Right, here we are, finally we are getting around to writing about Peru! A day by day, blow by blow account of the last 8 days is about to follow, so buckle up kids, it could be a long ride!

SATURDAY 11TH OCTOBER

KATIE

Well, all the best intentions of meeting the group for a nice social dinner went out the window when I realised I had left my wallet in the internet cafe when doing the last update. We didn't realise for an hour or so, and by the time we sped off hot footed in search of the offending article it had well and truly gone. So the next half hour was spent on the phone trying to cancel my 2 bank cards. Fortunately I had left the other 2 behind at the house in Florida and only had $35 in cash so not so bad. I was more annoyed by my stupidity and that the good luck charm from my Mum was in there, although we still had James'. My driving licence was also there so I can't drive now in Florida which is really irritating, particularly as we have a cool Toyota Highlander! It made me feel a bit better the next day though when I found out that Brian had left his wallet on the plane coming to Cusco from Lima - the club of the lost wallets was founded and before the trip ended we would have another member....!

JAMES

So the wallet was the first thing which we lost in Peru. By the time we left there would be a couple of other things to add to the list! The timing was a bit annoying as it meant we missed the first group dinner, but in hindsight that didn't make any difference either, so it wasn't really a big deal! Could have been worse - my wallet had about $500 in it! Anyway, one (wo)man's loss is another man's gain - I get to drive The Beast 100% of the time!

Had a nice dinner in the Plaza das Armas anyway, but I was somewhat disappointed not to find Guinea Pig on the menu. I want to eat rodent!

SUNDAY 12TH OCTOBER

JAMES

A relatively sedate start again today - we didn't leave the hotel until 9am!!!! By the end of the trip that would seem like a real luxury! We travelled by bus for a couple of hours, winding up the mountain roads out of Cusco, past Sachsaywaman ("Sexy Woman") Inca ruins, and onwards to our first stop at a local village to see the local women making Andean fashion items out of alpaca and llama wool. All very interesting I am sure, we bought some delightful knitwear and moved on. After stopping at several lookouts for photo opportunities (which came thick and fast, the landscape was truly stunning!) we turned off the main road and headed up a narrow gravel track on what felt like a 1 in 3 incline, in our 18 seat school bus, and had a wander round the Pisac ruins. It is easy to get blase about what we saw - compared to Machu Picchu, Pisac is not very impressive. But then where is? In its own right, Pisac was pretty cool, and it also gave us the first opportunity to experience Aly's style of guided tour - fortunately for us, he was laid back, witty and knowledgeable!

We then got to the main business of the day. A huge Peruvian buffet lunch for GBP5.50 (sorry, this Yankee computer doesn't have a pound sign!) which I spent best part of an hour indulging in! They even had rice pudding for desert, quality! After that it was a snoozy 45 minute bus ride to Ollantaytambo, a rather unwelcome climb up about 300 steps to look at some slightly less impressive Inca ruins, and then check in to the hotel before heading out for dinner...

KATIE

9am was the latest start we had on the trip by far! We were both feeling ok too with the altitude, a bit light headed and slight headaches the previous evening but seemed to be ok by the morning (this was to become a common trait!). The short ride to the village was certainly scenic and seeing how the local women spun the wool and also how they used natural dyes from various plants, seeds and minerals to create the wonderful array of bright coloured textiles was really interesting and pretty impressive. Certainly skills are in use in Peru which we would have forgotten many many years ago.

Mette was 'encouraged' (well, volunteered by Aly) to try her hand at weaving and to get trussed up in the local outfit of choice - we were all so relieved it wasn't us we did the best thing for her and all wandered off to look at (and ultimately buy) all sorts of interesting things in the little market stalls. The most common purchase by far was alpaca socks, which I think pretty much 90% of us bought. This could have been fuelled by the earlier assertions of Aly about just how cold it gets when camping! We were taking no chances!

The drive was amazing - apart from the stunning scenery wherever you looked we spent most of it hugging the side of the road with near vertical drop offs - there were frequent squeals when the edge of the road got a little close for comfort for the people in the window seats on the left of the bus - and even more squeals, well shouts of 'Oh my God, he's not..', 'I don't believe it, you're joking?', when we discovered the driver was not only negotiating hairpin bends on an unmade road with a 1 in 3 incline, but was doing so whilst texting on his phone! Unbelievable! We certainly had respect for him by the time the drive was done but at that point the jury was out....

