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Someday we will find the cii-tee of gold…… aaaahh aaaahh
Inca Trail - day 1: 27 May
We were collected from our hotel in Cusco, and driven to KM 82 - where we were to start the trail. Stopping en route at a little town (Ollayantaytambo) to buy food and walking sticks (and any other knitted thing the locals could convince you to buy).
We started walking, first steps, through the check point (passport and Inca visa check), across a rickety bridge and we were on our way, until we stopped to wait for the porters to catch up that is. Not much further on and we stopped for lunch - waiting for the porters to cook us lunch. Got that Kilimanjaro colonial feel to it. Soup and chicken later, we got going in the afternoon and walked to our campsite for the night, a mainly gentle downhill track. We stayed in Wallabamba camp, in a local Quecha family's garden. Another pretty special meal by camping standards and we headed to bed, keen to get some sleep for the high altitude climb the following day.
Day 2: A day of steps.
An early-ish start to a big day of climbing and I had a cold making this harder than it should have been. We climbed up many many many steps, to a summit of 4,200 metres. In reverse style of Kilimanjaro, I was the one who felt the altitude and Sean was fine! We had ascended fairly quickly, leaving the other guys in our group, Anthony & Adam, further down in attempt to get the altitude over and done with! This was an exhausting 7 hours and when we got back down to our camp at 1:30 we had some lovely food and climbed into our sleeping bags. We stayed at Camp Pacmayo and spent our evening eating dinner and chatting, before going back to our warm sleeping bags.
Day 3:
We climbed back up to 4,000 metres today, and saw the ruins of Runkurakay, a halfway house for the Incas (supposedly). Further on we came to the ruins of Sayamarca - 'inaccessible town', a hidden set of ruins. From then on we were descending on steps, through an Inca tunnel, carved in the rock face as there is no other pathway, to our lunch stop. We watched with amusement here as runners kept coming past, laughing at the crazy people running the Inca trail in a day. The afternoon was a long afternoon of walking, especially for the slow steppers like me who are afraid of heights, and falling down the steep steps with big drops to the side - thankfully Sean stayed close by. Completing our 1,000+ steps down to Winaywayna camp, a hot shower and some fizzy drinks later we were treated to the best dinner yet: pizza, stuffed chillies, stew, and delicious chocolate mousse. We chatted and went to bed, ready for our 4am start……
Day 4: The City of Gold (Machu Picchu)
As we packed our tent for the final day and ate a luxury breakfast of flat breads and oat and cinnamon drink, we prepared ourselves for the day ahead. Time was of the essence if we were to make it to the sun gate for sunrise. We left camp, and managed to get into the front of the queue to enter the park for the day. Looking behind us after we had been waiting for a while was a long line of head torches waiting to enter with us. At 5h30 the gates opened, our documents were checked and we set off. I took the lead in our group and set us off at a fast pace, assisted by the fact that with only the light from my head torch I could not see all the drops around me as we walked. We climbed a short (for the Inca trail anyway) flight of steps, which are probably the steepest steps I have ever climbed, taking us out at a ruin. A quick look around, and off we sped again to get to the sun gate. As the sky started to get lighter it became clear that the cloud cover was determined to stay, which was pretty disappointing, as we would not see the magnificent sight of the sun rising at the sun gate. Around 1 ½ hrs later we got to the sun gate, as the sun was rising in the east, in the west we were starting to see the vast ruins of Machu Picchu - I was torn as to which direction to look in!
As we got closer we stopped at the 'stone house' for a better view, and some postcard pictures of this amazing ruin hidden in the mountain range. We went down, checked in our bags and took some more photos of the view, then had our guided tour around the ruins. This gave us the general history of the Inca people (the 7ft tall nature worshipers) and specific information about their ruins, which are built with amazingly clever techniques and forward thinking.
After this Sean and Anthony queued up to climb an almost vertical little mountain, a further part of the Incas, while Adam and I got scared of the height and steep aspect of this and sat in the ruins reminiscing about the Cities of Gold we had both watched when we were younger. I took the welcome break of recuperating from a hectic few days of walking relaxing in the ruins while waiting for the others to come back from their climb. On arriving back they were raving about how sheer the climb was, with steps that you couldn't even fit your feet on width ways, and showing me photo's of Sean jumping from one ledge to the other (gulp) - crazy Smuts!
We called it a day after this, saying goodbye to our Inca experience, and leaving the ruins to the masses of tourists that visit for the day. We caught the bus down (almost vertically down), to the town of Agua Calientes and had lunch in a local restaurant with the boys. Adam was very emotional at having completed the trail as it had been a lifelong dream. After lunch Sean and I headed to the famous hot springs the town gets its name from. A rather bizarre experience that was not unlike going to hot murky miniature swimming pools with lots of questionable people in... Another interesting experience from South America!
We got out of the pools and ran for the train, somehow managing to get on the right one, despite what I had come to recognise as 'normal' chaos and confusion in South America. This was a rather unexpected twist to our journey, we were under the impression the train would be a couple of hours - about the same as the bus on the way, but it went around the mountains rather than over them, resulting in a rather painful 4.5 hour journey, with many stops and starts and reversing a number of times to get onto the right tracks. Nothing seems to work particularly smoothly. Late in the evening and a little jaded we arrived back into Cusco.
Cusco
The 31 May was our final day in Cusco, and we intended to make the most of local culture. Sean explored the city from one side to another. I was still feeling worn out from the Inca trail and just took in some of the highlights. At lunchtime we realised our Peruvian dream of eating some of their local delicacies. Sean had Guinea pig and I had Lama. The guinea pig arrived standing on the plate, teeth and all. Sean after a while managed to get through the tough skin and eat some. it has a very strange taste due to its diet of succulents (aloes). Because of its popularity and easy diet many families breed guinea pigs for food. There was not much meat on it, and I thought it was horrible. Sean was less perturbed, and ate more although I don't think he will order it again!! I had lama skewers, which tasted strong and meaty but were sadly quite tough.
We also visited a local market; this was an eye opener to local culture. In one building all elements of life seemed to co-exist: food market, household goods and general stuff, juice and fruit bars, meals being served to people sitting on rickety benches, joined by dogs merrily drinking various low down offerings of juice or water and then proceeding to pee on the floor or meal area bench legs to a crowd of not bothered Peruvians.
There was a section for the more traditional meat cuts, and another section for all the meat cuts that are left over - skins and all, nothing goes to waste.
We finished our day by repacking our bags for Cuba and then ordering take away pasta from a local restaurant and eating it in bed!
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