A 4am start puts us on a bus with 13 other hikers, 21 porters and 2 guides, all of whom are looking a little ragged and cold at this early hour. We are driving to Kilometre 82, the start of our four day trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu - the Lost City of the Incas. We realise early on that we are lucky with our group. We may be a mixed bag, aged between 19 and 62, but we all seem to get along well. Kurt and Clare are students at Edinburgh University; John and Stacey very fit and athletic Americans; Michael and Jessica are honeymooning Canadians; the Antipodean group: Meryl, Garth, Geoff and Lindy form the lynchpin of conversation along with Eric, Jimmy and Bill who have flown over for a boy's trip from the States.

We started badly. Our duffel bags with the majority of our stuff in it are weighed and found to each be over the 5kg limit allowed, quite a lot over. All of which had to be shoe horned into our rucksacks, which now bulge with strain of an extra 2kg. At least our shame is shared, as many of the others were also found guilty of trying to palm too much off on the overworked porters. Perhaps I shouldn't have insisted on bringing that case of lager..

What can we say about day one of the trail? Beautiful, easy walking through meandering hills that gently turned into the foothills of the Andes. We seem like a happy bunch and there is easy laughter amongst us. We stop periodically to buy water, mars bars and murky vinegar laced ale from enterprising folk whose homes back onto the trail. The going is soft and it feels wonderful to be here in the clean warm air, ambling along this dusty ancient path. Our porters occasionally appear from nowhere, grinning as they emerge from one of the many 'secret' porter trails and dash along in front of us; bags, tents and paraphanalia bobbing off into the distance as they go.

There isn't much we have to do on this trip other than walk and take in the sights; by the time we arrive at our campsites the porters have erected our tents and are usually busy cooking up some amazingly good food. When we stumble into the site for lunch everything is aleady prepared and there are bowls of clean water and soap for us to wash in, chairs are brought out for us to rest on and tea is offered before we eat. The tents are comfortable and the campsites set in the most spectacular scenery, with mountain backdrops and misty slopes falling away into the distance. We are woken at 5am by hot tea or coffee served through the tent flap before a breakfast of hot pancakes or omelettes in the communal tent. Then it's on to the Trail somewhere between 6 and 6.30 every morning for more of the same (we hope).