4:40am. Woke up 40 minutes ago. Just got picked up by our outfitter. Gotta pick up a few other people in our group and then we are off to day 1 of the Inca Trail. Everything is all well and good, but I can feel last night's dinner wanting to say hello.

5:32am. Been driving for a while into the mountains. Tallest mountain in the region is 6k meters and covered in snow. Lots of unfinished buildings with rebar sticking out.

5:55am. Arrived in little valley town Urubamba.

5:05pm. Arrived at our campsite about 25 minutes ago. Brian and I are getting settled into our tent. Today was great. We are hiking with a group of five others. There's a couple from Toronto, this guy Kenny from Scotland, and a father and son from Chicago. For the seven of us, there are 13 porters including our guide, Russell. Difficulty wise, the hike today was a medium. Probably a mixture of altitude, our stop and go tendencies (Brian and I are in much better shape than the rest so we'd find ourselves waiting for the group to catch up a bit), or the fact that I'm carrying a 25lb pack - not sure why I'm doing this, but I like the challenge. The hike brought us through many little settlements and some old Incan and non Incan ruins that were pretty breath taking. Perhaps the star of the show though was the cloud capped mountains that flanked us the entire day and created the canyon that we hiked. We saw all sorts of animals today. Countless dogs, some kittens, lots of chickens, donkeys and mules, a baby, and I mean baby, pig and the best were these four llamas that came charging around a bend towards the end of the hike.

8:00pm. Just finished a ridiculous dinner. Popcorn and wontons with cheese. Pasta with cheese, a broccoli cheese thing, yuca pucks, vegetable soup, chicken tomato stew.

8:03pm. Stars are out, but it's an almost full moon so there is a lot of light pollution. Tempted to use the tripod, but my bed feels so good. Tomorrow we wake up at 4:45am with tea in the tent, have breakfast at 5:30am and then hit the trail at 6:00am. Tomorrow is the gnarliest day of the trek. We'll be hiking for about 12 hours.

This is Russell. Our fearless team leader. 

The very first part of the hike we spent along a river.

Spiky cactuses everywhere.

The first ruin sighting. A huge civilization near the Urubamba River.

Another ruin sighting!

For much of the day and throughout the hike, you see groups of porters like this.

This guy lost his group.

Another shot of the red porter group ascending.

Stray or not so stray dogs in one of the villages we passed on the way to our first camp.

Horses!

A little piglet in one of the villages we passed on the way to camp 1.

Self portrait with war paint.