Cusco and The Sacred Valley

Machu Picchu - Incredible!!!

Inca Trail

The trek begins.



Above is our trekking team. It all seemed a bit ridiculous but for the five of us in the group (front row) there were 10 porters and a guide. The youngest guide was 18 and the oldest was 62!! At every stop, the porters would put up tents and a chef in full chef whites (including hat) would start cooking.

Our first view of an Inca site





First lunch stop - a three course hot meal.

Slava having a lie down after a huge lunch

Gorgeous site for the first night

Lama

Our guide, Silvio, pouring run into the mouth of a porter to celebrate reaching the highest point of the trek.

After 3 hours in pouring rain we arrived at the second camp to be greeted with hot apple and rum...mmmmm. We were soon feeling much warmer.

Beautiful terracing.

Pretty steps.

More Inca sites

We woke at 4am to arrive at the Sun Gate for our first view of Machu Picchu around 6am. This was the view :)

The clouds start to clear....

INCREDIBLE.

The following day we decided to climb a mountain opposite Maccu Piccu to get a different perspective. Unfortunately a land slide had destroyed the ladders so we had to turn back.