures, a global company focused on sustainable small-group adventures, who have also been awarded 'Best Inca Trail Tour Operator' by the Regional Direction of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Cusco (RDFTTC) in Peru - you can check out the specific tour we did by clicking here.

Are There Age Restrictions?

There is no minimum or maximum age limit for hikers on the Inca Trail, but tour companies will operate according to their own guidelines and policies (i.e. G Adventures minimum is 12 years old) . Personally, we wouldn't recommend anyone under the age of 14 to do the trek due to group dynamics.

If you are a little older in years and need some inspiration, then Alan Goldin is the oldest recorded hiker of the Trail at the age of 84, whilst three of our local porters were 62!

How Much Does The Inca Trail Cost?

All companies operating the Inca Trail must be registered and have a special operators license, which is renewed annually. A large number of these companies are only established to provide specific private tours in high season, with the rest offering year-round expeditions. New operators are added to the list each year so, as you can imagine, quality, experience, and equipment offered will vary quite a lot.

Inca Trail tours cost from £550 / $699 / €611 per person up to £1,500 / $1,900 / €1,670; if you see a price any cheaper than the bottom-end of this range, then be very sceptical. If you are seeing a higher price than this, then you will either be on a very very luxury tour or likely booking through a tour agent. Note that, aside from the mark-up on price, Inca Trail tours booked via agencies will often simply place you on an available tour with one of several local operators, so you have very little control on the quality of the ultimate provider and group composition.

The G Adventures tour we joined was £729 / $943 / €830 per person, and this included two nights hotel accommodation in Cusco, one night hotel accommodation in Ollantaytambo, private transport, all meals on the Trail, our Inca Trail permit, camping equipment, entrance and a guided tour around Machu Picchu, a support team of 15 or so guides, porters, and chefs, and visits to several Planeterra local community enterprises and projects in the Sacred Valley.

You can see the full G Adventures Inca Trail tour details and itinerary here.

Note that it's necessary to pay a deposit in advance to secure your Inca Trail permit, so if you go with a new, non-established, or cheaper provider, make sure you have done enough research into them before paying anything. After all, you don't want the upfront savings to mean inadequate equipment, poor quality food, or a less memorable experience.

Please also be aware that permits are only issued with a tourist's name and passport number and, once booked, they are non-changeable and non-transferable. If you happen to change your passport between booking and arriving at the entry checkpoint at Km.82 (where they check your passport), then contact your tour company for advice.

Tip | They have also launched a cheaper, slightly shorter trip that removes a day either side of the Inca Trail which is ideal for those on a tighter time scale or budget. Find out more here.

Preparing for the Inca Trail

Once you've booked a tour and committed to the hike, there are some key milestones to hit before you get anywhere near South America. Preparing for the Inca Trail isn't just a case of throwing some unworn hiking boots in your backpack and hoping for the best, but rather doing the necessary to ensure you have a successful and unforgettable adventure in the Peruvian mountains for all the right reasons!

How Fit Do You Need To Be?

As mentioned, the Inca Trail isn't just a walk in the park.

Although it wasn't by any stretch the most physically challenging hike we've done in South America, its ascents and conditions provided enough of a task to make us both feel it. You do not need to be a vastly experienced hiker, but acquiring a good level of physical fitness prior to arriving in Peru will make everything easier and more enjoyable. If you're reading this and don't fit the description of someone who does a lot of exercise or could do with losing a few lbs - then don't be too despondent. Instead, view the Inca Trail as your challenge, your motivation, and your deadline to start walking more, to lose some weight, and to make some positive changes before you fly to Peru (and if you need some inspiration, read this woman's story).

What Do You Need To Pack For The Inca Trail?

Pack light, pack smart, and pack for two very different temperatures - that's the key advice for every Inca Trail experience. However, there are a few key things to know about how luggage and kit is transported on the hike before you even think about whether you really need that extra pair of pants.

Firstly, you are going to leave the bulk of your luggage securely in a luggage storage room back at the hotel in Cusco; don't leave valuables here though as that's just silly.

Secondly, for our G Adventures tour, we were each supplied with black duffel bags at the hotel. This duffel bag is allowed to hold upto 6kgs, and is going to be where the majority of the kit + equipment you bring for the Inca Trail will be stored (i.e. clothes, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, toiletries). Every Inca Trail tour worth its salt employs and includes an incredible team of support staff who will carry the camping and cooking equipment plus food supplies on the Trail to each campsite (the tour company provides all of this equipment), as well as everyone's 6kg duffel bag.

These local porters, from fresh-faced 18 year olds to gnarled mountain men, are the unsung heroes of every Inca Trail experience and they will each carry up to 25 kgs on their backs for the group (yep, and you were worried about how hard the Trail would be for you!). Your duffel bag will be collected and weighed each morning to ensure it's not over the weight limit, and will be waiting for you alongside an erected tent at each campsite.

So, it's clear that most of the hard work when it comes to carrying things will be done by others and the tour company provides a lot of the key camping equipment. However, you also need to have a small daypack to carry your snacks, camera, water, suncream, and any medication, on the Trail itself - this will be carried by you and only you throughout the trip.

We've covered all the essentials you definitely need to buy and pack for either season (plus some 'nice to haves') in this Inca Trail Packing List post, whilst more information on the camping + food on the trek is outlined in specific sections below.

When + Where Do You Need To Be In Peru

It is possible to book a longer organised Peru tour which includes the Inca Trail within it, or to simply include it on your own independent Peru + South American adventure. Regardless of which option you go for, all roads will lead to Cusco - the start point for the vast majority of all Inca Trail tours.

Cusco, in the south-east of Peru, thankfully doubles up as one of the country's most popular destinations due to its history and position as an access point to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, so every Peru itinerary is guaranteed to include at least a few nights here. If you haven't planned your visit yet, then read our guide to the best things to do in Cusco.

Cusco is exceptionally easy to reach from various parts of Peru, but there are no direct flights to Cusco from the US, Canada or Europe. Instead, these are your best options:

Flights |Fly into Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, Peru's capital city, and connect onto one of the frequent flights from Lima - Cusco run by several airlines. These are consistently cheap (starting from £45 / $60 / €50 per person), reliable, and only take 90 minutes.

If you're already in Peru or elsewhere in South America, then taking a flight from Lima - Cusco is the quickest and most sensible option.

Bus | If you're travelling from Arequipa, then an overnight bus to Cusco is your best option. Overnight buses in Peru range from basic to an incredibly high standard - we recommend you take a look at the options and book online via RedBus.

There is a bus which runs from Lima to Cusco, but it takes 24 hours and these days isn't worth taking as flights are so ubiquitous and affordable (trust us, we did this bus ride back in 2015!)

Train |There is a train which runs from Cusco - Ollantaytambo - Aguas Calientes (the Machu Picchu town), but this is really a tourist service and not relevant for reaching Cusco.

Our G Adventures tour required all participants to be in Cusco for the first night of the 7 day trip, and it's in the city where you will receive your briefing, rent any additional equipment and meet your tour mates. Given our own independent travel plans, we had actually spent the previous week in Cusco and the surrounding region - for everyone planning on the Inca Trail, we'd recommend arriving into Cusco at least two days before your tour starts so that you can acclimatise to the altitude (it's at 3,339 metres above sea level) and enjoy what the city has to offer without aching limbs. You can read more about altitude sickness in the 'Health + Safety' section towards the bottom of this post.

Once in Cusco, all your transport to the Trail and the return trip to Cusco from Machu Picchu will be arranged by your tour company and included in the overall tour price. This will include a private minibus to Ollantaytambo and km.82 (the Inca Trail start point) and either a train or minibus back to Cusco.

Do You Need Special Inca Trail Insurance?

We would never travel without taking out insurance (if you're not convinced, read this post), and having the necessary insurance arrangements in place in advance is a requirement for every Inca Trail tour; you are responsible for buying and purchasing this.

It's worth noting that not all standard off-the-shelf travel insurance policies will cover you for activities at altitude (including the Inca Trail), so you need to ensure that this is covered when buying your single or multi-trip policy. True Traveller and World Nomads are two respected travel insurers which we have used on South America trips who cover high altitude treks (just make double sure that you've selected the right option).

If you're confused about buying travel insurance, read this post and this post.

Hiking the Inca Trail

Inca Trail Map + Route

We've outlined our own route on the Inca Trail below and, in broad terms, this is the sort of the itinerary you can expect (note that this relates solely to the days spent on the hike, not the days of travelling to/from Cusco and Ollantaytambo):

Day One: Travel from Ollantaytambo to km.82 in the morning and hike to campsite

Distance | Approx. 6.8 miles/ 11 km

Elevation Gain | 350 metres

Difficulty | Moderate, with a steep tiring section towards the end.

Day Two: Early rise to hike through cloud forest and up to Dead Woman's Pass and the descent to campsite

Distance | Approx. 7.5 miles/ 12km

Elevation Gain | 1,115 metres

Difficulty | High, this is the hardest day of walking but after you reach DWP, it's mostly downhill.

Day Three: Early rise to hike the most photogenic section of the Trail

Distance | Approx. 9.6 miles/ 15.5km

Elevation Gain | Minus 1,000 metres

Difficulty | Moderate to a little difficult as there are several steep sections.

Day Four: Very early rise (3 a.m.) to reach the entry check-point and hike 1-2 hours to the Sun Gate and Machu Picchu.

Distance | Approx. 3.1 miles/ 5 km

Difficulty | You're almost at the end and Machu Picchu, you should be hopping, skipping, and jumping all the way there!

The well-established route is outlined in the below image below (red line) but do note that your own specific campsites and stops may differ depending on your tour provider.

How Difficult is the Inca Trail Hike?

As the above has hopefully made clear, the Inca Trail is not as difficult or challenging as you may think, but every person's own hike experience will be very subjective based on your fitness, hiking experience, your group's approach, attitude, the weather conditions on the route, and a bunch of other factors. Day Two of the hike, which leads you from your campsite all the way upto the Dead Woman's Pass at 4,200 metres (13,776 ft) is widely regarded as the most difficult day of hiking - once you're passed that, you'll be laughing (or crying).

Personally, we had some really difficult moments on Day One and Two on the climbs, but the rest of the hike was at the right level of 'satisfyingly challenging".

Our own Inca Trail group were all roughly the same age and fitness, which meant that our pace was consistent and we all arrived to rest-stops and campsites at roughly the same time. Our guide kept on calling us all 'professional hikers' and the fastest group he'd had that year as we arrived at camp each night a few hours ahead of expected 5-7 hours in his schedule. This won't always be the case, and your own group is just as likely to contain people of mixed ages and abilities.

There are three important things to note here:

1: The Inca Trail is not about finishing each day as quickly as possible; we felt that our group could have lingered a little more on sections of the hike and slowed our pace. Savour the route, rather than trying to set a record pace (which you'll never do by the way - it's currently 3 hours 23 minutes by a porter. There's even a marathon!).

2: The best tour companies each come with a main guide and an assistant guide - one will lead at the front of your group whilst another will stay at the back. They are experienced in supporting members of a group who may be struggling or slower than the rest, and ensuring that everyone's experience is the best possible in the circumstances. If you are struggling, it's their job to control the situation, help you get to camp, and also to manage the overall group schedule.

3: It's amazing the friendships that can come out of struggle and perseverance. If you are one of the quicker ones in a group, don't ruin another person's experience by castigating them for taking longer - everyone has their own challenges,circumstances, and reasons for being on the Trail, and a friendship and positive experience is more likely to blossom out of supporting someone through their struggle. As our guide Elias told us, the key thing for everyone to make the overall experience on the Inca Trail better is a 'positive mental attitude'.

Do You Need Hiking Poles?

We had always thought that hiking poles were only for old people and Austrians.

However, after asking our followers on Twitter, we were assured that 1. they are really bloody useful and 2. not just for old people and Austrians.

In short, hiking poles are not essential for the Inca Trail; it is 100% possible to do it without them. However, using them is guaranteed make the hike easier for a number of people and result in fewer aches and pains during and post-Trail.

As we were doing so many hikes in South America, we bought these excellent lightweight travel hiking poles in the UK. However, it's also possible to buy poles in Cusco or to rent them from your tour provider. Just make sure that if yours have exposed spikes, you buy some rubber stoppers in order to use them for the Trail.

To find out what clothes and footwear are best, read our Inca Trail Packing post.

Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail

Although all hikes are more about the journey than a final destination, the Inca Trail stands out as having a destination to beat all others. After all, reaching Machu Picchu is the reason that many of you will be considering this hike in the first place!

When Will You Arrive at Machu Picchu?

A common misconception about the Inca Trail is that it will allow you to be amongst the first people into Machu Picchu - this simply isn't true as it's much easier to get through its gates just after opening if you stay in Aguas Calientes the night before and hike or take the bus up. Instead, you're treated to an entry at the Sun Gate just after sunrise (expect about 6-7 a.m.) and then a wonderful descent down to an uncrowded Machu Picchu with special views of it all the way (trust us, it's much better than queueing in the pitch black Aguas from 4 a.m. in the morning to get on the first bus up to then queue at the ticket gate).

