Chile And Peru
Trip Start
Jan 18, 2007
1
2
17
Trip End
Jul 01, 2008
Machu Picchu,
Sacred Valley,
Peru
Thursday, May 24, 2007
When I left you I was in a somewhat despondent mood after days of buses and and a fairly terrible hostel. Well my mood has changed rather dramatically since then I am feeling somewhat chipper. I am about to go to bed as I have a 3 day trek in the second deepest canyon in the world tomorrow which I'm sure will be fun and you will see the update to that shortly as I am preparing my blog before I go as I will mostly likely forget everything preceding that.
So we were in Arica, North Chile (pronounced Cheelay apparently) it is a beautiful place with a fairly average beach which was awash with dead crabs due to a horrible storm a few days earlier, these dead crabs brought with them a vile scourge of vultures so the beach wasn't such a pleasant place to go.
We met some nice guys at the hostel a couple of Canadians and a few Brits. They persuaded us it would be a good idea to go to the Casino, don't ask me why but we agreed to it.
When we arrived I decided, as I am particularly tight with my own money especially when wasting it, that I would only spend 10,000 yes ten thousand pesos. This amounts to mealy a tenner but sounds far more impressive. Anyway rather than heading for the roulette tables like my Canadian counterpart or the Black Jack table like my fellow Brit Matt, I went straight to the bandits and ploughed all of my cash into one it took me about 20 minutes just to put all of the coins in but it turned out nice as I after about half an hour of playing I hit a personal jackpot and ended up with 28,500 almost treble what I put in at first. Great, I stopped straight away and went to watch my new friends fritter away all of their cash on the respective tables. Each one down about £30 by the end of the night. Matt later announced that had he spent more on the Black Jack table he would have cleared up, a fuzzy logic I feel as every time he was up he wasted his cash due to a distinct lack of knowledge of the game and a skin full of alcohol and the fact he is a complete moron. So all in all I had a fairly pleasing night.
The next night in Arica was spent sitting up playing cards and everyone else drinking except me. So how I managed to lose our room key and have to climb over the roof to get in through the window I have no idea (what a twat) as soon as I had broken into our room the key was located on a side board in the kitchen where we had been playing cards with the Canadians.
This is all sounding a little happy for a report from Harry I hear you say, well the next day we left Arica for Arequipa, Peru's second city.
We bought our bus tickets with the winnings a few nights before and headed off for what we thought was our 09:00 bus too Arequipa. Oh no no no, silly westerners there is no 09:00 bus to Arequipa, there is however a 09:15 Collectivo (taxi with a bunch of other people) to Tacna a city just the other side of the border in Peru a further hour behind. So we stuffed the 1970's Pontiac with a couple of Frenchies with bags the same size as ours across the border. The bags sadly didn't fit in the boot so the driver took out some kind of rubber band to hold our laptops and all other worldly goods into the boot of this rust bucket. We made it anyway to what can only be described as the worst bus station I've ever seen, yes worse than Greyfriars. We were tired and ratty and just wanted to get on our bus, we found out we were going with the finest company in Peru, sadly the bus didn't leave for a further 3 hours so we were left stranded in a terrible bus station with the most annoying man in the world EVER, yes more annoying than Jeremy Beadle and Noel Edmunds put together, screaming at the top of his voice AREQI AREQI AREQI PAAAAAA over and over and OVER again. I think by the second hour of this I had valid grounds for what the Americans call Justifiable Homicide. I wanted to rip his face off and was held back only by my horrendous fatigue.
Anyway we got on the bus for our supposed 5 hour journey just down the road to Arequipa.
7 Hours 2 subtitled films and 1 game of Spanish bingo later, the fucking bus cabin filled with smoke, now I'm no expert on the mechanics of a bus, but when this happens you can tell something is wrong. Oh no according to the drivers little bum chum everything is hunky dory or Esta bien as they like to say. A further 10 minutes later they realised opening the sun roof wasn't enough and the bus ground to a shuddering halt in the middle of the desert. Fucking marvellous we're stuck in the middle of the desert and all we have to entertain us is what I can only describe as the worst movie I've ever been subjected to watch in either English or Spanish, The Terminal with Tom Hanks. Not only do we have to watch this shit but we have to watch the same 20 minutes about 3 times as it reset every single time they attempted to get the bus started again.
