We arrived back in Cusco on a night bus - local people on the bus were searched for some reason - not sure why? Dodgy coca leaves? and we returned at 3am..we had had our room changed to a noisy one by the evil receptionist at Inka's Dream..something I made the nice girl - Patricia - sort out the next day (what was the evil one's problem with us?!).

After missing our well deserved lie-in because of the noise we decide to get up and do something, so what better than go to one of the more famous sites around - Sachsayhuaman (pronounced almost like 'sexy woman'). We'd had our fill of guides before we even started travelling so when a guy approached us I had no intention of using his services until he started telling us what he was about - he was a teacher of local school children and was teaching Quechua - their indiginous language - to keep it alive. Any money he earned would help him in this goal. Whether it was true or not who knows, but we felt it was a good cause and so went around with him being shown shapes in the rocks which we wouldn;t have seen otherwise and learning a bit of Quechua on the way. He spoilt the facade by asking if we had dollars instead of accepting soles (he wants to keep the local language so why not the local currency?!) but we felt we may have done some good. We sat down to eat some lunch and were bothered by a local stray dog. I started to feel sorry for it until it rejected some of the food I offered (was it hungry or not, darn thing?) but then it obviously changed its mind and wolfed everything down poor thing. Dave wasn't happy at sharing his lunch with it, stray or not. Nothing's chanegd there then. We then went to see a smaller copy of the San Cristobel and were bothered by a drunk pretending to be a guide and then I tried to take some photos of a flower that looked like a cat but the camera wouldn't focus and I got mad. That was enough sightseeing and photo-taking for one day.

The next day we went round museums - not one of my favourite past-times but we felt we ought to. I especially wasn't keen on looking round the modern art part..until a guide (I was changing my mind about them!) showed us one model of a condor on the back of a bull drawing blood with its beak - a metaphorical 2 fingers up to the Spanish by the Peruvians. He also said there is still a lot of snobbery between Peruvians about those who are of Spanish descent and those of original Peruvian descent - an internal sort of racism. Weird.

The next day we did a practice run for our Inka trail hike by doing a hike to Moras and Moray - Inka terraces and salt mines. It was hard work but worth it for the views and the middle-of-nowhere-ness of it all. I Loved the fact that in the village where we stopped for lunch one child was playing with a stick and a wheel - something my Mum used to play with when she was a child. It was like going back 50 yars in time. We got a local bus back and stopped off at a market to get some cheesy Peruvian DVDs and music. 'Bertha Del Amor' was a particular gem.

Our next adventure was on the Sacred Valley tour. We chose it because it was meant to include various things and after it turned up late and did not include many things I should have known it was a bad sign. Then we met Jair - the worst tour guide I've ever had. I didn't learn a lot as I couldn't understand most of what he said! After a couple of market stops we went to an archeological site where he gave the explanation in Spanish saying he'd do it in English later..which he didn't..he then said he wouldn't have time if he did everything in both languages - what did we pay for then?! I wont bore you with the details but Jair was rubbish and so bad in fact that I went and complained the next day and asked for our money back. I was calm until the woman said 'es mi plato' - it's my bread and butter - and I went off on one saying we had worked very hard and saved very hard to be abe to be doing what we were doing. I had a weird feeling that it would come back and bite me but how could it? Dave's grandad is very wise and always says 'don't burn any bridges' but we would never see him again so what difference would it make? I was feeling quite smug that I had got us a bit of money back from our rubbish guide and soon we would be in the safe hands of toucan travel on the Inka trail.

So we set about enjoying the last few days before the Inka trail - mainly by seeing some sights and feeding up for the big trek. We ate every night at La Libertad - possibly Peru's finest pizza place run by a little old man and woman with only 2 tables in the back of their house. Tropical pizza (condensed milk instead of tomato and all sorts of wonderful fruit) was the order of the day.

So then we had our much anticipated meeting with our Toucan guide. And who should it be? Jair. If Dave's grandad could see us now.. I sank my head in my hands. We had paid a lot of money for this trip and the Inka trail and it was the climax of the whole trip and now this unintelligible buffoon was going to ruin it. I was also embarassed - did he know I'd complained about him? I wasn't going to ask him! After a tense evening we decided we would just have to make the most of it.

