Salkantay Trek

On the day of leaving for our Slaknatay trek we were travelling to the starting point Mollepata at 4.30am, here we had breakfast and prepared to walk the first 10km. In Mollepata we were advised to buy Coca leaves for chewing on to help alltiude sickness. Before lunch the walk gradually ascended. For lunch we stopped and had our food served to us by 2 waiters and a chef in uniform, this was very funny considering the view was Humantay Glacier and we were 3700m above sea level. Lunch consided of a starter (always prepared as a 5* restaurant would), a soup, a buffet lunch of about 10 huge plates for 12 of us. After around 7km more walking , passing the Humantay Glacier, we reached the first camp. This was the coldet camp and was -10 degrees, so difficult to sleep for Samantha in her -5 sleeping bag. The second day we woke up at 4 and had 18 km to walk, half uphill and half downhill. The air was very thin and sometimes difficult to breathe due to the allitude. We passed through Salkantay Valley and saw Salkantay Mountain. We heard 2 avalanches but did not see them, apparently they are very common there. Once arriving at the second camp, after walking a long time, we had our happy hour ( crackers, jam, hot drinks, juice, popcorn) and our 3 course tea. This night was slightly warmer but still cool. On the third day we woke up at 6am and walked for 12km, we reached Camp Playa (unfortunately not by a beach, Playa is Beach in Spanish ) by lunch and Sam still had time to play some Glacier side football on the way with the guides and other tourists. At La Playa we washed in the river which was absolutley freezing as its water source was from the glaciers. On the forth day we went to the hot springs in Santa Teresa, these are natural and crystal clear and by the bottom of the mountains. There were 3 hot springs and one cold one, which Sam dared to go in. The best one was the size of a swimming pool, and deep enough to dive in. We then caught a train to Aguas Caliente and stayed in a hotel for our final night. The fifth moring we woke up at 4am and joined a bus queue for the Machu Picchu ruins. When we arrived in Machu Picchu at 6am, it was cloudy and cold as its 2400m above sea level. After our tour by our guide Marco we adventured it ourselves and the weather cleared up. We hiked to the sungate which had spectactular views. The view we had was incrediblle, it looked unreal like something from a film. It was also much bigger than we had imagined, from the pictures that we have seen. We saw proof that the site had never been finished and the Quechan people had abandoned it before it was complete, probably due to spanish invaders. We saw a sundial which on the 22nd of June for 4 minutes is on the equater of the earth. Machu Picchu was incredible. Finally we got a bus back down to Aguas Calinete as we didnt fancy more hiking after the 60km we had just done.