Anyway we arrived at our hostel at about 20:00 and put our stuff away. We were just leaving for dinner when I bumped into an old school friend Liam Faulkner who I've not seen for 7 years, which was pretty fucking sweet. So we decided to get drunk together which was nice.
The next day we looked around Arequipa it's a beautiful city in the mountains with all the buildings made from a beautiful white stone many of them with intricate carvings.
Today we went to see an Ice mummy as they call her here. Ohh interesting a body frozen I thought, but it was fairly interesting, finding out what sick fucks the Inca's really were....... apparently.
This Ice mummy wasn't a mummy she was a 12 year old girl who was dragged to the top of a mountain and bashed over the head until she died. She wasn't the only one either they've since found about 20 more of these "sacrificial" children who apparently were fulfilling their destiny and wanted to be clubbed to death so they could go up to the gods. These stupid Inca's apparently though the gods were angry ever time anything happened so they had to take a good looking child up a mountain and beat them to death. Fair enough they did make some lovely buildings as well. Some of these kids were as young as 8, how the fuck I ask you can anyone have fulfilled their full destiny or potential by the age of 8 except that girl from Matilda, where's she now hey, clubbed to death and frozen. I will admit though the museum was worth the visit although the guide got paid about £20 for his hour tour as they work on tips. Arsehole.
After the museum we popped to town to get swimming stuff for our up coming trip to the Canyon and hot springs ahead, we found none and decided to head home. This is when the excitement really kicked off. Tori using her new flimsy bag with only Velcro to hold it shut felt someone dip inside said bag. I'm guessing the unsuspecting, amateurish pick pocket had never felt the wrath of an angry English woman especially this one. She grabbed the little fucker slammed him against the wall and proceeded to unleash what can only be described as a torrent of verbal atrocities at him. People gathered to see what this mad woman was doing to the poor little hobblit (as small as a hobbit but not as cute) they then realised he had attempted to steal her purse and started calling for the police. He dropped the purse Tori picked it up proudly placed her hands on the perpetrators shoulders and slammed her knee right into his nether regions turned an walked of. My masculinity was clearly bruised at this point seeing wonder woman on a vigilante dealing with the pesky little shit so I just said well done, but I told you not to use that bag didn't I. A rye smile appeared on the face of the seemingly unshaken super cop as we walked off down the street.
We're off to grab some dinner now and get an early night read on to see our exploits in Colca Canyon.
Right so I'm back from my trek down the 2nd deepest canyon in the world, Colca Canyon. To be honest it was fairly uninspiring, don't get me wrong I really enjoyed myself for the first 2 days of the trip as we were actually trekking the third day seemed fairly pointless it was spent travelling 100 miles in a shitty bus. Hardly what we'd paid for.
So our first 5 hour bus journey there was pretty eventful, as we passed each stop more and more native Peruvian women came a bored and they must have been munching on some serious enchiladas because their breath STANK of onion I mean come on ladies I know this isn't the most developed country in the world but would a little brush of the old teeth go a miss??
So we got to the canyon fairly unharmed and set about trekking down the 6k's to the other side, nothing too strenuous I know but it really fucked my knees and ankles but it was easy enough. Check out the pictures of the shack we stayed in that night, it had a lovely stone carpet and a fantastic night light of a candle, this really felt authentic, which I think is what they are aiming for. We had a thatch roof as well which was really cool. The shower however was not so pleasant at 06:00 when there had been no sun heating the water tank. I jumped into the reed hut, which was fairly transparent and thank the lord I was the first one up because if any of the ladies had seen me after that cold shower I'd have been out of action for weeks, it was pretty embarrassing.
Annnnnnnnyyyyy way we set off after an interesting pancake break fast around to the Oasis, apparently paradise and from 9km's away it looked that way. However when we arrived the rustic nature of staying in a shitty little hut had worn off and we decided it'd be a good idea to start the accent up the other side of the canyon that day rather than try it at 02:30 the next day. Thank the lord they listened to my mighty voice of reason. It was pretty tough, I stuck at the back with Tori so to be honest it wasn't too much of a struggle but it left me feeling good about the inca trail in 10 days time. 3 hours later we were back in town and ready for food. Alpaca was on the menu and for those of you who don't know that Llama, yes, I ate Llama. I'm sure that will hold a lot more meaning for one or two of you (Rachel) but it was great and I'd recommend all of you try eating Llama one day.
