¡Hola! ¿Qué tal?
I left you in Sucre where I had a great time wandering around the beautiful white city, tasting mix and match fruit juices made before my eyes, smelling wonderful markets and enjoying the view from a hilltop café overlooking the city on a tranquil, warm day.
From there it wasn't so great as I went to Oruro, arriving at 4am and waking up various hostel nightwatchmen to try and find a room. After eventually finding a few hours' sleep I had a quick wander around the city, and was totally bored with it after about an hour and a half. It wasn't especially dirty or disgusting but the thin streets of 3-tiered buildings and electric signs, lack of parks and generally nothing to do made it an awful place to visit. There was a decent view from the top of the town but that was it. I'd wanted to see a more 'Bolivian' place than Sucre and perhaps I got that.
From there I carried straight on to La Paz, the only gringo on a packed bus and loving it. People standing and sitting in the aisles as well as people getting on to squeeze through everything and sell ice creams or buns. Coming into La Paz was an amazing experience, with the suburb area of El Alto feeling more like what I've heard of India, every street packed with people and cars. And then La Paz comes into view, with snow-capped mountains Illimani and Wayna Potosí most prominent, and La Paz itself built on the slopes of a valley, red-roofed building climbing up the sides, in a really spectacular setting. I'd not expected much of La Paz but was already proved wrong. Checked into the awesome Adventure Brew hostel, which gave me a free beer every night, computer games, unlimited pancake breakfast, a massive optional dinner and a comfy bed! I met a few people there and on the first day basically wandered around the tourist areas with some of them, Sagarnaga street and the Witches´Market, with lots of colourful trinkets, dead baby llamas and aphrodisiac teas on offer, amongst traditional musical things too! We enjoyed just getting a feel for the city, visiting the Coca Museum about the plant from which cocaine is eventually made but is chewed in its natural form by about 85% of people here! Apparently Coca Cola is still legally allowed to produce a few hundred tonnes of actual cocaine! Wandered down the busy main street, El Prado and bought a few interesting bits of food, ending up at the closed entrance of a park to sit and contemplate the place. Booked a tour and had a fun evening playing games and eating in the rooftop bar of the hostel, eventually having some drinks, visiting another hostel down the road and getting to bed around 3am, my latest night for a while!
Hangover was spent taking myself around some museums, visiting one with some textiles and face masks, a church tour in Spanish (that I got most of!) and one with hundreds of musical instruments including a few to have a bash at, notably a harmonium that I enjoyed. Also saw some government buildings in a nice pigeon-filled plaza and wandered happily along some market streets already feeling like part of the city. Watched a film at the hostel and chilled out in the bar before an early night. The next day was a tour to Tihuanacu, the main city of a civilisation begun around 2000BC, and that was OK. The guide spoke 'interesting' English and the impressive pyramid structures that used to be there are now only mounds of earth. But I met some cool people, Dave and Sarah from Oz, and we ended up booking onward bus tickets together for the next day. Watched Benjamin Button in the hostel and had another early one.
The next day I got the bus with the Aussies to Copacabana, on the shore of sublime Lake Titicaca. It was a beautiful little Mediterranean kind of town nestled between two pointy hills. We got an amazing triple room that looked out over the colourful buildings to see the boats on the lake and were very happy in the sunshine. We did the tough walk up one of the mountains to get a wonderful view of the lake that looked uncannily like a place I went in NZ on my penultimate day there. Stayed there for ages soaking in the ocean-like expanse of the ever so blue lake and chilled out. The walk up was another perfect example of how altitude was affecting us all as it was really short but we had to stop for three breaks in half an hour! It's a hard feeling to explain as you don't really feel any worse, but you just get tired like an old person at any kind of incline! After I dropped my camera from the top of a three-storey building while watching the sunset (sorry Jamie!) we had a lukearm dinner accompanied by awful musicians and went to bed. The next day we started a 17km walk from the town (after some pancakes and the World Cup opening