Unless I came up with it myself (like MOROXICO, which is brilliant…) then I usually have an aversion to most portmanteaus. I frequently find them silly or even cringeworthy, but it’s very possible this is just jealousy.

For reasons unknown, I have only ever dated guys with one syllable names, same as me.

So although I occasionally enjoy a good relationship mash-up, like Bennifer or Billary, none of my serious boyfriends have ever had a first name longer than a short, staccato utterance; so it simply doesn’t work for us.

Go ahead. Try it. Try mashing together the names Seth and Ryan.

Or Ryan and Jeff.

Or Ryan and Jay.

See? It’s impossible! You really need at least one name with more than one syllable. Otherwise, you just sound like you’re having a miniature stroke.

However, in this one instance, even though it pains me to do so and even though I did not come up with it myself, I’m going to bite the bullet and reluctantly use a widely popular phrase and super cringeworthy portmanteau. Yes, I am going to use the word…

GLAMPING

As distasteful as it was for me to just type, the reason I am using the hideous word “glamping” is because it really is the best word to describe what we did on the Inca Trail. (Ugh. I feel dirty. Next I’ll be writing articles all about “she-sheds” and how fabulous they are…)

On the Inca Trail, not only did the porters carry all of my/our stuff for the duration of the 4-day/3-night trek to Machu Picchu (save for a small personal backpack), but they also carried all the camping gear and cooking equipment for the entire team. And while this arrangement is very standard, our campsite and our meals were anything but.

Our campsite was always perfectly positioned so that the zipper of our tents opened up to a spectacular sunrise view each morning, and just outside the tent, there would be a face towel, and a basin of fire-warmed water for my face. Plus, a carafe of freshly brewed coffee and a pastry. This wasn’t our breakfast, not by a long shot, this was just to ease us into the dawn of a new day.

Our proper breakfast would always be served after our daily ablutions, and like all our meals, it would be an extravagant and hearty four course production.

Even though they were cooking on a campfire and using only the water, utensils, and ingredients that they had hauled up on their backs, three times a day these men and women were able to prepare for us some of the most delicious and unexpected cuisine you have ever tasted. Seared fish filets, spit-fire roasted chicken, casseroles, fresh vegetables, and salads… All of this was being prepared with only a fire, and on the side of a mountain.

At one point, because it was someone’s birthday, they even managed to somehow bake us a birthday cake!

Did it taste a bit like unfrosted cornbread? Sure. (But I have long since suspected that cornbread is really just an un-iced cake made of corn anyways, right? One that society decided was acceptable to serve with chili…)

We ate so well that when we would encounter other hikers on the trail— often holding a sad peanut butter sandwich in their hands and bitching about how bad the food was they were being given— I didn’t have the heart to tell them the kinds of things we were being served. It was easier to just politely curse the difficulty of the exhausting Inca Trail, in general, than to try and commiserate with them about specifics, and complain that, indeed, our pheasant was a bit dry today or that our third course wine pairing was a tad uninspired yesterday evening.

And before you think that we chose some uber expensive and extravagant package— we didn’t! The price to go with an upscale “luxury” outfitter was only marginally more expensive than if we’d gone with a PB+J tour operator. Believe me, the math was in our favor, and it made all the difference. My advice, spend the extra money.

We were still doing all the same strenuous hiking as everyone else on that mountain, we just paid a little extra to eat chef crafted food at every meal, and to have a few other niceties along the way.

For example, there was no need to ever use the bathroom in the woods (unless it was during our trekking day and the situation was a sudden emergency), because for every camp site, before we ever arrived, the porter team would run ahead of us and build small, above-ground toilet tents, with privacy curtains all around. Then they would start building our sleeping tents, and a kitchen tent, a dining tent, begin preparing our meals, etc., etc.

If you haven’t read THIS STORY yet, then you wouldn’t know this, but not only was this my first ever multi-day trekking excursion, and my first time really hiking at high altitudes, but for the first two days of the trek, I was suffering from an acute e. Coli poisoning, and I started the hike feeling sicker than I’ve ever felt in my entire life.

What’s more, I was trying my best to hide my dire situation from all our guides, for fear they would eject me from the group and send me packing. Well, I didn’t come all this way not to make it to Machu Picchu as planned, so you better believe I was tremendously thankful for every little extra creature comfort I could get. Especially the toilet tents.

In fact, in hindsight, I’d say the Inca Trail is a perfect entrée into the world of adventure travel. It’s difficult, but not too difficult. It’s a little longer than most people normally camp or hike consecutively, but not by much. It involves some higher altitudes, but nothing too extreme, and not for very long. Yes, it would dip down below freezing each night, and one morning our tent zippers were iced over and frozen shut, but then every afternoon it was back to warm and pleasant, and we were all trekking in shorts and t-shirts again.

Plus, if you go with one of the nicer tour operators like we did (ours was called Enigma Peru, just FYI), you will have a whole team of experienced guides and porters to help you overcome all of these various hardships and unpleasantries. (Using just a bar of soap, the guys did something to the iced over tent zippers that I still don’t quite understand, but the problem was solved within minutes…)

You have to walk before you run, and I think one of the reasons many people are averse to the type of adventure travels I pursue is that they started out with something too hard, too soon. This can be a devastating mistake, as it can squash a person’s openness to this sort of travel dead in its tracks.

Having all these extra niceties on the Inca Trail allowed us to focus on the magnificent views and the pure joys of hiking in nature, without being overwhelmed by the difficulties and grittier aspects of the expedition. If I’d had a miserable experience the first time I attempted doing something of this sort, it might have never sparked my desire to keep doing them again and again, and attempting bigger and more difficult journeys each time.

There’s nothing wrong with paying a little extra to have a pleasant experience. And even though you might start out with a few crutches of unnecessary comfort, before too long, your confidence in your own abilities will invariably start to increase, and you will find that you can do without a lot of those niceties. Little by little, you begin stripping them away, and before you know it, you’re on a two-week trek through the Himalayan mountains, with no fancy toilet tent, in sub-freezing temperatures, huddled together with your friend KIMBY for warmth inside the darkness of a small plywood shack with no heat, electricity, or running water.

What?? Too much too soon?

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You can read about this (much harder) trek to Everest Base Camp HERE.

Or, cue up your Kenny Loggins and read about hiking the Inca Trail, that Highway to the Diarrhea Zone, HERE!