So we slept until 06:00, showered and then went to see some Condors, a bird I though was really cool until I found out it was just an oversized vulture. So we look at these massive skavingers for an hour then back on the shoddy bus for the 5 hours back here. I moaned constantly as I realised we had been ripped off and our guide was pretty shit, but let;s be honest I can't go 3 whole days without having a rant.
Back in Arequipa now and we've book our flights to Cusco on Wednesday, I am super excited, it's gunna be mental.
Peace And Fucking
Hxx
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Wednesday 6th of June.
We had an early last night as we were getting up stupidly early to leave for Cusco. It's a 10 hour bus journey from Arequipa to Cusco so we decided to fly. The lap of luxury we arrive after 35 minutes in the air. SUPERB.
we arrived in Cusco 07:00 but were told we'd have to wait until 12:00 as people don't like being woken before then. Great 5 hours to kill. We began by joining a game of poker with a group of lads who had clearly just returned from a night out. When the trio of rather ragged lads finally stumbled off to bed at about 10:00 we decided it was time to take a trip into town and get ourself some breakfast. Naturally we were drawn to the delightful looking balcony restaurant looking over the square by the name of Baghdad Café. Now how can anyone turn down a chance to eat in place called Baghdad café not me that's for sure.
It's apparently festival season in Cusco at the moment and highly religious ones at that. Tori popped back to the hostel for a quick siesta, I decided to fight the masses of people crowding the streets following huge "floats" carried by men looking like they were about to collapse under the weight of the 12 ft virgin Mary.
I was of course in search of somewhere showing the England match, trying my hardest to avoid the women trying to pin Cusco flags (which more than just resemble the rainbow flag. This caused a lot of confusion at first.) to my nipples. I searched and searched but not one of the Irish Pubs or English Bars were showing the England Game. I came to the conclusion I would have to either watch the France game or go back and listen to it on my lap top. I chose the latter. After a few hours of searching I found the game but oh no due to contractual obligations they are only allowed to play it to listeners in England. Great. I took to watching the 2 minute updates on line. It reminded me of the days before Score on BBC interactive and I used to watch the scores on teletext whilst listening to the radio, except this time I had no radio. I wasn't too fussed though in the end as England won so I had nothing to moan about really.
Around came 20:00 and it was time for dinner Tori had invited Matt (the twat) and Sam to our hostel for dinner. As Tori was cooking dinner she decided my presence was nothing short of annoying so ushered me out of the kitchen. In my haste I walked square into the door frame which was about 5 ft off the floor I don't think I ever really stood a chance. It was at this point I fell upon the idea of counting how many times I banged my head in this continent built for tiny people. Over the next 4 days I hit my head no less than 11 times on 2 occasions I actually saw stars. I'm not sure if I'm maybe not paying enough attention to my surroundings or if it is really all their fault. I also hit upon a challenge for myself at this point. Being an accomplished non smoker for a long while now I decided I needed a new challenge and I stopped biting my nails. It's been 6 days now and they're coming on strong.
ANYHOOOOO, we ate dinner and decided to hit the town. Sam went home and we were left babysitting Matt possible the most annoying person in the world when sober let alone drunk. He wasn't staying at out hostel and by the end of the night he had irritated so many people with his two bit News of the World influenced ideas on a Third World War for oil and How amazing Britain was in every aspect compared to every other country in the world, he was banned from coming back to our hostel. We stayed out until 03:00 when we decided that we were drunk. The kids we'd gone out with stayed out all night. As did Matt apparently but we'd lost him long before then.
We got up at about 10:00 the next days very tired and went to... and I'm ashamed to say it. The Real McCoy a place that promises tastes of the UK. So why when arriving didn't I have beans on toast and various other culinary delights from our small Island? why did I go for the fruit salad.
We returned after visiting our Inca trail operator for another siesta at around 15:00 only to be woken by you guessed it MTT covered in cuts from where he had tripped into some broken glass and been escorted back to his hostel by 2 police officers only to find his travelling buddy Sam packed and ready to travel alone due to Matt's amazing tenancy to irritate everyone around him to a very high degree. Well good on you Sam is what I say.
the evening was fairly uneventful spent with Yvonne a very pleasant Dutch lass.