Wandering round Pisac was very cool, but I was starting to feel quite rough, had been getting a headache and bit of nausea on the bus but felt a lot better once we had stopped for lunch, unfortunately the headache got worse throughout the afternoon so I went to the room to sleep once we arrived in Ollantaytambo (which was a shame as it was a sweet little place and I would have like to look around a bit). By the time we met for dinner I had a thumping headache and was feeling very sick and the sight of food was not a good one! Aly recommended some altitude sickness pills, Sorojchi, so we dived out to the pharmacy to get them. At least I'd had a big lunch and Charlotte and Eric got an extra dinner from me!

MONDAY 13th OCTOBER

KATIE

A slightly earlier start of 7am today, and fortunately the pills were working so felt back to normal and had a nice easy start to the day with another coach journey for a few hours. This time we were headed to the start of our trek in Qeshwarani. Another stunning ride through the mountain scenery and time for our first 'native' toilet break. The girls were getting in need of a toilet and in the mountains there isn't a lot of choice but to find a sheltered spot, away from the boys eyes and practice a bit of squatting. It turned into a bit of a female bonding thing and it got us used to things to come. It wouldn't be the only time we had the company of Llamas...

We had stopped earlier on at the local market to buy some fruit and bread for children, we all clubbed together and, being an accountant, I ended up with the job of collecting and looking after the 'pot' of money. Aly suggested the best things to buy and taught us all a bit about the local Peruvian fruit, we ended up with 50 bananas, 50 oranges and 50 pieces of bread for the children plus a few snacks for us - oh, and a bottle of rum to celebrate with on the second day after we'd got through the highest point on the trek! Our visions of arriving at villages to give out the food were somewhat off the mark, as, appearing from no-where came this tiny little girl standing at the side of the mountain road with not a sole anywhere near her, and actually not a dwelling in sight either. The coach stopped and 3 people took an item of food each to give to her. It was just bizarre, a small child appears from no-where and there's 16 of us either fighting to get out of the coach to see her / to give her food and the rest are fighting over space by the coach windows to get photo's. By the time we left we had all fallen in love with her completely and I don't think any of the kids, cute as they were and as soppy as we all got with them, quite matched her for sheer cuteness! You can see the photos to evidence this! We stopped a number of times on the way to our starting point and then gave most of the remaining food to the children in Qeshwarani. It was quite humbling to see how grateful the children and parents were, each tiny child giving a little 'gracias' when you handed anything over!

Once we arrived in Qeshwarani we got dressed up and practised using our lovely walking poles, as you will see from the photo's we looked lovely! I think we were all a bit nervous as we started out, not really knowing what to expect, although, obviously not that nervous as most of the questions coming were around when and where we were stopping for lunch! The bits of trekking were actually quite hard and very much uphill! We all realised then what a difference the altitude makes to your breathing and ability, but then the scenery made up for it. The views just got better and better as we climbed. I was starting to get a headache again so took it slow at the back of the group, however this meant that we actually got less time to recover at the breaks and in hindsight might not have been such a great idea! The trek was quite long and with the camp still about an hour away the night fell and we all got out our head torches. We were in a group with Amanda, Danielle, Greg and Jill, with Aly leading the way down a pretty steep mountain, and not really having a trail to follow as such it was slow going. Jill slipped a couple of times so we bunched in either side of her, me behind Aly making sure we knew where to go, and James at the back making sure we didn't lose anyone. We were all pretty tired by now and Danielle and I were feeling a bit sick so we were very relieved to get to the camp site - even if we couldn't really see it in the dark! We didn't really have much time to get our breath back and by the time we were in the dining tent I had a thumping head again, felt extremely sick and had uncontrollable shakes going on! Needless to say I didn't try the dinner and retired to bed very quickly. I think my last words to James were that if I still felt like that in the morning I wasn't going to make it through the next day. I was hoping a good bit of sleep and the magic pills would sort me out for the morning!

JAMES

Today's bus ride was unbelievable! In a full-on mini-coach, we were going up smaller, narrower roads with looser surfaces and bigger drops. At one point we forded a river - not like the little ford at Billericay, but a proper river about 15 foot wide. This was only after Abel, the driver, had gotten out and shifted a few hefty boulders out the way. Jeremy (who camera could only take video for some reason) captured the moment, and made the astute observation that "No, folks, we are not in a Kayak, we're in a coach!" as we were half way across. Brentwood Coaches never got up to any of this nonsense on the way to School Cricket on a Wednesday afternoon, but it was all in a day's work for Abel I guess.

By the time we arrived at Qeshwarani we were all itching to get going, so we donned our alpaca jumpers, fleeces, rain jackets, ponchos, mackintoshes, overcoats and whatever other weather-beating gear we had with us, and strode off up the hill. Within 5 minutes we were all huffing and puffing, hot, sweaty and generally a bit knackered. We stopped to catch our breath, de-layer and chew a bit of coca, at which point the caravan of porters, donkeys and llamas breezed past.

