Staying out and going to bed at 5am when you have a bus to catch at 8am clearly isn't a good idea, as we both nearly missed the bus, and then felt like absolute crap for the whole journey to Cusco, which also took 4 hours longer than we'd been told, and involved changing bus 3 times! We did cross Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world, in little boats, while our bus went across on a big one, which was pretty cool, and the lake stretches as far as the eye can see!

We arrived in Cusco at about 1am, and spent a few days going out, chilling out, and checking out a bit of the city whilst organising our 4 day jungle trek to machu picchu. The city is nice, although the amount of rich tourists there means that the prices are hiked up and there touts everywhere trying to sell you tours and food. We ended up booking our tour with a guy Jerry that we met on the boat across lake Titicaca who Malcolm had met previously, and some people he knew from Bolivia, Sam, Malin and Tim, and there was also a Peruvian couple Paulo and Sandra.

We stayed in the wild rover again (of course) and were unsuprised to discover that over half of the people staying there we already knew, including some of the staff from La Paz, which was cool!

The first day of our jungle trek we drove for a few hours, then had a whole morning of downhill mountain biking from up in the cloudy hills to down in the jungle! That was awesome! The whole way was tarmacked road, but with drops as steep as that of death road, and the main aim of the morning was 'see how fast I can make my bike go down the road'. At the bottom we were given the choice of walking to the town we were staying in the first night or going on the minibus, we obviously chose the bus! In the afternoon we had optional white water rafting, which me, malcolm, jerry and tim chose to do, along with a few people from other groups. That was really fun, and a high enough grade to make it quite tough, and the water was FREEZING! We all got soaked within the first 30 seconds of being in the boat!

That night it rained solidly for 12 hours, which I in particular was very unimpressed with, as we'd been specifically told by our guide that we didn't need waterproof stuff and it definately wouldn't rain... so we pretty much all purchased crappy plastic ponchos at 6am in the morning, then had breakfast and set on our way. Day two, the 9 hour hike! The rain eased up about midday which made it a lot easier although the path was all muddy, and we had a few stops to break it up, especially during the 2 and a half hours of uphill walking!

On one of our stops we tried eating guinea pig, and were literally shown from start to finish the live guinea pigs having their necks broken, then put in boiling water and having their fur pulled off then cut open and their insides squeezed out, then cooked and served to us. It actually didn't taste bad, it just didn't really taste of anything, and there were loads of tiny bones which made it really difficult to eat! We also stopped at the highest point of our trek on part of the original Inca trail, to make an offering to Pachamama, to bring us safety on our journey. We had to sprinkle some special water onto the statue of Pachmama, then leave an offering of something important to us, it must have worked cz noone fell down the cliff or hurt themselves that day!

In the afternoon we were walking mainly along the river and had a few dodgy river crossing across dubious looking planks of wood with steep drops down to the water, where we could only go one at a time or they would break! There was one river crossing with a line across from one side to another and a little swing seat that you sat on, then a man pulled the rope from one side and it pulled you across to the other! We finally made it to the end of the hike and the hot springs, which felt amazing after all that walking and cold!

Day three we all opted to start with ziplining as opposed to 3 hours more walking, which was really fun, just going from mountain to mountain back down to the jungle, hundreds of feet in the air! The second half of the day we had the 3 hour trek to Aguas Caliente along the train tracks. This is actually a pretty straightforward flat walk and as I had mega blisters from my trainers the day before I opted to wear my flip flops for the walk, which anyone would be able to tell me would end in disaster! I actually managed to smash my toe on a massive rock and cause a lareg pool of blood and a minor panic from the Peruvian couple who were just behind me: 'sangre! sangre! pare! ayuda!' This resulted in some sort of DIY first aid from our guide at the side of the train track and mild entertainment from the monotony of the walk.

On our final day we got up at ridiculous o'clock in the morning to walk to the gates of Machu Picchu so that we could be there at 5am when they opened, then proceeded to climb the 1700 steps up the mountain, mostly still in the dark, to arrive at the entrance before 6am, when it opened. I have to say I found this climb extremely difficult, and was on the verge of giving up and just sitting on the steps for the rest of the day when I actually spotted the top, but even I managed to get there for 6am, which I would have been very proud of myself for if I hadn't been so tired!

The view from the entrance was pretty cool, you can see all the old buildings spread out in front of you, but the view from Huayna Picchu, the taller mountain next to Machu Picchu which we also climbed, was even better, you can see the whole of Machu Picchu below you, and the winding road that the bus takes all the way up the mountain, and first thing in the morning you could just see the top of Huayna Picchu sticking up out of the clouds. There are hundreds of buildings, little houses and plazas and fields, and llamas just hanging out everywhere, and what makes it even more crazy is that the Incas didn't even live here, they just used it for festivals! So they travelled all that way and up the top of the mountain just for a party, then went back home again! We explored for a good while then had lunch, then did a bit more exploring and went back down the mountain to Aguas Caliente, back down the 1700 steps as we felt like we'd be cheating if we got the bus, and we didn't wanna pay the 30 soles for a ten minute bus journey!

So Machu Picchu done! I really enjoyed it, and I'm glad I did the jungle trek to it rather than just go on the train for the day, I had a lot of fun and I felt like I'd actually done some work and some exercise (for a change) and deserved to be there!