DAY 84 - 87: 6th October - 9th October: Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

We all woke up and left the hotel in Ollantaytambo to get to our meeting point to start the Inca trail. Our hike started around 9am we had to trek 12km to Wayllabamba - the weather started off very nice but after one hour it began to rain. So out came the rain jackets and they were not put away until the morning we arrived at Machu Picchu. The weather was terrible. The second day was very though with a 3 hour slug uphill reaching 4300m above sea level and then heading down death women's pass - which had turned into a waterfall by the time we reached it. Luckily we arrived at the campsite around 12:30/1pm and we had about an hour of sun so I tried to dry some of my clothes out. The next morning I woke up aching with a small river in my tent - everything was wet - great start. We had 15km to walk this day but it was a lot flatter and more downhill - although this was not a favorite with my knee. We arrive at the top of another mountain for lunch - it was so cold and windy our tent blew down whislt we were eating. Then the guide decided he was going to talk in the rain about some inca ruins - which made my hands so cold I cried. Finally, we reached our last camp site - we had dinner and the chef made one of the girls in our group a birthday cake. We were all very excited as the next morning we had a two hour walk to reach the ever most famous Machu Picchu. After an hour we reached the Sun gate - this was the first time we could see Machu Picchu - it was amazing - it was so big. We then all kind of ran the last part of the trek due to excitement and adredaline. It was incrediable and so worth doing the trek instead of just getting the train up. We then had a tour around the historical site.

That afternoon we went into a local town called agua caliente -where we all had lunch until we got out train to Ollantaytambo where we then got a bus back to Cusco. That evening we went to a restaurant that did a little bit of everything and had a few drinks which was nice and went to sleep to catch up on the last 3 nights on tent sleeping.