Hello all, Linard here! I feel very privileged to have been given a guest spot on this travel blog. So much so that I have written about 5,000 words! Amazing what you can achieve in 24 hours of transit. As you may or may not know, depending on your Facebook addiction, I have just spent 3 weeks with Mrs' Stratford and Brown. We travelled from Cusco in Peru down into Bolivia and as far south as the border with Chille, in the Atacama desert, before I had to drag myself away and return to chilly London.

It has been an epic three weeks and yet not even a small dent in the girls travels. A life of early nights and sun rises, all nighters and lost days, vino tino and cervezas, sunburn and frost bite, brief friendships and unavoidable acquaintances, personal triumphs and social embarrassments, incredible rural landscapes and indelible urban nightlife, and nothing without mention of my first night on the continent where I was awoken jet lagged at 4.30am to the unmistakable sound of a blow job somewhere in my dorm. Either that or one of my anonymous roommates was choking to death. I've seen enough porn to know that it could have been either to be fair.

Anyway, I like to write only marginally less than I like to talk so I have been advised to keep my guest spot specifically to our trip to Macchu Pichu, although somehow it has still managed to resemble a dissertation more than a blog. Still, I hope you can find the time to read it and it brings some entertainment to an otherwise mundane day at work.

Salcantay
After failing to book the Inca Trail in advance we decided to do the Salcantay trek instead. A five day hike that translates as Savage Mountain, so the omens were bad from the start. As with most of our purchases in South America we negotiated a price on a street corner; hung over and suffering the steep streets at high altitude. However, this wasn't a two dollar piece of Peruvian knitwear we were negotiating for so the three of us agreed a maximum price before hand and turned up ready to barter. What we hadn't accounted for was a stray dog that had followed us up the hill wrestling with a dirty nappy dragged from a nearby gutter. Just as we prepared to hard ball our tour operator the dog finally managed to open its lunch and began eagerly tucking in. I'm not easily disgusted but this had me gagging more than the mystery girl in my dorm the night before and Han and Stace were so nearly sick that we gave our guide as much money as was required to escape the faecal nightmare and the negotiating was over before it started.
We had two days to recover and get drunk before our group briefing.

Sunday; Trip Briefing
So the night before our departure we ventured back up the hill, where mercifully the dog's dinner was long gone, and met up with our group: those who we would be sharing our 5 day experience of a lifetime with. As every seasoned backpacker will tell you, your tour is only as good as the group you're put with so the disappointment was almost tangible when the 11 of us first clapped eyes on each other. Along with the three under prepared, hung-over and mildly anxious British tourists our group consisted of a rather plump mother and daughter combo from Switzerland whose grasp of English was almost zero, a Dutch family of four whose kit for the pre trip briefing alone would´ve kept them alive in the mountains for a month, and a middle aged couple of native South Americans that lived and worked in California and had the wallets to show for it.

It was obvious to anyone with eyes that the Dutch family were seasoned hikers. A family of machines to whom a 5 day trek would be considered four play had they been programmed to feel emotion. The son and daughter in their mid twenties were both easily clear of six foot four, carrying 0.5% body fat, equipped with every item of gortex clothing that money can buy and walking sticks that made me look like a midget. Looking like two eager members of the Hitler youth, they were militant in their preparation and didn't sweat a bead for the whole week.
Equally prepared but without their children's robotic English, their parents didn't speak a word the whole time. In English, Spanish or Dutch. Not even pleases and thankyous it would turn out. With their heavy scowls, stooped posture and occasional groans they were a cold mystery. While I eventually thawed out the mother over a shared Oreo on day 4, the dad remained sub human throughout. Without so much as a twitch of the face, fleeting eye contact or any recognition of our existence whatsoever, I could only conclude that he was in fact dead. The rest of his family clearly refused to admit it, dragging his miserable corpse around Machu Picchu with military precision like some kind of South American Weekend at Bernie's.
Thankfully, the American couple saved the trip for us. Although his constant jokes were only marginally worse than the awkward silences that followed them, once the three of us had perfected our fake laughs their enthusiasm and smiles were enough to win us over.
And so as this ramshackle group of 10 strangers and 1 suspected dead old man were christened the Sexy Llamas by our guide, we headed off into the unknown together.