The ticket for the $12 shuttle bus (30 minutes) down to Aguas Calientes will be included in your tour price and the ticket provided on the day by your guide.

Does the Inca Trail Tour Include Your Machu Picchu Entrance Ticket?

Yep, the cost of entry is included in the tour price and it's the responsibility of the tour company to take care of all that and provide you with the ticket on the day you're entering the site. For all the essential details on visiting Machu Picchu independently, read this post.

How Much Time Will You Have At Machu Picchu?

This will vary from tour to tour, and also may evolve as Machu Picchu continues to change its own rules and restrictions to abate UNESCO's concerns, but on our own tour we enjoyed a full morning to explore Machu Picchu from about 7 a.m. until 11.30 a.m. (we could have stayed another hour but by that point we were desperate for a beer and lunch!). This also included a guided tour around the site.

In short, you will have plenty time to explore Machu Picchu and take some great photos before the day-tripper hordes arrive.

Facilities + Accommodation on the Inca Trail

If you've never camped before, than that is all about to change! There are no hotels on the Inca Trail and your only available accommodation comes in the form of a tent and a sleeping bag in the middle of nature.

The tents are all two-person, meaning you will either be sharing with a friend/other half, or a randomly assigned member of the same sex. For those that would prefer more privacy, you can also pay extra for your own one-man tent.

The porters carry all the tents along the Trail, but you will be responsible for including your sleeping bag and mat in the 6kg duffel bag allowance.

Do You Need To Set Up Camp Each Day?

We have previously taken a three-week overland trip in Africa with G Adventures, where we were responsible for setting up and taking down our tent each day (not so fun in the rain or after a long day). However, on the Inca Trail we experienced comparative luxury as the porters were responsible for setting up the tents each afternoon before you get near camp, and for taking them down and packing up in the morning.

We told you that these guys were absolute heroes.

What Camping Equipment Do You Need to Bring?

As mentioned, the tour company will provide the tents and porters will carry the majority of the camping equipment. You are however responsible for bringing your own sleeping bag, which can be stored within your 6kg duffel bag allowance. We have these excellent lightweight sleeping bags, but it's also possible to rent them - just note that the ones available for rental are bulky and weigh around 2 kgs.

A very thin sleeping mat was included, and carried by the porter, but it was also possible to rent a thin air-mattress for S/45 / £10 / $13 / €11 which had to be stored in the duffel bag (and weighed around 1 kg).

If you plan on renting the sleeping bag and air-mattress, then just bear in mind that this will take up over 50% of your 6kgs allowance and also takes up most of the room available inside the duffel bag.

Whatever equipment you bring, you may not always get the best night's sleep - and it may be quite chilly in the evening - but it's all part of the experience! Just remember to keep your boots, bags, and hiking poles inside incase it rains overnight or a curious dog starts sniffing around...

If you're going to invest in a high quality travel sleeping bag, then read this post on the essential things to look for before buying.

What's The Toilet And Shower Situation?

The worst part of hiking the Inca Trail is not the altitude, nor the steep ascents, but rather the toilet options available along the route.

Each campsite has toilet facilities available, but these are often rudimentary squat toilets and with campsites being so remote and over-subscribed, cleanliness understandably isn't the highest.

Make sure to bring your own toilet paper and hand-sanitiser, and just hold your nose (and maybe close your eyes too) when you need to go. On the first two days of the Trail, there are also local people who have set up toilets for trekkers (charging S/. 1)...and there's also the bush. Just remember that the 2 soles you'll pay to enter the modern squeaky clean toilets at the Machu Picchu site will be money very very well spent.

In terms of showers, we've found on our various multi-day group hikes that people can be split into two camps:

1. Those who will take a cold shower rather than being a little smelly.

2. Those who will take being a lot smelly over taking a cold shower.

Thankfully, we both fall into the latter camp and we always tell people to embrace getting a little stinky and dirty for a few days. For those who are in the former camp, then you'll be happy to know that two of the three campsites we stayed at had basic shower facilities - just be warned that the water began its journey as snow not too much higher up the mountain, when we say cold, we mean it!

Is There Internet On The Inca Trail?

Nope, and this is one of the best things about it.

Instead, you and your group will spend evening conversing over plastic cups of hot tea, playing card games, or lazing in nature together. Your last chance to use the internet or have a reliable phone signal will be in Ollantaytambo, and your first opportunity will be outside Machu Picchu or in Aguas Calientes.

Money + Food on the Inca Trail

What Are The Meals Like On The Inca Trail?

The biggest surprise for us both on the Trail was just how incredible the food provided was every single day. With G Adventures, two chefs are included as part of the support staff, and the unanimous opinion of our group was that those two performed absolute miracles.

All food, apart from snacks along the way (although we were also provided with a bag of snacks), is included in the up-front tour price - and you won't have to lift a finger to prepare it or wash up. Instead, around a table in a make-shift tent dining room, we were treated to three-course lunches and dinners and a decent breakfast. Amazingly, no meal was the same as the last (we had sort of expected a lot of pasta!).

A typical dinner included fresh hot soup, a hearty main course, and then something sweet to round it off - all washed down at the end with cups of tea. On our last night, we even got a buffet! We're both vegetarian and were catered for incredibly well - with each meal giving us a vegetarian version of the same dish the others were eating (another thing we did not expect at all).

We don't know if all tours will offer the same level of food as G Adventures did, but even if it's half as good you'll be very happy. If you have specific dietary requirements, make sure you enquire with your tour provider to make sure you can be catered for adequately.

You can see full details on what's included in G Adventures Inca Trail Tour here.

Can You Buy Snacks On The Inca Trail?

You are expected to bring and carry your own snacks, although our tour did provide us each with a snack bag on Day One of the trail (we finished ours on the last day, others finished it by Day Two). It makes sense to buy them in Cusco or Ollantaytambo, although on Days One and Two of the trail you will find women along the Trail with makeshift stalls selling drinks, biscuits, and sweets.

Is There Drinking Water on the Inca Trail?

Tours should provide you with purified, safe-to-drink water at camp each night and morning; this in addition to drinks purchased in advance and along the way (and those endless cups of tea glugged at camp) should be sufficient to keep you well hydrated.

However, reducing the plastic footprint and impact of travellers is something we are very passionate about, so it's important to note that the best way to be guaranteed plenty safe-to-drink water on the Inca Trail (and on future hikes) is to invest in a Lifestraw bottle, which has an in-built filter to remove 99.9% of harmful bacteria. We have used similar bottles on travels in both Africa and South America and can't talk highly enough of them (our Water-to-Go allowed us to fill up from taps all over Peru, from two rivers on the Inca Trail, and even an ancient water fountain at Machu Picchu).

If you don't invest in one of these excellent bottles, both of which we've tried and tested, then at least bring a refillable water bottle with you.

You can get a 15% discount on the Water-to-Go if you use this code at the checkout (ADR15), and read this post to find out about more ways about how to use less plastic when you travel.

How Much Money Should You Bring On The Inca Trail?

The vast majority of costs will be covered in the up-front price of your tour, but there are a few costs along the way for which you'll need to bring cash:

Snacks and drinks from stallholders

Toilet entry fees (usually 1 sol, 2 soles at Machu Picchu)

Tips for porters and guides (more on this below).

Lunch at Aguas Calientes.

It's sensible to take this money in the form of smaller notes and coins.

As our G Adventures Inca Trail tour was actually over seven days, including time in Cusco and Ollantaytambo, we also required cash to cover a few meals as well as spending money for souvenirs in the Sacred Valley. So, whatever you do, don't underestimate how much cash you will need - we'd say at least S/. 300 per person for the Trail-specific section.

Tipping on the Inca Trail

Whichever tour company you do the Inca Trail with, you will be expected to tip your support staff of porters and guides.

As Brits, we fully appreciate that this can result in a bit of uncertainty and awkwardness for those of us who haven't been raised in a tipping culture (just pay more in wages, no?), but after your time on the Trail you will be left in no doubt that those porters deserve an extra bit of cash to recognise their sterling work and to support their own endeavours in life.

The process and guideline amounts will vary from tour company to tour company, but with G Adventures our group circulated an envelope amongst us so that everyone could confidentially put in what they were happy with, and then presented that to the porters on our last evening at camp.

Amongst various tour companies' advice online, the tipping recommendations average out at S./ 100 - 150 (£23-35 / $30-45 / €26-40) per hiker to the group of porters and cooks (who will take care of splitting it amongst themselves). For your main and assistant guide, S./ 25 - 50 (£6-12 / $8-15 / €6.5-15) for the former and S./ 10 - 25 (£2.5-6 / $3-7.5 / €2.5-6.5) for the latter is advised per hiker.

Tipping is not mandatory, and you are entitled to put in more, less, or nothing at all.

Health + Safety on the Inca Trail

Being in decent shape, acclimatising, carrying out a few practice hikes at home, keeping yourself hydrated, wearing in your hiking boots, and taking out the correct travel insurance are essential to staying safe and healthy on this hike; if you've made it this far down in our Inca Trail Guide and taken our advice on board, then you should have very few issues once you hit the Trail.

Will I Get Altitude Sickness on the Inca Trail?

Many of the most popular places in Peru, such as Cusco and Arequipa, are at high altitude; this means that for anyone planning a trip to Peru understanding altitude sickness (and how to avoid it) is incredibly important. In fact, not approaching altitude correctly is one of the biggest mistakes of travellers in South America.

The best way to minimise the likelihood and / or impact of altitude sickness is factoring in enough time into your Peru itinerary to acclimatise to the conditions. This means that it is incredibly foolish to arrive in Cusco, which is at 3,339m (11,151 feet) above sea-level, and leave the next day to do a strenuous hike or even start the Inca Trail. Your body needs the time to adjust!

A good rule of thumb is to give yourself and your body two easy days at altitude to acclimatise to the change, and to keep yourself well hydrated throughout. In our group of 10, three people were feeling the altitude on the first day of the tour due to lack of acclimitisation, but with more time, water, and a healthy dose of coca tea (the age-old Peruvian cure!) they soon adjusted and had no issues by day one of the hike itself.

For more information on altitude sickness, the symptoms, and how to deal with them in Peru, read this post.

What Do I Do With My Valuables?

This is one area where the tour companies could provide a better solution, although we appreciate our situation as travel photographers and bloggers who carry a lot of technology is a little unique.

Your main luggage will be left in a secure hotel luggage storage room in Cusco, however we do not advise leaving any important or valuable items there - instead, it's better to take them with you and keep them in your own daypack. If hotels and tour companies offered lockers in Cusco which travellers could secure with their own padlock, then this would have allowed us to leave various cards, cash, and tech with confidence (and insurance coverage) in the city rather than carrying it all in our backpack on the trail (Andrew actually lugged 18 kgs on his back for the entirety of the trail because of this, so views himself as an honorary porter!)

Remember to pack smart and pack light for the Inca Trail - find out exactly what you need to bring and leave behind in our Inca Trail Packing List.

What About Medication?

Obviously, medical attention and facilities along the Inca Trail are pretty much non-existent so you need to bring any of your own required medication with you and keep it on your own person or in the daypack. If you do have any pre-existing medical requirements, inform your tour company when booking and also remind the CEO before setting out.

Don't Skimp on Travel Insurance

We've mentioned this earlier, but with the understanding that this is such an important purchase before you step foot in Peru, we thought it only correct to mention it again here.

Despite your best efforts (as well as the efforts of your CEO, porters etc), things can and do go wrong; if you get sick whilst hiking and are unable to make your own way back, without travel insurance, your evacuation will get expensive pretty quickly. Now, the important thing to note here is that your bog-standard, one-size-fits-all travel insurance will almost certainly not cover you getting unwell at significant altitude - you'll need to buy an add-on which specially covers hiking at high altitude. Both True Traveller and and World Nomads are respected insurers who offer this coverage.

If you have any doubts about whether you are covered for hiking the Inca Trail, speak with your insurance company. Lastly, make sure you have the policy number, insurance provider, and emergency contact number on your person whilst hiking.

If you've made it to the end of the post, then congratulations! We also truly hope that most of your questions about the Inca Trail hike have now been answered and you are in the best position possible for your upcoming Peruvian adventure. If there are any updates or questions, feel free to let us know in the comments below!

If you are yet to book a tour, then we can highly recommend the 7-day G Adventures Inca Trail tour which we joined - it exceeded our expectations.

If your budget is a little higher, or you'd prefer a longer organised tour in Peru, they also offer a 14-day National Geographic 'Iconic Peru' tour which includes the Inca Trail, the Amazon, Lake Titicaca, and return flights from Lima - Cusco.

If you're all booked and ready to start preparing, then make sure to read our Inca Trail Packing List before you buy anything.

Planning for Peru? Use Our Guides!

