Our Inca Trail

The Inca Trail was one of the most challenging yet rewarding things either of us has ever done. For 4 days we hiked the world’s most famous trail until we reached the awe-inspiring Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. This is the story.


Getting to Km 82, the start of the trail

We had found out a few days previously that the 2 people we were to hike with were either from Austria or Australia (on the form their nationality was down as AUS). We were so happy when we met Nat and David from Australia, that they weren’t crazy mountain-hiking Austrians who were going to kill us up all the mountain passes along the way. We also met our guide, Juan, who would show us the way and teach us about all the archaeology on the trail.


We drove from Cusco to Km 82, which took about 3 hours. On arrival we were shown our tents and sat down for dinner, cooked by our chef for the trip, Cecilio. We were also greeted by a huge tarantula, which we were told was not poisonous. The porters quickly got rid of it anyway. Dinner was gorgeous soup with sweet bread, a lovely trout with veggies, and pineapple for dessert. We all stuffed ourselves, knowing we’d need the energy for the next day, then headed to bed for an early night.

Day 1: Km 82 (2,600m) to Wayllabamba (3,100m)


We got up at around 6.30am for our last shower for a few days. Breakfast was pancakes and fruit salad with yoghurt, washed down with the ritual coca tea to help with the altitude. We got on our way to the first checkpoint, and came across a small problem. The checks are very strict here and when David booked he had given his old passport number. His new passport didn’t match the entry permit, but fortunately he was still allowed in after some light persuasion by Juan.

The 4 of us looking fresh at the start of the trail

The first day is billed as an easy day. You ascend the 500m over 11km of hiking so people say it is reasonably flat. Whatever!! This day was a wake up call for us, this trek was not going to be easy at all, especially as we had opted to carry our own packs. At least we would have “Pachamama” (Mother Earth) on our side. Shortly after entering the trail, we sat down and Juan performed a ceremony, using local flowers and coca leaves as an offering to Mother Earth. We all closed our eyes and prayed that our trip would go well.

Juan arranging flowers and coca leaves for our offering to Pachamama

And the first hour or so did go well, then came a fairly steep hill that got the heart racing. We were amazed by the porters, who despite carrying huge 25kg packs, were still able to run past us. Shortly after the hill we were, however, rewarded with our first major archaeological site called Llactapata. This was a sprawling site tiered into the hillside, used as an important resting site and roadside shrine for the Inca King on his journey to Machu Picchu.

Typical view on the Inca Trail

Our legendary porters

Typical stunning view on the Inca Trail

Look at the size of that pack!!

We continued on for a short while until we reached our lunch spot, where we were surprised that there were 2 tents up, table and chairs waiting and a 2 course lunch ready. The porters were just chilling!! We asked how long they’d been waiting and were told an hour and a half. They must have been going at some pace considering they left after us!!

Our lunch tent

The afternoon was relatively short, although still uphill. We reached our campsite around 2.30pm (obviously the tents were already up and waiting) and the porters clapped us in. We were amazed at the stunning views from our tent. Mother Earth even gifted us a rainbow. After a wash, snack and a nap, it was time for dinner, which was again a fabulous 3 course affair. Tired legs soon beckoned us to bed at around 8pm, for tomorrow was going to be a tough day.

The view from our 1st campsite

Gem washing her smelly feet!!

Day 2: Wayllabamba (3,100m) to Paqaymayu (3,500m)

Although this looks an easy day, it isn’t. Day 2 is billed as the hardest of the 4 days as you have to ascend over the Dead Woman’s Pass at 4,200m, then come back down the other side to the campsite.

After breakfast we were introduced to the men who would keep us alive for the next few days, the porters. They carried everything from 4 days worth of food for 13 people (including eggs!), 5 tents and Nat and David’s packs (lazy Ozzies!!). We headed off in trepidation of a gruelling day ahead, which started uphill and continued uphill for 5 long hours. Great calf exercise!!

The porters and us after breakfast

Fortunately the scenery never failed to amaze us and kept our spirits up. Even the porters find this day tough and Juan was happy to get to the lunch spot as even he was feeling the pain, after a long holiday season (this being his first trip back on the Inca Trail after a few months of holiday).

A tired Juan

Who'd want to be a porter?!

Ells and Gem - all the gear, no idea!!

