after staying in cusco for a few days ¨preparation¨ for the inca trail we made our way to ollantaytambo which is really close to where we started the trail. We were only allowed to pack 6kg of baggage for our porters to carry for human rights reasons but Jamess was nearly 8kg but they allowed it anyway after careful negotiations. the first day of the trail was very easy, a four hour walk on mainly flat land, half way to the campsite we stopped of for our lunch. the porters (all 22 of them, even though theres only 16 of us) had literally ran with all our baggage and set up a massive tent for us to have our lunch in. very cush. At the end of the first day we were warned to sleep well that night for the next day as that was the challenging day. Us two and Jess set of at our own pace on the second day ahead of the group and made it to the top of dead womans pass (boob shaped mountain) about half an hour ahead of the others. At the top (4200m) there was amazing views of all the snow capped andean mountain on the horizon. We thought the afternoon was goin to be the easy as it was all downhill but actually it was just as bad, inca built steps all the way! i think there is a reason that noone discovered machu picchu for 500years....bacause these steps were so dangerous! On the third day Will was really ill and hadnt eaten anything, luckily we thought that day was goin to be easier than the last....but we were very very wrong! Incan flats is what it was referred to as which were anything but flat. By lunchtime we could see machu picchu mountain with the upside down gay pride flag on it. Btw machu picchu mountain isnt the one on the postcards! At the end of the day we had our final challenge, the ¨gringo killer¨ which was 2hrs worth of inca steps. We were told that if we wanted to climb up wayne picchu mountain ( the one on the postcards) we would have to sprint to machu picchu at 4am and even then would only have a 2 per cent chance of getting a ticket because there is only a very limited number. Initially we said we werent going to do it because James was injured and Will was sick. (he puked over the side of the inca trail earlier on) On the final day we woke up at 3.45 and waited at the gate, we waited for nearly an hour for the gate to open. For the first five minutes we walked and then we decided wed try and run to machu picchu in pitch black. The guide said that we would have to do the 2hr hike in 30minutes to stand a chance of getting a ticket. We eventually made it there and we were absolutely exhausted but it was definately worth it, at the sungate we got to see the sunrise over and empty machu picchu. We couldnt stay there long however as we needed to run down to machu picchu,on this leg both Jess and James fell over but we carried on heroically! We practically pushed past the people walking to the entrance and even caused other ppl to start running. we r not even sure if they know wat they were running for! we managed to get the tickets, at that point there was only about 50 left. Our guide was very impressed with us! After that we did the tour of machu picchu and at that point we didnt even want to climb wayne picchu because we were so tired! We did it anyway and we were absolutely exhausted by the time we reached to top, but the views were absolutely stunning at the top!