The next morning we started the Inca Trail and honestly it was 4 days of bliss. Ok maybe bliss is strong because we were still doing an intense hike but the views were incredible, the company was awesome, and the food was out of this world!! I mean we are talking practically gourmet meals with tomato flower garnishes made from food and cooking supplies that were carried by the porters the whole time!! It was also really nice not to have to organize anything for 4 days all we had to do was keep walking:) Our first stop along the way was to have breakfast and to buy walking sticks which we were all initially opposed to but I think after the hours downhill/down stairs we were happy to have gotten them! Once we got to the staging area where all the companies were leaving from it became immediately obvious that we had picked the correct company. Our porters all had matching uniforms that were warm enough for the temperatures we would be experiencing, they had actual backpacks for the 60lbs that they had to carry, and they had tennis shoes instead of sandals like many of the other companies. Some of the other companies didn't issue the porters anything! the didn't even have backpacks to help distribute the weight they literally had tarp-like material that they wrapped around everything that they had to carry. Our porters also all traveled together and although I'm sure they would never say they had an easy job they were always smiling and joking around with each other whereas other companies weren't even walking together. I think the porter treatment was an essential part of our happiness with the trip because it would have been awful if we had to watch the porters working in terrible conditions that we essentially put them in for 4 days! Our porters were great though, literally when we got to a camp it was all set up for us, then when we left they packed it up and then RAN ahead so that they could have the next camp set up when we arrived!!
The first day we had a leisurely hike to lunch and then a pretty serious few hours of hiking straight up before we got to the dinner site. The second day we did 2 mountain passes which was pretty tough. Before lunch we hiked to Dead Woman's Pass which was the highest point of the hike at 4100. Then we headed down for about 3 hours before lunch, which I think was the worst part because the steps were huge so it took a lot more control to go down and it was just murder on our joints- thank goodness for the walking sticks, they took a little pressure off. Then after lunch we did another pass and some more downhill but this time it HAILED so that added a bit to the difficulty- luckily though everyone had brought proper rain gear so we didn't have any problems with the rain. That day we did about 12 hours of hiking! and our guides even suggested when we left at the crack of dawn that we bring our headlamps with us in case we had to do the last part of the hike that day in the dark- luckily though we managed to get in before headlamp use was necessary. The third day wasn't as long of a hike, we were at our camp for the night by early afternoon- the biggest difficulty was that we were sore from the previous day. That afternoon we were able to shower!!! so we would be squeaky clean for Machu Picchu and we went to a ruin very close to the camp site but we mostly just hung out and enjoyed all we had accomplished.
The next morning we had to get up at 4 to start the hike to Machu Picchu- we did need our head lamps for that one!! Linnea, Coury, and Andrea took it even further and got up at 3:30 so that they could run to Machu Picchu in hopes of getting tickets to climb Wayna Picchu which is the mountain next to the ruins. This was necessary because they only allow 400 people up there per day and people who do the Inca trail can't usually get to Machu Picchu early enough to get the limited tickets (it's about a 2 hour hike in the morning/a 1 hour run). The girls didn't actually end up getting the tickets but since some people who got tickets didn't climb they were able to do the climb- thankfully after all that!!!!
Machu Picchu of course was incredible but it honestly felt a little anticlimactic because we hiked for 3 days to get there but we were only there for about 5 hours so it seemed a little unbalanced but the overall experience was still unbelievable! After that we had lunch and hung out in Aguas Calientes (although we didn't go in the gross springs) and then took a train back to Cuzco that evening. That was the only night that we went out though just to a club for a few hours but we were so exhausted it didn't last too long.
The next day Liz had to head home but we stayed in Cuzco for the day and then took an overnight (15hour!! bus ride to Nazca. I think Nazca was the least exciting thing on our trip but I expected that so it was ok. We didn't take a plane tour because they're a bit expensive and have questionable safety regulations- instead we just took a bus ride out to the lookout tower....which we missed because it was so unimpressive and then had to walk back to it about a 1/4 mile along the Pan Americana which was a pretty funny site. We saw 2 of the figures, the "hands (the one in the picture)" and the "tree" and we saw part of the lizard which they built the Pan Americana right through! Seeing the lines took about 5 minutes but then we had to wait on the side of the road for about an hour until another bus picked us up haha. After we got back to the town of Nazca we took a bus to Huacachina where we went sand surfing- awesome- and stayed the evening.
The town was cute, there was a lake surrounded by palm trees in the middle.
Next we went to Cuzco- we got into Cuzco around 5 in the morning so we went to the hostel that we had booked for the next evening...but we didn't have a reservation for that night so they let us sleep in the attic on the floor for a few hours haha. We had lunch at an amazing Australian owned place called Jack's that had been my saving grace when I was last in Cuzco- I think everyone was pleased with the huge burgers after the sometimes meager servings we got in Bolivia. Next we headed up to Sacsayhauman for a horse tour of the ruins at the top of the city. There are 4 different sites that we were able to visit. First was Sacsayhauman which was the biggest of the sites, now it's only about 20% authentic because the Spaniards tour down most of it and used the stones throughout Cuzco on their homes and churches. Our guide showed us a bunch of animal forms that were made with the stones in the walls of the ruins like llamas, snakes, pumas, etc (the picture is of a llama). Some of them really seemed like they might be intentional but others seemed like a pretty big stretch and that if you looked hard enough you could make out the shapes of animals anywhere- so I guess you have to be your own judge on that one as to whether the Incans really intended to make those shapes or whether archaeologists just wanted them to have done that. 
Then we headed back to La Paz and met Liz- she wasn't able to take off as much time as everyone else but she was there for the best parts I think. We also got to meet her cousin who lives in La Paz and she introduced us to a lovely restaurant district where we enjoyed the first night back in La Paz. 
Before we went into the mines we got coca leavs and soda to give to the miners that we saw in the mines. We only saw 2 but they were both very young, the 13 year old that we saw said that he would be working a 24 hour shift in which he might leave once to have lunch for an hour or maybe not because he had soda and coca leaves which are an appetite supressant. The second miner that we saw was showing us minerals that he had found and he pointed out lead- you should have seen Linnea's face of panic upon hearing that! We were ready to get out of there after hearing that!! 
