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Well after spending Easter in Quito and not really seeing one Easter egg, only one really bizarre parade which involved people dressing up in KKK gear and dragging these huge crosses on their backs around the streets of Quito! Very weird but interesting to watch. We flew to Lima in Peru and for some reason thought we would be rather high above sea level as when we landed we hardly had to descend at all, or it sure felt that way. We landed and felt we were able to breathe quite easily and did not know what all the fuss was about. Re: the lack of oxygen. We were greeted at the airport by hundreds of people trying to take you to your Hotel and all offering help but we were warned that we should not accept any offers as a lot of the people were dodgy! We managed to walk past our taxi stand that had our name on it and when we finally saw it we just laughed as it was right in front of us! The man from the hostel said it would be overwhelming and it was. Â Lima was like a mini Vegas when we drove to the Hostel, terrible roads though. We arrived at our hostel and still not having any trouble with air realized that we were back at sea level! We did have a little giggle about that. After a marathon welcoming introduction at our Hostel we hit the sack as we were only here for one night and then off to our starting hotel for our next Gap adventure of 26 days.
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In the morning we made our way to our starting Hotel which just happened to be down the road so we decided to walk. The taxi's here toot at you to ask if you want a lift, in 200 meters I think we had at least 20 toots! The hotel was nice and we reorganized our bags and I had a rest as I had a case of the runs! We met with our group that evening after having a lazy day. There were 4 from Denmark, 2 from Austria, 2 from Check Rep/ Canada, 2 from Australia, (Manfred being 73), 2 from England, 1 from Scotland and us to make 15. We all kind of met each other informally as our guide did not introduce us. After the formalities we headed off on a seemingly long walk for dinner.
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This morning we headed for Cusco up in the highlands at 3300 meters ASL to prepare for our 4 day Inca trail hike. Finally a test for the altitude and lack of oxygen. We had a few days to get used to the lack of air and we needed it as even rolling over in bed made you short of breath! We were told to drink lots of cocoa tea and hot drinks as it settles the stomach and I can tell you I don't think we have ever had so many hot drinks in our life. Slowly a few people got sick from the altitude and were confined to resting, I had managed to sort my insides out and looking forward to the hike. We did do a day tour of Cusco and it has to be the worst tour I have ever done, once paying for the tour you then had to pay for entrance to a few places which seemed weird and our guide, Mr. mono tone was so painful to listen to even I started to feel sick.
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Cusco is a busy little town with heaps of tourists. It has some amazing stone work all around the city. Each block hand crafted to fit into the next block, some rocks you can't even see the join. It makes you wonder how they actually managed to do all this so many hundreds of years ago and be able to make them stand up to earthquakes. The weather was quite warm but at sunset it would plummet to nearly zero, thank god we have our winter clothes as we were contemplating sending them home!
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Inca Trail. (Day 1)
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We started our morning by meeting with Quan our tour guide for 4 days, then heading to a small village that GAP support. Basically it's a whole group of ladies dressed in traditional clothing weaving and making mats and knitting. They mainly use Alpaca wool and natural colours from plant and insects to get the fantastic designs they require. Our group did not purchase anything and when two other tour busses turned up it kind of took the authenticity away, I guess that is normal these days. The men were away and were actually the porters for our Inca Trek. After a few photo's we headed to a Alpaca and Lama farm to find out for ourselves the difference between the different wool's, and also got to feed the hungry bunch even after another group had been through!
After a little site seeing we headed for a small village close to the start of the Trail. As I was a little unwell Patricia bought me some dinner in bed. The next morning our bus took us to the entrance. We drove onto a field and saw for the first time all 21 porters and 2 chefs with all the camping gear and the kitchen sink spread out on the grass. They were wrapping everything up and carting at least 25 kg each on their back for the next 4 days, including our bags yet to come off the bus! I felt sorry for them but guess they were used to the altitude and all.
