Machu Piccu and the infamous Inca Trail!

Day 1 - Today was the day we started our eagerly awaited trek to Machu Piccu. We woke up around 5.30 for a 6am pick up, where a smart mini bus picked us up with our group and some porters and taken to breakfast around 2hours away. We had a buffet breakfast of pancakes, cereal and yogurt and back on the bus to the start of the trail. The treck started with a horrible uphill section which was only the start of what was to come, and a little worried as day 1 was supposed to be the éasy´day. The scenery however, was incredible with huge snow capped mountains in the background. The long uhill section was helped with regular Oreo breaks and made our way to the top at our first Inca sight of Willharakay. Willharakay was a small yet impressive site set on the meander of a river. Our guide, Ceaser, gave us all the information on the site and from here we trekked another hour down to our lunch. The food was incredible, with 3 course meal set up by the very impressive poerters. Our 20 or so porters were incredible, doing the trail with around 25kg on their backs and racing infront of us to set up the meals and tents before we arrived. After lunch we had a long uphill section through the valley for around 2 more hours where we finall arrived at our campsite, out of breath and tired. We all hoped into Jav and Toms tent and played cards before our eagerly awaited dinner which didn´t dissappoint. We then hit the hay early after admiring the incredible star lit sky, which we all agreed was the most impressive we´d ever seen.

Day 2 - We were woken at the terrible our of 5am, however, this was comprimised by a being woken up to hot chocolate and a filling breakfast of pancakes and ceral. Day2 however, was by all accounts the hardest day. A steep climb for 2 hours was rewarded with a popcorn and cake brunch half way up around 11am. We then continued our way up in the sunshine for another very steep hour and a half, with more Oreo stops (which by this point out Oreo´s were much more depleated) and finally made it to the top of Dead Woman´s pass at 3600m. We celebrated the arduous climb with a team hug and some photos of the incredible scenerey. Our team of 14 by the way was slightly older than us with the youngest around 25 and the oldest at 65. After and half an hour break we trekked downhill to our campsite with a well deserved lunch and spent the afternoon resting and chatting with the gorup and had dinner around 7pm. Our guide, Ceaser, the told us a couple of stories and once again we wrapped up and went to bed early.

Day 3 - Once again awaoken at 5.30 to a welcoming hot chocolate. Day 3, although not the hardest, was the longest with 9 hours of trekking. We set off around 6.30 and climbed to Runkuragay at around 3800m which took around 5 hours with regular Oreo breaks and lunch. After eventually reaching the top we had the ´Gringo killer to come´, 3000 steps downhill to our eventual campsite. The 3 hours downhill flew by however, with some epic converstations between all of us which included a heated debate over what would be your last meal ever (3 courses)! We arrived after 2 hours and met our group at another Inca site with an amazing view over the hole valley. After reaching our final campsite we had a cervesa (beer) overlooking the valley with our team. Another amazing dinner and we went to bed early for our early wake up of 3.45 am for our 2 hour trek to Machu Piccu.

Day 4 - So an eaarly start, but spirits were high as we were really looking forward to getting to our destination. We had a short and relativiely easy 2 hour trakc to watch the sunrise. We arrived at the Sun Gate at 7.20 and got our first incredible glimpse of the amazing Machu Piccu. We took a group photos and headed down to see the sight. We got further photos with the sunrise and took a good half an hour taking in what we had achieved and where we were. Machu Piccu was incredible, a large city ontop of a mountain. And since we arrived so early we got to explore the site almost deserted. Ceaser gave us a very detailed guided tour of the temple of the sun, temple of water, quarry and the general history of the site. At around 10am we decided to climb Wannapiccu (the mountain behing MP) and took the very steep half an hour climb to the top and enjoyed another incredible view of MP. After heading backdown we boarded the bus back to Aguascalintas and compared photos and got another beer with the group. We then headed to some hot pools for a weel desereved rest and spent the night here.

The next day we took another 6 hours to get back to Cusco, where we caught up on the missed World Cup and Englands dismal performance against Algeria.

Love Haydn, Jav, George and Tom

xx