4 days of walking, 9 hours every day, highest point up to 4200 metres. A struggle.
Here is a recount of the trail, day by day, blow by blow. Saffron, Tim, Geoff, Emma and Laura, all of us had an amazing time, despite the real harsh punishment that we put our bodies through to get to Machu Pichu.
The pictures are good, but not as hillarious as the stories to go along with it!
Enjoy.
DAY 1
Starting off at kilometre 82 on the Inca trail. the Inca's would actually walk all the way from Cusco to Machu Pichu. However the wise tour company decided that the trail was hard enough without adding an extra couple of hundred miles.
So,we had to cross the river and go through Inca trail passport control where we had our passports stamped ( a touristy thing to do I know!).
DAY 2
The hardest of the 4 day trek it was bloody challenging as we were walking from 3000m to 4215m in 4 hours. This was really hard on the lungs going up and then we had the nightmare of having to go back down and the bloody Incas had carved stone steps out of the mountain which made it even harder for your knees and legs!
DAY 3
The longest day of 19km up and down with many steps. After the 2nd day our legs were feeling the burn so another day of walking up to 10 hours didn't sound great and ontop of that it started raining. However, the rain eventually stopped and we saw more Inca ruins and got within 3 hours of Machu Pichu!
DAY 4
At last the end is nigh and at night it was when we started out for Machu Pichu at 5am! It took 2 hours to see Machu Pichu for the first time and it was an amazing sight, something you had only seen in so many pictures was suddenly there in front of you and all the more rewarding after walking 26miles to get to it!
And after the 4 days of walking we were rewarded with our salvation Aguas Calientes (Thermal Baths)!
