We tried to have an early night, before the trek, but we were too excited so our 4am wake up felt far too early! We were picked up from our hotel at 5.45am and we began our 2 hour bus ride to KM 82, stopping for breakfast at Ollantaytambo (in the sacred valley), which was a lovely little village completely surrounded by mountains. When we arrived at the start of the trek we had to pass the checkpoint, as only 500 people are allowed into the national park per day, including around 200 porters and guides. Our group was quite small, just 12 of us, plus our main guide Bobby and assistant guide Emilio. There were also 18 porters and a cook, who went on ahead to set up for lunch - these guys carry huge rucksacks which must weigh a tonne and they run most of the trail!

The first part of the walk was fairly easy, we crossed the Vilcanota River and Bobby pointed out lots of plants and flowers, which meant we got to rest a lot! We passed the Inca Hillfort ruins of Huillca Raccay. We walked through the Urubamba Valley, surrounded by huge snow capped mountains and passed another ruin, Llactapata (upper town). Bobby explained how the Inca's became so powerful, by using ideas from other cultures; there were settlers in the area from 800BC, whereas the Inca's arrived in 1200AD and used many of their ideas. But it was the Inca's who became more powerful, because they were socialists, ensuring that they gave the people food, shelter, water etc and therefore many wouldn't turn against them. This is how they managed to conquer much of South America. In the time of the Inca's the sites were built for communication purposes. They used seashells, mirrors (plates of gold or silver) or runners to pass messages from one site to another, allowing them to get messages to Cusco in as little as 5 minutes! Bobby said that the porters are able to run the trail from KM82 to Machu Picchu (that is taking us 4 days) in 3 hours and 40 minutes, and a Bolivian runner managed it in 3 hours 15 minutes!! However, in Inca times they would have managed this even quicker, as they would have been trained and well-fed for this sole purpose.

At lunch time we stopped in a small village, where the porters had already set up the dining tent. WOW! We were expecting plates on knees! And the Andean version of beans on toast! But we had a starter and a selection of about 5 main courses, followed by tea. The food was soooo good that we all ate too much and wanted to have a nap in the afternoon, but Bobby made us carry on to the camp site!

We camped in the small village of Wayllabamba at 3000m above sea level, which means grassy plain! Our tent over looked the mountain range which was really nice to look at whilst relaxing with a beer! That night we had tea, with biscuits and popcorn! We all played a card game, where we had to make animal noises etc! So that broke the ice with our fellow trekkers and then we had a HUGE dinner before an early night ready for day 2!! Yikes!