day 1 - km 82

The tour usually start from KM 88, but if you go there on a private vehicle, KM 82 is the farthest you can get (the 6 KM walked was flat and the view was good).

DM- is waving at my camera, with her innocent smile, she was trying to deceive me that the Inca trail was a piece of cake.

This is our group. We have 6 people but we got 6 helpers and one more guide, JL- who was taking the photos for us.
From right to left, SK-, LB-, CT-, DJ-, DM-, and the last one is me.

The Inca Trail is pretty well maintained. But I don't see too many direction signs in there (or maybe they were in Spanish).

It's long but not very dangerous, some of the trails were beside high cliffs but generally they are safer than many trails I saw in Vancouver (but mentally they do look more dangerous).

This ruin was discovered by Bingham (the one who discovered Machu Picchu). It was thought to be a farming station and the soldiers who look after the farmers stay in the place where I took the picture from.

This is the place for the soldiers. They looked after the farmers in Patallacta. It doesn't look like regular Inca buildings, it was thought to be taken from some other tribes.

We thought this was our lunch but not really, it belongs to someone else (but it's unguarded, we could take advantage of it.)

This is really our lunch, the similarity of table clothing and chairs with the previous lunch set misguided us before.

A dead mouse. According to Inca believes, the spirit of this dead mouse is brought to the heaven by the condors and its spirit will live in the upper world before its body decayed. That's why people made mummies, just to keep the body fresh so the spirit can stay inside. If the body decayed, they will return to Pacha Mama (mother earth) and it won't be nice. That's also the reason why the last Inca Emperor rather joined the Catholic church so that he would die of hanging instead of burning.

It started raining when we were in huayllabamba. JL- suggested that we can sacrifice the girls in our group to stop the rain. The idea was voted out.

Take a right turn to the Inca trail after the bridge. Our porters were carrying the "gas tank" up the hill. JL- explained to us about the trail in the front.

This is a place I thought was a ruin.

With every rain come a rainbow which was worshipped by the Incas, they thought it was the messenger of the sun.

A piggy came out from no where, volunteer itself to be our dinner. SK- was very excited about the idea of BBQ Pork.

We camped for the night. It was cold but not the coldest.

Our helpers helping us to make dinner.

Hungry campers waiting to be fed.