Monday
Day one started with a 5am pick up at our hostel in Cusco, followed by a three hour drive into the middle of nowhere. Through steep edged valleys, past rural villages and lone mud brick houses, interspersed with children playing in the gutters and malnourished cows chewing hopelessly at sparse hedgerows.
When we finally arrived at our destination we were taken to our last restaurant for the next five days. Now I use the term restaurant loosely here, having spent 4 days in Peru already I was familiar with the disparity between an English breakfast and a Peruvian one but I was still hopeful of something in between when I ordered the American. However, a plain one egg omelette and two slices of toast that shattered with one bite would have to do as we set off into the mountains. It was clear from this moment on that food was fuel and nothing else.
Our entourage consisted of one chef; I forget his name so let's just call him Pedro. He was a silent hero all the same.
His 16 year old assistant Lucio, whose shy personality, unenviable hard work and particularly bad hair cut had Stacey's heart melting from day one. Until one lunch when our guide explained that the t-shirt he was wearing said "you're not the first and won't be the last!" Turns out 16 year old boys are the same the world over.
And two anonymous horsemen whose sole job it was to pack up camp after we had set off each day while magically reappearing at the next stopping point set up and ready for our arrival.
Along with the chefs their work was tireless and the trek would've been impossible without them.
Leading us all was our guide Jimmy John, his actual name, a 23 year old cheeky Peruvian done good. His English was excellent (apart from the word unfwortroonratree, which got a chuckle everytime) and he was an expert in tourist banter.
That was of course until he encountered Mrs. Stratford.
Now, It is hard to say whether the group as a whole benefited from Hannah's relentless banter and outrageous flirting with Jimmy John but it wasn't long before we were all learning some very useful Spanish phrases including 'coochy coochy' which was exchanged by Hannah for the greatly underappreciated English phrase 'Carpet Muncher'. And on one particularly wet afternoon's trekking we discovered a second use of the word poncho. Which it turns out is also a protective impermeable sheath. From that point on the innuendos went through the roof.

Day one passed without much incident. We trudged along dirt tracks for around 7 hours, climbing gradually all day apart from the occasional 'short cut' which usually involved 40 or so meters of steep climbing directly up. These short and painful climbs would prove to be a mere hors dóeuvre to the day that was to follow. That afternoon we stopped and relaxed in the sun for a lunch of soup and carbohydrates. Now the Peruvians are a big fan of carbs. Their national dish 'Lomo Saltado' is basically beef and chips stir fried together served with rice and bread. If you can find something green to eat in this country you're doing well, and you'd also be wise to disinfect it first.

Reenergized after lunch, we had soon climbed high enough from the small villages for our first Facebook profile worthy photo opportunities. The snow peaked mountain of Salcantay loomed impressively in the sunshine ahead of us, framed perfectly between the seemingly endless low lying lush green valley's that we were currently walking. For the next hour or so we enjoyed the far away majesty of mount Salcantay with blissful ignorance as we trekked until it slowly dawned on us that it was actually our destination for the day.

Now anyone that's climbed or trekked mountains ranges will know: it's incredibly hard to judge distances at such scales and so the morale and the legs weakened with every step as we walked for the next 5 hours with our destination in view but seemingly getting no closer. Our only distraction from the fatigue came as we passed a dead pig in a wheelbarrow. It had been killed so recently that its body was still steaming with murder weapon nonchalantly lying across its belly. Two men casually strolled out of nowhere and started to clean its filthy hide in a stream, at which point I think anyone of us would have given them a few soles (Peruvian currency) to take a bite out of it. 2 hours trekking remained.

This was about the same time that Stacey Brown discovered Snickers bars and the rare pleasure of eating food when the body actually requires it! Forced to eat one by lack of choice she inhaled the whole bar in about 20 seconds. After such relentless work rate for so many hours the body absorbs energy so quickly that you'd do just as well smearing it all over your face. It's a great feeling and one that us city types don't get to experience enough. Snickers bars soon became our petrol.