Tagged: minimum age for the inca trail, maximum age for the Inca trail, How Much to Tip on the Inca Trail, Inca trail last minute, Inca trail hike, Inca trail, is the Inca trail expensive, what is the Inca trail, Booking the Inca Trail, Inca trail permit, Inca trail permits 2019, do you need a guide for the Inca trail, What is the best time of year to hike the Inca Trail?, Inca trail dry season, Inca trail wet season, Inca trail high season, best Inca trail tours, Do You Need to Book an Inca Trail Tour in Advanc, How Much Does The Inca Trail Cost, Inca trail fitness, where does the Inca trail start, kilometre 82, Inca trail insurance, Inca Trail Map + Route, How Difficult is the Inca Trail Hike, hiking poles inca trail, Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail, Tipping on the Inca Trail, safety on Inca trail, altitude sickness Inca trail, classic inca trail, inca trail trek, inca trail tour, Inca trail permits, inca trail itinerary, Inca trail trek, inca trail trekking, inca trail hike difficulty, inca trail cost, inca trail to machu picchu, How long does it take to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu?, What is the best time of year to hike the Inca Trail, How much does it cost to hike the Inca Trail, Can you do the Inca Trail without a guide, Do you need a permit to hike the Inca Trail, peru hiking, Inca trail difficulty, machu picchu, machu picchu peru page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Everything You Really Need To Know Before Hiking the Inca Trail - Along Dusty Roads

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Inca Trail is one of the most famous travel experiences in the world - but what's it really like and what do you really need to know? This post shares all the key information to help you prepare for your own four day Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu in Peru!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abstract

Evolution-minded researchers posit that the suite of human cognitive adaptations may include forgiveness systems. According to these researchers, forgiveness systems regulate interpersonal motivation toward a transgressor in the wake of harm by weighing multiple factors that influence both the potential gains of future interaction with the transgressor and the likelihood of future harm. Although behavioral research generally supports this evolutionary model of forgiveness, the model's claims have not been examined with available neuroscience specifically in mind, nor has recent neuroscientific research on forgiveness generally considered the evolutionary literature. The current review aims to help bridge this gap by using evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience to mutually inform and interrogate one another. We briefly summarize the evolutionary research on forgiveness, then review recent neuroscientific findings on forgiveness in light of the evolutionary model. We emphasize neuroscientific research that links desire for vengeance to reward-based areas of the brain, that singles out prefrontal areas likely associated with inhibition of vengeful feelings, and that correlates the activity of a theory-of-mind network with assessments of the intentions and blameworthiness of those who commit harm. In addition, we identify gaps in the existing neuroscientific literature, and propose future research directions that might address them, at least in part.

Keywords: evolutionary psychology, forgiveness, relationship value, exploitation risk, theory of mind

Introduction

Evolutionary researchers hypothesize that human social decision-making relies upon cognitive adaptations designed by natural selection to optimize fitness outcomes in the ancestral environment ( Tooby and Cosmides, 2005). Such adaptations may include forgiveness mechanisms, cognitive systems which evolved to address the difficult cost-benefit challenges posed by intricate social interactions ( McCullough, 2008; McCullough et al., 2013). According to a model of forgiveness proposed by evolutionary theorists ( McCullough, 2008; McCullough et al., 2013), these forgiveness systems regulate individual motivation toward a transgressor by weighing the many factors that influence both the potential gains of future interaction and the likelihood of future harm. Depending on the outcome of these computations, the victim may experience forgiveness. Forgiveness is understood in this model as a shift in interpersonal motivation, marked by reduced retaliatory sentiment, decreased avoidant sentiment, and/or increased goodwill toward the transgressor. This shift in interpersonal motivation has the ultimate purpose of realizing long-term benefits of continued, productive interaction, and may be contingent upon improved treatment by the transgressor ( McCullough et al., 2013).

An Evolutionary Approach to Forgiveness

The functional benefits of revenge in an ancestral context seem clear enough, but revenge often entails secondary costs that pose an adaptive problem of their own ( McCullough et al., 2013). Not only might revenge set in motion a deadly feedback loop of unending counter-retaliation ( Boehm, 1987), but vengeance might also terminate long-standing and potentially productive relationships ( McCullough, 2008; Burnette et al., 2012; McCullough et al., 2013). Although retribution may result in better treatment in the future, it may also dissolve the relationship entirely, and with it an entire stream of future net benefits ( McCullough, 2008; Burnette et al., 2012; McCullough et al., 2013). An alternative solution to harm is to seek to preserve the relationship and the future benefits it offers, while taking other, non-punitive steps to ensure that similar harms do not recur. In this context, forgiveness emerges in the wake of a transgression as a redirection of motivation away from punitive or avoidant inclinations, toward greater benevolence, with the ultimate aim of securing continued, benefit-producing interaction with the transgressor ( McCullough et al., 2013).

On this view, revenge and forgiveness are thus intertwined aspects of cognitive systems designed to navigate the difficult terrain of complex social interaction. According to this evolutionary model, cognitive mechanisms for revenge and forgiveness function to optimize fitness outcomes resulting from engagement in a web of relationships that offer both the promise of cooperative interchange and the peril of malicious exploitation. Researchers developing this model have sought to identify the computational requirements implied by such systems, and have employed the cost/benefit reasoning described above to suggest that cognitive mechanisms well-designed for making decisions about when and whom to forgive should incorporate information of two broad types. First, such systems should assess cues relevant to the relationship value of the transgressor, defined as the net fitness benefits expected to result from continued interaction with the transgressor. Second, they should weigh cues indicating exploitation risk, defined as the likelihood that the transgressor will impose future costs on the victim ( McCullough, 2008; McCullough et al., 2010, 2013, 2014; Burnette et al., 2012; Petersen et al., 2012).

Empirical work on this model has formulated and validated the Relationship Value and Exploitation Risk (RVEX) scale ( Burnette et al., 2012), and used it to investigate several hypotheses: (1) that the relationship value of the transgressor is positively associated with forgiveness; (2) that the exploitation risk posed by the transgressor is negatively associated with forgiveness; and (3) that the interaction of relationship value with exploitation risk will predict forgiveness, such that the greatest levels of forgiveness will be directed toward transgressors who are both high in relationship value and low in exploitation risk. To test these hypotheses, Burnette et al. (2012) obtained two separate measures of forgiveness from a sample of more than 350 undergraduate students currently in a romantic relationship. One measure, the Exit/Neglect/Voice/Loyalty Scale (ENVL; Rusbult, 1993), operationalized forgiveness based on responses to hypothetical acts of betrayal committed by the participant's romantic partner; a second measure, the Transgression Related Interpersonal Motivations inventory (TRIM; McCullough et al., 1998), operationalized forgiveness as the degree of vengeful, avoidant, or benevolent motivation reported by participants who recalled and reflected upon the most damaging thing that their romantic partner had done to them in the previous 3 months. Burnette et al. (2012) found that exploitation risk and the interaction of exploitation risk with relationship value predicted both the ENVL and TRIM measures of forgiveness in the expected directions, controlling for a number of variables, including trait forgiveness, empathy, relationship commitment, time since transgression, and offense severity. Likewise, relationship value predicted the TRIM measure of forgiveness but not the ENVL measure, controlling for the same variables. Using a separate, online sample, Burnette et al. (2012) randomly assigned more than 400 participants to think either about a high-value or a low-value associate, then primed each participant to focus on exploitive or non-exploitive aspects of the relationship. With this manipulation, and using the TRIM inventory as their sole dependent variable, Burnette et al. (2012) found support for all three key variables-relationship value, exploitation risk, and their interaction-as predictors of forgiveness. Employing a longitudinal design with 337 participants recently harmed by someone close to them, McCullough et al. (2014) operationalized forgiveness as latent change in TRIM scores over a 3-week period. Results confirmed that apologies and other conciliatory gestures made by transgressors were associated with both increased reported relationship value and decreased exploitation risk. Although in this study the interaction of relationship value with exploitation risk did not predict forgiveness, both relationship value and exploitation risk mediated the effect of conciliatory gestures upon forgiveness ( McCullough et al., 2014).

Ongoing research seeks to elaborate upon the specific types of information that contribute to relationship value and exploitation risk. Relationship value is linked to such predictors as the status, resources, or sexual value of the transgressor; the nature and magnitude of past benefits provided to the victim; the length of the prior relationship; and the transgressor's future prospects. Exploitation risk is tied to such factors as the severity of the offense; indicators that the transgressor acted intentionally; sincere expressions of regret including apologies, acts of contrition, and costly compensatory offers; observed or reputed past behavior likely to presage future harm; and other cues that the transgressor might be trusted not to inflict further costs ( Petersen et al., 2010; Burnette et al., 2012).

If forgiveness results from evolved cognitive mechanisms for making ancestrally adaptive social decisions, then the computational architecture of these mechanisms must be instantiated in neural tissue. The proponents of the evolutionary model reviewed above deliberately refrain from addressing any neural correlates of the putative systems they describe, but they note that "as imaging technology becomes more powerful and theorizing about the interface of cognitive science and neuroscience becomes more sophisticated, cognitive neuroscientists will increasingly be in a position to shed light on the neural bases of the computational systems we have presented here" ( McCullough et al., 2013, p. 48). The cognitive neuroscience of forgiveness assuredly still remains in its infancy. Nonetheless, a small but slowly burgeoning neuroscientific literature has begun to clarify the neural mechanisms underlying forgiveness and revenge. In what follows, we review key findings from this literature in light of the evolutionary model presented above. This evolutionary model is grounded in a tight linkage between revenge and forgiveness, and one that grants temporal priority to punitive sentiment. Accordingly, we begin by examining the neural bases of vengeance.

The Neural Bases of Vengeance

Numerous imaging studies suggest that the striatum is typically activated in reward-processing. Activation of the striatum, particularly the nucleus accumbens and the caudate nucleus, is closely associated with motivation to engage in behaviors linked to the promise of reward ( Schultz, 2000; Cardinal et al., 2002; O'Doherty et al., 2004; Delgado, 2007). Converging evidence from social neuroscience suggests that the striatum plays a role in motivating behavior directed not only toward tangible rewards such as prized food items or addictive drugs ( Delgado, 2007) but also toward desired social outcomes ( Bhanji and Delgado, 2014), including revenge ( Rilling and Sanfey, 2011). Let us be clear here that activity in the striatum and other areas associated with reward-processing does not imply hedonic value per se but rather a more general association with reinforcement of certain behaviors over others ( Schultz, 2000).

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a different behavioral economics paradigm, Brüne et al. (2013) found evidence corroborating the notion that the striatum is associated with motivation for revenge, although their results implicated more ventral areas of the striatum. To investigate punishment, Brüne et al. (2013) employed an Ultimatum Game (UG) followed by a Dictator Game (DG). The UG features two players, the first of which (the "proposer") is given an endowment and then makes an offer to the second player (the "responder") regarding how the money should be divided between them. The responder may accept the offer, in which case each partner receives the proposed allocation, or the responder may reject the offer, in which case both parties receive nothing. Although rational choice theory from economics would predict that proposers offer virtually nothing, and responders accept any non-zero offer, empirical results show that many offers approach a 50/50 split, and rejection rates rise as offer amounts fall ( Camerer, 2003). The DG is a bit simpler: the first player (in the role of "dictator") is endowed with a sum of money and may give some, all, or none of it to the second player (the "recipient"); unlike responders in the UG, recipients have no say in what happens and simply accept what the dictator proposes. Subjects in the Brüne et al. (2013) experiment first took the role of responder in interactions with an array of both consistently fair and consistently unfair human partners, as well as with a computer playing randomly. Subjects then assumed the role of dictator in the DG and were required to allocate money among themselves and the other players whom they have previously faced in the UG. Punishment was defined as low DG allocations made to previously unfair UG Proposers. Brüne et al. (2013) found increased right ventral striatal activation when participants punished unfair partners in the DG, vs. when participants treated fair players equitably. In the UG, moreover, level of activity in the participant's right ventral striatum positively correlated with the rate at they rejected offers, which in turn correlated with the unfairness of offers ( Brüne et al., 2013), consistent with the suggestion that punishment may be associated with reward.

Distinctive neural responses accompanying punishment, however, are not limited to the striatum ( Rilling and Sanfey, 2011), suggesting that punitive decisions involve more than processing potential rewards. Indeed, many neuroscientific studies involving punishment have demonstrated activation of the anterior insula (AI), a region associated with representation of bodily states (such as hunger, thirst, and touch; Craig, 2002, 2003, 2009; Critchley, 2009) as well as with multiple emotions, particularly negative emotions such as disgust ( Phillips et al., 1997; Calder et al., 2000; Wicker et al., 2003; Vytal and Hamann, 2010) and anger ( Lindquist et al., 2012). The association of the AI with negative emotional responses to aversive stimuli may explain observations of elevated AI activity in participants being treated unfairly by others. Sanfey et al. (2003), for instance, observed heightened activation of the bilateral AI [along with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex] in conjunction with unfair vs. fair UG offers from human partners. Activation in the insula was greater in response to unfair offers from human vs. computer partners, suggesting that the pattern of response was not a function of low offers in general, but more specific to human unfairness. And the bilateral insula in particular appeared to track the degree of unfairness: the lower the offer, the more elevated the insular activity. What's more, magnitude of insular activity predicted likelihood of rejecting an unfair offer, both between and within subjects. This set of findings suggests that AI activity in this context may index negative emotional responses to unfair treatment ( Sanfey et al., 2003). Other researchers have produced similar results. In another fMRI study of participants acting as responders in an UG, Tabibnia et al. (2008) found that anterior insular activity was heightened in response to offers that the participants themselves deemed unfair. Moreover, when participants accepted rather than rejected such unfair offers, the left AI exhibited reduced activity, consistent with the possibility that they may have experienced less aversion to the unfairness. Brüne et al.'s (2013) fMRI study of punishment, described previously, likewise found that bilateral activity in the AI accompanied activation of the ventral striatum when UG responders encountered unfair offers, again providing a possible association of the AI with negative responses to unfairness.

