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Our last stop in Bolivia was La Paz, the highest capital city in the world. To get to La Paz, we had our one and only experience of a public Bolivian bus, which was interesting to say the least. In short, the family next to us were throwing their baby's dirty nappies out the window, Ian got peed on by a kid being dangled out the window by his dad, and I saw an old lady washing her dentures in the sink n the flooded bathroom that we stopped at. It was an eye-opener to say the least! We were only in La Paz for 2 days so didn't get to see much of the city itself, but Chris and I thoroughly explored the markets! There is also a huge witches' market in La Paz, which was cool but creepy, particularly because they sell llama foetuses... apparently it's a Bolivian tradition to give them as a house-warming present to bury under the front doorstep as good luck! We also had some amazing meals in La Paz, including one at a tiny little restaurant full of antiques and a thai meal which we had as our last dinner with our tour leader Dario. On our second day in La Paz the boys and Chris all did the "Death Road" (mountain-biking down the world's most dangerous road) but I decided to pass for fear that I'd break a bone/die before the Inca Trail! Instead I headed with the rest of the group to visit the Tiwanaku ruins, which date back to pre-Inca times. It was really interesting and our guide taught us loads, including why a llama is called a llama (apparently when the Spanish came to Bolivia they saw the llamas and asked "como se llama?" which means "what is its name?" and the Bolivians repeated "llama" in confusion, leading to its name!). Thankfully Chris and the boys all returned in one piece from the Death Road and the next day we headed to Puno in Peru.
Almost instantly I loved Peru. This may be due to the fact that our first meal was alpaca steak which is so good and we also discovered a soft drink called Inca Kola which is a very close replacement for Irn Bru! Puno is located on the edge of Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world. On our second day in Peru we set off to visit Taquile Island on the lake. After the excitement of getting rickshaws to the port, we had a 3 hour boat ride to the island, which we spent most of sitting on the top deck admiring the scenery (which I have to say is beautiful but looks a lot like a bigger Scotland!). We wandered round the main square of the island and had our lunch of rainbow trout from the lake at a little restaurant overlooking the lake itself. Our local guide, Juber, was hilarious and taught us all about the local people of Taquile. Apparently they all wear hats depending on their marital status, and it's a rule that a couple must live together for at least 3 months before getting married; then the ceremony lasts for a week! After lunch we got another boat to a peninsula where we were spending the night doing a homestay with a local Peruvian family in a community called Luquina Chico. After the boys were exhausted by a game of football with some local kids, we all met our homestay families. The oldest child of our family, Jaime, took us on the 20 minute walk over the hill to our home for the night. Our family had a mum, dad and 5 kids ranging from ages 1 to 14. Chris and I spent hours playing with the kids - firstly with colouring books and jacks, but once boredom kicked in we ended up giving them our ipods, phones and clothes to play with which provided loads of entertainment for all of us! We had a very filling dinner with the whole family - quinua soup (a local grain) and pasta and vegs - before getting dressed up by the mum in traditional Peruvian clothes. We had 3 huge, colourful skirts on which were tied so tightly it was hard to breathe (especially after such a big dinner!), a waistcoat and bowler hat - needless to say we couldn't stop laughing at how hilarious we looked! The dad and daughters then took us down to the community hall to meet the rest of the group, who were all dressed in similar clothes, for our traditional Peruvian party. It was hilarious - they taught us traditional dances which we struggled with at first but we got the hang of them in the end! It was great fun and possibly the highlight of our South America tour. After breakfast the next morning, we had to say goodbye to our families before getting a boat to the floating islands of the Uros people. There are 45 islands made completely out of reeds which grow abundantly in Lake Titicaca, and the islands have to be rebuilt every 3 months because of the reeds decomposing. Everything on the islands is made from the reeds - houses, furniture, boats - and they even eat them. After a demonstration from the local ladies of how they live on the islands and a chance to buy some handicrafts, we got taken out on a reed boat for a little trip around the islands. We then headed back to Puno for the night before heading to Cusco the next day.
The day we arrived in Cusco it was Janey's birthday so we went for a really nice meal at a restaurant just off the main square. We then went to a bar for a "few drinks" and ended up out til 4am, not the best idea 2 days before the Inca Trail but it was a great night anyway! The next day was a bit of a hungover write-off, but we did go to the Inca Museum (and afterwards decided we need to stop going to museums when hungover as we take nothing in!) as well as picking up supplies for the Inca Trail. The following day we headed to Ollantaytambo, the town where we started the Inca Trail from. On the way, we did a tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, where we saw various Inca sites as well as stopping at the Ccaccaccollo community, a charity project GAP supports which focuses on the women making handicrafts from alpaca and llama wool and using natural dyes and methods of making the goods. We also stopped at a local bar where we tried chicha, a Peruvian beer made out of corn, and also bought 2 live guinea pigs which we would have for dinner on the first night of the Inca Trail... guinea pig is a delicacy in Peru, and I was intrigued to try it but not very fond of the fact that we bought them live!
