Had to get up early in the morning, not feeling to fresh after the previous days activities, i decided a tactical chunder was on the menu to keep me going for the rest of the day. This was easier than i imagined and i was back to 90%. Met the rest of the group in the lobby and weighed our bags that the porters were gonna carry, they are only allowed to carry 6kg each, wimps i though to myself, little did i know they carried 5 bags each. Brids bag and mine weighed less than 10kg together so we took some of Ray and Louise's stuff as well.

We jumped on the bus and headed off to our first stop, past a inca ruin called Saqsayhuamann, which was pronounced as Sexy Woman, a least he incas had a sense of humour. We stopped off a an alpaca factory to get a brief lesson on all the different types and surprise surprise they tried to sell you heaps of crap as well. There were heaps of llama's outside which we could get our photo taken with, one of them looked pretty evil and i reckon i wanted to bite me, another one also had a pretty stylish hairdo.

Next stop was he sacred valley of the inca's, there were some decent views from the top of the valley and again plenty of opportunities to buy souvenirs. We headed off in the bus again to Pisac and trekked up some stairs for about an hour to a inca ruin which had a massive sun-dial in it, we were all totally out of breathe at this stage so hopes were not high for the 4 day trek up the inca trail. Just before lunch we stopped of at some market and because it was a religious day there was heaps of dancing on. My amazing mask i bought in Cuzco cause it thought it was funny turned out to be a religious thing and i probably insulted the whole of Peru but wearing it and dancing around like a dafty, oh well.

We went for lunch at some buffet place which cost a fortune but none of us were hungry so we couldn't eat to much. Headed of to Ollantaytambo after lunch, we will be staying here tonight and setting of on the inca trail from here tomorrow. Before we go to the hotel we headed up another inca ruin, up a blo*dy massive hill, why they had to build all the ruins up hills i never know. We had a guide with us who was always giving us information on what we were looking at. He would always strangely ask himself a question and then answer it himself but he seemed like a decent chap. Spotted a massive spider which brid ran away from. We needed to buy some hiking sticks for our walk so we set off into own to buy some, we found a little kid selling some and bartered with him for ages, the little punk then tried to rip me off buy claiming i hadn't paid but he got nothing else of me. I opted for a more expensive stick which had some carving on, convinced it would power me up the mountain inca style.

Most of us headed for some dinner in a pizza restaurant, shock brid had a pancake, we then headed off to bed to get ready for our walking the next day.

We were up pretty early again, and had some breakfast with the group. Had our last hot shower for 4 days and headed off in the bus to km82, the starting point of the inca trail. We spotted the porters at this stage and realised how much the poor bug*ers had to carry, the bags were about twice the size of them. The inca trail was 25miles long with the second day being mostly uphill, so i didn't envy the job they had. Brid purchased a neckerchief to complete her hiking douchebag outfit. We got out passports stamped as we entered the trail, which i'm sure is illegal as its a government document but they never have been big on laws in South America. Somehow GAP had me down as a tattiemuncher on my ticket, after a brief discussion with the ticket boy that i wasn't Irish we passed through and started the trail.

The first day turned out to be quite easy, not many hills and everyone powered up the hill no problems. The food also turned out to be quite good, although the first meal was trout and i hate seafood. At the first campsite i spotted a weird looking turkey which was the spitting image of Zelda from the terrorhawks, you will need to be an 1980's child to remember this programme. We reached the first campsite and Ray and I asked the guy if any of the porters had a football, as none of us had touched one in ages, luckily it turned out there was a small 5 a side football pitch, we tried to put together a team but we only managed me Ray and another english guy called David, we also recruited the guide Carlos and one of the porters as our keeper. We were still at 3000metres so were werent sure how we'd get on playing football at altitute. Our first game was against one of the other company's and after 1 run we realsied playing football at altitute isnt a good idea, once your breath was gone it took about 60secs to come back, it was horrible, or keeper turned out to be a bit poop and kept running out of his goals. We ended up getting beat 2-0 but only because our keeper was rubbish. We played another game after than which we hit the post aout 6 times and the bar about 12, carlos missed the biggest sitter of all time and we got beat again, the locals werent even out of breathe, if it had been at sea-level i'm pretty sure we would have destroyed them, honest.

After the football we needed a shower and the only one running was coming from a stream near-by, turned out to be the coldest shower ever and i could hear Ray screaming from about 100metres away, was much better when i got in either and some girly screams were heard. Ate dinner and stayed speaking for ages and then everyone eventually headed off to sleep in our temts.

Up the next dat and nobody was looking forward to today as it supposed to the hardest day, totally up hill, 1200metres in 6 kms the guide said. He wasn't lying either, it was horrible i have never been so pooped in my life, after about 7/8hrs treking, we eventually reached the top called dead womans pass. This was about 4200metres and would be the highest we'd reach on our trip. Everyone took some victory snaps and headed back down the hill again for another 2 hours to reach our campsite. To make things worse everytime we came into the campsites the porters would line in in a weird gaurd of honour thing and clap us into the campsite, like it was some acheivement leaving before them and arriving after them, it was embarrassing.

Back at the campsite and we all decided to have a game of cards after dinner, no one could agree on one any one game to play so we ended up playing a modified version of sh*thead. Which i lost and as a punishment ended up running to the toilets in my boxers, ran pass 2 porters in the pitch dark who must have thought i'd escaped from a loony bin. It was down to me and the female guide to do the stripping, im sure everyone would have rather seen her butt than mine. Brid was already looking pretty annoying at the highjinks at this point and to top it off i had on the boxers that she hates with a passion. Her exact words were

"You made a tit of yourself"

Couple of the people on the tour are starting to get sick, some of them were puking their guts up this afternoon, hopefully we can make it the whole way through without getting ill.

