Estrellita Cusco

... plant, complete with Shaman to guide you through the journey. It warned that the plant may cause diarrhoea and I didn´t really didn´t fancy ******** myself in the middle of a weird city with a mad shaman to wipe my ass, so I scrapped that idea as well. In a country where Valium is readily available over the counter (many gringos take it for long bus journeys, I prefer rum myself), it didn´t really surprise me.

Cusco is also home to pretty much ...

... climb as we spent 2 hours jarring our knees and hips on deep stones steps. When we reached camp at 4pm that afternoon all we could do was collapse exhausted but we still felt amazing!!!

We were told day 3 would be fairly flat, however the advice that greated us at breakfast that morning seemed to contradict this, "Day 3 will be your hardest day so far". Yeah, it was, whether is was the last two days catching up with us but this 12km day ...

... for the Inca rulers a hundred years later at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.

Machu Picchu, which is Quechua for "Old Peak", is often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas" despite the fact that there still is a lost city of the Incas reputed to be hidden somewhere in the Amazon jungles in the North West of Peru. It was brought to international attention in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American historian who proceeded to excavate (and plunder) the ...

... while in labour....with hilarious results.

A 12 km hike, 1,200 metres of elevation gain, peak altitude of 4,200 metres, and the sad discovery that the wings Red Bull gives you are mostly metaphorical. Then at the top, we take some group photos, build a spiritual Jenga structure with rocks collected along the way, pound some shots of rum, then straight back down the other side, dropping 500 metres in less than an hour. My knees haven't shaken like that ...

... decorated cake for breakfast!). When the gate opens its like the Edgars red hanger sale: Okes go insane! Its a narrow path so its pretty much single file, when the path widens a little people try to overtake but the overtakees have elbows out to prevent it, it is so funny! The misconception is that you have to be at the sungate (the hill overlooking Machu Picchu) for sunrise - this is only true for the summer solstice, no other time of year. Never the less the ...

... and the bike and me start to feel the effect of the altitude, at times we are at 4000 metres.
Puquio only had dirt streets and we come up behind a long low loader struggling through the twisting streets. At one corner it gets stuck and we slip past.
Higher up there is scrubby grass and llamas and the route flattens out little. In the distance are snow capped mountains and here and there lakes which are so still they look frozen.
Here we ...