When eventually we reached the foot hills of our destination at the end of day one we found camp and it wasn't long before we were calling for our beds, or sleeping bags. So after another carb fest and enduring an almost incomprehensible hour of Inca history in the freezing cold we gladly hit the sack. I was the envy of Jimmy John and the entourage as I made my way to our tent with my 'wives' as he had proclaimed them - but he'd only known Stacey and Hannah for around 12 hours at that point so I wasn't exactly feeling smug. Wearing everything we owned and adopting a survival 'spoon´ formation that ran from left to right: Stacey, Hannah, Me, we fell asleep almost instantly. It was 8.30pm.

Tuesday
Day 2 started innocently enough at about 5am. We were woken with coca tea by Lucio, who was still just starting to win Stacey's heart and the group conversed over a huge breakfast of pancakes, eggs and unidentified 'juice'. We were thankful all the same as we knew today had been billed as 'the tough one' from the start. 11 hours trekking: 6 up to the peak of Salcantay and its glaciers followed by 5 hours down the other side and into the jungle. After a sly cigarette in preparation we kitted up and set off. The climbing was hard but not relentless. Each climb was gratefully followed by a flat pass that allowed you to try and catch breath. We were climbing to over 4500m where altitude sickness is very common. Hannah suffered quiet badly at this point but trudged on valiantly. The American couple followed closely behind Han and Stace as the Swiss mum and daughter took surprise package of the day with a slow and steady pace. I was pushing on towards the front at this point desperately trying to keep up with Dutch kids who were more and more starting to resemble some kind of Japanese robotics project as they climbed with their giant sticks, extensions of their already oversized limbs. This was useless so I toed the line with their slightly slower mother instead. I wondered for a moment what they'd done with their dad until I realised they'd opted to slump his pathetic corpse over a donkey rather than face dragging him up the mountain. He moaned something helpless as he passed me on the poor mule, he turned out to be clearing his throat but I almost mistook it for charisma.

When we eventually neared the summit, the air was getting so thin that the group had bunched up and slowed to a crawling pace. The huge glacier snaking its way down the eastern face of Salcantay loomed over us as we approached the pass between its two highest peaks. We had achieved the highest point of our whole trek. Not long after absorbing a few more snickers and lining up for some casual tourist snaps we started to feel the cold. Totally exposed to the biting wind and no longer warm from the climb, the temperature had dropped dramatically. This was the point when Jimmy John announced that we couldn't go any further without making an 'offering' to the Pachamama (mother earth basically). So the 11 of us sat freezing around a makeshift stone fire pit and were asked to place our offerings inside. We gave this traditional Inca ritual a 21st century makeover as we scrapped together the best offering we could come up with. A Chuppa Chup, a piece of chocolate, some broken biscuits and a Marlboro light would have to do as we self consciously danced around the fire chanting and kissing coca leaves.

Finally when the great Pachamama was satisfied we started our decent. Jubilant at our achievement the group began in good spirits. The air became easier to breath as we got lower and we gradually warmed up. After an hour or so the terrain began to change. The vast open valleys of the peaks began to disappear from site as the fauna grew thicker and thicker. Within another hour or so we had gone from glacial peaks to full on Rambo jungle. The prehistoric plants and trees that fought to consume the track forced the group into single file and the steep rocky decent put a little distance between the 11 of us. Occasional breaks in the trees and alarmingly recent landslides across our path revealed the vast carpeted valleys to our right and the huge drop to the distant river below. Far from the vibrant blue skies of the morning there was now an eerily dark and moody atmosphere and we could actually make out a storm moving in our direction from across the mountains. We put on our ponchos and picked up the pace but it was futile. We were at least 3 hours from camp and within 5 minutes everything was soaked. The track became a sodden stream and our morale dried up. The only thing that kept me going at this point was the site of Han and Stacey's red faces peering out from their ponchos like a couple of angry bell ends in novelty condoms.

