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I´m still alive and i apologise as its been ages since i last wrote but once we joined the tour it was non stop and still is.
So the tour began in Peru, our last week in Ecuador was spent on the beach and much enjoyed! We did regret joining the tour heavily once we first started as its so much more expensive than it needs to be plus we missed the independence. However once we got to know the group and started moving around we grew to love it (although still crazily expensive!)
So the tours first stop was Pisco which was destroyed by an earthquake last year so the town was still quite a lot of rubble and they were working hard to rebuild it. While here we visited a pisco factory and also went sandboarding (at least i think that was near there). Sandboarding/buggieing was awesome although during the process nearly everyones cameras died due to sand infections!!(mine managed to survive). I wanted a picture jumping at the top of a dune but didn´t get one so we saw a dune and decided to run up it but it was higher than we thought and turned out to be a good half hour walk on moving sand in boiling sun, but i´m not one to give up so i made it to the top - but the people with the cameras hadn´t thank god for phone cameras!!
The next few weeks consisted of some awesome trips including our visit to the Colca Canyon, to try and spot condors and we were so lucky as we saw about 15 all in one go, they are amazing and huge. But even if we hadn´t seen any birds the view of the canyon itself was amazing. We also took a flight over the Nazca lines,i had never felt sick on a plane until then, i think it was because the pilot kept going in circles so we could all see the lines. They were spread out over a much wider distance than i expected but just as random. There are lots of different theories as to what they are for and why they are there but not sure which one to beleive - certainly not that they are alien runways!
The next major part of the tour began in Cuzco - the Inca Trail. The first day was a drive through the sacred valley before the four days of walking so we thought it would be a good idea to have a night out in Cuzco and not go to bed! Not such a good plan!! Any way once that day was out of the way we got on to the Inca Trail and i rediscovered my love for walking and also my competitiveness, me and a few others in the group decided we would cut like 20mins or so off the time they guide told us it would take and missioned it to each stop point. We made Dead Womans pass which is the highest and hardest point in around 2hrs 30mins. The trail was amazing with old inca ruins in the most random places but all stunning in their own rights. I was quite dissappointed on the final morning of the Inca as you were walking in a line with about 150 or more other tourists so the sun gate was just like a mass tourist stop, i prefered it once we actually got onto the site of Machu Piccu as it was so big it didn´t feel crowded at all. The site its self is massive and split in three sections - living, agriculture and worship and a lot of the buildings and the religion and culture are based around the sun and its poistiong so a lot of it is lined up with the suns position during the solstice.
Next to Machu Picchu is Wayna Picchu and we had been told it took 1hr to climb it as it is all steep steps on a moutain face basically. The Irish guys had said they did it in 27 and 28 minutes so we felt there was a challenge to be had! We began by running it but after the first flight of steps which were almost vertical i thought i was going to die so just kept a steady but sweaty pace and made it in 27, the other two guys made it in 22 and 25 - Crazy.But the views were well worth it once you reached the top! You could see all of the inca site and the surrounding valleys.
Cuczo was used as a base again before we headed off to the Amazon for a few days. Going down the Amazon on a canoe made working worth while! Sadly we didn´t see that much wildlife during our night walk apart from some more huge tarantuals. However the second nights cayman tour more than made up for everything. We had spotted a cayman on the bank of the river and the driver took the boat closer, and we joked that wouldn´t it be funny if the cayman - part of the aligator and croc family - jumped in the boat! However we spoke to soon and next thing we knew the thing was in our boat / tiny canoe and we were all jumping all over the place and were lucky not to end up in the water! The guide caught it and let us touch it before he threw it back into the water! That made the trip, but again as with the Colca Canyon even if there had been no animals just walking through the amazon was good enough for me!
Again we returned to Cuzco for the last tyime and took a bus to Puno, but yet again we had decided to have a night and no sleep so the bus ride was fun! From Puno we visited Lake Titicaca which the highest naviagable lake in the world. This is where we had our home stay. We had a family with one young girl and her parents. It was really nice to see how they lived and made you realise that we are so lucky to have what we have but also makes you question if you really need everything. Their kitchen consited of a bench and a hot stove and from that we had some amazing food so you wonder if we need all the luxuries in ours (although i did think the homestays kitchen might have resembled ours at home the way you describe it at the mo mum!). During the afternoon we walked up to an old inca religious sight and watched the sun set before heading home for dinner and to get ready for the fiesta. We were dressed in full on traditional clothes (with many layers underneath as it was so cold!) and we all met up at the local centre for a dance. However being 6ft proved to be a disadvantage when the average height of the men and women is probably about 5ft! My mum dressed me and didn´t even come to my chest and she insisted on dancing with my for a song that went on for 10mins!! The next day we went to the floating islands which are made from reeds stacked up on top of mud/peat. All the houses and beds etc are also made from reeds and they even eat them. It was weird to walk on as it was soft and you worried you might fall through at some point. We then went on one of the boats - yep made from reeds also but huge, the amount of time and effort as well as skill that must go into making the boats is unbelievable.
This was our final stop in Peru before we got the bus across the boarder to Bolivia. I think i have included everything we did. Highlights were by far the Inca Trail and Colca Canyon and seeing the condors. Peru i felt had a much stronger Inca/Pre Inca feel to it than Ecuador (maybe because we saw more of it) and we went to lots of smaller towns and it was really nice to see all of the families in their traditional dress. We were so busy in Peru we didn´t stop but the tour allowed us to do a lot of things we probably couldn´t have done on our own. Next stop Bolivia!
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