  We headed for passport control and we were away. We were with two guides one at the front and one at the back. The Inca trail has a limit of 500 people per day to keep it in control and you have to have a guide to do the hike. We were told to take it at our own pace as the altitude factor would come into play this time. It was hard but the first day was fairly easy. The scenery was spectacular and enjoyed being in the outdoors. It was cool in the morning but heated up very quickly. We stopped frequently for breaks and had a site set up at each stop by the porters who always seemed to run past us as we were struggling to carry our small bags let alone 25kg! They have a gazebo tent, table and everything else ready for us to rest. It was very nice and seemed to eat very well. They then pack it all up and as we walk on they run past again for the next pit stop. We hit our first camp stop for the night at 3600mt at about 1600 and all 8 tents are up in a nice row ready for us to relax. We took the closest tent to the end and I managed to put my foot through the tent peg! It did not hurt me but I mentioned it to the porters and they were more concerned about the small hole in the side of the tent that was already there! At least my foot was ok, poor shoe though! We had another great meal and were getting used to eating soup and hot tea 3 times a day.
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Day 2
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We woke with a knock on the tent and a fresh hot cup of horrible coffee, but it was a nice wake up call. We had breakfast and prepared for the dead woman's pass of 4200mt all a climb from our camp site, nice. Still those porters pass us with ease. We were all told to take it easy and it should take 4 hours to get to the top. I headed off with young Tom and we were going at a nice pace even passing some porters. The weather was warm again and we enjoyed the hill climb. It seemed to go on forever and started to get tough for both of us. After an hour and a half we noticed we were close to the top. We had a look behind and saw Anis the Dane steaming up behind us. He was at the back so he must have been flying. He stayed with Tom and I for a while and within a few minutes of walking together they were off and I ran out of happy juice and hit the ground. They toddled off and I stopped to re hydrate and eat and still could hardly keep going. It is quite hard to eat a cereal bar and walk at 4000mts, so I found out. I could see the end but it seemed far away, porters pass again and I thought I should be able to do it so I edged my way to the top. I arrived after 2 hours and Tom and Anis arrived in 1-45. It was nice to get there as we had a 2 hour wait for the rest of the group. Â One by one they arrived and we all clapped. It was a great fitness effort for all. The next leg was all downhill and after descending found it a lot harder on the legs than coming up. It took forever to get to camp and the limbs were quite numb now. We still arrived a bit early for the porters as they were still setting up camp. They still welcomed us and had a warm cold drink of cordial, yum. Can't drink cold water because that is not safe! Another great meal and cards were played before we all hit the sack.
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Day 3
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Another wake up call with the worst coffee in the world. Patricia had hot water which one day I hope I will get used to. This day was the longest distance to travel but most of it was downhill. I think we all prefer uphill now. We passed a few ruins and had amazing views through the clouds. We stopped at another site and Quan showed us where our camp site was. It seemed close and all down hill. It took an eternity to arrive as the path snaked down left and right and down. We also had an option to look at some more ruins if we liked that would take an extra hour; I decided to pass along with Charlotte and Alec. We reached camp and our number was 15, we hit number 1 and looked down to see more sites we had to pass! It took another 10 minutes to get there and again all the tents were lined up nicely as usual. The site was well protected by trees and knew it would be warmer here than the last few nights. A few of us went on a 10 minute walk to visit some ruins which were amazing again, they love building terraces in the hill side for crops. When we returned we had the luxury of a restaurant that sold beer which was rather refreshing. We had some more nice food and played some cards then headed for bed as we had an early start in the morning and the porters sleep in the gazebo tent when we leave it so we try not to keep them up.
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Day 4 - Macchu Pichu
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We had an early start 0530 am to head to the sun gate to view the sunrise over Macchu Pichu. We were up early but for some reason we had to wait in the restaurant until the last group went through. There was a checkpoint that lets groups through at specific times and this helps stagger the amount of people that go through. The paths are fairly wide but can turn into a bottleneck if there are a few slow people in front. We had a 2 hour walk to get to the sun and as we progressed the sun was not playing its part. Nevertheless it was still an amazing site as our tired bodies arrived at the magnificent view over Macchu Picchu. We took some photos and headed on the final decent to view the ruins. We looked around the site for a few hours and had a tour then climbed another mountain to get a birds eye view of Macchu Picchu. It was a 45 minute climb straight up and I was almost not going to go but Patricia talked me into it, and was glad as the top was just amazing.
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