After a night of heavy rain, we got up early (on Friday the 13th...) to head to KM82, our starting point of the Inca Trail. It´s the rainy season in Peru at the moment, so the night of rain was actually the theme of the weekend! We got a group photo at the starting point sign then started the 12km of walking for that day. In comparison to the next days, the first day of the trail was easy, but we did struggle a bit with some uphill parts because we weren´t used to walking so much in such high altitude. We were all put to shame, however, by the porters who were part of our team (for the 14 of us, there were 19 porters, 2 chefs, and 2 guides) who literally ran past us on every day of the trail carrying 25kg of our belongings/food/tents. Up until a few years ago, there were no weight restrictions for the porters, so they´d be carrying 50-60kg up the trek - I struggled with about 4kg in my day bag! In the middle of the day we stopped for lunch at a campsite. Every meal we ate on the trail was in a small marquee-style tent. The food was amazing, and there was lots and lots of it! Every meal had soup and a main course (fish or chicken with a different sauce, rice and veg. On the last day we got chips as a special treat!) followed by a cup of tea. After lunch we kept trekking, saw some Inca sites and arrived at our campsite around 4pm. After getting changed and relaxing for a while, Efrain (our guide) introduced to all our porters and the chefs, before we had the best time of the day - happy hour! No booze included, but tea/hot chocolate and lots of popcorn and crackers made it a very happy hour! This became the highlight of every day of the trip for the whole group! Dinner followed, part of which was the guinea pigs we´d bought the previous day. Because we only bought 2 and there were 14 of us, we just got a small piece to try but that was enough for me! It tasted quite like duck but was also pretty fatty and I wasn´t a huge fan, but at least I can say I tried guinea pig on the Inca Trail, and it´s probably the freshest meat I´ve ever had since they killed, skinned and gutted them alive in front of us about half an hour previously! After dinner we headed to bed - 8:30pm, but we were exhausted!
The second day we were woken up at 5am to start trekking at 6am. We walked together for the first hour and a half or so, and then we were allowed to just take it at our own pace. The second day is said to be the hardest - it´s 11km, so the shortest of the 3 days, but most of it is steep, uphill hiking and it is also the highest in altitude. Our guide estimated 5 hours to get to the top, and 2 hours to get down to the campsite... Chris and I managed to get up in 2.5 and down in 1.5 so we were really proud of ourselves! One guy in our group completed the whole lot by 10am, and was beaten to the campsite only by one porter! It was hard work, but we both actually really enjoyed it, perhaps because we had our ipods on and were dancing half way up the mountain! When we reached Dead Woman´s Pass (the highest point of the trek - 4215km above sea level) we were exhausted, but we befriended some Aussie guys who gave us a celebratory swig of rum! We arrived down at the campsite around 11:15am, had lunch and then a long aftenoon nap. After some card games, it was happy hour time, this time complete with apple turnovers! We then had dinner and were in bed by 8pm, still exhausted despite the afternoon of sleep.
The third day was another 5am wake-up, after another long night of rain. Although a lot of people say the second day is the hardest, I personally found the third day the hardest, partly because I was exhausted but also because 80% of it is downhill. I never thought I´d say I prefer walking up hill, but today really taught me that I do! Because it´s the rainy season, the steps were slippery, as well as very steep and often narrow, so I had jelly-shaky legs the whole way down and went pretty slowly! The trek was 16km today as well, so it was a long long day. We stopped at a few Inca ruins, as well as for lunch, where we could see the back of Machu Picchu mountain. This gave me incentive to keep going thankfully - by this point I was getting tired and grouchy! I perked up when we got to the campsite though, because there were warm showers and a bar, so we freshened up and all chilled out with a beer and some card games. We had our last happy hour and last dinner (where we got cake and jelly for pudding as a special treat - we were like excited school children about this!) and were once again in bed by 8:30pm.
The fourth day started even earlier than the rest, with wake up being at 4am and started trekking at 5am. We didn´t walk much at first, however, because we had to queue at a check-point near our campsite to get onto the final part of the Inca Trail. We got through around 5:30am and started the 6km walk to Intipunku, the sun gate from which you can see Machu Picchu. I renamed this part the Inca Race, since we were walking really quickly and everyone was in a hurry - there is another mountain, Waynapicchu, which you can climb but there are only limited numbers of tickets so some people were literally running to get them. After 4 days of trekking, I unsurprisingly was not running to get the opportunity to climb another mountain! When we arrived at the sun gate, we could see Machu Picchu through the morning mist and it was beautiful, as well as feeling like a great achievement. We got some group photos then headed down to the site itself to take endless photos which on relfection all look exactly the same! Efrain gave us a 2 hour guided tour around the ruins, which was fascinating but I was exhausted and struggled to take much in. We then had free time to explore, but the heavens opened once again so we got the bus back to Aguas Callientes, had lunch and then got the train to Ollantaytambo. As a treat, we had first class train tickets - the seats were great, we got a free snack and had great views, but it was also a very surreal train journey including a fashion show, a traditional Peruvian dancing man with a toy llama and scary mask, and the driver jumping off the train to adjust the tracks on several occasions! We then got a bus back to Cusco, went to McDonalds and went to bed.
We woke up the next day after 15 hours of sleep and managed to do pretty much nothing all day! As a treat, a few of us went for a curry, which was amazing (I´d been craving curry so much since leaving home!) and then headed on to the same bar we´d been at for Janey´s birthday. This turned out to be a very messy night, leading to Chris and I feeling horrendous on our flight to Arequipa the next day! When we arrived in Arequipa, we went straight to bed and stayed there til the next day, when we headed off to Colca Canyon. We were at the canyon for 2 days, but we were all still knackered from the Inca Trail so it wasn´t the most exciting excursion. One morning we got up really early to watch condors fly, which was really cool - they are just incredibly huge, and have very ugly faces! After the Canyon excursion, we headed back to Arequipa for a day of relaxation before getting a night bus to Nazca, where I am now. This morning we got a flight over the Nazca lines, which were really cool but the flight was a bit of a rip off to be honest because the pilot wasn´t informative about the lines themselves. The journey was interesting though - 5 of us and a pilot in this tiny plane which resembled a tin can going from side to side across the lines - it was quite funny! This afternoon we chilled out by the pool (!!) at our hotel and played cards.
Tomorrow we´re heading to Paracas for the day, then onto Lima where the tour ends. It´ll be sad and strange to say goodbye to everyone on the tour because the majority of us have been together since Rio, but Chris and I are both very excited about our Mexican adventures, mainly for the food and beaches!
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