We start off trekking in the dark and there are a few fallers but we push on for an hour or two and finally reach the Sun Gate which looks down onto Machu Picchu. It's what we all had been waiting for and the views didn't let us down!! We then walked down an hour to the entrance of the city, here we had photos and a quick talk by our guide. A few of us decided to climb wanapicchu, possibly spelt that wrong, it was hard work but worth as it gave us a different vie...

The next day is known as the 'gringo killer' due to the amount of steps we have walk down! But we all seem to manage quite well, no fatalities!! Scenes around are breathtaking now the cloud cover is gone, huge mountains and steep drops, jungle type passes, old incan tunnels... lots of pictures taken! We finally reach the last campsite which has hot water and a BAR! We celebrate with some rum and a dance in the bar, 4am star in the morning though so all in bed by ...

Second day of the trail we head off at 7am, ready for the walk up to Dead Womans Pass which is over 4000 metres up! We pass through more Incan sites and then the monster climb up rocky steps in the rain, bought a poncho halfway up to keep most of myself dry. We eventually get to the top which is busy with other groups as well and wait for the rest of our group. Next we have to walk down hundreds of wet steps to get down to the next campsite. Some of the steps are...

We have an early start and take the minivan down some dirt roads to the official start of the Inca Trail. We meet the porters and assistant guide, 22 of them for the 16 of us. They carry all bags, tents, food, tables and chairs... everything! The law says they can only carry 30kg max but some used to carry 80kgs back in the day!!! They all wear their locally made sandals, impressive people. We have a group photo under the starting sign and head out onto the trai...

We all jump in the minivan and head out in our trip, the first day is spent driving to the start of the official trail, stopping off at various mountain villages, ruins and beauty spots. At a local village we are shown how they make the different colours for the popular local rugs, jumpers, hats, socks and everything else! They spin wool from sheep, for instance, using a type of spindle which they hang from their hand, literally all day, the women are all talking...