We started the Inca Trail on Sunday 10th November and it was an early start with us up at 5am for a 5.50am pickup. We jumped on the bus full of anticipation and met the rest of our tour group which totalled 10 of us. After about an hour and a half on the bus, we stopped in a small village for some breakfast and for a chance to pick up anything we might need for the four days ahead. After another half hour on the bus we reached our final stop, which I'm not sure if it has an official name, but our guide kept referring to it as kilometre 82. We got our stuff off the bus and eagerly headed to the checkpoint where we waited for around half an hour to clear and finally begin the Inca Trail.

The first day is the easiest of the four days and consists of around a 12km walk with some uphills but it is mostly flat. We gradually made our way towards our lunch stop and got to know the rest of the people in the group. Our group consists of seven English people, an Australian guy, a Dutch girl and a Swedish girl and they all seem really nice. After looking at the ruins of an Inca town from up high, we went to our lunch stop where the porters were supposed to be preparing our lunch for us. Unfortunately, when we got there, everybody else's porters were there with the exception of ours. After sitting around for about twenty minutes, one of the porters came running around the corner carrying a pan of something. Apparently, they had set up shop at a different venue and they then had to cart all of the stuff for lunch to our location. After another half hour of putting up the tent and setting up the cooking equipment, we had an excellent lunch and were on our merry way to our campsite for the night.

We arrived at the campsite at around 5.30pm which meant there wasn't much daylight left. Our tents had been set up by our porters so we got our sleeping bags out, set up camp and went to the communal tent where there was tea and popcorn waiting for us. We had been lucky with the weather all day as it was pretty sunny most of the way but this was about to drastically change. As we were munching away on the popcorn, we heard a loud clasp of thunder overhead, followed by some pretty heavy rain. This would continue all through our dinner and through to quite late at night so the outside of our tent was sodden as we went to bed. Bedtime was the wild time of about 8pm but we had been up all day and if anyone has any ideas for what to do in a remote Peruvian village in the pitch black while it is lashing down then I'm all ears!!!

All in all it was a great first day and the particularly relieving thing was how well the whole group got on. The toilets on the other hand shall remain with us for the rest of our lives!!!