After a re-energising lunch, we continued ascending for another 2 hours until we reached the Dead Woman’s Pass. We had climbed 1,100m and were feeling the burn!! After a few high fives and photos, we started the descent to the campsite and saw why they call it the Dead Woman’s Pass. The mountain is shaped like a woman lying on her deathbed. Can you see it in the picture below?

The Dead Woman's Pass

Jubilant trekkers after the tough ascent to 4,200m

This was supposed to be the easy part, with gravity on your side. But it wasn’t. After an hour of rock steps built by the crazy Incas, our knees were aching and our legs shaking from the strain. The hired poles definitely came in handy. We could see the camp below, but it never seemed to get any closer. After 2 hours of descending we finally reached our site, where the porters were again taking it easy. Apparently, it is easier to run downhill with so much weight on your back, so they’d been there for some time. Amazing!!

The boys resting after their impressive completion of day 2

After a small rest, we played some cards with Juan and another guide, Martine, who had many a funny story of people doing silly things on the trail. From a Chinese woman who’d got lost after a late night toilet stop and scared some porters half to death when she tried to jump into bed with them to another woman who’d been dared by a guy to walk the trail in her bikini in exchange for him to carry her backpack. Unfortunately for him, he’d been so tied down with her heavy pack, she had stormed off and he didn’t get to see any of it!!

Dinner was again amazing, especially as Cecilio has to cook for everyone on a two range gas stove. We feel sorry for the porter who has to carry the gas bottle though!! Bed was again calling at around 7.30pm. Well, we need all the energy we can get!!

Cecilio in full chef's garb!!

Day 3: Paqaymayu (3,500m) to Winay Wayna (2,700m)

This was the longest of the 4 days, with a lot of descending to do, but also 2 more mountain passes to cross. From our campsite, we first had to hike uphill, where we passed the ruins of Runkurakay. We continued on up to the 2nd pass at 3,950m, then descended down to a well preserved Inca town called Sayaqmarca. We walked around the site, looking at the incredible architecture, then continued down to our much needed lunch spot. Things were starting to ache by now!!

The ruins of Runkurakay

Us and our 50 year old porter, "the Lion"

View of Sayaqmarka from the top of the 2nd pass

The next stretch was again uphill through jungle to the 3rd pass. The ascent wasn’t as steep as before and the trekking was very enjoyable, with great views over the Andean valleys. We celebrated as we conquered the final pass of our trek at 3,670m. From here it was all downhill. Shortly after the pass we visited more ruins called Phuyupatamarka, a site with a long chain of Inca baths. We went through a few Inca tunnels, parts of the trail that the Incas actually carved through the mountain. The steps were, however, endless in our final descent to our campsite at Winay Wayna. We arrived at around 4.30pm, shattered and thankful that we could have a hot shower for the first time in 3 days.

Happy faces after reaching the 3rd and final pass

Decsending through the Inca Tunnels

Descending through the jungle down the crazy Inca steps

After cleaning ourselves up, Elliott and David enjoyed a well-deserved beer, then we went back to the camp for dinner. We ate, then said goodbye to the porters who had done such an amazing job. We gave them a tip and thanked them for their hard work. We certainly have a new found respect for these guys, one of whom was 50 years old and absolutely ripped!! We headed back to our tents for some much needed rest as tomorrow, we would be getting up at 3.30am!!

Gem and the porters on the last night

Day 4: Winay Wayna (2,700m) to Machu Picchu (2,400m)

It rained pretty much the whole night and when our alarms went off, we were both still knackered from the day before. Cecilio had, however, prepared pancakes again for our final breakfast, which we devoured despite the fact it was 4am. We got in the queue for the final control point, which opened at 5.30am, then we started our final trek to Intipunku (the Sun Gate), where we would see the sunrise over Machu Picchu. We stormed up there in about an hour, but were unfortunately disappointed by a huge screen of white (valley fog according to our resident Geographer). We continued down for another half hour until, after 43km of hiking up and down the Inca Trail, we finally reached the most famous Inca site in the world, Machu Picchu.

There was still a lot of fog in the air when we got there at 7.30am, but through the breaks in the cloud you could see the amazing ruins below us. We got rid of our packs, then marched over to the entrance to Wayna Picchu (the mountain you can see in the back of the photos below). Juan had bet that Elliott and Gemma wouldn’t be able to make it after hefting around a 14kg and 10kg pack for 4 days, so we took the bet and headed up the mountain.

