So…..after missing our 30 hour bus ride to cusco (my fault) and having to rearrange it again via Lima we finally arrived in cusco 2 days later than originally planned. The town itself was very pretty and much more westernised than other towns id seen in peru. Straight away we felt the altitude and had to acclimatise, but eating coco leaves did the trick.

On the 4th November we began the famous inca trail trek with the tour company Andean Life (who I can highly recommend). There were 16 in our group (mostly couples in their 30s and 3 aussie lads). After buying walking sticks and other necessary equipment from the start off point in ollantaytambo we started the trek. Apparently the first day was supposed to be easy but it started uphill straight away. Jen and I obviously took our positions at the rear of the group where we intended to stay for the next 4 days. What made it worse was a 50 year old woman and her husband had strided off up the hill and were about a mile ahead of us after a few minutes. I put it down to the fact that she had paid for a porter to carry her rucksack… Anyway the porters were absolutely incredible men that carried a weight of up to 50kg on their backs (mainly the tables, chairs, tents and cooking equipment for the group for 4 days). On the second day (the hardest day of the trek) they had to carry this 50kg uphill for 8 hours in the pouring rain with an uphill altitude going from 3200 -4200m above sea level. I was literally having to stop every few minutes as I just couldn’t breathe at that altitude and the porters were overtaking us and practically running up the hill….and they didn’t even own proper shoes, most of them have broken sandals as they are so poor. That night due to the rain everything I owned was soaking (even though id been wearing my tomato poncho) and we were all freezing cold as there are no shower facilities until the last day of the trek, but we were having a great time with our group and lots of banter with the aussie boys (Known as the jazzy jeffs) as they couldn’t be bothered to clean their teeth for the whole trek!! On the last day we got up at 5am to trek the rest of the way to macchu picchu before the lazy tourists coming to see it by train arrived. It was an incredible sight and everyone should do this trek if you have the chance before they close the inca trail for good!!