We may only be on week three of 26, but I have no idea how we’re going to top what we’ve just done in the next five and a half months!

Warning: long blog ahead!

Day one

On the morning of our trek, there was a definite sense of excitement and mild trepidation around the breakfast table. So far, Peru has been a constant surprise with its incredible diversity in landscape and weather, so we were all still debating what equipment we would need to take. November is also the start of the rainy season so we had to be prepared for all eventualities!

A bus picked us up about 8am and we travelled for about 45 minutes to Km 82, which is the start of the Inca Trail. Here, we met our group of porters. On a typical day, around 500 people start their trek. Of this number, only around 200 are actually tourists and the rest are support crew. We booked our tour with G Adventures, and for our group of 13 people, we had two guides, two chefs and 17 porters who would not only be responsible for carrying the majority of our belongings along the trail, but would also set up and take down our tents, wash up, serve us and look after us in a way which we’ve certainly never camped! These absolute heroes would be carrying around 25kg each and would often overtake us, sometimes at a run.

After giving our porters all of our belongings and feeling pretty guilty about the fact we were only carrying a coat, a water bottle and a camera, we had to pass a checkpoint where we showed our passports and tickets. There was a quick five minute walk to the official start where we took photos with the sign as a group. We knew our first day would be relatively easy, so spirits were high.

As expected, the start of the walk was fairly easy and our guides stopped us every now and again to ensure our group stayed together and kept hydrated. They pointed out the glacier, the flora, historical areas and other points of interest and were very knowledgeable (as you would hope) about a variety of things we would encounter. The walk itself was mostly downhill for the first half of the morning, and then rapidly became mostly uphill! Upon reaching the top of the first uphill slog, we could look down over some Incan ruins and terraces from another site. We explored for a short while before moving on.

From here, it was a short walk to our lunch spot where we realised just how unlike all of our previous camping and hiking experiences this would be! The porters had set up a kitchen tent and a dining tent and had laid out bowls of warm water for us to clean up before eating. We sat in the dining tent and were presented with homemade lemonade and a three course meal which included soup, rainbow trout with rice and vegetables and a peach pudding. After lunch, the porters took care of clearing everything away as we enjoyed hot drinks in the sun.

Day one passed fairly quickly and we soon reached our next checkpoint and the campsite. As we arrived, the porters cheered and clapped our entrance which felt a little awkward seeing as how they had overtaken us while carrying all of our belongings… Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed arriving to a fully prepared campsite and settled in for the afternoon. Up first was a quick yoga session to stretch out any aches and pains, followed by us teaching our fellow campmates how to play spoons! After this, we officially met our team of support crew and all introduced ourselves before retiring to the dining tent for happy hour (hot chocolate and popcorn) and then dinner. As our wake up call would be at 5.30am, most of us retired to our tents fairly early, lulled to sleep by the first rain of the day.

Day two

At 5.30, we were awoken with the offer of tea in bed and a bowl of warm water to refresh ourselves. Breakfast was at 6am and we were amazed to find a bowl of porridge each as well as a pancake decorated with a copy of the various Nazca lines in dulce de leche! While we ate, our porters rolled up our bedding and packed it away with our tents.

We knew day two was going to be harder than the first day so we all set off relatively slowly. Today would pretty much be entirely uphill until the last hour, and we would be walking at our own pace and regrouping at set points. This was our first introduction to the Peruvian rainforest and the sights were beautiful enough to take your mind off the continual uphill and the fact that porters were running past you with packs that seemed as big as some of them, barely breaking a sweat.

As we walked higher, we left the rainforest and continued climbing to our highest point: Dead Woman’s Pass. This was at 4200m, or 13,000ft, not too far off the height of our sky dive, just for context. While it was named for the fact that the rocks look like a woman, I certainly felt like a dead woman by the time we reached the summit! We enjoyed the views at the top as best as we could, despite the fog rolling in and made the most of the cooler weather.

After regrouping at the summit, it was only an hour back down the other side to reach our campsite in time for lunch. After another delicious three course meal, we snoozed in our tents until happy hour and dinner again.

The next morning was another 5.30 wake up call which followed the same pattern as the previous day, but with omelettes instead of pancakes. Unfortunately, sleeping at this altitude seemed to have affected a couple of us and various members of the group were struggling with different afflictions. The pace today was notably different to the previous day and everyone took it a little easier. We ascended to our first stop, another Incan ruin which was used as a stopover for Incans completing the trail and learned a little more about the history of the buildings, the reason for the trek and the record times (3 and a half hours to complete the entire trail, achieved by a professional runner. In contrast, it took us four days to walk the 47km!).

Today was the longest day, covering around 16km, so we continued upwards on our trek to the next stopping point. This fortunately signalled the end of our steep ascent and we began the first downhill part, back into the rainforest.

This was to be our favourite part of the walk. The path was original Incan and was extremely narrow at points, with vertiginous drops down sheer cliff faces on the left side. Having said that, the greenery that surrounded us was beautiful and we stopped many times just to stare around us in awe.

Our morning walk finished with lunch on top of a mountain with incredible views around us. Our chefs provided an amazing buffet lunch followed by a cake which they baked in a saucepan!

After lunch, we continued on with our walk, stopping at further ruins and viewing points, including some incredible terraces just before we reached the campsite.

We reached our campsite just in time for happy hour and dinner before collapsing into bed, ready for a 3.30am wake up call before finishing our journey.

3.30am rolled around pretty soon and we scrambled out of bed for a quick, light breakfast before heading to our final checkpoint and the last leg.

This walk was relatively flat with a few short, sharp inclines where we all felt the tightness in our calves. However, it was entirely worth it when we reached the Sun Gate and saw Machu Picchu spread out in front of us, bathed in glorious sunlight.

To be finished tomorrow!