Hey! So I´m back from the Inca Trail and very very tired! I´m back in Cusco for the night, hopefully to move on tomorrow depending on bus availability.

After the last blog we went white water rafting in the sacred valley. It was so much fun! The people we did it with were really good, very friendly and there were lots of safety talk too so I felt safe! We got around 2 hours worth of rafting down rapids of rating 2 to 4 out of 5. They weren´t too hard although both Steph and Sally fell out! We also almost capsised at one point but just managed to stay afloat.

So after another night in Cusco we met up with our group for the Inca trail. The first day we had a day out into the sacred vally to look at a few different Inca ruins. It´s a shame I can´t upload any photos atm because some of the sites were absolutely amazing! We went to a few different Inca temples, including one that had been converted into a church on the arrival of the Spanish, and learnt how the conquistadors had merged their religion with that of the Incas in order to more readily convert them to Christianity. We got to see some stunning terracing at an Incan temple at Pisac. The construction is so so good, they didn´t use mortar and the stones fit together perfectly. Our guides were really knowledgeable and told us so many interesting facts about everywhere we visited and the Incan civilisation in general. We also visited a site called Olyantambo (not sure of the spelling) with a sun temple and a water temple. It was beautiful.

That first night we stayed in a hotel in the last town before the start of the Inca trail. The next morning we were up fairly early to get the bus to kilometer 82: the start of the Inca trail. We got passport stamps and went through the first checkpoint to start the trail. The first day was fairly easy in terms of walking, although everyone got so out of breath so easily due to the altitude. We saw two separate resting places (Salapunko and Canabamba, spelling probably wrong!) which are sites built at certain intervals to allow the llamas walking the trail to rest as often as they need to. We learnt how the important Incas walking the trail would carry idols with them to present at Machu Picchu and how each way point had special niches in the walls to acommodate the idols every night. The size of the idol would depend on the size and wealth of the town it came from. We also got to try chewing coca leaves as the locals do.

That evening we were shown the tarantulas in the walls next to our campsite. Kinda scary! There were so many of them and our tent had a hole in! But we slept well, although because we had to be up for 5am we didn´t get a huge amount of sleep.

The next day was the hardest day of walking but was also the most cultual in that we got to see quite a few different Inca sites. We had to make it over dead woman´s pass which is 4250m high, a long long climb up from our camp site. The Inca Trail is mainly paved but that kinda made it harder as the steps were uneven, slippery and often huge! The view from the top was stunning though, definately worth the hard work. At the top of the pass we placed a stone from a lake lower down as an offering to the mountain in thanks for safe passage. Our guide also gave an offering of alcohol to the nearby mountains, which are worshiped as Gods in the Andean religion (a descendant from the Incan beliefs) and then shared the rest of the rum round the group!

The third day of walking the pass is the longest of all. We got up early again, while it was still dark to get as much walking in the cool as possible. We had two passes to climb, of 3900 and 3800m each. Unfortunately we went down a long way inbetween so the climb was big each time! After the final pass we had a 3000 step descent on steps known as ´Gringo killers´ through an area known as the cloud forest. The steps absolutely destroyed everyone´s legs but we made it down to the final camp site.

The last day was the day of Machu Picchu. We had to be up at 4:00 to get through the final checkpoint for 5:30 when it opened. This meant that we made it to the Sun Gate (the first point you can see Machu Picchu from) for when the morning clouds cleared. The view was breathtaking. The clouds made it seem so mystical as they gradually cleared away and the site was revealed. I was worried that it would be a bit of an anticlimax as I had seen so many pictures before but it is just as impressive in real life, if not more so. After soaking up the view foir a while we finally made the last walk down into Machu Picchu itself.

Our guide gave us a guided tour of the site and explained the uses of the different areas, including the temple of the condor, the temple of the sun, the priests area and the farming terraces. The size of the site and the way it had been built was just mind blowing. Every stone had to be mined by hand and carried to the site. They were split into brick-sized pieces by a very slow method of hammering wooded stakes into cracks, pouring water onto the wood and graducally letting it expand in the sun until it split the stones.

Our guide gave us a history of the site and after the tour we had the chance to do the extra climb up the neighbouring mountain peak to view Machu Picchu from above. Although we were shattered we decided to do it. Only a limited number of people get to climb it and it seemed a shame not to. The steps were amazingly steep in some places and only as wide as your foot but we made it up after under an hours more walking. The view of the site was incredible, as was the view of the surrounding Andean peaks.

The day was so long as we didn´t get back to Cusco until about 11:00 at night. We were shattered but it was definately worth it. I loved seeing all the sites and learning about the history of them all.

The plan for the next few days isn´t yet decided but more updates when I get the chance next!