Departing slightly from the methods of behavioral economics, Will et al. (2014) examined the neural correlates of punishment by using a virtual ball-tossing game-Cyberball-to induce feelings of exclusion, ill-will, and anger in participants. Following their Cyberball experience, participants assumed the role of Dictator in a DG, and were forced to choose between various distributions of money to Cyberball players who had either included them in or excluded them from the ball-tossing. fMRI scans conducted during the decision-making interval revealed that punishment-operationalized in this study as selection of outcomes resulting in less-than-equal payouts to excluders-was linked to heightened activation of the AI (along with the pre-supplementary motor area), just as occurred with unfair offers in the UG studies reviewed above ( Will et al., 2014).

Given that the insula is not generally implicated in the reward system, how might we interpret its role in punishment? Broader neuroscientific research suggests that the insula serves many functions but appears to be tightly linked to the representation of somatic and visceral states ( Craig, 2009; Singer et al., 2009; Chang et al., 2012). Both imaging and lesion studies reveal a role of the insula in interoceptive representation of such somatic states as pain, hunger, and taste, as well as negative emotions such as disgust and anger ( Phillips et al., 1997; Calder et al., 2000; Calder et al., 2001; Craig, 2002, 2003, 2009; Wicker et al., 2003; Singer et al., 2009). Research also suggests that insular involvement extends to the social domain ( Rilling and Sanfey, 2011), including empathic responses to the pain, tastes, and disgust experienced by others ( Wicker et al., 2003; De Vignemont and Singer, 2006; Singer and Lamm, 2009), as well as visceral aversions to morally repugnant actions ( Greene, 2009). This array of evidence regarding the role of the insula in representing negative emotion and somatic states, particularly aversion, suggests that in the punishment studies reviewed above the insula serves as a locus of negative affect, delivering an aversive response-perhaps realized at a visceral level-to the unfair, fitness-damaging behavior of others. Co-activation of the AI and the striatal reward circuits following unfair treatment plausibly suggest the notion of a negative reaction associated with the AI and an accompanying desire for retribution associated with the striatum.

The Role of Inhibitory Networks in Forgiveness

If revenge and punishment are associated with heightened activation of the striatum and the AI, what brain mechanisms accompany forgiveness, the flip-side of vengeance? Although it might be reasonable to expect that motivations to forgive would also be driven by reward centers of the brain, much evidence suggests otherwise; in fact, forgiveness may involve inhibition of the AI and striatum, primarily driven by prefrontal cortical regions. Evidence again comes from the work of Brüne et al. (2013), who took fMRI scans of subjects making DG allocations to individuals who had previously treated them either fairly or unfairly in an UG. In this study, high DG allocations to unfair UG proposers indicated more forgiving, less punitive behavior toward a transgressor. As noted previously, Brüne et al. (2013) documented striatal activation in conjunction with participants receiving unfair offers during the UG game, and in conjunction with participants subsequently making low DG allocations to previously unfair players. Such findings are consistent with the research reviewed above suggesting a link between retaliatory motivation and reward. No striatal activation, however, was detected when individuals made high DG allocations to previously unfair players-suggesting that more forgiving responses to unfairness, at least in this context, may not involve a reinforcement signal akin to that experienced in association with retaliation. Instead, Brüne et al. (2013) found that these high DG allocations to previously unfair individuals were associated with increased activation of the dlPFC, possibly indicating cognitive control of aversive responses to unfairness ( Brüne et al., 2013).

A variety of other studies have likewise reported lateral prefrontal activity in conjunction with more benevolent, less punitive responses to unfair treatment. In their fMRI study of reactions to Cyberball-induced social exclusion, Will et al. (2014) observed amplified activity of the dlPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in subjects who did not punish Cyberball players who had excluded them, compared to subjects who did punish excluders. Increased activation of the dlPFC relative to the AI was also observed by Sanfey et al. (2003) in their fMRI studies of UG players, specifically when players accepted unfair offers. By contrast, when players rejected unfair offers, AI activity was heightened relative to that of the dlPFC, leading Sanfey et al. (2003) to suggest that dlPFC activity in this context indexed regulatory control over punitive inclinations. Lateral prefrontal activity in conjunction with the acceptance of unfair UG offers was also observed by Tabibnia et al. (2008), but in their study it was the vlPFC rather than dlPFC that showed increased activation when unfair UG offers were accepted. Elevated activation of the dlPFC in the context of forgiveness was also noted by Ricciardi et al. (2013). Ricciardi et al. (2013) performed fMRI scans of subjects who were first asked to imagine themselves in hurtful social scenarios, and were then encouraged either to forgive the harmer or to dwell on revenge. Contrasts revealed that the forgiveness condition was associated with differential activation of the dlPFC [along with regions implicated in a theory-of-mind network ( Premack and Woodruff, 1978), thought to be involved in inferring the mental states, beliefs, and intentions of others]. A wealth of social neuroscientific studies provide evidence linking the lateral prefrontal regions with emotional regulation, impulse control, and other inhibitory activity ( Miller and Cohen, 2001; Aron et al., 2004; Ochsner and Gross, 2005; Lieberman, 2007; Greene, 2009; Rilling and Sanfey, 2011). This evidence in conjunction with the work reviewed here suggest that, in the context of forgiveness, the dlPFC and vlPFC, as well as the dACC, may act as part of a network down-regulating negative affective responses of the AI to unfairness and other social harms, while also inhibiting the punitive motivations generated by the striatal reward centers of the brain ( Rilling and Sanfey, 2011; Brüne et al., 2013; Ricciardi et al., 2013).

The Role of Theory of Mind in Forgiveness Mechanisms

Evolutionary perspectives on forgiveness suggest that victims of interpersonal injury calculate the probability of future harm at the hands of the transgressor ("exploitation risk") and integrate this variable into the decision-making process ( Petersen et al., 2010; McCullough et al., 2013). The likelihood of future harm hinges, in turn, on the intentions of the transgressor, both past and present. If victims are to respond to interpersonal harms adaptively, they must assess transgressor intentions accurately ( Burnette et al., 2012). The consequences of error in this domain are potentially severe. To attribute malign intent to a long-term cooperative partner who harmed you inadvertently could mean needlessly sacrificing years of productive interchange-forgoing access to resources, crucial coalitional support, networking opportunities, and other vital benefits ( McCullough, 2008; McCullough et al., 2013). But the converse error poses no less a hazard: mistaking deliberate injury for mere accident is to court ruin or death. Individuals facing these crucial decisions are expected to integrate available informational cues relevant to the transgressor's future intentions ( Petersen et al., 2010; McCullough et al., 2013). Did the transgressor apologize for the act? Was there an expression of regret? Did the transgressor perhaps offer compensation or otherwise reliably signal an intention to avoid such harm in the future ( Burnette et al., 2012; Tabak et al., 2012; Ohtsubo and Yagi, 2014). The victim's empathy, sympathy, and perspective-taking abilities might also come into play: perhaps situational factors compelled the transgressor's action, or the transgressor failed to realize the extent of the harm done to the victim ( Petersen et al., 2010, 2012).

Processing these complex informational inputs requires representing the intentions, desires, emotions, and mental states of others, often termed a "theory-of-mind" or "mentalizing" ability. Theory of mind is the subject of considerable neuroscientific interest, and imaging studies repeatedly find co-activation of several brain regions during social cognition tasks associated with it ( Lieberman, 2007; Van Overwalle, 2009). Central to the theory-of-mind network are the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), precuneus, temporal poles, and superior temporal sulcus (STS), with the TPJ in particular appearing to play a major role in representing the belief states of others ( Frith and Frith, 2003, 2006; Gallagher and Frith, 2003; Saxe and Kanwisher, 2003; Saxe et al., 2004; Perner et al., 2006; Lieberman, 2007; Aichhorn et al., 2009; Van Overwalle, 2009). Consistent with the evolutionary model of forgiveness, fMRI studies have sought and found evidence of heightened theory-of-mind activity during cognition related specifically to forgiving, much of it linked to the TPJ in particular. In their virtual ball-passing experiment, Will et al. (2014), for instance, operationalized forgiveness as participants acting equitably toward Cyberball players who had previously excluded them, vs. included them. fMRI scans showed that forgiveness was associated with increased activation of the bilateral TPJ and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC)-regions that are regularly implicated in the mentalizing network, as the authors noted ( Will et al., 2014).

In a series of neuroimaging studies of moral decision-making, Liane Young, Rebecca Saxe, and collaborators have marshaled evidence that the TPJ-specifically, the right TPJ (rTPJ)-plays a critical role in assessing the blameworthiness of actions performed by others, and that it does so by integrating information concerning the belief states of the actor. Across two studies ( Young et al., 2007; Young and Saxe, 2009), fMRI scans recorded brain activity of subjects as they rated the blameworthiness of agents described in carefully matched narrative scenarios. The 2 × 2 design crossed the actions of the agents (harmful/not harmful) with the agent's beliefs about the consequences of their actions (belief that the other person would be harmed/belief that the other person would not be harmed). As you'd expect, deliberately harmful actions were judged most blameworthy, while unintentional harm was deemed significantly less blameworthy, and TPJ activation was significant during every assessment of blameworthiness. Of particular interest, however, were findings that rTPJ activity was significantly elevated when the beliefs of the actor appeared to be in conflict with the outcomes of the action. That is, rTPJ activity was heightened when an actor harmed someone despite believing the action would not be harmful ( Young and Saxe, 2009), or when an actor failed to harm someone, despite believing the action would be harmful. ( Young et al., 2007). In the latter study, researchers determined that when subjects evaluated such accidental harms, the ultimate blameworthiness of the act exhibited a strong negative correlation with activation of the rTPJ. In other words, the less blameworthy the offense was judged to be, the greater the activation of the right TPJ. The authors accordingly suggested that the rTPJ indexes the extent to which individuals use information about the beliefs of others to find their harmful actions forgivable.

Studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt rTPJ functioning provide further evidence bolstering the view that the rTPJ influences moral judgment by integrating information about the harmfulness of action outcomes with information concerning actors' belief states. In two additional experiments utilizing the 2 × 2 design outlined above, Young et al. (2010) demonstrated that disruption of rTPJ activity affected the degree to which participants incorporated information about the actor's beliefs into judgment about the act's blameworthiness. Specifically, when rTPJ function was disrupted vs. when it was not, participants tended to judge actions based solely on how harmful the outcome was, regardless of whether the actor envisioned and intended that outcome. With rTPJ activity impaired, participants deemed attempted (but failed) harms to be more permissible than otherwise.

Given the rTPJ's involvement in assessing the blameworthiness of actions, might the region actually encode intentional vs. accidental harm in a spatially discernible pattern? Koster-Hale et al. (2013) explored this possibility in three experiments using multivoxel pattern analysis. The authors found that distinct spatial patterns of activity within the rTPJ were associated with narratives portraying intentional vs. accidental harms in neurotypical adults (as opposed to those with autism spectrum disorders). In addition, the individual differences in the magnitude of this neural pattern predicted individual differences in assigning blameworthiness: the stronger the pattern, the more forgiving the judgment of accidental harms. Finally, a separate experiment involving adults with autism spectrum disorder-a condition known to impair an array of theory-of-mind abilities ( Baron-Cohen, 1997) including forgiveness for inadvertent harm ( Moran et al., 2011)-found no evidence for encoding of intentional vs. accidental encoding of harms in the rTPJ or elsewhere, in line with behavioral data confirming that these autistic participants failed to modulate blame on the basis of actor intent. Converging lines of evidence thus support the notion that brain regions associated with theory of mind-and particularly the rTPJ-process the blameworthiness of others' actions by taking into account both the harm that the act caused and the intentions that the perpetrator held. This body of evidence suggests that theory-of-mind functionality is associated with increased forgiveness for accidental harms, as well as with assigning blame to unsuccessful acts intended to cause harm.

