After a days travel we were pretty exhausted. The company who we chose to do the Inca Trail with picked us up from the airport and dropped us at our hostel. Cuzco is the oldest inhabited city in the Americas, and is 3600 metres above sea level. The guidebook told us to expect altitude sickness, consisting of loss of appetite, sickness, diarrhoea and headaches, and to take it seriously because it can be life threatening if your lungs fill with fluid. Nice! After a few hours it kicked in, and felt like someone had put our heads in a vice! Luckily we had cable TV so laid on our beds watching hours of Coupling and Seinfeld, and prepared ourselves for the Inca Trail in two days time. Think we could have used some more preparation!