What an amazing 5 days! The trek into one of the last Incan strongholds has to be one the biggest highlights on our trip so far. It is a tough 33km steep mountain walk in and 33km back out again - but it was worth every step.

Day 1 we headed from Cusco to Cachora where we started the trek. We had a guide, a cook, two horsemen, 3 donkeys and a horse with us! The donkeys ensured all we had to carry was a day pack each day - very happy about that. Although the boys did have a few problems with one donkey that seemed to want to take another route towards to canyon bottom - with all of our food attached to its back! They did manage to rein it in though thankfully. The food throughout the trip was one of the major influences on how well we recovered - and I have to say I have never had better - huge breakfast, two course lunches and three course dinners every day. We were very glad to be walking so much to burn off all the food we were eating!

The first day we covered 19km, 11.5km of which was nice rolling walking around the side of the mountain, and the remaining was a steep winding downhill - dropping about 1500 metres towards the river at the bottom of the canyon. The scenery was stunning with snow capped mountains in the distance and sheer drops of up to 500 metres in places. We were very happy to reach the campsite right on sunset.

Day 2 was the tough day - 1 hour descent to the river then it was all uphill all the way - about 6.5km to rise 1.5km!! Steep - very! We took the precaution of giving Nic a rest for an hour of the climb on the horse - seeing as we still had 3 days to go! We took a 30 minute rest to try the local brew - strong sugarcane alcohol, very strong stuff called cambray - not sure if it helped but I made it to the top. By the time we reached the top our legs were jelly like - it was hard, hard work but an amazing feeling to look around over the canyon below. We had lunch at the top and it gave us time to summon the strength to carry on to the campsite just below the ruins of Choquequirao 1.5 hours walk further on.

We had great plans to see the sunrise at the ruins but the weather had other ideas. It was so misty and wet to start the third day we decided to delay till a little later. We made it to Choquequirao at about 8.00am, after a 40 minute uphill climb, and the mist was still in, so our guide gave us a run down on the history of the Incas and what to look for with some of the construction of the city. This was one of the last strongholds of the Inca and had to be put up in a hurry - thus the construction of the walls were not up to the high standard that you see in Machu Picchu, but still impressive all the same. We firstly came across the farming terraces where different crops were planted on different levels according to their best suited micro climate. Being so far from anywhere the Incas had to provide for all of their needs on site. We then explored the upper sector where the more important people of the city were housed. As we wandered around the mist lifted and gave us the most amazing view over the surrounding mountains and rivers and the city itself. We were pretty excited to see everything and were so lucky as there were only about 25 other people on the whole site - all local students.

We headed up to the ceremonial area for the best view over the ruins. It is a relatively new project and as yet is to be fully discovered - it was amazing to think what else might lie undiscovered in the area. After spending a good while just soaking it all in we descended again down to a new area of terraces only discovered four years ago.

The terraces have Llamas in quartz built into them - amazing symmetry through all the terraces as well. The stones all shone an amazing silver colour in the sunshine. Upon returning up again we found we were the only people left in the whole ruins, such a surreal feeling to be able to look around a place like this without the hoards of tourists around. It was a huge buzz and exceeded both of our expectations.

The fourth day saw us descend once more to the river and start our climb back up the other side - but not before freshening up in the river! It was a little on the chilly side but guess that is to be expected as most of the water is snow melt! We both faired very well but also glad to give the knees and toes a rest of all the steep downhill.

Day five was the final triumph for us - and Nic made the full 16km walk - 5km of which was steep climbing without missing a step - I was so proud of her!

This was such an amazing trek and we would recommend anyone to do it - its hard but worth it!