Further evidence that forgiveness activates a theory-of-mind network comes from the work of Strang et al. (2014), whose results again suggest a crucial role for the TPJ. Strang et al. (2014) employed an ambiguous apology to examine the neural underpinnings of forgiveness. In their design, subjects (Player A) received payouts based on the answers other individuals (Player B) gave to trivia questions of moderate difficulty. If Player B answered correctly, Player A and Player B shared equal payouts of 100 points each, but if Player B answered incorrectly, Player A received only 50 points and was forced to make a decision regarding the payout made to Player B. Player A could "forgive" Player B, in which case Player B would receive the highest possible payout, 140 points; alternatively, if Player A chose not to forgive Player B, Player B received 110 points. Two items merit note. First, the payout structure incentivized Player B to answer incorrectly even if she knew the answer; second, Player B had the option of apologizing for missing the question and potentially influencing Player A's forgiveness decision. The result of this design is a scenario in which Player A might suspect Player B of deliberately missing questions, costing Player A money to the benefit of Player B, and then offering an insincere apology. (Subsequent analyses suggested that Players B indeed did intentionally miss questions a significant portion of the time). fMRI results revealed that receiving an apology was accompanied by elevated activity of the left angular gyrus (a subsection of the TPJ), along with the left middle temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal gyrus. Forgiveness was associated with activation specifically of the right angular gyrus of the TPJ, which the authors found consistent with the notion of mentalizing taking place. The authors remarked, however, that they observed no activation of the mPFC and STS. Noting that these two regions are most often linked to sharing of emotions, the authors suggested that their design provided little or no information pertinent to the emotional state of the other players and hence elicited neural activity primarily related to cognitive rather than affective representations.

To explore the neural bases of parochial punishment, Baumgartner et al. (2012) utilized a third-party punishment task in which participants (whom we will call "punishers") were given truthful information about the actions of fellow participants in a PD Game, including instances when fellow participants defected upon rather than cooperated with other players. Punishers were then provided a monetary endowment and offered a chance to spend some of that endowment to reduce the monetary rewards of one of the PD players (this was "punishment"). The researchers then systematically varied the ingroup/outgroup status of both punishers and the other participants. Behavioral results replicated numerous prior findings of the parochial punishment bias: punishment of outgroup members who defected on a cooperative ingroup member was substantially higher than punishment of ingroup members who defected on a cooperative outgroup member. Baumgartner et al. (2012) predicted-and found-that two distinct neural networks were active in conjunction with particular aspects of this punishment bias. First, increased punishment of outgroup members was associated with heightened activity of regions previously linked to two-party punishment- including the right dorsal caudate and right lateral prefrontal cortex, regions implicated in two-party punishment decisions as reviewed above. Second, and most crucial for present purposes, decreased punishment of ingroup members for the same offense was associated with elevated activity and connectivity of the bilateral TPJ and the dmPFC-the two nodes of the network associated with mentalizing. Baumgartner et al. (2012) argued that this pattern of findings was consistent with the view that mentalizing networks, involved in such activities as perspective-taking and understanding the intentions of others, might modulate the punishment of ingroup members.

Baumgartner et al. (2012)'s research indicated that neural networks associated with mentalizing underlie the third-party processes of parochial punishment, but these mechanisms might conceivably undergird revenge and forgiveness at the dyadic level as well. Specifically, if empathy, perspective-taking, and other mentalizing abilities associated with such regions as the TPJ and the dmPFC are associated with reduced punishment in the third-party scenarios examined by Baumgartner et al. (2012) they may also reduce punishment in two-way interactions by enabling victims to take the perspective of their transgressors, promoting better appreciation of the transgressor's motives, intentions, and outcomes. Indeed, behavioral research on forgiveness has produced evidence that empathy toward the transgressor is an influential factor that promotes forgiveness in the wake of harm ( McCullough et al., 1997, 1998, 2003; Worthington et al., 2000). Additional research supporting this hypothesis is Will et al.'s (2014) study of revenge and forgiveness following social exclusion, which found that self-reported perspective-taking correlated negatively with their measure of punishment. Taken together, these findings are consistent with the valuable relationships hypothesis advocated by the evolutionary model of forgiveness ( McCullough, 2008; McCullough et al., 2013), given that fellow ingroup members are likely to be regarded in general as more valuable interaction partners than outgroup members. Indeed, the findings of Baumgartner et al. (2012) highlight a possible neural pathway by which more valued relationship partners-like the ingroup transgressors privileged in parochial altruism-could be more readily forgiven. On this account, theory-of-mind processes, including those in the TPJ, lead to greater forgiveness in valued relationships by promoting greater perspective-taking toward those partners relative to less valued individuals-essentially generating an empathy bias which would in turn down-regulate punitive motivations toward close associates.

The picture is somewhat muddied, however, by a subsequent study conducted by Baumgartner et al. (2013), who used TMS to test the hypothesis that theory-of-mind processing specifically in the TPJ plays a causal role in parochial punishment. Baumgartner et al. (2013) employed essentially the same third-party punishment paradigm as the 2012 study, but randomly assigned punishers to one of three groups: those with rTPJ function disrupted by TMS; those with left TPJ function disrupted by TMS; and those in a sham TMS condition. Baumgartner et al. (2013) again replicated behavioral findings of a parochial punishment bias. More crucially, TMS results suggested that the parochial punishment bias was moderated by rTPJ activity: the treatment group with disrupted rTPJ activity showed significantly less parochial punishment bias, relative to treatment groups in which the left TPJ was disrupted, or in which sham TMS took place. Moreover, differences in self-reported retaliatory motivation mediated the differences in parochial punishment bias. As a final twist, the researchers captured self-report data on the extent to which participants felt able to take the perspective of both ingroup and outgroup transgressors. Participants with disrupted rTPJ function reported no differences in ability to take the perspective of an ingroup vs. an outgroup transgressor; individuals with sham disruption, or disruption of the left TPJ, by contrast reported that they could more readily relate to transgressors who were ingroup rather than outgroup members. Follow-up analyses revealed that perspective-taking differences mediated the effect of rTPJ disruption on retaliatory motivation, which in turn mediated the effect on parochial punishment.

To this point, the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that perspective-taking abilities associated with the rTPJ promote greater empathy toward ingroup members, down-regulating punitive motivation toward ingroup members who harm outgroup members, relative to outgroup members who harm ingroup members. Yet it is also possible that rTPJ activity is associated instead with upregulating punitive motivation toward outgroup members, rather than downregulating it toward the ingroup. Follow-up analyses of self-report data tended to support this latter alternative: participants with disrupted rTPJ function reported reduced motivation to retaliate against outgroup members, relative to participants with disrupted lTPJ function or those in the sham treatment group; there was no evidence of increased punitive motivation toward ingroup members in conjunction with impaired rTPJ function. If these findings prove robust, they may suggest a complex role for empathy and perspective-taking when intergroup relationships are highly salient. In such contexts, perspective-taking biased toward ingroup members might well increase outgroup-directed revenge rather than increase ingroup-directed forgiveness. We note again that the studies conducted by Baumgartner et al. (2012, 2013) involve third-party rather than dyadic interactions. Future TMS research involving specifically one-on-one interactions could clarify whether the TPJ or perhaps other regions in the mentalizing network play a causal role in generating transgressor-directed empathy in such dyadic interactions, whether empathy is more easily directed toward valuable relationship partners, and whether such empathy is in turn associated with increased forgiveness, consistent with prior behavioral studies.

Discussion and Future Research

To these concerns, we would add the following. From virtually the beginning of scientific interest in the topic, forgiveness has been conceptualized as change in interpersonal motivation, and thus as a construct which benefits from being modeled and analyzed in explicitly temporal terms ( McCullough et al., 2000, 2003). Behavioral research on forgiveness (e.g., McCullough et al., 2003), including several longitudinal studies undertaken to test the evolutionary model highlighted here ( McCullough et al., 2010, 2014), has embraced this longitudinal design challenge. In this work, researchers have introduced latent growth models that operationalize forgiveness as linear or logarithmic change (depending on the time scale) and capture decline over time in punitive and avoidant sentiment toward the perpetrator following a transgression. Such models distinguish the participant's declining motivational curve ("trend forgiveness)" from low levels of punitive or avoidant sentiment that might immediately follow the transgression ("forbearance") ( McCullough et al., 2003). To the best of our knowledge, no neuroscientific study has yet examined the neural correlates of forgiveness operationalized as latent change in interpersonal motivation over time. Indeed, neuroscientific studies that address revenge and forgiveness are decidedly cross-sectional, capturing brief neural states shortly after a transgression [for one exception involving forgiveness judgments in individuals with PTSD, see Farrow et al. (2005)]. In this sense, the bulk of the neuroscientific literature may be studying forbearance (a key component of forgiveness, to be sure) but illuminating to a much lesser extent forgiveness understood as change over time. The existing neuroscientific studies of forgiveness have rarely if ever determined whether their neural snapshots predict motivational change in participants over subsequent days, weeks, or months. Lacking, too, are imaging studies that attempt to identify changes in brain activity over time in select regions that might correlate with changes over time in observed transgression-related motivation (an undoubtedly daunting task).

As a final set of concerns, we note that most existing neuroscientific studies-e.g., the UG studies ( Sanfey et al., 2003; Tabibnia et al., 2008; Brüne et al., 2013), the Cyberball study of Will et al. (2014), and even the trivia question paradigm of Strang et al. (2014)-examine a limited set of generally minor transgressions. Indeed, the vast majority of neuroscientific studies of revenge and forgiveness employ a behavioral economics framework, within which transgressions are characterized at best by the loss of a few dollars that participants didn't possess prior to the experiment. Often missing from these studies are the types of transgressions reported in longitudinal research into forgiveness (e.g., McCullough et al., 2003, 2014; Tabak et al., 2012): romantic infidelity, betrayals of confidence, insults, rape, and neglect. Longitudinal studies of the transgressions that arise in real life diverge from most manufactured laboratory contexts in at least two crucial ways. First, real-life transgressions are in most cases likely to be more severe than the minimal monetary losses incurred in behavioral economics experiments. The average transgression severity reported in Tabak et al.'s (2012) longitudinal study, for instance, was 4.84 out of a possible 6, with 6 designating "the worst pain I ever felt." A few defections in a PD Game are unlikely to evoke anything like the level of hurt experienced by a betrayed spouse or neglected friend. Second, as the example of the betrayed spouse also reminds us, the real-life transgressions that require forgiveness typically do not involve anonymous strangers in one-shot interactions. Instead, they often involve the people closest to us-our friends, our family, our romantic partners. These disparities between real-life transgressions and the behavioral economics tasks that predominate in neuroscientific studies of revenge and forgiveness raise the possibility that we may be failing to observe the brain activity accompanying forgiveness as it most often occurs in the real world (though this possibility is of course not unique to forgiveness research).

Beyond addressing the challenges noted above, several other avenues toward progress present themselves. This review of the literature suggests that no neuroscientific imaging study of forgiveness has used the instruments developed and employed by researchers investigating the topic from an evolutionary perspective. Of particular note in this context is the Transgression Related Interpersonal Motivations (TRIM) scale ( McCullough et al., 2006), which uses three subscales (revenge, avoidance, and benevolence) to assess the distinct motivational components hypothesized to form the basis of forgiveness. Use of the TRIM scale in future neuroscientific studies of forgiveness would provide a much-needed supplement to a literature that operationalizes forgiveness primarily in behavioral terms, most often as monetary decisions in behavioral economics games. For example, in their Cyberball study, Will et al. (2014), defined forgiveness as a fair allocation of money to transgressor during a DG, while acknowledging that additional research was needed in order to demonstrate the measure's relationship to motivation. Incorporating more fine-tuned measures of subjective interpersonal motivations into their studies would enable neuroscientists to provide a richer description of the qualitative states accompanying the neural systems associated with behavioral forgiveness, and secondly to verify more thoroughly that behavioral forgiveness is indeed linked with the suite of shifting interpersonal motivations predicted by theory. Finally, more widespread use of such measures might facilitate research of scenarios in which subjective motivations and behavior may be in conflict-for instance, when the relatively greater power of a transgressor may compel cooperative behavior, despite the victim's strong motivation to retaliate.

With its three subscales, the TRIM scale also provides an opportunity to address the existing literature's perhaps excessive focus on punishment in response to harm. Few if any neuroscientific studies examine avoidant motivations following a transgression; indeed, most experimental paradigms require victims to interact with the transgressor in some manner (e.g., punish or treat fairly), without allowing for motivations to withdraw or engage with other, preferred partners. Use of the TRIM scale might thus illuminate the brain systems associated with avoidant as well as punitive motivations in conjunction with decision-making following interpersonal harm.

Neuroimaging techniques employing the measures discussed above might also be integrated with a robust literature examining the neurochemical basis of social-decision making. For instance, prior research suggests that oxytocin may down-regulate fear responses in the amygdala, including responses specifically tied to social betrayal ( Rilling and Sanfey, 2011). If so, exogenous oxytocin administered to subjects during neuroimaging studies of forgiveness might be associated with decreased activation of the amygdala, lower scores on the RVEX exploitation scale, and higher levels of forgiveness on the TRIM scale, relative to subjects administered a placebo. Such a result would suggest that amygdala activity, as regulated by oxytocin, mediates the effect of exploitation risk on forgiveness. Research also suggests a role for serotonin in the vmPFC, a region linked to valuing long-term benefits derived from cooperation ( Rilling and Sanfey, 2011). If serotonin plays an important role on the valuation of long-term cooperative benefits, variation in serotonin levels during neuroimaging studies of forgiveness might be associated with increased activation of the vmPFC, high scores on the relationship value subscale of the RVEX measure, and higher levels of overall forgiveness on the TRIM scale.

