A scary road, Lake Tit and some Inca Ruins


Last time you hear from me I was doing my best to acclimatise to the altitude after our epic 7 hour drive from se level up to La Paz. The coca tea and gallons of water seemed to do the trick and eventually we all got used to being puffed out after walking 10 paces up a hill!


While in La Paz we would have been stupid to miss out on the 'death road' experience, as seen on Top Gear. They offer a full day mountain biking down it for $100 US. We set out early to climb up to 4700m for the start of the road. we did it with a company called gravity and a group of about 20 people. The bikes were excellent and we all wet out lips with 100% alcohol before setting off on the first bit of tarmac road through some of the most amazing scenery I have ever seen, and we were so lucky to cycle through. Some of us were better at going downhill fast than others, but we all eventually made it to the checkpoint at the bottom of this section. From here all other tour companies pack the bikes onto the top of their buses and drive to the top of the hill, but oh no, not us, we had a 8k climb up 'heartbreak hill' so named because someone had a heart attack on it!! It was fun but seriously hard at around 4000m! We had a short flat section from here before we joined the unmade and aptly named 'Death Road'!


The road was incredble, almost instantly we had a huge drop to our left, up to 600m, the side of the road we were told to cycle on! Scary. However true to form we pushed ourselves to go as fast as possible and held the front positions for the whole day, only beaten by an insane guy from Manchester and the nutty guide!! There were a fewe hairy moments on the way down which I wont describe in detail but safe to say it was an awesome adrenaline rush nearly the whole way down. We ended up in a sand fly populated animal sanctuary where there were friendly spider monkeys that took a liking to Dane, which Mel explained is because of his 'animal aura'!! The 3 hour drive back up death road with a loacal driver was equally thrilling and we had our cameras hanging out the side the whole way.


After death road we enjoyed La Paz for a couple more days where we had teh enjoyable experience of witnessing the dead body of a man who had just been murdered outside our hotel, nice. We also picked up a new addition to the tour group, Saxon from England, yeh cool name. From La Paz we headed to Puno in Peru, which is on the shores of Lake Titicaca (Lake Tit) the highest navigable lake in the world. We all booked onto the family stay experience. I have to admit me and a couple of the guys were dubious about the experience, as I felt weird about the concept of staying with a family organised on such a huge touristy level. However we were enticed in by the promise of a game of football with the locals at 4000m!

After a quick visit to some floating reed islands we arrived at a big island in the middle of the lake where their first language is quechua. We were paired off and introduced to our mamas that we would be staying with, me and Dane were put with a mama called Nancy!! We walked up the hill and were shown to our room, which was really nice with an amazing view of the lake. We had a lunch of soup followed by rice and potatoes, which pretty much set the tone for the food during the stay. As I expected dinner times were awkward, we had a sheet with some key quechua phrases which helped a tiny bit and luckily our mama spoke spanish and i was able to sustain a short conversation, however sat in her kitchen being served on was a weird experience. The game of football was awesome and we won 2-1 which apparently doesnt happen that often. We took the opportunity to do a bit of inca trail training powering up the hill for sunset and tehn we all got dressed in traditional clothes for a 'party' in the evening. The highlight of the evening was when I decided to play a game with a little toddler making myself into a giant poncho monster and tickling him, I was pretty pleased with the hysterical giggles that resulted but it took me a couple of seconds to notice the huge puddle of pee forming around his ankles!! The experience wasnt as bad as I had thought it would be and how much fun you have and interaction with the family is a total lottery, some of the guys had really young kids which would have been a totally different experince to my own.

After Titicaca we headed back to Puno and then from there onto Cusco!! Miguel a trainee tour leader from the states joined our tour from here also so we are now up to a grand total of 10 on the truck! We were all really excited about Cusco from what Nat and Eddie had told us and it hasnt dissapointed!! We had 3 nights two days before our inca trail and we made the most of what Cusco has to offer day and night! Cusco is a beautiful city with amazing Jesuit churches and cobbled streets and bars and restaurants from all cultures! Theres is literally something here for everyone. the best way I can describe it is South Americas answer to Queenstown but bigger and better!