We were up and out and on our way to Pisac. A lovely little town with a nice market and some Inca ruins, HIGH up on a hill. we decided to save the walking for the next day.
we were woken at about 06:00 with the most out of tune bell ringing I have ever heard in my life, for 6 rings to denote the hour I hear you ask. Oh no. For a full twenty minutes the town bells were sounded. well thats just fucking lovely now every idiot in the town is awake and setting up their stalls and restaurants at possible the highest volume they can attain just to keep the gringos awake. Another gripe I had with the hostel was it's bathroom. We were charged extra for a private bathroom, despite the fact we were the only ones in the hostel and there was only just enough hot water to shave my now massively over ginger face.
Today was the day we decided to climb to the ruins. No one else was climbing. This maybe due to the fact we stupidly left at 12:00 and the sun was scorching. another stupid thing. Guess who forgot to take sun cream, oh yes it was me. I was lucky however I plunged my hand into my pocket and revealed a 20+ spf lip balm. Me the one with very little shame decided to plaster all my most delicate areas with this and soon became a dusty sticky mess. tori refused to lower herself to this and scoffed at me whilst smearing grease all over myself. Boy would she regret that later.
Anyway half way up the hill we stumbled upon Quentin a flute playing, rancid smelling guide. He took upon us and decided he would guide us around the ruins. He was probably the smelliest person I have ever encountered in my life. a combination of sweat and shit. It really hurt to stand down wind.
the ruins were pretty impressive as you can see from my amazing photography.
We went back ate some dinner and off to bed. I was woken in the night by a howling cat which annoyed me enough to scream when the 06:00 bells arrived I honestly felt like Quasimodo.
today was the day we made our way to the place with the most ridiculous name so far. Ollantaytamba.
We got our public bus to Urumbamba where we changed to our collectivo. Let me elaborate on our collectivo. Imagine this if you will. a VW camper van filled with 18 adults 2 children and a driver. The driver then takes it upon himself to get to said destination before any other car, bus or animal. At first I thought it was pretty fun until an old lady with a rather interesting odor came and sat next to me and started crossing her self at every corner. I looked out and saw on every corner there was indeed a cross signifying where some dickhead driver had come round the very sharp corners on the mountains and plunged to his/their untimely demise. I was scared for the rest of the journey and the entire journey back to Cusco.
Ollantaytamba was nice cobbled streets that had been inhabited since the 1200's. we wondered around saving our Ruins for the next morning and plonkend ourselves into a very cheap hostel with a great view of the ruins where the Inca's actually won a battle against the Spanish.
We ate in a nice ethical restaurant who give all their profits to charity, and make a damn good soup and sandwich combo.
Later in the day we decided upon a nice looking place for desert I went for the Mixto pancake. this was a bad idea. not only was the pancake more like an omlette, the filling of Banana, Pineapple and Strawberry jam isn't one I'd recommend to anyone.... ever. It was terrible but not the worst food we would encounter on our brief sojourn to Ollantaytamba oh no.
we woke early in order to beat the gringo rush to the ruins. They were ok I guess but I'm too excited about the Inca trail and Machu Picchu to care about any other shitty 500 year old ruins. Our worst food came after the ruins 2 omelette's and I don;t know how to describe them but the stray dog's certainly appreciated them. they didn't however appreciate tori's hot chocolate which appeared to be soil and UHT milk boiled together to create and illusion of chocolate I was vial.
After our breakfast, a brief encounter with a group of Americans who didn't seem to grasp the fact dollars weren't the universal currency and didn't work everywhere in the world I decided it was time to brave the toilets and also have a shower. now this was no normal shower it did hold the classic South American hostel promise "Hot Water Always" Which should be taken to mean "Warm water Sometimes" anyway the showers were possible the most dangerous in the world ever. they were electric and the instructions read. 1 turn on Shower. 2. Turn on Electricity (switch very close to water and live wires) 3.Have shower 4. turn off electricity (now you are completely soaked and risking a shock) 5. turn off water.
The first shower i tried had no curtain or lock and the water didn't get hot. the second I found out why you turn off the electricity before the water, the taps become live and give you a nasty little shock. I moved on to shower 3. the room with no lock and a very ripe smell someone had left in the toilet next door. this one provided me with warm water and a means to wash my disgustingly greasy hair. So death avoided in the shower from Auschwitz ok maybe not Auschwitz but it was pretty scary to say the least. I decided it was time to check out the toilet. now toilets in South America vary greatly. this one had no seat, no roll and as with all others you had to put the waste roll (if you had any) in the bin. Call me Naive and ignorant but I though toilets came with seats. crouching is well not my thing. I shall leave you with some new propaganda I feel the hostels in this continent should use.