Finally, behavioral research on forgiveness has long prioritized the perspective of the victim, while largely neglecting to consider transgressors seeking forgiveness from those whom they have harmed ( McCullough et al., 2000). A recent study examining the use of costly apologies by offenders ( Ohtsubo and Yagi, 2014) may or may not signal a shift of emphasis toward transgressors in the behavioral literature, but the neuroscientific literature has evinced little interest in the viewpoint of the offender thus far. If cognitive mechanisms for forgiveness benefit victims who successfully restore damaged relationships, similar mechanisms should regulate the actions of transgressors who face punishment or avoidance from valuable others. Decisions to seek forgiveness should be adaptively regulated just as much as decisions to grant it, and neuroscience may yet illuminate the brain systems that underlie these fundamental choices.

Summary

We have presented in brief the dominant evolutionary model of forgiveness, and have reviewed the neuroscientific literature on revenge and forgiveness, with the goal of using each body of work to interrogate and illuminate the other. The neuroscientific findings presented here identify neural systems that may reflect the computational systems posited by the evolutionary model. A broad body of neuroscientific research links retaliatory motivation to reward-based areas of the brain, singles out prefrontal areas likely associated with inhibition of retaliatory sentiment, and correlates the activity of a theory-of-mind network with assessments of the intentions and blameworthiness of harmdoers. In addition, we have sought to identify gaps in the existing literature, and have proposed future research directions that might address them, at least in part. We suggest in particular the value of using the RVEX and TRIM measures in future neuroscientific work, and the need to incorporate longitudinal methods that may allow researchers to identify the neural correlates of forgiveness operationalized as change in interpersonal motivation over time.

Author Contributions

JB conceived, designed, and drafted the review; gives final approval of the version to published; and agrees to be held accountable for all aspects of the work. EL contributed substantially to the work; revised it critically for important content; gives final approval of the version to be published; and agrees to be held accountable for all aspects of the work.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

JB offers special thanks to Barry Hurwitz for his encouragement of this paper.

Footnotes

Funding. This project was made possible in part by funding provided by the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Miami Department of Psychology, and the John F. Templeton Foundation.

References

Greene J. D. (2009). The cognitive neuroscience of moral judgment. [Cogn. Neurosci. 4 1-48.Google Scholar]

Worthington E. L., Kurusu T. A., Collins W., Berry J. W. (2000). Forgiving usually takes time: a lesson learned by studying interventions to promote forgiveness. [J. Psychol. Theol. 28 3-20.Google Scholar]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Neural Systems of Forgiveness: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Evolution-minded researchers posit that the suite of human cognitive adaptations may include forgiveness systems. According to these researchers, forgiveness systems regulate interpersonal motivation toward a transgressor in the wake of harm by weighing multiple factors that influence both the potential gains of future interaction with the transgressor and the likelihood of future harm.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When Queer Nation ‘Bashed Back’ Against Homophobia with Street Patrols and Glitter | KQED

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Queer Nation’s militant tactics and colorful slogans from the 1990s continue to influence today’s activists.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
B J Britton, consultant surgeon, J Grimley Evans, professor, and J M Potter, emeritus consultant neurosurgeon on behalf of the Collaborative Randomised And Controlled Kennet Piscatorial Options Trial (CRACKPOT) Investigators

Abstract

Objective

To investigate the importance of the type of dry fly (artificial floating fly) in catching trout (brown and rainbow) in an English chalkstream.

Setting

River Kennet, Berkshire.

Design

Five anglers on five separate occasions spent five hours using a randomly allocated fly from a sample of five types.

Participants

Five anglers of considerable but varying experience, determination, and opinion.

Main outcome measures

Number, weight, and species of trout caught.

Results

One fly (Black Gnat) performed significantly worse than the others. The fly most successful in catching brown trout was the Cinnamon Sedge.

Conclusion

The possible prolongation of doctors' leisure time consequent on the use of unproductive trout flies has resource implications for the NHS. Urgent funding of a definitive, large multiriver trial is needed.

Introduction

Fishing for trout with an artificial floating fly ("dry fly") is an ancient art, but the optimal design of fly remains a matter of controversy. Berners described 12 artificial fly dressings for different seasons. Walton recommended that the angler should also carry wool, fur, and feathers to the riverside to make imitations of the flies being taken by trout. Three centuries later in 1986 Buckland illustrated 354 patterns of dry fly in current use. Sceptics claim that a trout is less discriminating than the angler in choosing a fly, and may indeed not be able to tell one from another. Some fly patterns require materials of limited or even perilous provenance: "Tup's Indispensable," for example, calls for hairs from a ram's scrotum. The resource implications are considerable, and we report here a study aimed at introducing evidence based practice into an important area of medical activity.

Methods

Five medically qualified anglers took part. As a representative sample of past and present hospital consultant staff, all were male and of early or protracted middle age. The study was carried out on the River Kennet, Berkshire, but the precise location is not revealed as some of the local poachers may subscribe to the BMJ. The water supports a population of wild and stocked brown trout ( Salmo trutta) and some rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss).

Methods were restricted to upstream dry fly fishing with a single hook. Five flies were chosen for evaluation: Grey Wulff, Silver Sedge, Parachute Adams, Black Gnat, Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear. All were purchased from a single supplier; the sedge was tied on a size 12 hook (the smallest available), the other patterns on size 14. The study employed a randomised Latin square design. Blinding was problematical; a pilot study in which one investigator tried fishing without his spectacles proved hazardous, and concealing the nature of the fly from the trout was deemed futile as well as impractical. As a means of identifying observer bias, each angler recorded in advance his estimate of the utility of each fly on a scale of 0 (no hope) to 10 (full bag of fish expected), with 5 representing equipoise. At the start of the 1998 season, investigators received sealed, opaque envelopes numbered 1 to 5, each containing a specification of the fly to be used on the first five successive forays to the river. The order of flies had been randomised for each angler by conventional blind selection from a hat. Fish were weighed to the nearest ounce (28 g) by using a single balance and set of weights, each observer weighing his own fish. To comply with editorial requirements, weights have been converted to metric units.

Key messages

Brown trout like a Cinnamon Sedge

Black Gnats perform poorly

Doctors are poor predictors of the utility of a fly

Statistical methods

Analysis obviously had to include the Poisson distribution and Fisher's exact test. Final analysis was to be restricted to brown trout as rainbow trout are foreign and will probably eat anything.

Economic analysis

A cost-utility analysis using time trade off techniques was judged potentially embarrassing.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the public bar ethics committee of the Riverside Inn, Canonbie, Dumfriesshire. All investigators gave fully informed consent. The water bailiff gave proxy consent on behalf of the trout.

Results

There were two departures from protocol. Firstly, shortly after the start of the study an investigator objected that, according to his 1886 edition of Halford, the flies supplied as Silver Sedge were actually Cinnamon Sedge. The data monitoring committee confirmed the misappellation but decided that the trial should proceed with substitution of Cinnamon for Silver Sedge. Investigators agreed that their prior utility estimates for the Silver Sedge were also appropriate for the Cinnamon. Secondly, investigators who were still working for their living found difficulty in providing a full five hours on each visit to the water. Examination of the data revealed that adjusting numbers of fish for time spent at the river made no difference to the results. This was attributable to the productivity of the evening rise, in which investigators shared more equitably, and to a proportion of retired members' days at the river being passed in somnolence and conviviality rather than fishing.

In the 25 angler sessions, 52 brown and 20 rainbow trout were landed. The biggest fish weighed 1.39 kg, but all investigators reported the escape of several much larger fish. The number of fish reported as hooked but not landed differed significantly between anglers but not between flies (data invidious and not presented). Numbers and weights of catches are presented in table . Daily numbers are right censored as the bag limit is four fish. Fish weights are left censored as no fish less than 28 cm long is taken or angled for. Surprisingly, comparison of mean weights showed no evidence of interobserver measurement bias.

Table 1

Table sets out the investigators' prior utility estimates for each fly. Table shows the catch for each of the five flies, and table shows the distributions of numbers of fish caught at each session. There was no evidence of any relation between investigators' prior utility estimates and the numbers of fish they caught on each fly (Spearman's r corrected for ties −0.06, P>0.05). In analysis of variance, differences between anglers in number of fish landed were not significant, at least statistically (f=1.67; df =4,16; P=0.20). The data suggest that the Black Gnat performed less well than the other flies, in catching only seven fish. Applying the Poisson distribution to the total catch per fly, the probability of seven or fewer fish was 0.025. Furthermore, the Black Gnat was associated with two sessions, involving two investigators, in which no fish were caught (table ). No other fly produced a blank session, but only the Sedge provided five full bags.

Table 2

Table 3

The relation of fly and angler to the odds of catching a brown rather than a rainbow trout was examined in a logistic regression analysis. This showed no significant difference between anglers (χ ²=7.62, df=4) but a significant relation with fly (χ ²=14.66, df=4, P<0.005). With Fisher's exact test the Cinnamon Sedge differed significantly (P=0.005) from the pooled performance of the other flies in the catch of brown as distinct from rainbow trout.

Discussion

This study provides the first scientific evidence that trout can distinguish one fly from another. Conventional practice assumes that fish take the angler's fly in mistake for a natural insect on which they feed, but other factors have been suggested. Walton cites Sir George Hastings as claiming that the Fordidge trout of Kent took flies not for hunger but for wantonness. Contextual evidence suggests that the Fordidge trout were in fact salmon, but whether in wantonness or hunger Kennet trout seem to know a Black Gnat from a Cinnamon Sedge. Black gnat is a name vulgarly given to the terrestrial insect Bibio johannis, but the artificial fly of the name is also thought to be taken by trout in mistake for the flying ant. Both the bibio and the flying ant fall on the water in considerable numbers when blown off fields or when swarming but will in general present to trout only sporadically. Trout who have survived two thousand years of natural selection by fly fishermen might well regard the occasional black gnat as something to be avoided, however safely Nature's largesse, in the form of a swarm, may be savoured. No evidence exists that trout can count, and they will therefore register the existence of a swarm only when presented with the simultaneous rather than successive appearance of several examples of the same fly. Repetitive casting by an angler will therefore be ineffective.

In contrast with the Black Gnat, the other flies used in our study imitate flies whose appearance on the water is continuous and moderately frequent. The Gold Ribbed Hare's ear represents a hatching dun, the Grey Wulff an upwinged ephemerid, the Parachute Adams a spent imago, and the Cinnamon Sedge a caddis.

The second important finding of our study is the relative success of the Sedge pattern in catching brown rather than rainbow trout. In contrast with the other three successful flies in this study, the Cinnamon Sedge is a close imitation of a particular genus (Limnephilus) rather than representing a broad impression of a range of flies. It is perhaps understandable that the brown trout, which has evolved in an environment of English chalkstreams and English anglers, should be more discriminating than the rainbow trout, which, although widely introduced in England in the past 50 years, evolved in tributaries of the Sacramento River in North America. As the rainbow trout rarely breeds in English waters, the opportunity for the species to develop skill in identifying flies by natural selection is limited.

It may be objected that our study is no more than a fishing expedition in that we had no agreed a priori hypothesis on the relative efficacy of the flies tested. Our results may therefore be regarded as hypothesis generating rather than hypothesis testing. Clearly, however, the possible prolongation of doctors' leisure time consequent on the use of unproductive trout flies has resource implications that the NHS may not readily bear. Our findings call for the urgent funding of a definitive, large multiriver trial.

​

Acknowledgments

We thank Stephen Jones for advice on the design, Jacqueline Birks for help with the analysis, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft. None of the investigators has any intention of taking the slightest notice of the results of this study.

Footnotes

Funding: None.

Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Claudius Aelian . De animalium natura. Book 15. c. 200 ad. (Reprinted in Scholfield AF. On the characteristics of animals. London: Heinemann; 1959. ) [ Google Scholar]

2. Berners J. The treatyse of fyshinge with an angle. In: Wynkyn de Worde, ed. The Boke of St Albans. 2nd ed. London: 1496. (Reprinted in Watkins MG. The treatyse of fyshinge with an angle. London: E Stock, 1880.)

3. Walton I. The compleat angler. London: 1653. (Reprinted in 1947 by J M Dent, London.)

4. Buckland J. The pocket guide to trout and salmon flies. London: Mitchell Beazley; 1986. [ Google Scholar]

5. Halford FM. Floating flies and how to dress them. 2nd ed. London: Sampson Low; 1886. [ Google Scholar]

6. Ronalds A. The flyfisher's entomology. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman; 1836. [ Google Scholar]

7. Frost WE, Brown ME. The trout. London: Collins; 1967. [ Google Scholar]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does the fly matter? The CRACKPOT study in evidence based trout fishing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
B J Britton, consultant surgeon, J Grimley Evans, professor, and J M Potter, emeritus consultant neurosurgeon on behalf of the Collaborative Randomised And Controlled Kennet Piscatorial Options Trial (CRACKPOT) Investigators To investigate the importance of the type of dry fly (artificial floating fly) in catching trout (brown and rainbow) in an English chalkstream.