Wayna Picchu must be one of the craziest things the Incas ever did. They carved steps in a mountain that has an impossible gradient, then when they got to the top, they decided to build a temple there. The trek up was not exactly what our legs needed, but we were curious to see the views of the site and the surrounding area from a better vantage point. We made it up in about an hour, but the cloud was still ruling the morning. We looked around the site, with Gemma becoming ever more scared of the vertical drops to the valley floor below (obviously there is no railing as we’re not in the UK!!).

Gem defying vertigo up the steps of Wayna Picchu

Machu Picchu - that way (but don't fall off the edge!)

After we had circled the site, we came back to the Machu Picchu side of the mountain, and Mother Earth did us a favour. The clouds broke and there below us was the magnificent site of Machu Picchu. It is absolutely massive, we were spellbound, just reeling off photo after photo of this incredible place.

Machu Picchu from the top of Wayna Picchu

Us looking over Machu Picchu

The ruins of Wayna Picchu

We started to make our way back down Wayna Picchu, taking care as the steps were so thin. We got to the bottom and met up again with Juan, who then gave us a tour. We were amazed at the scale of the place. There was agricultural land there, homes and many religious buildings. The architecture and stone work was quite astounding, given the tools they worked with. The blocks of stone are joined together using no mortar, but just complete precision sculpting of each individual rock. The place must have taken decades to build. Unfortunately it was never finished as the Spanish invaded and all the men either went south to repel the Spanish attack or north to build the final city of the Incas. Or so the legend goes.

Us at the entrance to Machu Picchu

Us looking over the site

The classic postcard view

We said our goodbyes to Nat and David, who were going to get married in the hotel next to Machu Picchu the next day (congratulations again!!) and we took the bus down to the town of Aguas Calientes for lunch with Juan. Burger and chips and a beer was the order of the day!! We said “adios” to Juan, who had to get his train back to Cusco, then wandered the markets of the town, before getting our own train back to Cusco.

Goodbye to our fellow hiking buddies

A well-deserved beer

We’d like to thank Juan from Ecoinka for teaching us well, Nat and David for sharing our amazing experience and making us laugh, and most of all, the porters, without whom, we’d probably have died somewhere between Km 82 and Machu Picchu. If you get the chance to do this trail, please do it. You will not regret it!!

Love Ells and Gem xx

We've been tangoed!!

Argentina continued...

The buses in Argentina aren’t like anything you would get in the UK. Berry’s has nothing on Andesmar!! After a mad panic to find our bus to Mendoza at the sprawling main bus station in Buenos Aires, we eventually boarded with a few minutes to spare to find our “seats” in the lower deck. We say seats as they were actually fully-reclinable beds, like you would get in business class on a jet (well, so we’ve been told anyway!).

We got ourselves comfortable when the conductor came around with little slips with numbers on it. “Bingo” he said!! Amazing, there we were, lying down on our way across Argentina, playing bingo in Spanish. Fortunately, we had a good translator across the aisle from us!!

We came close, but didn’t win, then started on the booze. They offered us red wine with our hot dinner, then a glass of champagne as a night cap, while we watched “American Gangster” on the TV. A little tipsy, we slept through the whole night until breakfast the next morning.

Mendoza – Argentina’s premier wine region

Our first excursion was a tour of the Andes, which we thought included some hiking, but was actually all done in a mini-bus. Probably for the best though as Elliott had got extremely drunk the night before and his snoring had kept Gem up half the night. We were both pretty knackered the next morning. One of us was hungover!!

The tour was however quite spectacular. We drove up into the Andes towards Chile and saw numerous amazing sights, including the peak of Aconcagua (the highest mountain in South America) and a smaller Christ the Redeemer statue on the border with Chile. For this we drove up a steep and narrow pass to an altitude of around 4000m, which made us both feel a bit nauseous to be honest. The geography and geology throughout our Andean drive were both incredible though. Gem was snapping away at all sorts of rocks and rivers, greatly looking forward to incorporating them into Powerpoints for future lessons!!

While in Mendoza we also had to do the compulsory wine tour, as this is Argentina’s most popular wine region. We did a half day tour, taking in 2 vineyards and an olive oil factory. The wine tours were great fun, being taken down into the cold cellars to see huge barrels full of wine and tasting them of course!! The olive oil factory was cool too. Their basil-infused olive oil was fantastic!! We ended the day buying a few bottles of wine and a jar of olives, which we devoured over the next few days.

