We woke up for a very early start with our 7kg holdall bags packed with everything we'd need at camp whilst our smaller back packs were filled with water, snacks, spare socks and some spare clothing if the weather turned. We weighed our bags due to the trail restrictions and briefly met our porters for the trip. 

The day before, during our tour of the Sacred Valley, Bobby had received a message from his wife, also a tour guide, advising him that a farmer had started a fire to fertilise his soil after the harvest but unfortunately it had got out of control. The fire was spreading right near Machu Picchu mountain and was a threat to our trip. It hung over us a little on that day and when we were told on the morning of our first day that the fire was still burning, all we could do was start the trip a little anxious.

On route we stopped again at Ollantaytambo for the porters to buy some last minute food where we also took the chance to buy a snack and have some coffee. We hopped back on the bus and headed on our way to our starting point, KM82. At the starting point Michael thought he'd give one of the porters' bags a try which was half the weight of me at 25kg. Whilst he managed to get it on, he was quite happy to take it off after a few moments! The porters would reach our lunch spot in half the time it would take us and with more than 20kg of extra weight on their shoulders too. 

We headed down to the check point where we showed our passports and our tickets for the Inca Trail. Onwards we went to have a photo at the KM82 starting point sign and before we knew it our hike on the first part of the Inca Trail had already begun! The first site we passed was named Camabamba, this was a resting place - it wasn't a campsite, more of what we'd call a modern day pit stop. The view was beautiful as we hiked and the climb so far wasn't too tough. Bobby took the lead and we all stayed close together, going at a fairly slow pace along the way.

A sign of the beauty to come.

A rather blurry photo of Camabamba - it actually ran alongside another Inca Trail on the other side.

We met this beauty at one of the houses on the trail belonging to a local family. They also had chickens. He looked absolutely fierce for such a beautiful little kitten.

After the flat turned to 'Inca flat' which actually means really bloomin' steep then a little bit flat, we breathlessly reached the top of our first real hill. At the top of this was some small family houses where they were selling drinks, snacks and also offering a toilet stop. To Martin and Michael's delight, they also sold cold beers! Apparently this was one of the last Inca villages on the trail. 

We had another big hill ahead but the view when we reached the top was incredible. The mountains surrounded us and the snowcaps peeped up among the other mountains. Two horses grazed nearby and we followed Bobby around to the next Inca Site on the trail, Llaqtapata, which happened to be the biggest in Machu Picchu Park. I couldn't even describe this place with words, the photos show how incredible it was...

These two horses grazed just next to Llaqtapata. We passed some Donkeys on the way too all happily roaming the trail.

Here you can really see the scale of the houses in Llaqtapata. The structure in terms of the terraces was in some ways similar to that which we saw at Moray on The Sacred Valley Tour, however these were not for agricultural purposes but were means of defence instead.

It's hard to put the scale of the site in perspective in photos, but honestly it was simply incredible.

Next to this Inca site was a pre-Inca site called Willkarakay, where Ann Kendal, initially a graduate when she first visited Peru for her studies, restored the water and brought it back to Llaqtapata to make running water available much like they had done in Inca times. The site in the above photo is shaped as such to protect it against flooding, the villagers would live within and down in the far right corner was the priests home. It was magnificent to see.

The hike continued and before long we'd arrived at our spot for lunch. As we came around the corner our porters clapped for us and whilst this was such a lovely way to arrive we couldn't understand why they would clap for us! They'd done all the hard work, all we'd done was hike and sight see!

The lunch we had was amazing and really was the start of things to come in terms of our meals. For starters we had asparagus soup followed by a selection of bread, ham, cheese and two different flavourings of guacamole. After being absolutely stuffed, we were poured a cup of cocotea to help with the altitude.
Post-lunch we relaxed for a short while, reapplied suncream and refilled our empty bottles. A little way into the beginning of our walk Bobby stopped us whilst he went to the next check point and then showed us a map of the second days walk:
In our itinerary from Exodus they quoted day two as the toughest, but Bobby's personal opinion was day three. As he's done the Inca Trail almost 700 times we trusted him! The second half of the hike is a bit of a blur, the sights continued to be beautiful but even at the time it seemed a blur to me. We were at a new camp in a few hours and our porters clapped us once more. Our tents were set up for us with the porters hard at work in the kitchen and around camp. We moved our bags inside and had a quick wash, then we were called into the tent for snack time which was copious amounts of popcorn that we wolfed down.
For dinner on the first evening we had soup to start, with locally sourced trout and rice for dinner followed by Banana Flambane for dessert. We couldn't believe we were on our way into the mountains and this was the kind of food we were being served - you'd never have that if I was the chef on a camping trip!
After dinner we came outside to the most beautiful sky. There was no light pollution apart from the minimal amount from the torches in our camp, but once they went out the view was breathtaking. Staring up at the Milky Way was the perfect way to end our first day of the trail...
Our sleep that night was a little restless. The cold was biting and even with loads of layers and a sleeping bag done all the way up over my face I was so cold. At one point in the middle of the night I needed the toilet and I absolutely had to go. Coldest peeing experiencing of my life!