1. shit in pure ecstasy we have a toilet seat.
2. warm water sometimes
3. you needn't hold your nose while you perch you can flush your potty papers down the drain. (this is never going to happen though.)
i shall be back to you after the Inca trail on Tuesday. I hope you are all keeping well.
Much Love
Hxx
Photo's
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The Inca Trail, Clever Inca's
So we got back to party central, The Point, Tori had by now realised she wasn't feeling at all well and had probably ingested some water at some point in the recent past and was violently sick. We were placed in the room called the funk a 12 man dorm for the princely sum of £5 per night. That is expensive when you take into consideration the following factors. 1 there are 10 other smelly rotter's in the room. 2. We each have valuables and there are no locks on the doors. 3. The door rarely stayed shut. This leads me to 3b which is linked with the lack of respect for the fact doors are built to be shut, especially when the only two people actually going to bed in the room are stationed by said door. 4. These loud drunk idiots clearly didn't plan on going to bed until the early hours so they didn't get ready to go out until 01:00 by which time Tori had yacked on numerous occasions and was very much ready to go to sleep. I on the other hand was keeping her company by sitting in the bunk below throwing up the occasional remark of condolence to her state and whether there was anything I could do. Thus cleverly seeming as though I really could do something when we all know if someone is ill there's not really anything you can do unless you happen to be a doctor. By this stage I had rediscovered my love for the game of Cribbage, I sat there for about 5 hours abusing the hostels WIFI facilities challenging various beginners from the states. I'm really getting good again now and feeling withdrawal symptoms since I've been away from easy WIFI access.
Despite this wonderful facility we decided it was time to move on from The Point and I think it really was the best decision that has been made since I signed up for online crib. As we were waiting for our taxi there was a kitten meowing from the corrugated iron top to the building. Boy did i feel clever when I stated to Tori. "that sounds like" wait for it. "A cat on a hot tin roof".
We went to an amazing hostel called Famillia Ochoa. The twin room with a private bathroom only costing a £1 more each. Not only that but it's run by the sweetest old couple ever and it really felt like we were being invited into their home. The old fella offering various remedies to cure Tori's including putting a hot water bottle wrapped in newspaper on her stomach. He also practised his English on us whilst I cooked reporting he had been married for 46 years and he liked football. He then disappeared off for a couple of minutes to get some traditional Peruvian clothes which he then dressed Tori and I in before insisting on taking pictures so he could show his wife when she returned from Church.
The old dear who had welcomed us had given Tori plenty of Coca tea whilst I lugged our enormous bags up the 6 flights of stairs. Which normally wouldn't be a problem but at 3700m above sea level, the air is pretty thin and it took its toll on me. I collapsed into a chair and guzzled down the coffee that was waiting for me. If anyone of you ever comes to do the Inca trail this is the only place to stay in Cusco. I really love it.
So the Inca trail it self. Firstly I have a few little points about "The Inca Trail" as it is so called. There is no evidence that this is THE Inca trail just one of many taken by the Incas linking the supposedly sacred city of Machu Picchu with the former Incan capital Cusco. Another thing, despite being the most famous and popular group of Inca ruins the whole trail, not just Machu Picchu, are shrouded in mystery. Nobody actually knows anything about them because they weren't scientifically discovered until 1911. So everything we are told, the names, the functions etc. are completely made up. Ideas based on guess work the chronicles don't even mention them. On top of all of this the Incas were only around 550 years ago so they aren't even as cool as the Egyptians
That said I completely recommend the Inca trail to anyone. For those of you like me (Super Hardcore) you will find it a doddle and just want to push it to make yourself feel the burn. For those of you less hardcore you may find it a challenge but it is very doable. For those who love taking photos it is an ideal place to practice. I must admit I caught my Dad's disease and was forced to take pictures of all the flora and fauna around (Sarah that means flowers and stuff like that.)
Ok so what happened?
We were woken by our host at 04:49 in preparation for our 05:30 pick up. This is where the day began to go down hill. We weren't picked up until 06:30 Tori wasn't best pleased but beside Tori the sweet old lady who owns the hostel gave the tour guide a right ear bashing. Good on her I say. So after our pick up the bus decided to take us on a tour of Cusco looking for a number of people who weren't going to do Inca trail and then the most amazing men in the world, the porters.
