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Huacachina
We arrived in Ica and got a taxi directly to Huacachina, a small town that surrounds a lagoon which is surrounded by massive sand dunes.
We arrived in the afternoon and managed to find a room in a hostal which had a huge private balcony and bathroom which was really nice. We played rock paper scissors and Olam won (controversially) so he got the double bed. We immediately went out to get food and beer at this restaurant overlooking the lagoon. I think we both had tallarines. Anyway, there we met a guy called Bob from Bradford who was travelling with his son, Martin, cycling all around South America. We got chatting to them for a while before we met a group of english girls, Jam, Saff and Lottie who were travelling with a Spaniard, Jose that we remembered from Quito. We put 3 tables together and had a really good night. There was a monkey in the restaurant who took up quite alot of our time. Then all of us bar Bob and Martin went off to buy rum and coke and headed back to our private balcony. The next day we went sandboarding with the hostal which was really fun. Me and the Canadian girl, Christie who went sandboarding with us resigned to defeat on the first slope and went down on our fronts from them onwards but Olam perservered (pretty unsuccessfully) with going down on two legs.
Nasca, Cusco and the Salkantay Trek to Machu Pichu
Then we headed to Cusco via nasca to check out the infamous nasca lines. They were really unimpressive and confusing so we were all glad we hadnt bothered to spend money on a plane over the top of them but just paid 20p to have a little look from a watchtower.
We arrived in Cusco in the morning following a night bus and me and olam headed to a hostal called Loki whilst the girls went to a cheaper, less sociable one called Hostal Colonial. Our first night was spent mainly in the bar playing pool with these guys we met called Laurence and Matt. Matt was a few years older than us but from Cambridge so we sort of knew some of the same people. The following day was spent watching England play Slovenia and looking around in vain for a trek to Macchu Picchu. Luckily the next night, following another day of searching in vain which culminated in an hour massage which cost us 3 pounds, we met the girls from Huacachina and they had found a tour agency offering the Salkantay trek for a good price so all we had to do was hand over the money. We arranged to do white water rafting on Saturday but were stood up by the women who we had organised it with which was annoying. That day was sort of wasted although we did watch Inside Man starring Clive Owen.
On Sunday morning at 4 AM we got the bus to the starting point for the Salkantay Trek. By the end of the journey it had become apparent that the guide we were with wasn´t that competant, for example we waited about an hour for the bus before he told us the driver had been caught by the police for drink driving and that we had to pay extra for a private taxi. We had a bit of an argument and in the end didnt have to pay. If i recall correctly he tried to swap the payment of the taxi for one of our meals on the trek...
The first day was pretty tough and one of the girls we were with had to stop quite a bit which meant that we didnt arrive at the campsite itself until dark which was rubbish. The views were really nice though and i didnt have any trouble sleeping after the meal. The second day was by far the toughest and a couple of the girls headed back half way through. One of them did have fairly good reason to be fair - she was bucked off a horse when climbing this massive mountain and was launched into a load of rocks on the side of the path. The alternative to this was being launched over a shear drop on the side of this cliff so she was actually pretty lucky. She was a bit chaken up by the whole thing though and decided to give the rest a miss. The other girl went to sort of keep her company (i dont think she was enjoying it much anyway). Anyway, after that i decided to trek it all as opposed to getting on any of those horses. Because of all the delays involved in sorting this girl out, we arrived at the campsite in the dark again although i was a lot more upbeat this time. The views on that second day were really amazing as well. The guide Siro, decided to pay homage to the mountain with a little ceremony whereby we all donated a little something to the mountain. He donated a bottle of wine and splashed it on the ground to represent an offering. Unfortunately he didnt have a great aim though and he managed to splash some on Olam. Olam didnt look too pleased though and I wont repeat what he said. The ceremony ended with Siro crouching behind a rock and pocketing the donations for himself. There was no evidence of any remains whatsoever so i guess he must have sunk a full bottle of wine. We were in safe hands.
to be continued - i need some food
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