Knee supports
Walking poles
Fleece to replace the one I lost in Pisco
Waterproof overshoes
Water bottles
Snacks
Trekking trousers for Kerry
Sunglasses for me after managing to break pair number 8 in Cusco
Enough ibuprofen to tranquillise a rhinoceros
We were as ready as we would ever be but the apprehension had grown to such a degree that as we sat eating our final meal in Cusco I was wracking my brain for a way out of this altogether.
We had all the gear but our positive mental attitude had completely deserted us.
Kerry had been worried about her knees since we booked this and in the week leading up to departure my hernia had inexplicably started to grumble.
My mind ran away with potential disasters that could befall us so
there was no excitement about what lay ahead, only fear and worry.
We ate on Saturday night before convening with our fellow trekkers for a briefing from Freddie, the man who would be our guide for the next four days.
Despite allowing plenty of time to eat, our meals took an age to arrive meaning we were a couple of minutes late for that briefing.
Feeling self conscious, we slunk into seats feeling fourteen pairs of youthful eyes upon us and tried to digest Freddie's overview of what lay ahead.
One piece of good news that came of that briefing was that our start had been put back from 0530 to 0630. An extra hour in bed at ungodly hours is very much appreciated, particularly by Kerry who is prone to spit venom if roused from her pit even one minute before she's ready.
I slept well that night, though Kerry did not, but at 0550 the alarm went off and we set about our final preparations.
At 0610, with the bed covered in gear, Kerry in the lav and me parading around in nothing but my undercrackers our phone rang.
As previously reported I am not at my sharpest early in the morning. I sought the source of the ringing and looked at it vacantly. Kerry shouted that perhaps I should answer it, a thought that hadn't quite occurred to me, though I'm sure given another five or ten minutes it would have done.
I picked it up and was asked if I was walking the Inca Trail today.
I was!
Who was this sage individual on the line who seemed to know so much about me and my immediate future?
"Your bus is here. Your guide is in reception".
This unwelcome news roused us from our slumber somewhat but we expended as much energy cursing during the next ten minutes as we did sorting our gear out.
What is it with people?Why is it so difficult to be somewhere when you say you will be? To depart at the allotted time?
Timekeeping is the very backbone of civilised society and it's surely no coincidence that the most powerful nations on earth adhere to this mantra.
Having dashed about packing, performing last minute ablutions and sacrificing a guinea pig to the god of kneecaps we were led by a trek porter to our bus which was a couple of hundred yards away.
And empty.
Not only was it empty, there was no driver and nor would one appear for another twenty minutes as we sat like puddings in the front seats.
We finally moved at around 0640, around the block to another hotel for the next pick-up. We crawled around town in this vein for a good half hour making a mockery of our being called for so early.
After much stopping and starting within the limits of Cusco we finally hit the road, bound for a place known as Km82, the start of the trek.
The plan was to drive to Urubamba, take breakfast and make last minute purchases such as water, rain ponchos etc and set off hiking at around 1030-1100.
(in other words, somewhere between 0930 and 1200).
After half an hour the driver asked one of the porters to have a look at the engine through the inspection hatch and there followed much debate and arm-waving. Ten minutes later a rather pungent odour was noticeable inside the bus and soon after that we had pulled over by the side of the road, steam hissing out of the radiator and the driver declaring our chariot a breakdown.
A replacement was eventually sourced but this took an hour and then that bus had to reach us from Cusco.
We were looking at a very late start to our trek.
Porters buzzed about and erected a table with chairs and served a rudimentary breakfast of fruit, bread and coffee by the side of the road.
We must have made quite a spectacle and certainly, the couple of buses of locals that passed by seemed highly interested in our plight.
This impromptu meal was our first opportunity to get to know each other with the predictable topics of: where are you from? where have you been? where are you going? how long is your trip? to the fore.
After watching pigs, donkeys and sheep driven past us by grime encrusted farmers and with most of us having taken a leak behind a suspiciously rustling haystack our replacement bus finally arrived and we were on our way.
We stopped for supplies and for a quick bite to eat, reaching Km82 at around 1300.
There were formalities to complete before we could begin, such as the taking of a group photo on everybody's camera and the officials at the checkpoint verifying our trek permits.
All this takes time, as does sorting out your pack, deciding what to wear, adjusting your poles, getting snacks in an available place.
By the time we were all ready it was 1340 and we were several hours late.
We had 14km to walk to our camp, a walk that usually takes six hours and we had four and a half hours of daylight left.