# data[].attributes.body
Is there any basis for health concerns?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The fifth generation of wireless telecommunications technology promises faster internet connections but requires a greater density of towers than previous networks. As telecom companies move to install such 5G facilities across the country, some residents of Oakland and other cities are pushing back, as they have for decades. But unlike in previous fights with the telecom industry, this time local residents face a new obstacle.

A 2018 order by the Federal Communications Commission restricts the ability of cities to regulate 5G. The order's provisions not only limit the amount of time that cities have to review new applications, but also make it difficult for cities to even notify residents about proposed installations.

For years some people have distrusted the telecommunications infrastructure in their neighborhoods, questioning the safety of wireless networks and the cell phones they make possible, and worrying that people with prolonged exposure to such frequencies are at risk of developing health issues. But just because they had health concerns didn't mean they could do anything about it. The 1996 Telecommunications Act, whose main purpose was to create more competition in the telecommunication industry, also banned cities and residents from arguing against the placement of telecom facilities based on health concerns.

But the act did not ban communities from blocking wireless facilities for aesthetic reasons. As a result, people who opposed such structures have been relegated to fighting them on the basis of their appearance, or pushing cities to write or update ordinances that specify where such facilities can be installed. And some have succeeded.

In 2017, Piedmont blocked the installation of some 5G facilities, but late last year it reversed course to help settle a lawsuit filed against it by Crown Castle, the company installing the towers for the cellular carrier Verizon. Last year, Petaluma's city council voted to enact an ordinance to keep new facilities at least 500 feet from homes and 1,500 feet from other cell towers. And late last summer, a handful of cities in Marin County, including San Rafael and Mill Valley, enacted urgency ordinances to stop 5G facilities from going up in residential areas all together.

But then in September, the Federal Communications Commission - the federal agency tasked with regulating the telecommunications industry - issued an order designed to streamline the implementation of 5G facilities in cities across the country. The order instated a number of changes to how cities are allowed to respond to and process permits for the installation of 5G facilities, also referred to as "small wireless facilities."

"The smart infrastructure policies we adopt today strengthen America's role as a tech and economic leader, while ensuring that every community benefits from 5G," Commissioner Brendan Carr said on approving the order. "Today's order streamlines the approval process for 5G small cells and helps ensure that our country will continue to be the innovation hub of the world."

The order prohibited cities from creating a moratorium on the installation of 5G infrastructure. It also shortened the amount of time that cities had to review applications for facility installation. Cities now must review and approve or reject applications within 60 days for existing structures or 90 days for new structures.

At a recent meeting of the Oakland Planning Commission, several residents shared comments and concerns about the city's proposed design standards for 5G facilities. Alexis Schroeder, one of the speakers, helped form a neighborhood group in 2018 after receiving a notice about a proposed 4G installation. She later confirmed with the manufacturer that the antenna would have the capability to be switched to 5G.

"We're not against technology," Schroeder said in a phone interview. "We want safe technology, and if they can be beautiful at the same time, even better."

But city notices like the one that Schroeder received may also be at risk. Another major change in the FCC's September order prevented cities from charging applicants more than $500 for applications. At that same Planning Commission meeting, city Zoning Manager Robert Merkamp said the city has typically charged wireless carriers $9,500 to seek a wireless facility installation permit. He said the new maximum permit fee of just $500 won't even cover the costs of notifying residents of a proposed installation site.

The FCC's order is making some feel that the agency has gone too far. San Jose and other cities are suing, claiming that the commission has severely restricted how cities can manage the rollouts of this technology.

Chris Hoofnagle, a law professor and director of the UC Berkeley's Center for Law and Technology, said that while he was not familiar with the order it sounded typical of a strategy known as preemption - the power that the federal government has to override the power of local jurisdictions on issues of commerce.

"Preemption is a heavy-handed tactic, but it rears its ugly head in response to towns like Berkeley, which has a lot of NIMBYism," said Hoofnagle via email. NIMBY, an acronym for Not-In-My-Backyard, is a term often applied to groups that protest change in their neighborhoods.

The nature of 5G technology is also raising new concerns about the health effect of wireless transmissions - even though local residents are largely powerless to do anything about that issue. Whereas 4G antennas - the antennas that power much of the area's current network - can be mounted on poles many thousands of feet apart, 5G antennas have to be mounted just hundreds of feet apart. This is because they often are using millimeter waves, which have a higher frequency and larger bandwidth, but can't travel as far. The new wireless facilities are physically smaller - some people call them pizza boxes - but the ancillary equipment required to operate these antenna can be as large as a refrigerator. And there will have to be many more cell antennas with shorter distances in between to create a functional network.

Johanna Finney, who lives near Lake Merritt, worries that the need for lots of new facilities, despite their smaller size, is going to result in them getting placed where people are over-exposed, such as near schools.

Joel Moskowitz, the director of UC Berkeley's Center for Family and Community Health, shares these concerns. He is part of a group of researchers that has published more than 2,000 papers in professional journals on electromagnetic fields and health.

"Although there is no empirical research on the health effects of 5G," he said, "more than 240 scientists and physicians have called for a moratorium on the rollout of this technology."

"Most of the research has been on second and third generation wireless technology, and the preponderance of peer-reviewed studies indicates that cell phone radiation can cause reproductive harm, neurological disorders, and cancer when someone is exposed to it over a long period of time," he said. Even with 5G installation, the 4G network would still be in place as a kind of back-up network, so people will be exposed to multiple forms of radiofrequency radiation, increasing potential health risks, he said.

Aside from the health issues, Finney thinks that the FCC's role in the rollout needs to be closely examined. She thinks the agencies interests are too intertwined with telecom company interests.

"My ultimate concern comes with the 1996 Telecom Act that Clinton signed into law, and the revolving door between FCC executives and telecom executives is so blatant," she said.

Residents such as Finney and Schroeder have gathered residents for meetings and regularly attended planning commission meetings when a project comes up for public notice or review. They've tried to educate the commissioners, who are volunteers, on how they should consider these applications. Finney estimates that nearly 300 applications have been submitted for wireless facilities to the city of Oakland between 2015-2017 alone. She doesn't trust that the planning commission knows enough about the issue, and worries that it is overrun. The city is considering transitioning the processing of these permits to the transportation, planning, and real estate departments, but Finney thinks that would limit the public's ability to keep tabs on such permits. Ultimately, residents are looking to other local cities in Marin that have created ordinances to regulate wireless facility deployment, to see if they can convince the Oakland city council to follow suit.

At the June 19 commission meeting, residents asked for changes to the city's design standards for small wireless facilities, such as coming up with aesthetics guidelines on a smaller scale than than city-wide, and doing what they can to make them as inconspicuous as possible.

Residents now have until July 19 to comment on the city's draft design standards for 5G facilities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Next Generation of Cell Towers Has a Next Generation of Deregulation | East Bay Express

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The fifth generation of wireless telecommunications technology promises faster internet connections but requires a greater density of towers than previous networks. As telecom companies move to install such 5G facilities across the country, some residents of Oakland and other cities are pushing back, as they have for decades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
From epic shots of rugged mountain ranges to enticing stories of a lost city, the hike to Machu Picchu promises absolute magic. But apart from all the excitement that comes with booking in a big hike, one of our first thoughts is usually, "just what am I getting myself in for?" From the sheer distance and three nights of camping, to the endless stairs and altitude of Dead Woman's Pass, the Inca Trail difficulty and it's many elements offers a unique challenge for every daring traveler.

I always say to those who ask, that unless you have a serious medical condition, you'll almost certainly make it. But the fitter and more prepared you are, the more you will enjoy it. Because if all you can think about is how much like jelly your quads feel or that a poncho might actually have been a good idea, the scenery won't seem as stunning and the history of the trail nowhere near as fascinating.

Our Group - If We All Can, You Can

.

If you thought only young, super-fit, marathon runners or cross-fitters completed the Inca Trail, then you'll be surprised by our group. With an average age over 35, three people over 50 including one lady who was 70 and a guy with a heart condition, we weren't exactly your stereotypical hikers. But unlike a lot of hikes, the Inca Trail is more 'interested tourist' than 'ironman' and unless you have a serious medical condition, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to make the memorable journey. If we can, you can.

If we can, you can... We had the gear, but not much else .

The Distance

.

The Inca Trail difficulty starts with the distance. It's 45 km (26 miles) in total, covered over 4 days and 3 nights. Every tour operator is slightly different but the hike is generally broken down into:
Day 1: 11 km (6.8 miles).
Day 2: 12 km (7.5 miles).
Day 3: 16 km (10 miles).
Day 4: 4 km (2.5 miles)

For each of the first three days, you can expect to walk for between six and nine hours. The final day is around two hours of hiking before you reach Machu Picchu. For most, including our group, the distance wasn't an issue. It's the altitude that really tested some... including me.

Altitude and the Challenge of Dead Woman's Pass

.

The altitude is the most difficult aspect of the Inca Trail for many people. If you have never hiked at altitude before, then you know that the lack of oxygen can cause even basic exercise to seem tricky at first. Almost everyone who hikes the Inca Trail will be affected by the altitude to some extent. If you have spent two to three days acclimatising in Cusco beforehand, the altitude on most of the hike will not cause you any issues. If you're worried, make sure you read our post on How to Prevent Altitude Sickness Naturally HERE.

The biggest challenge of the Inca Trail is the infamous Dead Woman's Pass. At 4,215 m (13,828 ft) it is the highest point of the trail and by far the most gruelling. As the trail gets higher, there are less trees and you become more exposed to the elements - think hot sun, cold winds or torrential rain. Climbing over 1,000 m in the space of four to six hours will definitely take its toll on the body. But the stunning views and sense of achievement at the top are well worth the effort.

I had a cold at the time so was struggling to breathe and needed to stop and have a breather every 10 or so minutes. But I made it to the top fairly easily thanks to my rest-breaks. If I can do it with exhausted adrenals (a story for another day), a parasite and a cold, then I really believe you can do it too. You healthy human!

The Stairs

.

For all you healthy peeps with great cardiovascular fitness, the stairs might just provide the biggest challenge. Whether it is the never-ending staircase up to Dead Woman's Pass or the uneven downhill challenge of the famous 'Gringo Killer' steps, every day will feel like leg-day on the Inca Trail.

With uneven steps that vary in narrowness and height, trekking poles are a huge help. You might only use them on the downhill parts, but if it means you don't roll an ankle, it'll be well worth the small investment. They'll also help save your knees from the repeated pounding, stair after stair, with the full weight of your body and pack pushing your joints to the limit. But with the right technique and a suitably slow pace, the stairs will be but another step on your journey to Machu Picchu (pun intended!).

I was really lucky in that the steps didn't bother me anywhere near as much as the altitude did. But Jesse has slightly dodgy knees and he struggled with the downhill steps (pictured below) the most out of all the Inca Trail challenges.

Inca Trail Weather

.

The weather can make a big difference to your Inca Trail difficulty. Heavy rain, freezing nights, blazing sun and howling winds are all possible on your four day hike to Machu Picchu. If you pick the right months though (see below), the days will generally be warm and dry, and the nights mostly above freezing. Just make sure you pack warm clothes for the evenings and a decent sleeping bag.

Aim for the dry season if you can (May to October) and the weather should not cause you too much trouble. We went in May and had brilliant weather. There were a few small showers as we passed over Runquraway Pass, otherwise just lots of sunshine.

Camping

.

For avid campers, it's a walk in the park. But, for anyone more familiar with a hotel room than a dome tent, camping for three nights straight with limited facilities is going to be difficult.

Sleeping on a yoga mat, no proper (flush) toilets and no showers for three days can be a bit of a shock to the system for a lot of hikers. A lot of tour companies will have the porters set up and take down your tents, prepare your meals and wash your dishes. So, it definitely could be worse.

We have had a bit of camping experience spending most holidays at home camping on our beautiful Australian beaches or in the bush so we thought the Inca Trail was really nice. I can see how rain would make it a very wet and muddy experience but again we were so lucky with the weather that the sites were well maintained and the equipment comfortable and dry. Not to mention you're pretty tired from all the walking, that the dome tent feels like a comfy glampsite once you can get horizontal...

Toilets

.

What to say about the toilets... Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed. They were by far my least favourite part of the hike. I mean, I know I have toilet issues but these were hideous little cubicles of disease-causing human waste. So I mostly used the bush, toilet paper (which you have to put in the rubbish) and my SHEWEE . And I know it's not the healthiest option, but I avoided doing a poop on the trail completely. So I really can't comment about how that would go. I blame the altitude, which actually slows down your bowels.

My advice: wear your headlamp so you can see what is going on, always have your own toilet paper handy and a plastic bag for waste, roll up your pants so they don't drag through the mess on the toilet floor, use copious amounts of sanitiser afterwards and please have a plan for storing your shoes so they don't come into contact with your stuff when you have them inside your tent at night. We used an old towel that was designated 'door mat'. It was rolled up each morning and kept in a separate plastic bag. I wasn't taking any chances with poop-contamination.

The Weight You Carry

.

Here's the good news: you don't have to carry a huge weight, if you don't want to. If you hire a half porter (included in most tours), they will carry 6 kg / 13 lbs of your personal items for you. This will usually include your; tent and sleeping bag (2.5 kg / 5.5 lbs), mattress (1 kg / 2 lbs) and change of clothes (2.5 kg / 5.5 lbs). All your food and cooking equipment will also be carried for you on most tours.

