Well since we last posted we've done a fair bit. From Aruiquipa we travelled to the Colca Canyon for a couple of days to go Condor spotting. The place we stayed at was very nice, it was almost like a safari lodge with an open fire place next to the restaurant for the cold evenings. We saw a couple of Condors and on the way there lots of Llamas and Alpaca's. The whole place is a giant nature reserve.

Next place for us to visit was Cusco which is the last major stop before the Inca trail. Very nice place with ornate buildings and old Inca ruins surrounding it. Apparently its some kind of month long festival in October so they've been setting off firecrackers at stupid hours of the morning. We had to buy a few last minute things for the trail (wet weather gear as its the start of the rainy season) before heading off to Ollantaytambo which is the spot we started the 4 day long trek.

First day of the Inca trail was pretty easy, flat paths that winded into a valley. The second day was a lot more painful. It was basically a 6 hour trek uphill, this time not on flat ground but Inca steps and then 2 hours down hill again on Inca steps. Coupled with a scorching sun (lot of use the wet weather gear was!) this was very gruelling. The third day was slightly wetter as the path meandered through the outskirts of the amazon rain forrest. This was uphill and down hill for about 10 hours, viewing other Inca sites on the way. This set us up for a 2 hour hike (or more of a run as it turned out to be) into Machu Picchu on the final day. The big rush was the fact that theres a train that arrives just outside Machu Picchu at 5.30am. People on the Inca trail don't get let out of the campsite until 5.30 and then have a 2 hour hike to the site (slightly unfair we thought) so soon as the gate opens we pegged it to try and get there and a) get some nice shots with no people there b) get tickets to climb a mountain next to Machu Picchu to get great views from above (theres only 400 of these and up to 2500 people on the site in one day). We just managed to get tickets, ours were numbered 384, 385 which just about justified running the last bit and feeling worse the wear because of it! The views were amazing as the cloud lifted to give us a sunny Machu Picchu.