Next morning and we're up at 6am, up a steep hill right at the start and then it was mostly easy paths from then on, we were all in a mood cause some t*** was blaring moadonna like a virgin on the ipod speakers most of the night, i spotted her laving in the morning and made a mental note to wish her some bodily harm later on in the day, it was some english girl who we overtookduring the day. But we eventually heard later on in the day that she'd fallen on her big fat behind and sprained her ankle, what a shame, i made another mental note to find her that night and blare out madonna from my ipod beside her tent, nugget!!

We visited some more inca ruins, David the guy who played football was starting to feel a little ill, about an hour later he was looking like death but somehow still managed to walk to the campsite. He figured out later on that he'd been asking his wife (Mrs Malarone she was nicknamed) for immodium as he had the runs, but instead she'd been feeding him malarone. He'd taken about 6 during the whole day and it made him feel like crap, so if anyone wants to overdose on malarone make sure you take more than 6 or you'll just feel rubbish. Further along the road we stopped for lunch,and worthy of a mention was surely the world record for biggest spooning attempt in a small tent, everyone was trying to sleep and i think i counted 9 people, brid kept farting in the tent which didn't help things. After lunch and it was mostly down hill, we decided her that the guide at the front of the group was getting it on with the guide at the back of the group as he'd get well defensive when we joked about it.

Again the porters ran past us with their big bags making us look bad. We headed off to our last inca ruin before machu picchu, the guide told us we wouldnt be able to see machu micchu until the last morning. The last campsite was a small hostel so people could take showers if they wanted, i decided to stink one extra day so didn't take a shower. We sat around for a while playing cards again, one of the older porters, think he was around 59 was sitting around on his own looking sad, thinking we'd cheer him up we bought him a beer, as he looked like he didn't have any money, then we realsied he was charging is brand new Nokia N95 phone, he didn't get anymore beers after that. Off to bed as we have to up at 3:50am tomorrow.

Up at a ridiculoius time and got ready for the final hour walk. we would firstly walk to a place called the sun gate where we could get some pictures of machu picchu from above, if we got there quick enough the tourists that took the bus wouldnt be there so the guide recommended this time for pictures. We horsed it up the track to the sun gate, all going pretty fast. Arrived pooped and we saw machu picchu for the first time, thought it looking really nice so strated rumaging around in my backpack to get my camera, then finally realised we'd walk for 4days to get here and forgotton my camera on the last day, finally brid arrived about 5 mins after me and i was praying she had the camera in her bag, she didn't and the 2 of us looking pretty pi*sed off for the next hour. Luckliy Ray took some photo's for us with his camera that we could steal and also one of the girls on the group nikki also had a nice camera we could steal photo's from. We ealked another 30mins down into machu picchu and along to the caretakers office to get some more pictures. The guide Carlos took us on a 2hrs tour of the site and after that we were free to wander the place on our own. The food was the biggest rip off ever and a bottle of water that usually cost 1sole in Cuzco cost 20soles in the restuarant, it was also about 20pounds for a cheeseburger, theiving inca's. During our town with carlos there was some crazy american woman getting some "chi" from a rock, i think she got annoying when we starting taking pictures of her and calling her a weirdo. We finish the tour and went to look for a nice patch of grass we could sit on for the rest of the day, it was harder than we thought as everywhere we sat some annoying caretakers looking person would blow a whistle at you and tell you to move.

We eventually found a spot and all sat down to rest. Ray still had his proposing idea so was trying to get Louise to go away with him for a walk, she resisted for a while then decided to go announcing as she left "oh well better go, maybe Ray wants to propose or something". I almost burst out laughing but i managed to hold it in. We sat around for a while taking photo's until brid spotted Louise running around shouting at her. I think she's kind of knew as she knew i had the glasses in my bag. After mucho congratulations the 4 of us headed down to the spot where he prososed to get some pictures on their camera bvefore their battery ran out.

We were told to take the bus down from Maccu Picchu and meet in the town around 2, we got there and had some lunch with the rest of the groupl, checked our bags that the porters had been carrying and luckily our camera was in there.

We met Carlos who had our train tickets back to Cuzco, he came with the bad news that he couldntget us onto the train until 9:15 and some of the group had to split up. Some of us headed up to the thermal pools that were near-by to get cleaned up. The pools were minging and it looked like someone had mixed in dog crap into the water. Headed back down to the reataurant to wave of the people that were leaving early while the rest of us headed to the pub to grab some more food and booze. Found a nice place that did 4 for 1 drinks, so the guys dranks a heap of beer and the girls drank a heap of wine. The people next to us were eating guinea pig which looked disgusting, we all took some photo's of it before letting them tuck into it. Half way through dinner a fly landed on brids arm, she didn't notice and ray decided to point it out to her, he strangely just pointed at her which made brid freak out and almost rip her t-shirt off. The train time finally arrived and we headed on the train, we got into the carriage and it turned out we were tarvelling with 20 other drunk irish old folk. At one point one of them had Louise up to dance as they knew Ray had just proposed. Ray still had some champagne left so he bought some cups and we all shared the booze on the way home. They sang half way back to Cuzco before we had to get off the train and get on a bus back to Cuzco, the bus wasn't very cumpfy and we didn't get any sleep, it was about 1 in the morning before we got back to the hotel, absolutly knackered we headed straight for bed.