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We started the second leg of our tour and made our way to Puno, where we did a home stay on one of the floating islands on Lake Titicaca, the worlds deepest lake. We visited one of the newer floating islands first, where the island is literally made of floating soil and reeds; the way they live in comparison to home is worlds apart! We got dressed up in their traditional clothes which for us was hilarious but for them was the norm! Our skirts had to be taken in quite a bit but according to them our waists were beautiful....the travel tummy doesn't seem to be quite as big yet ha! We then spent lunch on another island with an incredible view of the lake and had some local trout which was delish! Then it was time to meet our "family", although the communication between us was minimal we still managed to have a giggle with them. They then organised a 6 a side football game against some local boys. We managed to scrape a team together and were beating them 5-1 in the first half, considering I hadn't played football since school I thought I did quite well, it wasn't until the second half though that the altitude seemed to have caught up with us and we somehow lost by a goal...but it was all good fun and was even more rewarding when we found out we had been playing at over 4000m...sweating hell!
Watching the woman cook us dinner over an open fire was surreal but again the food was so tasty. We then went to what looked like a local community centre and had a "disco". This consisted of us wearing traditional Amantanian clothing and dancing around in circles to live music. This turned into a major sweat fest very quickly as we were wearing soooo many layers...however nothing a bottle of beer couldn't solve.
We spent the next morning eating/learning how to make their local bread which seemed like it was made out of pancake mix...carb overload! We helped prepare our lunch, peeling potatoes etc. I think the majority of us would make pretty good wives, as he said if you can peel well you are a good wife....Sarah maybe not so much as she was still on her first potato once we had practically finished the basket haa. Our "dad" of the house, Alejandro was a farmer so we also went and did a bit of farming with him but because of the weather there weren't many vegetables for us to pick.
We then arrived in Cusco ready to conquer Machu Picchu in the next 2 days but for a little bit of fun the girls treated me to a session of water rafting as a birthday present...it was so much fun yet so tiring at the same time. We then set off for our 4 day inca trail to Machu Picchu via the sacred valley where we climbed up some beautiful ruins to prepare us for the next 4 days.
Day 1:
The day didn't start off too well as I trapped a nerve in my back leaving me walking around like a robot for the next 2 days! But thankfully day 1 was only a short hike and quite "comfortable" (for us anyway, maybe not so much for the 20 odd porters who had to carry all of our stuff ahead of us), we had 3 guides for the next 4 days, Richy, Eddie and Caesar. After arriving at camp we were served popcorn for snacks and a nice dinner, so day one seemed like a breeze. But we all had an early night (minus me and my tent buddy Shansel, who spent way too much time playing pictionary and not being able to guess any of each other's drawings ha).
Day 2:
Breakfast consisted of triple carb overload bread, pancakes and porridge. But apparently we needed it as we had to tackle dreaded day 2, which we've heard so many awful things about on our whole trip here. So what I didn't realise was that the majority of the group had somehow turned into Olympic athletes and sprinted ahead leaving me, Rhiannon and Eddie in the middle and Sarah and Jacquie at the back. We had to hike up 1200m in altitude to the dead woman's pass and my god it was effort not so much hiking up, more so having to listen to Rhiannon screeching Taylor swift at the top of her voice haha but the incredible views of rain forests and surrounding mountains made it all bearable! We finally reached the dead woman's pass and were exhausted! We had to then travel the next two hours down hill. Before we set off we took some selfies of our achievements, Rhiannon though, nearly ended up falling down the edge of the cliff but luckily Eddie managed to grab her just in time (note to self don't try to get off the side of a mountain on a vertical rock face ha) we then made our way down slipping on every other rock but eventually made it...we tried to get hold of Sarah over the radio to check she was okay and were then told she was at least 2 hours behind and that porters had ran back up to get to give her a cheese sandwich, which she ended up throwing down the toilet...b**** hahaha she at least didn't have to be airlifted back down though so all was good! Sleep was a struggle that night as it was either the sound of rain crashing off our tent or what sounded like a congregation of 1million frogs outside our tent keeping us up.
Day 3:
Today was the longest day as were expected to take 10-12 hours to get to our next campsite. But after a couple of hours of uphill hiking the route was pretty smooth and me and Rhiannon even managed to go on a bit of a run downhill (again nearly managing to fall off the edge of the cliff but being saved by walking sticks this time haha) we stopped off for lunch where the porters were waiting for us with food already prepped. How they manage to run ahead of us every time and still prepare all the food is unbelievable and to top it all off the chef managed to bake a cake....that's right a full on cake on top of a mountain...I still can't really get my head around how he did it! We were then back on our route stopping off to chase lamas around ruins and attempting to get selfies with them. It seemed that someone's lunch didn't go down so well and had to take a toilet stop in a bush on route to camp, I was on people watch, mid way through a porter comes running down, it was possibly the funniest thing I've seen trying to watch her wipe her ass while pulling her trousers up at the same time and then falling out of the bush down a few rocks and then having wiped up most of her ass with her hand hahahaha (ps this person shall stay anonymous, but I am open to guesses of who that was ha). We reached a ruin just before camp with the most amazing view which made the last 3 days so worth it!!! We spent the next half an hour trying to spell out Peru and Inca with our bodies but it seems some people are more flexible than others (yes amar and Jess you're to blame haa) we finally reached our campsite where we ate and pretty much went straight to bed as we had a nice 3am started to our final day.
Day four
So after walking 46km, climbing up and down 300,000 steps, reaching over 4000m height above sea level and walking for 27hours in the past 3 days we finally reached Machu Picchu!!! I think it's safe to say I felt like absolute death but at the same time the sense of achievement you get when you got there and the beautiful view was amazing.
After making our way back to Cusco we had to say bye to our guides that did the most amazing job of getting us through the last 4 days. If I learnt anything from them though it would be that the memories will always stay with you...awwww (I've seemed to have turned into an emotional wreck travelling haha)
So it only seemed appropriate that after our achievement we would celebrate by going for a cheeky tattoo session and a night out dancing around like crazy people and twerking like never before ha. Oh and by trying the local delicacy....guinea pig...which by the way tasted kind of like a mixture of chicken and duck. But then again I didn't go and eat the claw of the poor thing like Shansel did haha. The next day was spent relaxing in the sunshine with a cocktail and a less than £10 massage BLISS (however watching Amar trying to tell the woman to avoid his new nipple piercing but her understanding it as him asking for a penis massage, made my day...shame on you Amar! pahaha)
We spent our last week pretty chilled, finally enjoying some sunshine again....making a few more stops on the way to Lima. We got to see some of the Nasca lines which I still don't really understand because there's so many theories behind them ha. The next day we went on a little boat trip to the Ballestas Island where we got to see loads of seals, sea lions and penguins which was so much fun...especially when you can spend most of the return journey laughing at the fact that Sarah got pooped on by a bird Pahaha.
After a couple of days chilling in Lima it was time to say bye to some amazing people who made this experience even more incredible! So 61 days later we are all packed and ready for home, South America you have been beyond amazing....let's see what Asia has to offer....
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