game) to Yampupata, a town at the end of a peninsula that is a lift-off point to get to nearby Isla del Sol. This is where the Incas believed civilisation (or the sun) was born so is quite a big deal, and is a suitably beautiful island. The walk to Yampupata was pretty good, with lots of lake views and some nice bays and rocky little islands to keep us enthused. At Yampupata we found another Australian, Scott, and we got someone to motorboat us over to the Cha'llapampa at the north end of the island. There we were met by a little kid who enlisted us for his hostel instantly, and we were pleased with amazing views of the lake, snowy mountains, green hills and shoreline reeds from our window. We hung out by the lakeside and went past a beautiful little bay to watch the sunset from the other side of the island. Was beautiful with the lake getting a darker and darker hue of blue, and lack of clouds leaving fairly prominent yellow rays to cut through the dark blue sky, with green fringing it as well. Nice with an island shaped just like a chocolate drop too. The next morning I got up for sunrise, trying to scooch my bed across the room to watch it though the window in true lazy style, but failing and eventually sitting on the beach to watch the morning come. Bolivian ladies walking donkeys along the beach and kids chasing chickens made it a lovely time. Then the thing to do was to walk to the south of the island, visiting the Inca ruins on the way. The ruins we saw were OK, labyrinthine and bringing out the kid in me exploring all the passageways. The walk along the spine of the island gave perhaps the most beautiful views of whole trip so far. The amazing Cordillera Real (Royal Mountain Range) in the background, jagged and topped with snow, the beautiful blue lake, and in the foreground little bays with green, terraced hillsides. A perfect sight that I was all over angry to have broken my camera in advance of. Chilled out before the boat back to Copacabana from the south end, and were very pleased when we saw all the tourists arriving at the south end, knowing that we'd done a much more personal, nearly deserted trip.
From Copa we got a bus into Peru (just down the road!) and onward to Cuzco. Scariest bus ride yet, in the pitch black, double decker bus swerving wildly every now and then, and White Fang: Call of the Wild on the telly being no comfort. Got to Cuzco around 5am and went with the first tout for a free bed for the night. In the morning, I instantly loved Cuzco. Most of the buildings around the centre are white, with lovely tiled roofs and an aged feel. Then the main plaza is dominated by two huge brown colonial churches with lots of decoration. Cobbled streets everywhere and lots of nice green, clean plazas to wander around. I did just that around the streets without my shoes as I decided to leave them with the guys in the bar. This was so freeing and only possible here where the streets are clean. The city was alive with people in costumes as they're spending about 3 weeks celebrating their foundation day, this coming Thursday, and I wandered among rehearsing groups, lazily chatting to a couple of hostel owners and feeling very content in the sunshine. Also part of this amazing city are the intricate Inca walls, made without any kind of glue but cut perfectly to fit each other; colourful women wandering around with baby llamas and alpacas selling photos of them; hawkers with jewellry and paintings constantly pestering tourists; the constant drift of pipes and drums from the parades; more red-roofed houses all around and flowing up the slopes around. Dave, Sarah and I met up with a friend of theirs and watched the Australians get a beating in the world cup, and In the evening we met for a cheap Mexican dinner and some excellent Andean pipe musicians. Dave and Sarah left early the next day to do a trek and I changed hostels and met up with my original South American friends who I'd spent some great time with in Santiago. Jordan, Emma, Shannon and Pete were great company as ever and we had lunch and watched another bit of footy. I went and got my Inca Trail briefing that got me very much in the mood and met my friends again later for a pizza dinner. I had a great morning the next day, sitting on a little café balcony overlooking tiny kids in the parade, eating an English breakfast and soaking in the rays. I strolled through some other parts of town on the way up some steep steps to the top of one of the hills, and followed it around to some Inca ruins called Saqsayqamán overlooking the town. Without a guide this didn't mean a huge amount to me but the interlocking stonework was cool and I met a couple of people to chat to up there so it was nice.