The next morning we set off early on the bus bound for the starting point of the Inca trail. The ridiculous bus ride took us to our fellow walkers' hospedaje via every single one way street in cusco, all of them being slightly too small for two vehicles to pass each other. On arriving at the start point, we were mobbed by every walking stick vendor you could ever wish to see and got 'measured up' for our sticks. It was then time to get walking and off we went. Our initial fears of a 'beasting' on the walk were unfounded as we stopped every 5 meters for refreshments and well earned sit down. Jairs' favourite phrase was 'slowly slowly' and we followed this to the letter throughout. We saw a women beating a pig and ended up at our first proper dinner stop. We arrived at the pre-pitched tent where the guides had got everything ready and dinner was on the table. Another couple of hours ambling later, we happened upon our campsite for the night. Hardly roughing it, the tents were already up and tea was on the table. A common theme was emerging for our inca trail experience - eating and drinking in tents. On the second day we made our way up dead womens pass which was a long climb for most of the morning. We didn't really struggle to get up the long climb to approx 4200m but some other parties had a rough time. As we tipped over the high point and started our way down into the valley, the weather changed and the rain and fog came in. On arriving at a our campsite the weather really took a downward turn and it chucked it down. So far we had been really lucky with the weather but the main worry was what we could see at Macchu Pichu. The camp site was ok but the showers and toilets were miles away from our tent and we had to negotiate rivers and other obstacles just to get there. It was a very cold night but the sight of hundreds of fireflies and the sound of frogs from all directions made it a very atmospheric place to camp. Early to rise again the next day, we set off after yet another hearty feed with snow capped mountains as the backdrop. As we made our way down into the valley we could see a stark reminder of civilisation in Aguas Calientes and stopped at one of the ruins on the way. We had decided to take things easy and enjoy the walk so found ourselves slowing the pace (despite the amount of granola bars we had brought to keep up our energy) a little and this aided our picture taking of the many humming birds that were buzzing around. We got to talking with a chap from Plymouth who insisted on playing drum and bass on his head phones the whole time - no doubt he missed the frogs! Tonights camp was very disappointing, there were loads of people around (the other campsites had been pretty deserted) but on the up side there was the bonus of a shower and a beer. We said our goodbyes to the porters (as they weren't needed on the last day). We spent time talking to one of the porters who was training to be a chef and found that being a porter earnt you more money than cheffing. We both wished we were back in the middle of nowhere but nevertheless settled to our last night on the trail. It was a very early rise of 5am to be able to see the sunrise at Machu Picchu and we waited patiently in the dark at the gates to the next stage of the trail. The numerous torch lights had attracted a number of large insects and there was a bit of commotion when one of our fellow walkers seemed to get bitten by an insect and collapsed in a heap. I reckon he fainted when he saw it and that the poor thing didn't touch him. When the gates opened it was every man for himself and we sped along the last bit of the track to the first viewing point of Machu Picchu at the sun gate. Puffed out after a fast and furious pace for 2 hours we eventually hit the view point. Such a feeling of satisfaction and relief as we got our first glimpse of a cloudless Machu Picchu! We made our way onwards, taking the normal piccys etc and finally hit the 'city' itself. We were given the 'tour' (and saw a chinchilla) which was fantastic and very interesting but we didn't stop there, we raced up Wayna Picchu (young mountain) to get the best views in the house of the whole complex and spent a time just watching (Jo had one of her 'moments' up there). You could easily make out the condor shape from up on high which the whole place had been based on which was rather satisfying as you can never know what to believe from some of these guides. We raced down again at a similar pace and fled off around the corner to see the inca bridge. That was all very pleasant and when we were finished we came back to the main complex to take it all in. We sat watching Machu Picchu in the sun and all of a sudden it dawned on us that our big adventure was maybe coming to an end. Machu Picchu was one of our last must sees on our journey and we both felt quite reflective as we tried to absorb this wonderous site. Coming back down to earth with a "cor blimey, look at the time" we said our goodbyes to Machu Picchu and got the bus down into the nearest town from where we would catch the train back to Cuzco. Just as we were getting on the bus, we felt two spots of rain, then when we were on the bus it started to rain. It had been a glorious sunny day and as soon as we left it chucked it down! What a result that was as I would imagine it would be a big let down to not see most of what we had walked 3 days to get to. We found Jair in town and indulged in some beer and dinner and then left to board the train. We spent our journey on the puffer feeling a sense of sadness that it was all over but eventually got talking to a couple of yanks who made us feel better about going home (to England!!!). We said a fond farewell to James and Sarah, our Inka trail companions and eventually got back to our room in the Inkas Dream hotel and had a long deserved sit down, shower and fruit pizza. We did a bit of souvenir shopping and sorted out our accommodation for our next stop: Miraflores, Lima.