4200m, 45km´s, 4 days...

...that would be the Inca trail for those who may be wondering!

What a fabulous trip! The highlight of Peru for me. It was absolutely brilliant.

The adventure started back on November 8th with 11 other travellers from various parts of the world. Those being four Argentinians, two Americans, one German, one Dutch, one Hungarian and three Australians, myself included. There were also 13 amazing porters and 2 wonderful guides. Most of the group were couples bar a middle aged German hippie and two young American guys. Everyone was really nice, but the American boys were up there as my favourites along with the forever entertaining and crazy Dutchman, Martin. People either loved or hated Martin. He had a BIG personality. He was definatlely my most favourite person in the group as he made the four days that little more entertaining. There was never a dull moment with the crazy Dutchman about!

Given it´s the start of the rainy season, we did have drizzle a few mornings and heavier rain in the evenings, but the days were great. For the most part we were pretty lucky with the weather all considering. The days were always a good trekking temperature too...never too hot! The nights a bit chilly, particularly the second night when we were at the highest altitude. I forgot how cold it can be sleeping in a tent. It´s been a while! The trail itself was spectacular and not too difficult at all. Day one was a breeze, day two a bit of a killer going up, up, up with the altitude (nothing a few coca leaves didn´t fix), day three the most difficult for me as it was mostly downhill, rocky and steep with lots of deep slippery steps. A killer on the knees! And day four a breeze with only a couple of hours hiking to the final destination, Machu Picchu. We hiked over three very high passes, through rainforest, cloudforest, mist, rain and sunshine. Variety was something that certainly was not lacking over the four days.

As for the porters...these guys are incredible! Seeing is believing. They practicaly run up and along the trail at least three times the speed of anyone else. And all while carrying on their backs the groups tents, stoves, food and most peoples packs and sleeping gear. I have to say I was quite proud of myself carrying my own pack and sleeping gear. Only three of us opted to carry our personal belongings...all part of the challenge? Anyway, we would arrive at our campsites each day with the tents already up, including a kitchen tent and a dining tent complete with table and camping stools. We were provided with snacks each day and usually a 2 or 3 course meal at lunch and dinner. Breakfast was a feast in itself. The food was fantastic for a camping trip. The chef was a genious with no two meals being alike. To top it off, we were even brought a cup of tea to our tents each morning as part of our wakeup call! Couldn´t really get much better while "roughing it".

As mentioned, day 4 we arrived at the magical Machu Picchu. We were up at 4am in order to reach to the Sungate around sunrise. The Sungate is where you witness that famous Machu Picchu view which is used on just about every piece of advertising for the site. Unfortunatley for us, we couldn't see a thing! Just a mass of mist and cloud cover surrounded us. I actually thought it added to the mystery of the place. We waited about half an hour to see if the cloud would lift, but with no change in sight we decided to make our way down into the famous Inca City.

Machu Picchu...what can I say? Nothing that will do it the slightest bit of justice. It´s a beautiful and mystical place that awed me on every level. There is an energy that allows you to forget the worries of the world, or even forget that the rest of the world exists, and you just kind of ¨be¨.

One of many theories as to why this amazing city was only discovered in the early 1900´s is that the city was deliberately deserted not long after the Conquistadors arrived. This was in order to keep it from the Spanish, and given they were destroying all the other sacred sites, this was a pretty smart idea! Regardless of the various theories, about 8o percent of this Inca city is still intact, just leaving your imagination to fill in the missing pieces...