It had become apparent from day one that we weren´t going to get a straight answer from Jimmy John. Hannah's banter with him had seen to that. One minute we were 30 minutes from camp and the next it was 5 hours, either response always delivered with a knowing smirk.
At this point in the day having walked for 10 hours already we were in no mood for jokes. We approached every corner with an optimistic pace only to be broken as we rounded it to find another valley beyond. Until finally as the mountains around us started to shrink into the valley floor we rounded a verge and were met by the view of a small jungle village. With a bar! It took about 20 minutes for everyone to get back, the last of whom: the Americans were applauded home as we immediately sank a few beers and much to the disgust of the militant Dutch, broke out the cigarettes. Sod it, the hardest day was over. The beer quickly had the desired effect and after the most awkwardly silent communal dinner grab of the week we took our moldy feet to bed. Being at a more humid altitude I thought it safe to spare the girls my wretched toes and recycled carbohydrates so took my own tent. As I spread luxuriously, star fish style across two camping mattresses the exhaustion consumed me instantly. It was 9pm.

Wednesday
Day 3 was going to be a piece of piss. Apparently. Anything would be better than the trauma of day two but as we were woken again at 5am even walking to the toilet was painful. Every one of our blisters and aching bones manifested themselves into a decrepit waddle that made the Dutch dad look like Jessica Ennis.
However once back in our now soggy walking boots and warmed up with a few KMs of hiking, our legs marched on. We were to trek along the low edge the valley for about 5 hours until lunchtime. The track was almost level with the river at this point and with few climbs to undertake we managed to enjoy the wildlife and navigate ourselves over numerous suspect makeshift bridges and waterfalls, which Stacey took on with hilarious fear each time. However as the hours passed and under the relentless morning sun we still tired quickly so the site of a rusty old minivan at a bend in the river up ahead was sweeter than any of the beautiful landscapes we had been spoilt with over the last 3 days. Jimmy John momentarily had us believing it was for another group but at that point I think we would have hijacked it anyway.

This was the first time we had sat in a seat for three days and the first time we had moved anywhere without travelling under our own steam. Revitalized in the van and with the weight off our feet we quickly reached a state of delirium. Jimmy was sitting in the front with an anonymous driver and decided to treat us all to his own personal mix of tasteless euro pop. Fresh from a Fanta and Snickers hit, Hannah, Stacey and I cackled wildly with laughter behind them which only encouraged him to turn the volume up even louder. The minibus' antique stereo seemed to be attached directly to the throttle as the driver responded likewise. And so as our party bus made its way up the valley slopes like Colin McCrae the river disappeared into an abyss below. Soon the huge drop on either side of the bus and the narrow dirt track we were navigating became increasingly hairy. As we turned blind corners at full speed token toots of the horn were drowned out by the blaring euro pop and the clear danger of the situation only seemed to add to our delirious excitement. Blind corners gave way to impossibly steep hair pin turns where the bus threatened to stall each time with a drop to valley floor in the rear view mirror. Thankfully for all of us the ridiculously clear danger of the situation was too much for the American, who's wife was at this point about to rediscover her breakfast, and he shouted to slow down and turn off the music. Jimmy, sheepish for the first time all week, obliged and order was restored.

The bus continued on for an hour or so in a calmer manner until we dropped back into another vast valley floor and on to a make shift road meandering along the dry river bed. The epic river bed was so large it made our bus feel like a matchbox toy. It's apparently swallowed up by the river each year during the rainy season, which must be an awesome site to see.

At the end of the valley our reward awaited us. The hot springs. These were three large pools built to capture the natural hot water springing from the bottom of the valley walls. The three pools were of varying temperatures as the water made its way from one to the other and eventually into the river itself. We all jumped immediately into the soothing water of the hottest pool and laughed awkwardly at American mans weeing in the pool jokes. After an hour or so as we gradually wrinkled into prunes and Jimmy's banter with the girls became more and more inappropriate we decided to get out for a well earned beer.
This was the surprising point at which Hannah became the first of the three of us to break down. Within seconds of getting out the pool we were swarmed over by Mosquitoes like fly paper. These were tough b******s and couldn't care less for the deets that we'd sprayed so liberally you could taste it in the beer. Hannah's blood clearly had the best taste as she was practically eaten alive in the time it took her to down a half pint and jump back into the safety of the pool. Hannah was uncharacteristically quiet for the next few hours. Her legs were already showing the early signs of leprosy and so we gave her space until she had calmed and was ready to join us again. A lesson that would prove invaluable on day 4.

