Well we finally made it to Cusco, over a month late and with no Inca trail booked, since we´d had to cancel our booking due to the fact we were thousands of miles away!
Cusco is definately all its cracked up to be. Its one of the nicest cities we´ve seen, beautiful plazas, buildings, ruins... everyting is well preserved but its just so touristy. Its surrounded by Inca ruins, with Macchu Picchu being the most famous and because it was conquered famously by the Spanish, it has a mix of inca and beautiful Colonial architecture (we are so up on our Colonial architecture by now we could be experts!).
We got there around midnight and being at over 3000m the cold hit his straight away. Straight away the hostel and taxi touts were on us like flys. We managed to beat them off and get a taxi.
Got a hostel without a hitch but again the whole heating thing is a foreign concept. Next day we met up with Anne and Sean, Sean , like myself was still struggling with the trots! Didn´t get up to much the first day and by the time we decided to do something the Munster Rugby game took precedent so we ended up watching it an Irish pub...myself, tadgh and the cleaners at 9am on Sat. morning! Some game. After we legged it up to the internet to catch the interviews on radio 1. Also we caught the long range weather forcast, it sounded awful.
After we had celebrated quietly ourselves (they were showing it later so we didn´t want to give the game away), we took off to some of the local Inca ruins. The first few were located about 12k from the city and weren´t much to look at. But the last, Sacsayhuman (prounounced sexy-woman!) was really impressive. It looked down right over the city and was a huge site with some of the stones used in its construction weighing over 300 tonnes.
When we returned that evening Sean was still in a bad way, having been diagnosed with one of those nasty parasites that is about as commmon as a cold around Peru. So myslef and Tadgh decided to head off rafting for two days to give hime a chance to recover before we tried a trek.
The rafting was in the Urabama river outside Cusco.Because it was the dry season the waters weren´t too wild but we started with the easy class 1-2 the first day, being beginners at the sport. It was a bit tame though , for our liking and we seemed to spend most of the time wating for our camera man to catch up to take the photos they would be trying to sell us later. It was only about a two hour run so after defrosting in the sauna back at the camp we had a bit of lunch and then everybody left except for the two of us who, it turns out were the only two doing two days and spending the ngiht in the camp.
We were at a bit of a loss as to what to do, so ended up playing darts for about 2 hours and then cards and then getting a big feed again.. which we had with the cook, her husband and daughter and spent about 3 hours talking pigeon Spanish to them after dinner. We spent a pretty cold night in the tent listening to the river beside us while Tadgh batted imaginary mice from the tent, which he was convinved they were chewing holes in. Next morning after enough pancakes and porrige to feed adn army we met the next crowd of day trippers and prepared for our class 3+ run in teh river. We had a little bit of training at the start most of which we´d got the day before. However one of the commands, sending us all to one side of the boat should we see a rock coming, i was a bit overzealous in executing and wnet from my side of the raft to the other and clean over the side into the icy water! Well at least I entertained my whole raft, my guide, the other raft and their guide...who all got a great kick out of my misfortune. And let me tell you the water was bloody freezing!
The run the second day was much better and really tough on the arms. We were going constantly for about 2.5 hours and only capsized when our guide thought it would be a good idea to practise it so we´d know what to do in the water.....after two dunks in the water I had hypothermia setting in, especially since myself and Tadgh were at the front of the raft and getting all the soakings anyway!
Got back to Cusco that night to find Sean and Anne rearing to go so we booked a very alternative...probably never been done before, inca trek! We caught a bus the next day with our guide adn cook for abtou 7 hours to a little village where we then had to catch a mini bus. The bur dropped us off at teh side of the road at dusk pointing down some very overgrown pathway that our guide was supposed to know all about but seemed to have a very vague look on his face. We walked down along this path which was supposed to take us to some hot springs. Soome it was dark adn we were doubling back cos the cook said the path was closed, 5 mintues later we were retracing our steps again until we found oursleves being led by one of the workers from the springs, in the dark, along a cliff, which had probably just fallen away the day before. It was pretty hair raising especially when the lads were trying to carry the backpacks, but thankfully we made it down and relaxed in the thermals for about an hour, swimming around in the darkness under the milky way!
