The town of Aguas Calientes was quite nice. Once all the tourists left for Machu Picu it was quiet - very much a ghost town. Our hostel offered a breakfast room service but only between 5-7am though, so obviously I picked 7 as our delivery time, and it apparently requires clothes to open the door...Since our checkout was 9am, we used the spare hour walk around the quiet town - a very different sight when no one is trying to sell you things on the street. Before l...

An even earlier morning today. By 4.30am the porters had us fed, the campsite was packed, and they were off. The group was not allowed to start the final five kilometres of trail until 5.30am, so we lined up for the hour and finished off the final remnants of rum (or, Jeremy, Chris, and Andres did). Every step of the hour following the Checkpoint up to the Sun Gate we hoped it would clear up and there would be less cloud. And it did! For a second it would clear, ...