On friday we arose at 6am for the Inca Trail, the night before was a bit like christmas eve as we were had all been looking forward to it so much!! The trail was amazing, we had one guide, Julio Cesar, nine porters and a chef, Carlitos, in total there was 17 of us. We started off a good pace on the first day which was relatively flat and really warm! we all sweated loads and cooled off by dipping our heads in a cold stream. We made it to the first camp by lunch time and Julio decided that we would climb a bit higher to make the first mountain pass on day 2 a bit easier.

Day 2 we were woken at 5 with a cup of coca tea in our tents and we were walking by 6 in the morning. The first day we had walked as a group but Julio let us race to the pass. We had camped at about 3000m and the pass was 4200m, we were told it would take about two and half to three hours, obviously being very competative we all challenged this time and teh four boys set off a furious pace! this soon turned into a steady plod and our target time of 2 hours seemed less and less likely. With only a few stops the biggest being a 7 minute poo stop for Rowan, we were almost resigned to not making it in time, however we were delighted when with 15 mins to go we could see and hear people at the top getting closer and closer. We ended up doing it in 1 hour 55, it hurt but it was worth it, so peaceful at the top with an amazing view of the mountains and the route we had taken! We pushed on to the intended camp for that night, had lunch there and then decided we had time to do the second pass to gain a headstart for the following day.

Day 3 after a night interrupted by rain inside our tents we headed for the third and final pass which was a walk in the park compared to the first two. Once we had decended from there Julio decided as we had a headstart we would take a different route. We were really lucky as he hasnt taken anyone there this year. It was great to have a unique version of the inca trail. The routecut in next to some Inca ruins and for the first 20m there was a fairly large amount of tissue paper and Saxon was the lucky one to step in a big pile of porter poo!! After the poo the route was really cool cutting through long grass, narrow paths and lots of ducking and diving under trees. We stopped at a really cool set of inca ruins thta are yet to be cleared of trees and restored, and with the morning mist and Julio playing his flute it was really magical exploring there. Afterwards we cut along the top of a ridge to see what Julio called the best view on the Inca trail, where from really high we caught our first sighting of Machu Pichu (the standard trail doesnt see it until the final day). From here we took a fast route down the mountain running at times, Julio decided while we werent looking to put some rocks in our bags, which was funny and we decended through a tunnel of bamboo to a nice set of inca terraces just above the final camp! We had the option to push on to see Machu Pichu at sunset however we didnt feel it was fair on the porters who had pushed on extra every day.

Day 4 we woke after another wet night at 3 and made it to the guard gate at 4, waited for an hour and then sprinted for the sun gate, the pass over to machu pichu, we made it to machu pichu first which was really cool to see no-one there spoiling the view! we ran down some steps to get tickets for Huaynu Pichu bumping into Peter who had arrived of the Lares trek, I dread to think what all the bleary eyed tourist who had just stepped of the bus thought seeing 4 sweaty bloked charging through, sticks flailing! machu pichu is really cool, it is by far the biggets of the inca ruins we have seen and the location is phenomenal! Unfortunately the weather wasnt on our side and we couldnt do Huaynu Pichu as it was covered in cloud. We managed to find a few gaps in teh weather to take pictures but by nine o´clock we were all freezing and soaking and the weather wasnt getting any better! We decided to descend whihc was a shame and spent the rest of the day watching dvds on a big sofa in Aguas Calliente before catching our train back to Cusco. To summarise the Inca Trail was really good, much better than I expected and definately not the touristy experience I expected!

Since then we have been recovering in Cusco, playing poker and unfortunately me and Rowan had our jackets stollen, so we spent yesterday evening and this morning being frustrated by the Cusco tourist police who make it as difficult as possible to get a crime reference number!!

Thats about it for now folks! Arequipa next!

Hasta Pronto!