On the first day of the hike we were picked up at 5:30am to begin the journey to the start of the Inca Trail. There are various routes that can be taken to Machu Picchu, including less treacherous ones that take a combination of buses and a train, but the Inca Trail has parts that are up to 90% of the original inca Trail and it passes by other smaller ruin sites on the way. It took a while to get all of our equipment and porters ready but we finally took off hiking (in the rain) around 10:30am. The trail is in a protected park so there were checkpoints and strict regulations on the weight our porters were carrying. We decided against paying for an extra porter to carry our personal gear so we made sure to pack the bare minimum! 

The first day if hiking was fairly easy without any steep up or down hills. We stopped for lunch half way and also by a ruin site. We finally made it to camp in time for tea time and a snack around 5pm. Shortly after we had dinner and then straight to bed to get ready for an early wake up.

Our tents were always set up by the time we reached camp and the cook always raced ahead on the trail to have meals ready by the time we got there. The food on the whole trip was delicious and always filling.