We had left at 12.20, not sure what altitude - I wish I had asked Aly to check his altimeter on his watch - but I imagine it was about 3,500m. It is pretty tough going at that height, but the scenery is just unbelievable. After what seemed like an eternal uphill slog (about 1h45m in reality) we finally reached the site for lunch. Standing by a beautiful lake, the team of porters and cooks had already unpacked, put up the kitchen and dining room, and were busying themselves with knocking up a lunch of delicious Corn Soup followed by Fish of an unknown, but nice variety with rice and veg. Most welcome.

After lunch the uphill struggle continued for another 1.5 hours, until we finally reached the top of the first of our 3 high mountain passes, this one somewhere between 4200m and 4400m depending on who and when you asked, so we'll say 4300m. Katie had hung back with Amanda since lunch whilst I had pressed on, for fear that if I stopped, I would simply keel over and roll all the way back to Cusco! Once we were all reunited at the top the view over the other side was stunning, and made it totally worth it.

The descent into camp probably took about 2 hours in all, I think we got in sometime around 7, in the pitch black. Quite an experience, a few slippages along the way, but no major incidents so all part of the fun I guess!!

Katie was feeling pretty rough by the time we got to camp (my head was thumping a bit but probably just as much to do with the tiredness) so the evening was simply a case of eating (or not eating if you are Katie) dinner and then retiring to bed at about 8.30pm! I don't think I have gone to bed that early for about 23 years, but boy did I need it!!!

TUESDAY 14TH OCTOBER

JAMES

What with it being dark and us being totally done in the night before, we hadn't paid much attention to our surroundings. It was only when we got up at 5am (yep, 5am! Not often you can claim to have risen at 5am off the back of over 8 hours sleep is it?!) that we saw the huge snow peak towering behind the camp. Just stunning, see the photos (if you haven't got bored of this yet!).

It was a fairly gentle ascent out of camp that morning, along the valley, to our second pass at 4400m. Probably a combination of acclimatisation and a lesser gradient meant it didn't feel too strenuous a walk. We all gathered at the top of the pass, took in the view, and devoured the mid morning snacks that had been given to us. Or at least we tried to. Out of nowhere had appeared a few locals - the adults selling drinks, the kids playing on their cuteness for gifts of fruit and bread, and their dogs simply trying to steal any grub they could get their teeth around! It is amazing where these people suddenly spring from - I guess they spend their whole lives up here, totally isolated from any other communities, looking after their herds of llama and alpaca, and their potato crops.

It was then a long downhill, followed inevitably by a long uphill, over many false peaks, to another well-earned 2 course lunch. Fuel was definitely much needed by then for our ascent to the Ipsayqocha pass, at 4570m. We were also spurred on by the fact we could see it from the lunch site, and that we were told it was 4k to the top, and then only 1k the other side to camp.

It was probably actually less than 4k, and we all got up fine. The group had long since settled into its accepted dynamic of who walked where. Generally the ever enthusiastic Jon, and the 20 a day smoking former Ultimate Fighting competitor Dave lead the way with Aly, Greg Jill and Amanda hung at the back, and the rest just sort of intermingled in between.

Anyway, there were lots of high fives at the top, and even more photos. However, the Group shot has no view of the valley behind it (again, stunning!) as literally in the time taken to set the camera up, clouds rolled in and obliterated the view. A reminder of how the weather really can change in the blink of an eye at that altitude.

The descent to camp was easy (but I do think they lied about it being 1k!), and we arrived in light, with plenty of time to sort the tent out and chill before dinner. Katie feeling much better that evening so we enjoyed another nice 3 course dinner, with a warming hot-toddy (made with Rum), some good banter, and some mild drama in the dining tent before retiring at the late hour of 9.15pm!

KATIE

As James said, waking up in the early hours of the morning, we staggered out of our tent to the most amazing sight- we'd not been able to appreciate the night before just how beautiful a setting it was. Snow capped mountains framed the camp site and it was sheer magic. We were welcomed to the morning by the wonderful porters with fresh coca tea and hot water to wash (although no-one really used it as it was too cold outside, baby wipes would do for a few days instead!). And talking of the porters they were amazing. They would pack up the camp site as we were having breakfast and then we'd find them rushing past us not long after we'd start trekking heading off to the next site for lunch and then again off to the final camp site to set up all the tents and cook us dinner. What they could do in a tiny tent with a butane gas bottle is beyond belief. The 2 breakfasts at the camp sites we had porridge with sweet bread, jam, honey and coffee / tea / chocolate / coca tea and the second day, toasted bread with jam, honey etc and then pancakes. Lunch and dinner was always a fresh soup (corn, chicken noodle etc), then either fish or meat with rice, quinoa or potato and veg - all freshly prepared and tasting fantastic. Unbelievable.

