After checking out of our hostel yesterday, we headed into town to rent our hiking gear for the inca trail!! (Very exciting)

It was actually cheaper for us to buy the sticks and bottle so to our delight (and probably our parents dismay), we have more souvenirs to come home with us!
We then checked into our new hotel (first three stay establishment we’ve been in, again it’s all very exciting) which is also home to g adventures, the company we will be doing our inca trail with and at 5pm we had our briefing.
We met our group of 12 here and our tour guide / leader, spider. We looked on the form to check our passport numbers and realised that Juliet and I have paid a little but more than some other people but have SIX porters between us! There’s 18 porters for our group so we have the majority hehe (very happy about that). Spider talked us through each aspect of the hike, letting us know this is his 234th time climbing the inca trail and for him it’s home. Today we’re having training and exploring a town and different archeological sites but then it gets progressively harder from there. One of the days (day three I think) it’s only up hill for 7 hours with no breaks, sometimes basically vertical and all stone steps… So that’ll be super easy for two girls who have been lying on beaches for 5 months…
Each day has a new adventure and although I know what’s going to happen I don’t want to spoil too much for my blog after it! Spider got us all pumped and excited explaining we should stop and smell the roses (although he’s Peruvian and got confused and said smell and stop for roses) and that going slow is better (we liked this but of information). He told us he’s always be at the back supporting and cheering us on and we have become a family on a holiday and in our rest time we’ll be playing cards with the porters, joking with the chefs and learning about each other. We’re camping every night except the first and on our last day we wake up at 3.30 (!!!)am so that we can hike into Machu Picchu and be the first ones there to watch the sunrise. I’m so keen for this day to arrive but also excited for the adventure to come before!
Next stop Machu Picchu!!!

It’s now morning and we’ve packed everything into our small 6kg max duffle bag and then also our small day bags, which are SO comfy (great rent). Although it was a struggle, we’re ready and packed and all set to go. Eating a nice carb filled breakfast now and soon we’ll be off!!!

I will miss talking to everyone and blogging but be SO excited for my blog in five days when I’m back – I know I’ll have amazing pictures.

Ps when we come back we’ll be experts and chewing coca leaves because spider said his grandfather taught him to chew them while on the trek and so he’s going to teach us! (Don’t want to be getting altitude sickness do we…)