That night we were driven to a small jungle town called Santa Teresa. Apparently destroyed in a huge flood 20 years ago, the town is now a sprawling mass of half built concrete amidst the lush green of the jungle. Like a badly executed suburban American dream, the dirty grey concrete spread out like a disease on the jungle forming wide roads, sidewalks, public squares and up into the skeletal frames of the buildings above. The sad price of prosperity.
We reached a camp site on the edge of town and for the first time all week made contact with other tour groups. Some considerably cooler looking groups than our own special needs rabble. After another now well rehearsed competitive buffet dinner routine with our own group we joined the other tours around a camp fire and were quickly introduced to Inca tequila. Refreshed from our afternoon off and with the misguided confidence that the worst of our trek was behind us, we decided to fly the flag for the Sexy Llamas and swiftly got 'on it'. Vino Tinto (red wine: the girls most fluent Spanish) and Cervezas flowed and a very familiar drunken excitement took hold as the three of us dominated the camp fire managing to corrupt everyone brave enough to not go to bed, except our own two cautiously programmed Dutch Kids. Thankfully the music and lights were turned out at midnight. A late one. And so we hit the sack with about 5 hours to recover.

Thursday
And so Day 4 was doomed from the start: as an optional add on to the original tour we had turned down a lift directly to Machu Picchu that morning and committed to an additional days hiking along a stretch of the original Inca trail. A mere 7 hour trek: a piece of cake? So the night before we had said our goodbyes to the Swiss mum and daughter in our best patronizing English and we were now down to just 9. That morning we were woken again at sunrise: 5am with our hangovers still a couple of hours away. Bizarrely our usual breakfast was supplemented this morning with the late introduction of a carrot cake the size of small house. God knows how and where Pedro and Lucio cooked it in their meter squared kitchen, equipped with Bunsen burner and a box of matches, but this high calorie breakfast was an ominous treat.

I thanked them all the same as I made my way to the toilet in hope of shedding some pounds before heading off again. Needless to say toilets in Peru are not somewhere you would want to take the morning paper and the trek toilets were obviously no exception. In - hover - drop - wipe -out without touching a thing was the general code of conduct. But in these makeshift campsites, the difference between toilet and kitchen was becoming decidedly less apparent and by now I was struggling to tell the difference. What came out smelt a lot like was going in and my craving for a Big Mac served on a freshly sanitized bright plastic tray was becoming obsessional.