Anyway, once we got over the view and packed our regulation duffle bags up again ready for the porters to take to the next camp site we headed off on the hardest day's trekking. I was feeling great so was very relieved and really looking forward to the day. You just can't explain the views and the atmosphere, there really was nothing around but the mountains and us, oh, and a lot of Llama....

The going was actually a bit easier today as we had a few more stops to catch our breath and eat our lovely snacks (well, those that we didn't give away at least!) We have a video of the first pass which was just beautiful, looking out onto a stunning lake. Photo's just don't do it justice!

Everyone was in good spirits, even Greg and Jill who were finding it really tough, Jill with a very bad stomach and Greg with a terrible lung infection so she rode on a donkey for a while but not sure it made her feel much better! There was great camaraderie in the group and we had Aly entertaining us at each stop with historical information and stories - he was a great guide! The second pass at Ipsayqocha was amazing, when you stop to think that it's almost 3 miles up above sea level where we usually are it's not surprising it's so beautiful and you really are among the clouds. As James said, minutes after we climbed over the top the clouds had started to descend and by the time everyone had arrived and we got the group photo you could barely see a thing!

Soon we were at our camp, and in daylight thankfully and feeling good. We even had popcorn and biscuits to have with fresh tea before dinner - you really wouldn't expect such good service! Sitting in the tent before dinner we were all having a good laugh and there was lots of banter flying around. We had a gas light in the tent, wedged in the middle of the two tables and after a while someone mentioned they could smell gas. A conversation then ensued around the fact that we shouldn't be able to smell gas from the light and that something must be wrong. Eric started to look at it and try to close off the gas. Somewhere between that moment and about 5 seconds later, we heard a massive rushing sound and shouts of 'get out of the tent- it's gonna blow...' or various things to that effect. Among great heroics from Eric in holding onto the light and the porter who appeared in a split second they managed to shut off the light and the gas leak and save us from the 'tent of death'. Once we'd got the air into the tent and spent a while outside we all settled down again (this time with various head torches attached to the roof instead of gas light) to regale each other with our versions of our near death experience!!

After dinner the rum toddy came out to celebrate, and my God, was it good. A magic mixture of rum, cinnamon, honey, and something else I can't remember at the moment! We took great pleasure in finishing off the jug and in congratulating ourselves on our achievement! Since it was freezing cold (about minus 5 overnight I think) we headed back to the tents and it was still only about 9pm!!

WEDNESDAY 15TH OCTOBER

JAMES

Thankfully, it was only a 2 hour downhill walk from camp into Patakancha where the bus was waiting for us. Well, it would have been waiting had it not been operating on Peruvian time whilst we were on normal time! 20 minutes later though we were on our way back to Ollantaytambo where the kit was unloaded and the porters and cooks busied themselves with unpacking everything, drying it out (today was out only day of rain, and most of that was overnight) and then cooking us our final lunch of soup and spag bol. Top quality, and I am sure the cooks enjoyed having a kitchen with four solid walls and a proper cooker. After that we said goodbye to them - I handed over the tip we had collected for them (about 50 soles from each of the 16 of us) and said a few words to thank them for everything they had done!

We then took a funny little railcar from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (translated into English "Hot Water (Springs)"), the jumping off point for Machu Picchu, and where we would overnight. When we got there Katie and the rest of the group (apart from the Danish girls) went to the eponymous Hot Springs and had a relaxing soak, whilst I had an even more relaxing sleep!

Aly took us to a restaurant for a big group dinner - still didn't have Guinea Pig, but I did try Alpaca - delicious, kind of like a cross between steak and pork. I also discovered that they served 1.1 litre bottles of beer. Woo hoo! 2 pints for about 2 quid!! Had one of those and a really good Pisco Sour! We then retired to the Anaconda Bar for another beer, although I don't really recall actually seeing the Anaconda skin after which it was named? And it wasn't the beer, I did only have two of those big bottles!! How very restrained, but then we were getting up at 4.30am to see Machu Picchu the next day!

Update on that tomorrow - it is now 7.45pm and we're off to Applebees for dinner. I am sure no-one else is reading this still - bit of a mammoth effort this one! Sorry!!