The then Inca Trail!!! Got picked up from my hostel at 5:30am (the pattern for the next few days!) and driven to the start of the trail known as Km 82. It starts in a gorge with the stunning snowy Mt Veronica behind us, and the first day slowly winds up, overlooks a beautiful Inca site in the valley below, and drops into the final campsite after about 4 hours´walking. Great to sleep in a tent, hearing the rushing river below and all kinds of wildlife around, although grotty toilets definitely not a highlight! Meals were surprisingly amazing, always served in a tent a tables and chairs, and normally featuring three courses. But considering the amount of walking we would be doing it was a good thing we were fed so well! Day 2 is the 'hard day', climbing up lots of stony stairs that kill the knees. As opposed to the first day's bushy, dry landscape, this was a lot more jungly and hence thankfully cool. Lunch was on a plateau overlooking a huge mountain and looking up at the pass we had to conquer immediately after - Dead Woman's Pass. This walk was the real tough bit, climbing slowly up for nearly an hour in the searing heat, with each step feeling like the last you can possibly take. Definitely the hardest physical thing I've ever done, but the feeling at the top is ultimate relief, and rewarded with great views as well. An hour down the other side we hit the camp and over dinner enjoyed bonding with the group over a warm rum mixture the cooks had prepared! Day 3 was very long but featured a few Inca ruins to break it up, the coolest feeling like a real city in the clouds because of the height we were at, and as our guide Victor was giving our tour the clouds rolled into the site and that was pretty special. After the best lunch yet (how do they cook pizza in a steamer?) we joined the originally laid Inca Trail, taking us up to our final pass that gave us a very distant view of part of the Machu Picchu area and my heart started pumping. With the clouds hovering around as well it started to have a very mystical feeling about this place we were travelling to. On the way to the final night's camp Victor showed us a few cool birds and a rare orchid that is often picked and sold for $5000 a pop! Went through a couple of rough Inca tunnels and ended up winding down to the camp in the dark, which was an unexpected adventure. Day 4 was a 3:45am start, having a quick breakfast and getting going to do a couple of hours' walking before reaching the Sun Gate before the sun actually hit Machu Picchu around 7:30am. I don't know if it was Inca Kola or just the excitement but one of the last obstacles was a near vertical staircase that I powered up in one go, so keen to get to the magical city! The first sight of Machu Picchu was amazing. It's set in a huge bowl of mountains and sits on and outcrop in the centre of it - well hidden until that last moment. It is still a half hour walk away but seeing it in situ was so exciting. We walked around, slowly watching the natural features align into the postcard shot that people know, and we got some group and silly photos from that spot, really a great view of the whole complex and the massive Wayna Picchu mountain behind. We went down to the ticket gate and got incredibly excited when we found out there were still some of the only 400 tickets left to climb Wayna Picchu and we signed up straight away with jumps and squeals! From there we went to potentially the best bench in the world, overlooking the sight with a fairly sheer drop to one side and began our tour. My contacts played up and I had to leave to sort it out, then had a nosebleed and then felt like some food to rectify things so missed most of the tour but got to look around later. Megan, Dave, Darla, two Steves and I went and did the walk up Wayna Picchu then, actually doing a good time to get up there because of the excitement. The very top of this was probably the biggest highlight of the day and we stayed there for a while. At the peak of the pointy mountain are several rocks that stick out at different angles, giving amazing drop-away views of the whole cradle of mountains around, and of course the Inca site below. The mountains are mostly covered with forest, with thin jagged edges at the top, and there are even some snowy peaks in some places, and sitting right in the middle of it all really felt like being at the top of the world and I was so glad we stayed there for such a long time. Also because the climb down was horrendous, down thin, crazily steep staircases that give a precipitous view of the valley floor below, although they're mostly pretty safe(!) Back down at Machu Picchu I had a look around the sights, including an astronomic observatory, interlocking walls, the Temple of the Condor with huge uncarved rocks left among shaped bricks to look like a condor's wings, quarries at the top of the sight from where all the other building stones were taken, and lots and lots of farming terraces (with llamas on them!). Of course all the views were simply amazing and I think I could a couple of hundred photos just on that day! An absolutely unique exerience.
The adventure to get back to the hostel involved hanging out in a restaurant for about 6 hours with card games and drunken people dancing, getting a full backpacker train and a bus back to Cuzco. In Ollantaytambo we all had to get out as a small bridge had collapsed and was seeming to be rebuilt for every vehicle that had to go over it. Napping on the bus got us back to Cuzco, shattered, around 2:30am, 23 hours after we'd been woken!
So much writing I know but Lake Titicaca and Machu Picchu have been some of the best things I've done, and in the case of Machu Picchu, probably THE best. It was such a magical place in such a beautiful part of the planet that I can't imagine what could possibly compare to it.
Now I'm going to recover in wonderful Cuzco for a couple of days before visiting Arequipa and the apparently also stunning Colca Canyon, before hitting my last destination in Lima. Having a great time and still collating much to tell to everyone back at home. I hope you're all well and here's to being home 2 weeks today...

Dave