Freddie set off at a cracking pace and I remember feeling seriously out of breath as we climbed the first gentle incline. My hernia was aching too and Hop-Along Cassidy embellished every step with a sharp inhalation and a crunching sound of bone on bone where cartilage once was.
Day one is described as "easy" in the blurb. A gentle uphill walk albeit at reasonably high altitude. You start at 7800 feet and reach 9800 by the end of the day.
Easy it may be for experienced trekkers, the youthful or for barrel-lunged indigenes who live at these heights.
For us: unfit, creaking, overweight, middle-aged and consumed with negative thoughts, it was not, initially, easy.
But then we began to find our mojo somewhat, worked out how to maximise the effectiveness of the walking poles, took off the stupid sweat-inducing rain wear and got into our groove.
One steep uphill section aside where a depleted Kerry felt dizzy we held our own and it felt good.
We stopped every now and then for breaks, to have a breather, drink, eat and these were opportunities to talk to our compadres.
Our group comprised of sixteen people. As well as us there were:
Alex & Brenda - holidaying 20 somethings from NYC
Matthieu & Giorgia - honeymooning Italians on a 2 month jaunt to Ecuador, Peru and Colombia before upping sticks and moving to the USA
Per & Erik - Swedish uterine brothers. Per travelling for three months, Erik holidaying for two weeks in Peru
Natalie & Andreas - 20 something Germans in Peru for three weeks
Sarah & Royce - from Utah, in Peru for two weeks
Kyra - Sarah's best friend, on a three month trip to Peru & Bolivia
Derek - San Franciscan 24 year old, three weeks into open-ended world tour
Mikos - gregarious Aussie one year into 18 month trip
Nicolas - 34 year old Frenchman, five months into a two year trip having sold his business
A cosmopolitan and interesting bunch, I'm sure you would agree.
Our pace was such on this first day that we completed the trek just as darkness was falling, thus shaving a full 90 minutes off the usual time.
We saw a tarantula on the path in the final few hundred metres and tried not to think about what creepy crawlies would be prowling about outside as we got things shipshape in the tent in the near total darkness.
At 1930 we were called to the dinner tent and served a sumptuous feast, miraculously prepared on a 2-burner hob and wolfed down by our ravenous group.
Knowing we were up at the crack of dawn and that tomorrow would be a very difficult day, we turned in at 2045 but sleep was often interrupted by discomfort, not least because our tent was pitched on a slight slope.
At 0530 we were woken by the melodic tones of a flute being played. Normally I would have delighted in this but as it was the cause of my involuntary waking I only wanted to source the person responsible and insert their instrument somewhere where only bum notes would be possible.
Outside, the porters were beavering around making tea, breakfast, packing up and preparing for the next leg and bringing us bowls to wash in. I sat in the tent in a daze, knowing that I had but fifteen minutes to get my act together but singularly unable to determine how to go about it.
Kerry meanwhile was bemoaning that we were here at all and laying the blame for our being so squarely at my door.
After a lovely breakfast of pancakes with caramel we set out on what is described as a "challenge"; only 10km but the first six uphill to a height of 13800ft followed by a 4km descent down irregular steps.
Kerry had been dreading today for some time and struggled over the first kilometre or so, falling behind everyone else and wheezing as though she was about to breathe her last.
After our first pitstop though she felt better and we maintained a healthy position in the middle of the pack.
We set off on the final leg of 'Dead Woman's Pass' and had found our groove to such a degree that we held off the challenge of at least half our group and reached that summit in high spirits.
We even had time to chat to a couple of fellas half way up, discovering they were good old Devon boys, from Yealmpton in the South Hams.
If anything, the crucifying descent down all those steps was harder than the lung-busting climb.
Irregular steps and an uneven surface called for 100% concentration which was tiring in itself, without considering the assault our knees took.
I was so happy to reach camp that day though we were ridiculously early, the days trekking ending at 1320.
With underarms and groins humming with malodorous offence, Kerry and I caused quite a stir by electing to bathe in the nearby stream.
I'm not sure if it was the sight of our near naked bodies or the fact that people wanted to see two lunatics sitting in glacial melt water at nearly 13000ft but we certainly drew quite a crowd.
My pain was twofold. After ten seconds submerged, the freezing water was causing me to think that having my fingernails removed would be a pleasant alternative. To compound my misery, when I could take no more and made for my tent to warm up I was bitten on the legs a dozen times by mosquitoes.
Dinner that evening was accompanied by rum hot toddies, joke telling and ghost storytelling by our guides.
Freddie proved to be an hilarious raconteur, having us all in stitches with his overuse of premodifiers such as "super cool" and "mucho" which, twinned with his accent and mannerisms made for a hoot.