That just leaves you to carry a daypack with personal items you need throughout the day. Water, snacks, camera, sunscreen, poncho, etc. It is recommended that you keep this amount below 6 kg / 13 Ibs to make the hike as easy as possible.

Why we hiked the Inca Trail with G-Adventures

.

We hiked the Inca Trail with G-Adventures and couldn't recommend them highly enough - you can find the tour we did HERE. We chose this company for a few reasons:
> They are the largest tour operator on the Inca Trail, with around 10,000 permits for the Inca Trail every year so we knew our tour date was guaranteed.
> Their commitment to supporting the local community - including a number of social enterprises in the villages from which the guides and porters come from.
> All the positive reviews we read online - which gave us just another level of comfort about choosing G-Adventures.

How we Prepared for the Inca Trail Difficulty

.

1. Distance - we did a practice run with an 18km single day hike through the Lake District in England. Having a decent baseline level of fitness also helped.
2. Altitude - we allowed acclimatisation days, used Ginkgo Biloba, kept hydrated and followed the rest of the tips here on how to prevent altitude sickness naturally and didn't have any issues.
3. Stairs - we did stairs training once a week for 10 weeks. Any stairs would do but we chose Hyde Park Corner tube station in London ( see below) which has just over 100 stairs. Our routine was 10 up and down continuously over about 45 minutes with our day packs loaded with 5-6kg. This and the hiking poles made the stairs so much easier.
4. Weather - we chose the start of the dry season (May) and were pretty lucky with the weather. We also made sure to pack all the essentials, including poncho, warm sleeping wear, lightweight clothes, etc.
5. Camping - with our tents, cooking and washing done for us, we found the camping pretty easy. Because of mudslides at Winay Wayna, we had to complete the hike in 3 days and 2 nights so avoided the last night of camping (Wahoo!).
6. Toilets - were the most challenging part of the trail for me. I chose to avoid using them as much as possible, preferring to use the bush.
7. The weight you carry - we followed the advice of others and packed super light. You really only need the bare essentials in terms of clothes and toiletries. We were also lucky enough to have a tour company that provided porters to carry all our camping gear, food, etc.

The reward is so worth the challenge

.

I don't care what people say, a day trip to Machu Picchu by train or bus just isn't the same. Walking the path of the Incas, arriving through the Sun Gate and approaching the ancient ruins from above is an incredibly magical experience that the standard tourist route just can't compete with.

And for anyone who needs a little reminder about the beauty that awaits at the ending of this gruelling four day hike, these shots are for you... For me, these make the Inca Trail difficulty oh so worth it.

Have you hiked to Machu Picchu? What did you think of the Inca Trail Difficulty? Let us know in the comments below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How difficult is the Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From epic shots of rugged mountain ranges to enticing stories of a lost city, the hike to Machu Picchu promises absolute magic. But apart from all the excitement that comes with booking in a big hike, one of our first thoughts is usually, "just what am I getting myself in for?"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Encompassing parts of modern-day Chinatown, Jackson Square, and North Beach, the Barbary Coast was born amidst the chaos and excitement of the 1849 California Gold Rush, when tens of thousands of miners, entrepreneurs, and opportunists poured into the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to this influx of people, only a small population had called San Francisco home. By 1851, a population of about 200 had swelled to above 10,000, and the local authorities found themselves to be utterly incapable of governing the horde of newcomers. Without the presence of a strong government, various criminals thrived and transformed the Barbary Coast area into the epicenter of their illicit activities.

In the late 1840s, several dozen veterans of the Mexican-American War had made their way to San Francisco and began to call themselves the Hounds. The soldiers-turned-gangsters spent their time intimidating, or 'regulating', San Francisco's non-white residents, specifically Mexican-Americans. It was from this activity that the Hounds became known as the Regulators. At around the same time, another gang was formed by ex-convicts who had arrived from Australia in 1849.

Called the Sydney Ducks, these Australians opened a score of brothels within the Barbary Coast. Having been seduced by prostitutes affiliated with the Sydney Ducks, the unfortunate men who entered these brothels would be mugged and robbed. Needless to say, it would not take long for a dangerous and disturbing escalation to occur. Shortly after arriving in San Francisco, the Sydney Ducks deliberately set fire to parts of the city for the first of six times in two years. The anarchy created by these fires created the ideal conditions for the gangsters to embark upon an unprecedented spree of murder and mayhem.

As the gang violence spiraled out of control, over 200 men came together to combat the threat posed by the Sydney Ducks, the Regulators, and other criminal enterprises. Over the next several years, instances of vigilantism increased exponentially, and the Barbary Coast would serve as the frontline in a war between citizen-organized Vigilance Committees and the remaining gangs. Eventually, the size and organizational prowess of the vigilante groups allowed them to drive the criminals from the city. For a time, the Barbary Coast ceased to be the hub of illegal activity and danger in San Francisco.

In the late 19th century, San Francisco underwent a period of unprecedented growth and prosperity, evolving from a chaotic, unplanned town to a city of commercial and cultural significance. This transformation allowed the local government to grow in strength and size. The authorities used their newfound power to thwart any further vigilante uprisings. Unfortunately, the city's political and economic elite were motivated more by greed and selfishness than a sense of civic responsibility. Without the threat of vigilantism, and emboldened by the disinterest of corrupt politicians, criminal enterprises returned to the Barbary Coast.

Although the Barbary Coast had been the focus of gang activity in previous decades, its reputation as a den of violence and vice was truly forged during a four decade-long era that began in the early 1860s. It was during this time that the district was first referred to as the Barbary Coast by sailors who frequented its saloons and brothels.

The exploitative nature of such establishments was best demonstrated through the widespread prevalence of 'shanghaiing,' the unfortunate term for the practice of drugging and kidnapping able-bodied men to serve on ships in need of sailors. 'Shanghaiing' was a booming industry in many parts of the world during the latter decades of the 19th century, but it was particularly successful amidst the lawlessness of the Barbary Coast. With San Francisco's elite choosing to either profit from or ignore the resurgence of criminal activity, all manner of vices flourished, from prostitution to drug use.

From the 1860s to the 1906 Earthquake, the Barbary Coast was home to a diverse array of sordid entertainment. Nonetheless, even the most unique establishments were united with the rest by the fact that they all served alcohol. Crammed together along a three-block stretch of Pacific Avenue, then called Pacific Street, you could find dance halls, concert saloons, seedy dive bars, brothels, and drug stores, where morphine and cocaine were sold to addicts at all hours of the day.

As the profits from these establishments skyrocketed with each passing year, the rule of law all but vanished within the confines of the Barbary Coast. Police officers didn't dare to patrol the district by themselves, and a night rarely passed without at least one murder. Throughout this era, the disparate entertainment establishments were united by more than an abundant supply of alcohol.

Another common element was the presence of so-called 'pretty waiter girls', who were scantily-clad female employees paid to seduce and exploit their male customers. That being said, all of the Barbary Coast's patrons were men, as women were not allowed to set foot inside the district unless they were employed as a prostitute, pretty waiter girl, or another type of paid entertainer. Despite the obvious dangers involved, the allure of alcohol and female companionship brought many thousands, if not millions, of men back to the Coast year after year.

Everything changed following the infamous earthquake in 1906, which reduced most of the Barbary Coast to ash and rubble. Seeing an opportunity, San Francisco's economic elite spent a fortune to rebuild the district from the ground up, and in doing so, create a new area for entertainment appealing to all San Franciscans. The months and years following the great 1906 Earthquake witnessed the rebirth of the Barbary Coast as Terrific Street.

Gone were the scheming criminals and overarching sense of moral decay, which were replaced by gentrified jazz clubs and glamorous dance halls. Deriving its new nickname 'Terrific Street' from the quality of the music played in its bars and halls, the rebranded Barbary Coast hosted musicians who would play a vital role in the development of jazz music as an American cultural phenomenon. Sadly, this new era was over almost as soon as it began.

The process that culminated in the Barbary Coast's final demise has its origins in the year 1911, when San Franciscans elected James Rolph as their new mayor. Supported by his allies amongst the city's elite, Rolph launched a moral crusade against the Barbary Coast. One of the mayor's most prominent allies was William Randolph Hearst, who used his media empire to utterly destroy everything the Barbary Coast stood for.

In 1913, resolutions were passed by the city government, which banned women and dancing from any entertainment venue that also served alcohol. Over the next four years, the lights, sounds, and spirit that had flowed through Terrific Street slowly disappeared. The closure of the brothels in 1917 symbolized not only the final death knell of the Coast's Terrific Street incarnation, but also the final page in the story of the Barbary Coast itself.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Brief And Bloody History Of SF's Barbary Coast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Encompassing parts of modern-day Chinatown, Jackson Square, and North Beach, the Barbary Coast was born amidst the chaos and excitement of the 1849 California Gold Rush, when tens of thousands of miners, entrepreneurs, and opportunists poured into the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to this influx of people, only a small population had called San Francisco home.

# data[].attributes.headline
White nationalist organizing on college campuses

# data[].attributes.subject
White nationalist organizing on college campuses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Despite college administrators' attempts to stamp out white supremacist activities on campuses, these often-anonymous outsiders are distributing their literature with greater frequency, according to a new Anti-Defamation League report.

The group's Center on Extremism tracks and verifies incidents involving white supremacists each academic year. It has found sustained growth in propaganda incidents on campuses in recent years.

White supremacists were more active on campuses than ever before during the spring semester, according the new analysis ADL released on Thursday. From January to May, at least 161 examples of white supremacy propaganda were recorded on 122 different campuses in 33 different states and Washington, D.C.

A total 313 cases of white supremacist materials were documented during the 2018-19 academic year. An ADL analysis earlier this year focused on white nationalist activities outside of campuses, but also included statistics on colleges that were similar to the Thursday report.

During the previous academic year, ADL found at least 292 incidents of white supremacy propaganda. Generally, white nationalists who are not connected to the university are responsible for the material.

They have been increasingly targeting colleges and universities since January 2016, and began appearing in larger numbers in the fall semester of that year, according to the ADL. More than three years later their materials -- fliers, stickers, posters -- continue to proliferate on campuses.

The posters often contain insignias and other white nationalist images and are used to direct students and others to social media. White supremacists often target campuses because they want to recruit young extremists to their ranks and to "inject their views into spaces they view as bastions of liberal thinking and left-wing indoctrination," according to the report.

As was the case previously, the main culprit of the postings this spring seems to be a group formerly (and best) known as Identity Evropa, which rebranded in March as the American Identity Movement.

The organization accounted for more than 70 percent of the white supremacist propaganda posted during this academic year, ADL said. After moving away from the Identity Evropa moniker, the group stopped posting European-focused propaganda and instead focused on advocating for the preservation of "white culture." Among its new slogans: "Defend America," "nationalism not globalism" and "diversity destroys nations."

The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote in March that no other white supremacist group has attempted to frame its views for a mainstream conservative audience more than the American Identity Movement. The SPLC considers it a hate group.

Its members downplay the extremism of their views, and advocate for immigration control in a way they believe will appeal to supporters of President Trump, the SPLC wrote. The image rehabilitation is an attempt to "cozy up to the Republican Party and, they hope, eventually alter the GOP to fit their own image," according to the SPLC.

The new leader of the American Identity Movement, Patrick Casey, who took over the group more than a year ago, and another prominent member, James Allsup, a popular "alt-right" figure on YouTube, have pushed the organization's new strategy. Its logo is similar to Patriot Front's, another white supremacist group that split from Vanguard America in 2017.

Identity Evropa has grown significantly. The Center on Extremism told Inside Higher Ed in March it believed the group (prior to the rebrand) had swelled to about 500 members nationwide, with about a third of those going on campus to post fliers and other materials.

While Patriot Front has largely moved away from colleges, it still distributed propaganda on campus about 30 times this spring.

"This data clearly demonstrates that white supremacists in the United States are emboldened by the current political and social climate," Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL's CEO and national director, said in a written statement. "Our campuses and communities should be places for learning and development, not places for racists and bigots to propagate hate speech and search for potential recruits."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
White nationalist propaganda on the rise on college campuses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Despite college administrators' attempts to stamp out white supremacist activities on campuses, these often-anonymous outsiders are distributing their literature with greater frequency, according to a new Anti-Defamation League report. The group's Center on Extremism tracks and verifies incidents involving white supremacists each academic year.

# data[].attributes.body
This book concierge will help me discover titles and authors I don't yet know about.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Book Concierge is back with 350+ great reads, hand-picked by NPR staff and trusted critics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
© "Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest" is available for purchase from Amazon and Yale University Press. (Looking for the Creative Commons version? Read how it came to be or find it here.) Everything here is Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) except where noted. Header image is CC BY-SA Mstyslav Chernov. Site produced by Justin Reese.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest" is riveting firsthand account and incisive analysis of modern protest, revealing internet-fueled social movements' greatest strengths and frequent challenges. Written by Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina and a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times who is currently also a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.