So we finally left Cusco at 08:30 on our way to KM 82 our Trail starting point but a place Our Tour guide Vladimir (a very traditional Peruvian name I know) even admitted probably wasn't even on the inca trail but it did make it last 4 days. Nice, a way of ripping people off a bit. There were hundreds of poor Peruvian women desperately trying to sell us hats stick and water, luckily I have no qualms in telling them to Fuck off when they are pestering me. (mostly because they don't have a clue what I'm saying especially when I say it in an American accent to further enhance the reputation of out trans-Atlantic counterparts). After fighting off the interesting aromad lot of buck toothed vial ones we were allowed to check in and had our passports stamped and began our accent into the mountains. I was so excited by this point I think I could easily have let out a little wee but I managed to control myself by asking out guide pointless questions like, how many people die on the Inca trail a year. We saw our first set of ruins after about an hour of walking. These were apparently farm houses to be honest though Vlad could have told us it was a whore house and it would have made no difference he probably made it all up what are we to know. He contradicted almost everything I had read about the Inca trail already and we'd only been going an hour or so. We reached our first little shop point where we stopped for lunch. I don't know how the did it but the porters had carried all the food tents and cooking equipment to this point set up and cooked our 3 course lunch by the time we arrived. those guys are my heros.
After lunch we carried on up the hills saw some more ruins and arrived at our stop for the night at about 17:00. i was desperate of the toilet by now and decided to pop up to the lav's. This was my first experience of why men should ALWAYS piss as far from toilets as possible. I didn't know where the toilets were but I could smell them a mile off so i followed my poor unsuspecting nose to what seemed to be the root of the evil. I looked around but all i could see was a black room. Oh that was the toilet. I entered and almost passed out immediately. Firstly it was one of those French style hole in the floor jobbies secondly, as the door slammed it became pitch black and very slippery. I worked out that of the 200 people a day who do the Inca trail at least 100 of them must use this room and 50 of those probably stand outside and guess where the hole might be. I'm guessing it only takes one or two though to create the shit stains on the walls.
I was asked at a different toilet later in the tour if it was "ok in there". After I said of course it bloody well isn't it's like a tramps trousers I asked what he meant. "oh" he replied "someone missed in the night"
"well" I replied "of course they did they always do it stinks to high heaven."
"Er no mate" the poor guy unsuspecting of my sarcasm "they missed with a 2"
"Well in that case buddy it's fine if there had still been a shit on the floor in there I certainly wouldn't have frequented this establishment" with that I walked off.
So we've established these toilets are worse than the toilets at any music festival or any primary school. I'll get back to the matter in hand. Dinner was at 19:00 and I continued in my head banging count and managed to bash myself twice on the gas lamp we were using to attract the bugs to our delightful meal. Prior to our dinner we had been provided with tea and popcorn, the left overs of which were fed to the family cat, weird cat. After dinner I looked at the stars for a bit and then to bed. They hadn't brought enough tents so, what a surprise it was me and Tori who had to have the extra person staying with us in our tent. I slept so badly that night it was untrue. We were the 3 biggest people in the group and boy did i make it clear it wouldn't be happening again.
We were woken with Coca tea at 05:00 so we could be ready for breakfast at 05:30. Today was the day we were all dreading, we'd been told it was hell. Up, to the highest point but not up normal mountain side, no, up Inca steps. Which considering the size if the little fuckers, the steps were often a challenge for one with legs as long as mine to climb.
We set off at 06:40 reached the checkpoint at 07:10 then began the climb.
At the second shop area I realised just how many people were using Blacks and Millets own brand equipment, nearly every English person had at least one item. CRAZY. To be totally honest the climb was ok. I felt I wasn't tired enough but the last 30 or so steps so I ran up them. As I reached the top, 4215 metres above sea level, I got a mini round of applause from a few who had set of earlier. It was 11:30 by now and I had removed most of my remaining energy with my little run. But I managed to scramble up onto a little peak above the peak. Much to hers and my surprise Tori arrived next only 10 or 15 minutes behind me. What do you think I said as i went to help her up the last few steps? "you look zonked love" well of course she looks zonked you twat she's just climbed for five and a half hours. I saw another member of our group struggling up the final stretch and decided, being the gentleman I am, to run down and carry her bag up for her. A fairly stupid idea it turns out as the last 4 steps, of the 50 or so I'd carried her bag, Each of my calf muscles cramped in turn, hey ho I thought at least it's doing me good.
