DAY 22

1st day - Climb 150 meters 1st day

Gorgeous sunny day

The easiest day with lots of stops along the way

DAY 23

2nd day - Climb 1,200 meters, 5klms, steap

Dead woman’s pass

Shane insisted that he take my bag up the steap bit

DAY 24

3rd day - 14klms best stretch, climbing 75klms

Raining, snowing. freezing cold. Saturated.

After lunch we were warm and ready for the decline down to the campsite.

DAY 25

4th day - 1,000 meters down, 6klms after lunch. 3.30am in the morning. 40minutes down to Macchu Picchu, 20minutes to enjoy Machu Picchu

Woke up at 3.15 am to be packed and ready to go ASAP. Wake up call from Ugo was 3.30 but we wanted extra time to pack up our sleeping bags.

We packed up and walked a dark 5 - 10 minutes down to the gate. The gate opens at 5.30am every morning and the line gets very long so our guides wanted us there ASAP to secure a bench (there were only four long benches) and just in time we secured the last one. We then had to wait in the pitch black, freezing cold morning (it was snowing yesterday). Our porters packed us a paper bag breakfast so we started munchining on that to fill us up and keep us going the next 6klms. We had ham and cheese rolls, a juice, an apple and some snacks.

50 steep stairs to the sun gate

Walked down and around to Machu Picchu

After Machu Picchu we caught a bus then train down to the town, before having lunch

After lunch, we had a bus transfer to take us back to Cusco, the traffic was horrible and it felt like it took us all afternoon and night to get back to our hotel. Everyone was dying for a shower and a proper nights sleep. We went out for a quick bite to eat for dinner around 8pm, we found a Maccas at the main square came back to the hotel and crashed

DAY 26

Our free day in Cusco after a long four days trekking to Macchu Picchu and my goodness we needed it. We had a big sleep in and layed in bed until 10am before heading out and grabbing a bite to eat because we missed breakfast. We found a cute restaurant with coffee and burgers. After brunch, we went to a day spa recommended by our tour guide Eddie. It was five star! It was a full on day spa with showers, saunas, massage rooms. It was actually a hotel with a really fancy restaurant as well. We had an hour couples massage, deep tissue to smooth out the knots from a hard four days of climbing. We walked around the town for a bit and Shane was considering Bungee Jumping. Until we bumped into our guide who said it was predicted to rain so it wasn’t a good idea. Instead we walked up some stairs to the top of the town, San Cristabal and just sat there and took it all in. After some more walking we stopped at KFC for an afternoon snack of 3 hot wings each. Shane didn’t want to walk around for much longer and I was dying for a wash and blow dry so around the corner from our hotel I went to a little salon who were so paitient washing and brushing out my knots that built up after being through all kinds of conditions in braids the past four days.