Luckily for us, a girl there led us to the next Santa Teresa where we were supposed to spend the night in, because our guide didn´t seem to have a notion. Our estimated 30 minute walk took over and hour and we finally got to our lodgings for the night which nobody from the agency it seems, had bothered to book. So off we went again to another guesthouse were at least we got a fairly comfy bed which we were planning to get some serious kip in for the night. That was until, our guide knocked on teh door jsut after lights out to tell us we weren´t actually getting up at 7am, it would now be a 3.30am start! Turns out the bus only left at 7.30 on a Sunday, adn since it wasn´t we would have to catch the 4am chicken bus. So after abtou 4 hours sleep we were up again on a mini bus with the locals, feelign pretty miserable and ready to take a swing at our guide.
But, it gets better.....the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere at about 5am, still dark, while our cook and guide ran into some old womans house asking her could they use her kitchen to cook us breakfast. Once this was sorted we got off the bus and were left at the side of the road, to follow them into this strange shack of a house. As if we were still in a dream, we were led into a shed, where an old lady was stoking a big fire in teh corner of the room while in the other corner was a big hatch of guinea pigs (part of the staple diet in Peru) all running riot around the floor. It was definitely like something from the dark ages! She came back to the kitchen then with a big , old mouldy, probably flea infested sheepskin rug and put in on the bench for us to sit on. So we sat there disbelieving, at the kitchen table, with all the guinea pigs, squeaking and running around our feet and our cook trying his best to make omeletes and toast over the open fire. So we got our tea and coffee from rusty tin mugs with brown water....although we discovered later that the coffee was home grown....but the ducks were trapsing all over the place where it was drying out so we didn´t feel much better after seeing that.
After our eventful breakfast we started hiking up the mountain behind the house, still in a bit of shock (although we were later to discover that in Peru, it is quiet common to use somebodys kitchem like that). After abtou 2 hours we reached to summit and were faced with an amazing view of the mountains surrounding Macchu Picchu and could just about make our the ancient site itself. Our guide redeemed himself by giving us a good account of the inca people as he showed us aroudn on of the ruins and also showed us all the local fruits etc, bananas, chinese laterns, avocados, some fruits like pomograntes, coffee plants....all growing around us. Supposedly Peru producing the softest avocado in the world (read that recently on some flier!) and is one of the best producers.
Anyway, we continued on with our spririts a bit higher until we made it to the Hydro Electric station ( funnily one of the points of interest on the tour!) where we had lunch and met a few other trekers, each with their own horror stories to tell. After a quick lunch we were off again for another 3 hours walking the train tracks before we made it to Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to Macchu picchu. So at around 5pm , over 14 hours on the go, we arrived at our nice hotel, fit to fall down from the tiredness. But even still, being the hard core trekers that we are(!!!), we declined the option of the bus up to Macchu Picchu the next day and opted for the 4am start to take on the steep stairs climbing the mountain to our final destination. And boy were we sorry! It was a stuggle getting up for breakfast let alone the torturous climb up the steps, huffing and puffing and really thinking we were about to die. But it was all rewarded int the end and we reached the Inca site before sunrise , completely blown away by the whole scene. It really is one of the most amazing places we´ve seen and the fact that it is perched on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere makes it all the more mysterious.
We got a tour around the site from our guide and then he pointed us in the direction of Wanapicchu, another peak overlooking Macchu Picchu which could be reached by another series of steep steps. Once the challenge was out there we couldn´t refuse so even in our exhausted state myslef Tadgh and Sean braved yet another climb which was pretty scary cos it was just the steps and then thousands of feet of a drop.The view from the top was out of this world...and we posed up there for about half an hour taking every angle conceivable in case we´d miss a photo op! Our egos also took a bit of a blasting when, after congratulating ourselves on our fitness we met a whole tour of ouldies at the top...nto a bead of sweat in sight!
We called it day finally on the Inca ruins adn caught the bus back to Cusco where we arrived that night determined to sink a few well deserved beers. And again our stamina knew no bounds as we crawled out of Mama Africas (one of the many complimentarly nightclubs in Cusco) at about 5am that morning...tired and proud of oursleves!
Needless to say it took 2 days to recover ourseleves enough to even contemplate a bus....so we said goodbye to Sean and Anne, after a month of great company and craic, and took seperate ways, us to Lima and they to Nazca.
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