headed for the nearest, well only café for a brew to warm us up before our trek across the island. We made our hot drinks last for as long as possible then realised that we needed to get going as we didn’t want to miss our ferry back to the mainland. The ferry would be leaving from the opposite end of the island and we had 4 hours to get across it. The first part of the walk took us to a scared stone which was in the shop keepers garden, she didn’t want money from people to have a look at it, but I think she was definitely onto a winner as everybody who went to view the stone bought something from her shop - probably doubling her income!

The track snakes round the side of the island, which is where we passed the point of no return, unlike Machu Picchu this walk was a snip at 10 B’s each or 60p! Not only was this place the mythical birthplace of the Inca Empire it also had some pretty

impressive ruins. The walk started off very gently and then seemed to have a series of never ending slowly climbing hills that just seemed to zap you of energy, but at 3500 metres above sea level its no wonder that you sometimes struggle. And it was both sunny and nippy if you know what I mean! The sun is strong but the altitude makes its feel cool but we were glad of this on what felt like our 100th bloody hill!

Thankfully we had a renewed burst of energy somewhere along on the flat parts and the rest of the walk seemed to go by with great ease until the very last part. Boy were we thankful that we had done it this way round! If you start from the other end you basically hit around 500 steep steps which lead you up the steep hill to the start of the walk and the campsite! I think I would have been very disheartened if this had been my introduction to Isla del Sol and judging by the look on some of