But a not so hard trek..

Our first day of the Inca Trail, we met all at 6 for 2h of bus before reaching the official starting point: the km 82 (2600m). This point was quite buzy as most of the trekking groups start from here. To avoid walking during 4 days around many other trekkers, we walked one hour further than all this other groups. This last hour was of course the steepest: our 2 guides used this hour to analyze our walking style and determine the level of the group(did they notice our amazing walking pole handling?). What came as a surprise is that Peter and I did quite well in going on the steep path and we even reached the camp before 70% of the group (including the Navy guy and his athletic wife). At the camp, everything was ready for us: the dinner and the tents were already installed by the 22 local porters who were incredibly fast.

The second day was supposed to be the toughest: 12km and 2 passes to reach : the first one had the promising name of "Dead woman path" and is at 4300m. We kept our magical technique combining focusing on breathing and on chewing cola leafes and we made it:) This was quite a relief as this pass is the hardest moment of the all 45kms. We rejoyed for a few minutes after realising that stairs down were waiting for us. Surprinsly going down is much harder for the legs especially on irregular inca stairs. God or Pachamama bless our walking poles which have been so useful.
On the 2nd night at the camp, it was time for a bit of celebration with some peruvian rhum as the hardest was behing us.

The 3rd day was mainly 8km going down on these damned stairs. Fortunately the landscape was really super amazing and we knew that a warm shower would be waiting for us in the campside at Winay Wayna. This campside was pretty gigantic as all the trekking groups sleep here. It was quite a shock after 2 days in the peaceful mountains: We even had dinner in a room with music and beers:)

The 4th day was the final day: 7km down to the famous Machu Picchu. In order to reach it first, we woke up at 3:45 am. Unfortunately when we reached the gate to the National Parc (it opens around 5 am), there was already a group. Once the gate opened, people got a bit mental and started walking super fast. I swear I saw some people running. The pace was so exhausting, I almost suffered the most during this last hour of trekk. We finally reached the sun gate from where we could see for the first time MachuPicchu. Picture time!!
Our main guide Fredd (a 25 year old quechuan)gave us a 2hours tour of the ruin. He studied archeology in Cusco with a professor specialised in the Inca civilisation. This PH doctor died before publishing his controversial findings about the Inca, so we heard very interesting facts about the Incas..We are quite perplex about some of them but they sounded quite cool: Incas were very tall (2m30) and had one more bones than any other human races. Despite they neither used the wheel or the writting, they were very advanced in building, agriculture, astronomy and medicine.

After the tour, we had a final lunch with all the group: everyone was almost falling asleep on their chairs. As we had a bit of time before our train, we went with 3 of the Aussies to the hot springs of Agua Calientes. The pools looked quite dirty but after 4 days of trekking who cares? The hot water and the 2-3 mojitoes we drank in the pool cured our sore muscles! Peru is defintely a magical world:)

Now it is time to show the pictures (I have to repeat one more time that the scenery was amazing and very diversified):