Wake up call today was 5am for the start of the Inca Trail. Our bus took us to km82, the start of the 47km (about 29 miles) 3 day hike to Machu Picchu. We had our passport stamped to say we´d started the trail. We started walking before 7am... The start of the trail was different to what we´d expected. Instead of the block pathing it was a gravel track with lot of plants and animals along the way. There were small houses and the usual donkeys, pigs, sheep and cows. We stopped briefly to eat our snacks and fed our banana skins to the local pigs.

We arrived at our lunch stop earlier than expected - apparently we were a fast group. The porters walk along the trail far faster than we do - they´re used to the altitude, they are very fit and there are a few short cuts for them along the way (we don´t get to use them though!). They go ahead and set up the dining tent with a table and stools for us and the cook makes us lunch. We had soup followed by a Peruvian chicken curry with rice and mashed potato.

For the first 12km the trail was a ´gentle´ uphill slope and then the last 3km was steep uphill. We climbed from 2800m to 3300m. We passed the Inca ruins of Llactapata which had been used as a trading post and a fort.

The group bought a bottle of local rum for that evening for 12 soles (approximately 1.86 in pounds!).

We arrived at our campsite shortly after 3pm and treated ourselves to a well deserved bottle of beer. The porters had already set up camp and gave us an afternoon tea of popcorn and crackers. They delivered soap and a bowl of hot water to all the tents so we could wash. After our guide had taught us an interesting new card game called ´pig´, tea was served with more soup, fish and chocolate pud. We rounded it off with a rum punch each to finish.

It rained in the evening and most of the night - but we were nice and warm (and very tired!) in our sleeping bags - they were rated to -23C!