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Hello all from Peru!! The home of the Incas!!
Toms last blog post ended when we arrived in Rio so on our first afternoon in the party capital of the world me Gemma and Nathan decided to go to do a favella tour which takes you on a motor bike (crazy drivers) up and around Rios biggest slum. This tour was a real eye opener about to see the poverty some people live in such close proximity to the really affluent areas of the city such as Copacabana. That night was the last of our gap tour so we said goodbye to our group members with a visit to a restaurant with a buffet and then they bring around continuous amounts and varieties of meat, expensive but worth it.
The next day we moved to our hostel which was the base for the rest of our stay in the capital which was a bit basic but had these two old ladies who ran it who treated us like their grandchildren and were very sweet. Tom went on the favella tour today and me and Gemma and Nathan went on a city tour and inadvertently ended up going to the Christ the Redeemer statue, we did not know it was called the Corcovado, was an amazing view and can see the whole city, the fog swept in while we were up there and could not see the Christ when we were 10 metres away from it, very eerie. We also saw the Maracana stadium which used to be the biggest capacity football stadium in the world.
The next few days saw tom and some members of our old Gap group visit the Maracana while me Gemma and Nathan decided to check out the Copacabana which is indeed covered in ladies in very little. And the arrival of Gemmas friend Bianca and her friends who we met on Ipanema beach which had massive waves. Our next tourist outing was to the Sugar loaf which is a massive mountain you need to get a cable car up to which has beautiful panoramic views of the city from a different perspective than the chirst. That night we decided to hit the town and went to an area called Lapa. The club was pretty special with a very unusually antique design with bicycles and umbrellas on the walls and lots of different rooms with different artists playing samba and other Latin grooves.
It was then time to say goodbye to Bianca and her friends and Rio, Tom joined them on a visit to the Christ and we relaxed on the beach, we met Bianca one last time to sample a brazillian favourite a coconut water drink.
The next day we flew off to Panama city for a few days, it is probably one of the scariest cities we have been too. There is not a lot to say about our four days there, we visited the canal which was fun and must be making them a small fortune, we also went to national park which was fun and very hot. We saw lots of monkeys, a sloth and a vulture.
It was then time to head for Peru and start our Inca journey!!
We arrived in Lima apprehensive as we had been told that it was not the nicest place but stayed in Miraflores and were pleasantly surprised. On our first night in Lima me and Gemma made friends in our hostel ended up staying up till 3am drinking rum on the roof terrace.
The next day we went to see our first (of many) inca ruin, unfortunately this was a little disappointing as the restoration was more like rebuilding so was not very authentic. We looked around the city and found a huge street market. We decided to explore downtown Lima the next day which was an experience, especially as we nearly found ourselves in a fight between two taxis after a prang. The day went fine after that with a visit to china town, an inquisition museum (all in Spanish) and a very interesting performance by the guards at the palace, and a march around the entire main square. That night we met up with some of the group we would be tackling the Inca trail with and went out for dinner after sampling the local drink of choice a Pisco sour.
We then flew off to Cusco to acclimatise to the altitude as the city is over 3000 metres above sea level. The altitude was not my friend from the beginning so I went to bed while the others explored the city before an early night.
The next day the tour started properly and we spent the day in the Sacred valley visiting ruins and a local village with loads of alpacas and arts and crafts made by the women of the community and the men are porters on the Inca trek.
We travelled early the next morning to the start of our epic adventure that would test all our strength and endurance. Our group leader Percy introduced us to our porters and we started off with a gentle 9 kilometre hike to start us off. They feed you really well while you are hiking with breakfast, a two course lunch with soup and mains every day, afternoon tea and a three course dinner with soup main and desert. On the evening of our first days trek tom and the boys from our group played football against the porters, another gap group and a local group. At the altitude we were at it was very tiring but they remained victorious of 2 games and tom scored a goal and did us proud.
The next day was crunch time, the second day is the hardest physical exercise I have ever done with a 5 hour trek up 800 metres to dead woman’s pass which is 4,200 metres above sea level. I was hugely grateful to the others for helping me through with encouragement and in Nathan’s case the occasional physical push to get me over. The feeling of achievement is immense when you reach the top. Unfortunately what goes up must come down so we spent the next 2 hours climbing down some very precarious steps and it had been raining very heavily.
The third day is probably the nicest day as you can take your time a bit more and enjoy the scenery and the company of the other people on your group, it was a long day, about 12 hours but good fun, we also made a wish on a stone we picked up from the second night camp and stacked them at the top of a mountain. That night the porters went all out with dinner and backed a cake (nothing to do with it being tipping night of course) and it was possible to have a shower.
The next morning we were woken up at 3.45am in order to be first in the queue to enter the Machupicchu national park, we almost ran in the dark to be the first to reach the famous sun gate and for many was the hardest part of the whole trek. Unfortunately this outlay of effort was in vain as the fog was too thick to see anything from this vantage point. We carried on our way and saw our first glimpse of this spectacularly well preserved ancient city we posed for pictures and then started our tour. It is difficult to describe how amazingly preserved it is, you can really have a feel of how they must have lived and worshiped in this special place. It was such a sense of achievement to see it in all its wonder in the sun after the effort you have gone through.
Well that was a pretty epic post, I will leave the rest of our Peruvian adventures to one of the others to fill you in on.
Until next time, Goodbye and hope you enjoyed the message,
Ashlee
xxxx
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