In hindsight we were probably in the worse possible shape for a day's hiking at this point but set off in silent agreement that we wouldn't let it show to the others. Especially not the Dutch who were already blazing a trail ahead of us. It wasn't long before we were all engulfed in jungle again, ducking beneath huge flowering banana trees and looking on longingly at the enormous hillsides of coffee plantations. It was about this time that the track we were walking started to head up hill, gently at first but gradually and sneakily steeper and steeper.
One step at a time we climbed and climbed until the chatter and banter had completely given way to deep breathing and concentration. The jungle at this point was thick again and we were down to single file. Heads down and with only a view of the feet in front of you we continued to climb. Another personal battle within each one of us had started and inevitably gaps started to open up in the group. I had Hannah in front of me and the Dutch lad ahead of her. Along with the American guy we had been at the front for a while. I assumed everyone was behind the four of us but after some time, realised we'd lost the rest of the group and a little time after that the American had disappeared too. The last time we'd seen Stacey she was towards the back with Jimmy and the dead Dutchman. They were a little way back but making steady progress. There was clearly only one direction to go and through fear of losing momentum we decided not to wait for everyone to catch up and kept climbing. The Dutch lad effortlessly chatted as we climbed as if he was taking a stroll to the shops while behind him Hannah and I were sweating out a nights worth of booze and any other fluid our bodies could find.
Still the path led up. Around every corner we were greeted with a wall of stepping stones, some nearly half a meter high that disappeared into the jungle high above us. Sometimes the stones gave way to lose gravel but the gradient remained the same. We stopped occasionally for water but the path was so tight that we couldn't see anything behind us and we were so soaked in sweat that our clothes quickly felt cold against the skin, so we kept on climbing. Waiting for an obvious stopping point, or even better: the summit.
After about 3 hours of relentless and nonstop ascending we finally reached a large flat clearing in the trees. Hannah and I collapsed and immediately inhaled our snack supplies whilst the Dutch lad looked on impatiently at the track ahead as it forked into three options. We looked like we'd just been Bikram hiking and he still appeared as if straight out the catalogue. We sat and waited, watching the top few steps for signs of the rest of the group and after while one-by-one they appeared and collapsed much the same as Hannah and I had. Eventually Stacey appeared. We'd been told that she was last seen joking with Jimmy towards the back of the group but Jimmy had actually dropped back to get another donkey for our group's stubborn dead member and left Stacey to climb alone. Now for someone who wouldn't normally run for a bus, two and a half hours of climbing through the jungle without seeing another soul had broken Stace. Visibly shaking and emotional she was proof of how ridiculously hard what we'd just undertaken had been and to do it alone was as much a mental battle as a physical one. It was Stacey's turn to visit the dark place. Annoyed that we'd left her behind and completely exhausted, we offered her food and drink but essentially just had to give her a little time and space to come round.
After we'd regrouped and recuperated, Jimmy John arrived casually and promised us our reward. We took one of the three paths ahead and within a few minutes the jungle thinned out to a clearing revealing a large plateau of grass with panoramic views of the whole mountain range around us. It was an incredible landscape that seemed to go on forever in every direction. Sat discreetly between the two peaks directly to the west of us, across the vast valley lay Machu Picchu our eventual destination and easy to forget; the whole reason we were enduring the week long trek.
Almost invisible from this distance, it was only the very obviously man made terraces that stood out from where we were viewing. Like faint lines cut through the mountain top they followed the contours of the peak impeccably. Needless to say this quickly turned into a photo fest. Smiley ones, casual ones, au´naturel ones, simultaneous jumping ones, sitting down ones, with sunglasses, without sunglasses... the photo shoot went on for about 20 minutes until a group of Americans arrived behind us and were over heard asking their guide; "er can we get this guy out of the way?" f***ing Americans. Of course I obliged them by staying put and lighting up a cigarette.
Appreciating our surroundings and finishing our snacks it didn't feel long before we were on the move again. Down this time. Stacey had long returned from the dark side but between them the girls had given up. They no longer had any desire for trekking - which was less than ideal at 3000 meters. So as we started the long decent they dropped straight to the back and the chatter started. The whole group stopped for more photos about 20 minutes in and the girls were nowhere to be seen. Just as we started to worry we heard them laughing casually as they approached and at this point I knew it was bad news.
They had lost 10 minutes on the rest of us in 20 minutes walking. With 3 hours descending to go it was already clear this was going to be an even longer morning than necessary. Frustrated I left them to it and kept pace with the rest of the group. The last I saw of them was Hannah prancing along with her walking sticks accusing Jimmy John of checking out her arse. Stratford draught or not, this was my turn to be pissed off!
After a hard few hours descending through jungle and intense heat minus our guide who was currently being molested some distance behind us, the rest of the group and I reached a fork in the path. We knew we were only minutes from lunch but didn't know what direction to take and so had to wait for Jimmy and the girls. Fortunately the fork came at a spectacular rope bridge across a valley gorged out by the river some 60 meters high. Indiana Jones would have thought twice about crossing this bridge and so it immediately filled the group with excitement and anticipation. But after 15 minutes of photos and bad American dad jokes the excitement faded into exhaustion and we sat down for a drink still waiting for the girls.
After a further 15 minutes of sharing snacks (this is the moment I broke the Dutch mum into what I believe was a smile) we slouched down into laying positions. After a further 15 minutes most of us were asleep. Half an hour later, well over an hour behind us came the girls. Laughing, flirting and joking with Jimmy as they casually strolled on passed us. Having just spent an hour sleeping the rest of us had now seized up and were starving hungry. To say I was livid at this point would be putting it mildly. The rest of the group were too polite to say so but I couldn't hide it so well. Fair enough if you're over 65 or marginally decrepit but to be comprehensively beaten by the whole group, by over an hour, including a dead old man (who to his credit had ditched the donkey at the summit) was a bit too much for me and so I decided the only mature action was too ignore them for an hour or so.
As I sulked my way to lunch we passed a 100 meter high waterfall, ejecting straight out of the side of the valley wall and dissipating impressively into the river below. I was still in the middle of an incredible sulk but the cooling mist and incredible view was almost enough to bring me round. It was a man made waterfall, a hole blasted out of the cliff face to direct the current toward a factory of giant turbines. We had reached Hydro Electrica, a bizarrely placed power station in the shadow of Machu Picchu like some kind of elaborate bond villain's lair, which was to be our lunch stop.
As it turned out, food was enough to bring me round from my sulk. This was our last provided meal of the trip and was followed by an emotional goodbye to our chefs Pedro and Lucio. Stacey was particularly sad to see sweet little Lucio go and so she gave him her poncho as a departing present which he gratefully excepted, and probably masturbated over that night.
After our sad goodbyes we gladly excepted the chance to take a train through the bottom of the valley to the last stop, Aguas Calientes, base camp for the big one; Machu Picchu. Aguas Calientes is a small village sitting on the river deep in the valley between the tightly packed mountains below Machu Picchu. It's surrounding cliffs tower impressively upwards from the valley floor like a rocky metropolis carpeted in lush green jungle.