On that note, there ends day one! It's hard to put a hike into words when I didn't make as many notes as I intended. It's been a few months now since Peru and I'm sad the memories are already becoming muddled within my busy work and home life. I'm clinging on to what I can, but the photos really do most of the talking!

Come back soon for Inca Trail Day Two - featuring Dead Woman's Pass, 4,200 m high views and much more beautiful scenery! 

MissIsGoode

On the day we travelled to Cusco we woke in our cabin at Cayman Lodge Amazonie, packed our bags, ate our breakfast and travelled back to Puerto Maldonado. We hugged Frank goodbye after an inspiring few days in his company and boarded our fourth plane of the trip. We arrived to a beautifully warm and sunny city. Cusco is elevated to around 3,400m and on the way towards baggage collection Stansa, one of our fellow travellers, spotted some coca leaves being given out freely and took a small handful. The purpose of coca leaves in Peru for travellers and locals alike is as a means of prevention against altitude sickness. We weren't aware of it at the time, but apparently you're supposed to spit the leaves out...we of course all swallowed a small handful, which Bobby found quite hilarious.  

We arrived at our hotel for the night, Hotel Inkarri, and quickly headed out for lunch at Gustitos de Loli - which I'd highly recommend! Whilst we were all hungry we were also quite eager to get back to our hotel rooms for the first hot shower in three days, so we gobbled our delicious food down at pace and shot back to the hotel. After freshening up a few of us headed into the square which was beautifully lit up. The incredible cathedral and architecture surrounding us was truly stunning. Unfortunately we only brought our phones with us and with all the lights, the photos came out awfully! 

After a good rest in a relatively warm room that actually had walls (although I quite liked how open our rainforest cabins were!), we were set up for a jam packed day of exploring Cusco. Today was the 'Sacred Valley Tour' an optional addition to our holiday we were all keen to go on, and I'm so glad we did. 

On the drive to our first site Bobby told us a little about the history of Cusco. Apparently, the original name for Cusco was Qosqo which translates to belly button - according to history, it was named this as it was thought to be the centre of the world.

Bobby also shared a rather inspiring tale about a mountain called Veronica. Veronica, also known as Willka Weqa, is the third highest mountain in Peru and it's name has quite a wonderful history. A group of male Swiss hikers tried to hike the mountain during the wet season but failed to do so. They returned in the dry season and a Peruvian woman named Veronica asked to join them. The men said it was for men to climb, not women but said she could hike with them but they'd be free of blame if she became injured in any way. On the hike, she managed to be the first to reach the top and the mountain was supposedly renamed in her honour!

On the drive we passed a huge area of farmland that the government has recently acquired. The intention for this town, called Chinchero - which sits on the outskirts of Cusco - is to build a new international airport here. In the locals opinions, this will damage the farm based community and will change the area entirely, replacing their main source of income with tourism instead. It will also make travelling to Peru different - the only international airport currently is in Lima, an otherwise uninspiring city that attracts tourists mainly as a pit stop. 

We finally reached our first site, called 'Moray'. This site is 150m deep, with each step of land presenting a different eco system for different crops to grow. The site was restored in 2014 by the Institute of Natural Agriculture. Before 2010 the site hadn't even been visited by tourists and Bobby himself remembered visiting the site to play football on with his friends when he was a boy. When a big flood caused Machu Picchu to be closed for 3 months, tour guides started to bring tourists on the Sacred Valley Tour, which introduced them to the rich history surrounding Cusco and made Moray a popular site to visit. 

The photo doesn't do justice to how huge the Moray site truly is. You can see just to the right of the centre of the photo there is a zig-zig - these are small steps used to move between each layer. In the centre of the circular area is a small drainage hole, and on the higher level there was once a small house for the groundskeeper.

This site was just to the left, over a hill, of the Moray site. The name of which you can read in the photo below. The stone is in piles because they are in the process of rebuilding it - if you can spot two of the workers in this you have good eye site or good zoom!

We moved on from here to Ollantaytambo, a town we'd visit a few times during our trip. The locals here still live in the same houses the Incas once did in the 1200's, having supposedly only replaced the roofs. The site we visited here was part of Ollantaytambo, and one that the Incas acquired after conquering another society who had originally built it. Whilst not originally made by the Incas, they built upon the basis of the structure with incredible stone work. We were shown the location of the quarry and it was hard to comprehend how they possibly transported huge cuttings of masonry and brought them high up into the site. 

A rather photogenic alpaca (or was it a llama? Even after travelling to Peru I still can't quite tell!).

More of the site built straight into the mountain

The notches on these stones were all part of the moving process and enabled the stones to be easier to carry and move. After putting the stones into place, these notches would usually be removed however, historians and locals suspect that these ones were left unfinished due to the timing of the Spanish Invasion.

Another example of the stone work, can you imagine trying to move these without modern machinery?!

Opposite this site is a large storage area for grains. From afar we thought this was a large grave, but after telling us what its true use was, Bobby explained that the way in which it is built means it's shielded perfectly from the elements, wind in particular. A citizen would have had to sit on the mountainside for days, weeks, months even to try and establish the perfect place to build this site. 

A view of the storage from another a different angle, capturing a slightly higher view of the town.

This was the carving which helped the people to tell the seasons, the notches each create differing shadows based on where the light is coming from.