Herlin, the other guide and of 100% Quechuan stock, provided a slightly more sober but fascinatingly traditional antidote to Freddie's more cosmopolitan antics.
Fun as it was and stunning the night sky looked with almost full moon and no light pollution, we turned in at 2030 and slept like logs until our 0500 wake up call.
More able to galvanise ourselves this morning, though still with vitriol emanating from at least one of us, we were breakfasted and away by 0620.
Today was a humdinger, a 16km trek taking in four Inca archaeological sites and, at last, an opportunity to walk on the original Inca trail. Up until now we had used new paths, made to protect the fragile originals.
It was a tough day today; hot, hilly, rough terrain and lots of steps. Nevertheless, we felt good, felt in fact that we were getting stronger each day and were delighted that the painkillers were keeping knee, hip and hernia pain at bay.
Then, disaster.
Right at the end of day three, as we dragged our weary carcasses down the last hundred or so steps into camp, Kerry misjudged a step and twisted her left knee.
She hobbled the last few yards using her walking poles as crutches and hoped that a night's rest would enable her to walk the remaining 7km to reach our goal tomorrow morning.
That evening we were invited to club together to tip our porters and chefs for the service they had provided.
Some of those guys have carried 25kg day after day for twenty years and one of our guys was a remarkable 59 years of age. It was humbling for all of us gringos, clad in our designer gear and backpacks watching these guys carry three times the weight we were and skipping up and down the paths that so challenged us.
Over dinner I suggested we club together further to provide a thank you to Freddie and Herlin, a move that caused the tiniest bit of friction in our ranks, money being the emotive subject that it is.
After another good night's sleep we were roused at 0330 on the final day to ensure we would beat some of the crowds at Machu Picchu.
Can you imagine how awful it is to emerge from your tent into the pitch black, damp jungle with rain lashing down at this hour, particularly if your knee is apparently immovable and you have a 7km walk on rough ground ahead of you?
Vindication surely for my most vehement early morning tongue lashing of the trek.
We set off at 0420 and walked precisely 200 yards before stopping at a checkpoint which would not open until 0515.
I may have remonstrated with Freddie about this had I not been in zombie-mode.
The rain stopped and day broke and our group stormed off to get a good position at the sun gate, a renowned place to get your first glimpse of Machu Picchu.
Frustrating as it was, I stayed with Hop-Along Cassidy and nursed her through that lonely hour walk.
Fair play to the old girl, she did it and I don't recall her griping for more than 75% of the way.
The sun gate was a bit of a letdown, fogbound for all but two minutes and then we only got fleeting glimpses of our mecca.
Off we all set again then and, another hour later, we were there, we'd made it, Machu Picchu - Wonder of the world.
It's an awesome place, marred only by the thronged hordes clambering all over it. I feel that trekkers should be given the place to themselves for one hour, by way of acknowledgement that they've yomped here.
Open the doors to the day trippers a bit later and give us guys the run of the place - we've earned it.
Built during the 14th century, Machu Picchu was the place where the greatest Inca minds convened to experiment, study and enhance the Inca culture. It was their NASA or Oxford, a great seat, Plebian free.
Accessible only by foot from Cusco, the Spanish never discovered it and as such it is the most intact Inca site.
An American academic called Hiram Bingham, in Peru to document the life of Simon Bolivar, heard rumours of a lost city and changed tack to set out to find it.
This he achieved in 1911, being directed to "the old mountain" by the local Quechua farmer.
"The old mountain" in Quechuan is "Machu Picchu".
A wonder it most certainly is but it's under threat from the amount of visitors it receives. The site slips 2cms every five years due to the amount of people who come to see It. It's doubtful that numbers will be regulated though as it's the number one cash cow in the country.
Despite being somewhere so wondrous, all our group concurred that the early start, masses of people and the effects of four hard days on the hoof combined to make it difficult to fully appreciate.
The low cloud too, which rarely lifted, also seemed unfair after all our endeavours.
We had a goodbye lunch down in the town of Aguas Calientes with most of the group returning to Cusco and a handful of us remaining there overnight, bathing our aching limbs in the hot springs there.
Next day we caught the train down to Ollantaytambo on which I met a fascinating triumvirate of Marko the Canadian photographer, recently of Easter Island, and two effervescent Indian girls before taking a collectivo back to Cusco.
Mission accomplished.
All that remains now is to make best use of our remaining seven weeks before we fly to Oz to be reunited with the lamb chops.
South through Chile?
Bolivia - Paraguay - Brazil?
Argentina and Uruguay?
Decisions decisions.
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