This was to be the final night of our tour and our first night in a hostel all week. Again my wives were lucky enough to be sharing with me and my trench feet. Our room had three beds and about a meter square of floor space but most importantly a shower. After we'd all showered twice and compared mosquito damage - which Hannah won hands down - we met up with Jimmy John and rest of the group for a restaurant dinner. It was double carbs again of course but this time from a menu and sitting at a dinner table! Pure luxury. Just as the girl's excitement started to get the better of them on their second bottle of vino Tinto, Jimmy John announced our wake up time for the morning. 4.30am. We were in bed within half an hour.

Friday
Day 5: the main event, started with a rush to the bus stop. Regardless of the exceptional landscape around us we were now far from the peaceful isolation of the last 4 days and found ourselves battling with endless fat American day trippers and over enthusiastic Japanese photographers. Declining the near vertical one hour climb to the summit was an easy decision and so we took the first of a fleet of buses up the winding road to the top.
Our early start was rewarded spectacularly as we entered Machu Picchu in time for sun rise and embarked on half an hour of frantic photography - Every picture of which could have been achieved from the comfort of home with a basic knowledge of Photoshop. It was a surreal experience, a view so spectacular yet so familiar that no amount of shutter clicking could do it justice and you could almost sense the frustration amongst the tourist paparazzi. The epic sight right there in front of you required a personal touch and so countless people lined up at the best spots and took turns to strike bizarre poses each more elaborate than the last, while we met one girl who had opted for an all out topless shot, much to everyone's pleasure. Personally I wish I'd taken a copy of the Sun across the world with me for the ultimate casual snap.
Stacey and I got to the view point ahead of Han as she 'd taken an un-timely toilet break at the entrance and then gone in search of a cappuccino (you can the girl out the city... ) and so just as we'd exhausted our own repertoire of lame poses Hannah arrived with the photographic opportunity of a lifetime. A savour in the most unlikely form of Phillip Schofield.
However, as the lord giveth and taketh away; he was quickly lost in the growing crowd of clicking camera shutters. To admit the three of us spent the next 4 hours of our guided tour around the epic ruins of Machu Picchu hunting down day time TV's silver fox would be mildly embarrassing but to be fair, had we found him and secured that snap it would have possibly been the best picture of Machu Picchu ever taken.
As the hours passed Stace and I started to doubt the authenticity of Hannah's celebrity spot and as lunchtime approached and the crowds progressed towards stadium numbers we grew tired of fighting tourists and headed back down the mountain to find some alcoholic rewards.
Some hours later we discovered through friends online that Phillip Schofield had indeed been in Machu Picchu that morning and so confirmed what is quite likely the biggest regret of Stacey's life. She still refused to talk about as I left the continent two weeks later. But even still as we sat back waiting for our train to Cusco, eaten alive, blistered and exhausted we contemplated our week's achievement. We then began to sink so many Cervezas that the restaurant's owner is probably now holidaying in New York and for the first time in five days Hannah uttered the words 'dream boat basically'