The rest of the day was spent going down steps which to be totally honest is much more annoying than going up, I was forced to run a lot of it through sheer boredom of destroying my knees with every step.
I arrived at the camp site first, obviously, and selected the tent with the best view and boy was it spectacular. Looking out into the mountains. That night I spent hours gazing at the stars before retiring to bed for another night of terrible sleep due to the fact I was too hot, my Black Quantum 700 had left me too hot everyone else had complained of being cold. Not me, I went completely against the grain surprise surprise. My sleep was aided however with my self inflating mattress purchased from, you guessed it, Blacks. Everyone else had a ground sheet boy did I enjoy bragging about having a comfortable night. It didn't stop me complaining of course about being too hot but as we all know complaining is what I'm best at.
Day 3 was probably my favourite day of the trail, it involved 17Km's walking but it was mostly flat. The bits that did involved going up I was of course the first to the summit just to prove myself to everyone.
We saw many ruins and many flowers so I took more photos than any other day but there is little to report other than the stunning views and awe inspiring beauty of the flora and fauna. Some of the mosses were just amazing. The ruins weren't too bad either to be honest, pretty damned impressive if I do say so.
We arrived at our camp site at about 17:00 and popped off to some more inca ruins, winya wina these were my favourite to date. Only discovered in 1942 and still in pristine condition just amazing wait till you see the pictures they'll blow your mind. We then returned to our site, again amazing views were available from the door of the tent. The rest of my group went off and had showers, I bluntly refused saying it wasn't part of trekking if you got to have a shower and I wanted to be as filthy as possible for my final day and I didn't care what they said. Dinner really was fun amazing food and I had unsurprisingly earned myself a new nick name, I went from the amazingly original Harry Potter to the disgustingly predictable ..... Dirty Harry. I didn't care I was doing it the proper way and I didn't care what anyone said. I was however a greasy stinky mess but I don't often have the excuse to do so, so I really enjoyed it while I could.
You can guess what happened after dinner, I looked at the stars then slept pretty badly.
Day 4 was the big one, Machu Picchu day. We were woken at 04:30 so we could get breakfast and be on our way in time for the 07:19 sunrise. Something I really couldn't understand was a number of people ( i like to refer to them as wank stains) were pushing past and bustling people out of the way in order to get to the sun gate to...... see the mist first good one wankers. What irritated me the most though was the fact they weren't just politely asking to pass they were just pushing past and when they had the opportunity darting between the gaps. This again wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't sheer drop the other side of where they were forcing themselves. When I reached Inti watana (the sun gate) I heard to of the offenders discussing the fact they should have just been let past because they were clearly fitter. I decided to point out to them in no uncertain term that "If you just said excuse me maybe people wouldn't bee quite so pissed off, you ignorant pair of wank stains" that came as quite a surprise to them and I didn't hear another peep out of them which delighted me enormously. Tori alas had again come over with a stomach bug and her final day was less enjoyable than mine. After the sun had risen over Machu Picchu we made our way down to the legendary site. It was amazing, I really can't think of enough superlatives to describe it. Machu Picchu really is one of the new 7 wonders of the world (and you can vote for it on www.n7w.com ) it is a perfect end to a perfect trip. The photos really don't do it justice it is something you all need to visit for yourself. It is built in perfect alignment to the sun on various important days of the year. The backdrop of Winya Picchu is just stunning I really can't say how great it is you'll just have to go. After taking our tour we made our way to a place called Aguas Callientes where we stayed for the night. The next day we bimbled about waiting for our train back to Cusco, I managed to bang my head a further 3 times before getting on the train. We arrived "home" at 20:00 and went straight to bed. Although not particularly taxing the Inca trail had really taken it out of us so we've decided to rest for a day before going off to Puno to see lake Titicaca and then onto Bolivia to cycle down the worlds most dangerous road amongst other things. I'll be in touch within the week.
Much Love
The one and only Big Hxx
Inca trail Day one and two
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29899&l=97e0f&id=774575150
Inca Trail Day 3 part 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29902&l=86ac3&id=774575150
Inca Trail day 3 part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29905&l=7621f&id=774575150
Machu Picchu
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29906&l=22855&id=774575150
Flowers of the Inca Trail especially for Dad
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29911&l=d765a&id=774575150
Beautiful
