Our gap tour of the inca trail started on Sunday. We left at 8am and drove to a town called Pisaq which had some inca ruins which we looked around. We then had some lunch at the worst restaurant in the world. The service was awful, sarah waited about 30 minutes for her drink which arrived after she had finished her food! And Beth and my pudding came before our main meal! After that we went on to Ollantaytambo another town with inca ruins. We did a short walk around them to test ourselves in the altitude and we were all really out of breath!

We spent sunday night in Ollantaytambo and left early the next morning for km82 which is the start of the inca trial. There were seven of us in our group, us three plus two girls from liverpool (natalie and anna), a girl from london (lisa) and a guy from newcastle (paul). We all got on really well and our guide manuel was really good too as he knew lots about the scenery and the ruins.

We walked for about 6 hours through a valley and arrived at our camp around 2pm. The walk was good, not too steep but very hot! We had lunch at the camp and then spent the afternoon relaxing and saving our energy for the next day which was to be the hardest.

We were woken up on Tuesday morning at 5.30am with some coca tea and had breakfast before leaving at 7am. We walked up Dead Womens pass. The walk was split into 4 quarters. The first part was fine but parts 2 and 3 were steep with loads of steps! Our guide told us to go at our own pace and just to meet at the top or at the camp if it was too cold. I walked most of the way with Lisa and Beth and we made it to the top of the pass in 3hours 20 minutes which was very good considering our guide said it would be between 4 and 6 hours. We were all very tired though! The pass is 4015masl and was very windy and quite cold so we only stayed for 20 minutes before descending to the camp. We got there at midday and when the rest of our group arrived we had lunch. The afternoon was again spent resting as we were all so tired from the walk and very achey from the steps!

The next day was my favourite day as the scenery was beautiful. We left at 6am and walked up a steep hill through another pass and continued along the next valley. We passed several inca ruins along the way which manuel gave us a brief history of. The descent to the camp was through jungle like terrain with loads of butterflies!

At the camp we were able to get hot showers which were very welcome! After everyone had got cleaned up we went and had come cold beers at the bar, again very welcome! We had dinner early and were all in bed by 8pm as we had an early start to Machu Piccu the next day!

We woke at 4am and packed everything up so the porters could take it in order to get the first train back to cusco. We didnt leave until 5.30am though as the check point at the campsite didnt open until then. Lisa and I wanted to try and climb winyupiccu which is a mountain that overlooks machu piccu and the views are amazing. So we ran the 10km to machu piccu! everyone we overtook thought we were crazy running it and it turns out we neednt have bothered as all the places had gone by the time we got there at 6.45am! Only 400 people can climb the mountain each day and many other treks camp nearer to it and so are able to get there much earlier and get the tickets! Oh well, it was a good early morning work out!

After discovering we couldnt climb it we met the rest of our group who had arrived at machu piccu and we got a tour from our guide. The city itself is really big! And it is beautiful, the backdrop is stunning with huge mountains towering behind it. We all took loads of pictures!

After the tour we were all really tired from our early start so we got the bus down to aguas caliente which is the town down the valley. They had some hot springs there which we went it. The water wasnt very clear due to the sulphur in it but the were nice and warm none the less! After lunch we got the train back to Ollantaytambo and then the bus back to cusco.

We had a night out to celebrate completeing the trek which was a great ending. Tonight we are getting a bus to arequipa from cusco to visit the colca canyon, the deepest in the world! I would like to stay longer in cusco as its such a great city but with only a week left we need to keep moving!