Back to Buenos Aires

We ended our stay in Argentina in La Boca in Buenos Aires. Although the Lonely Planet seems to think it is a fairly dangerous part of the city, we thought it was great. We walked the colourful streets and sat and watched a tango show, whilst drinking more red wine. We found out that Boca Juniors (the local football team) were playing a match that evening, so we stuck around to try and get some tickets, but to no avail.

Overall, Argentina has been bitter sweet for us. We have absolutely loved the beautiful scenery, from the glaciers and mountains in the south to the vineyards and cities in the middle (we didn’t go to the North!). The wine and the beef were both top quality and our much loved breakfast of ‘cafe con leche y medialunas’ was amazing too (check out that Spanish!!). It was just so expensive. Everything for foreigners was inflated by maybe 500%. We even had to pay airport tax to leave the country at $18 each, which was almost the final straw.

Anyway, on to Peru, where we could hopefully try and get back on budget.

Quick stop in Lima

We only spent one real day in Lima. After dropping our bags off at the hostel, we quickly arranged our transport out of there the next day. We went for a walk along the beachfront, which looked quite nice. Everyone was out jogging or in the sea surfing. “Doesn’t anyone have jobs in this city”, we thought!! We can hardly talk!!

Nazca and the Nazca lines

We got our 8 hour bus to Nazca, south of Lima. It went quite quickly, again they served us decent food and we watched loads of movies. We arrived around 10pm and pretty much went straight to bed. Tomorrow was a big day for us both!!

We rose early for our 8am transfer to Nazca airport. We were told not to bother with breakfast beforehand. We were going to do a flight over the Nazca lines in a light aircraft. Obviously this was bringing back bad memories for us both, but we have come here to explore the Inca history and a 30 minute flight over the area is the only way to do it. Gem was absolutely bricking it as we drove into the airport and she saw loads of tiny little Cessna aircraft zooming up and down the runway. We signed up and paid the obligatory airport tax (again!!) then waited for our flight.

Soon we were hurtling down the runway and we took off into the skies over the Nazca desert. We had been told that the flight could be a bit bumpy and involved lots of tight turns. For once, the Lonely Planet guide wasn’t wrong! The Nazca lines are ancient drawings in the desert sand of various forms like animals and people and some of them are over 100m long. Our pilot navigated us along a path above these drawings and to make sure everyone got a good look, he’d dip the wings at a crazy bank angle to let us get a better photo. It was a good experience for us both, putting away a few demons. The lines were awesome, but we were glad the flight was only a half hour as we were both feeling a little sick afterwards.

Into the high altitude of Cuzco

After our day in Nazca, we got the night bus to Cuzco, from where we would start the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. We set off at 1am and soon we were heading east over the Andes mountains. The journey was a continuous stretch of winding turns up and down the mountains and valleys. It wasn’t long before the altitude got to us. We barely slept at all due to the slow build up of the worst hangover style headache you can imagine coupled with nausea. Elliott even turned down breakfast, which has got to be a first!! The 12 hour journey continued on into a 13th and 14th and 15th hour until we finally arrived in Cuzco at 10,000 feet above sea level.

As we rose over the final pass, we saw this amazing city, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, but packed with ancient relics from times past that we were eager to explore. Well, we would be eager if it wasn’t for this damn headache. The first night we were in bed by 9pm and we both slept for 11 hours, waking up to find that the headache had calmed but was still there. Just walking into town is hard enough, with us both struggling to catch our breath just going out for groceries!! How will we manage the Inca Trail?

By our 3rd day here we have just about acclimatised to the altitude, meaning we have been able to get out of the hostel and explore the city. We walked around the centre looking at all the churches and museums with such amazing architecture and history and went to a few markets where the local people sell their wares. They are such a talented people that we have given in to temptation a few times and bought some beautiful things. When buying a rug from a lady Gem couldn’t resist getting a photo with her side by side to prove that she is actually TALL here. She even “towers” over most of the men!!

In preparation for our Inca Trail we hiked up a hill to another statue of Jesus Christ. The hill was pretty steep but with a few breaks we made it up in good time, which hopefully bodes well for the Inca Trail itself. Once up there, the views over the city were simply stunning.

Off to Machu Picchu

So after breathing this thin air for 5 days, we are now off on the Inca Trail for the next 4 days and nights. Hopefully we have acclimatised enough to make it, especially as we’ve gone for the backpacker option...no porters!! Wish us well and we’ll blog on our return.

Love Ells and Gem xx