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Hola mis amigos.Â
Well since we last spoke I've been having an interesting time in Peru. I arrived in Lima chocked with the cold on 14th April.  I had a day in Lima to myself before my GAP trip started but there was no time to laze about because I needed to fit some shopping in and see Lima in the one day as we were flying to Cusco the following day.Â
Lima is a huge city. I stayed in Miraflores which is a touristy part. I managed to find a great shopping centre along the beachfront where I bought some walking gear in preparation for doing the Inca Trail (not really my favourite type of shopping but when you haven't bought yourself anything new to wear for a couple of months even hideous walking trousers get you a bit excited!) After lunch I did a city tour of Lima which took you to the old part of Lima where there is the 'compulsory'typically Spanish central square with Cathedral and government buildings. Although, I've now seen several squares like this in South America I still enjoyed my visit here. I managed to catch the changing of the guards too which was good - I've never even seen that in the UK before so it was quite good.Â
We headed onto San Fransisco church which was interesting because under it there were lots of bodies buried in communal graves. Recently, when renovating the church they decided to move the bones and display them 'nicely'. By this i mean someone pulled out all of the arm bones and put them in circles and semi circles and someone did likewise with the skulls, leg bones, ribs etc. Imagine having to put that job on your CV?!Â
That night I met my Gap group who i'll be travelling with for the next two weeks. There's 15 of us with people from Denmark, NZ, Oz, Austria and England. They are a good bunch and have made the travelling through Peru fun.Â
We headed on an early plane to Cusco which sits 3,400m high in the Andes. Cusco is full of and surrounded by ruins from the famous Inca empire. It also has lots of typical Spanish buildings built in the colonial period. This makes it a very pretty and interesting place to spend some time.Â
From Cusco we were heading onto the main part of our trip in Peru which is the Inca Trail which finishes at the famous Machu Picchu.  This is a 4 day trek which takes you to a maximum altitude of 4,200m. Anyone who has ever walked at this altitude will agree with me when I say that you basically walk 4 steps and you are huffing and puffing for breath! This means that climbing from 2,500m to 4,200m wasn't the easiest.Â
Fortunately, between the 15 of us we had 23 porters to carry our own bags with clothes etc as well as the camping equipment for us. These guys are incredible, they are generally the same height as me and do the trail carrying 20kg of stuff tied to them with plastic sheets and rope and to top it off they only have flimsy sandals to wear on their feet. We would leave for our hike after a delicious breakfast in the morning, they would be left behind clearing the camping equipment away and they would still manage to overtake us on the trail and have a delicious lunch ready for us further along the trail. How they do it is beyond me!Â
I managed to survive the 4 day trail and i'd go as far as to say that i actually enjoyed it. The views were amazing, camping was fun, the achievement of doing the trail was great and seeing Machu Picchu on the final morning was an incredible sight. It really is an amazing place. Unfortunately, on the day we arrived at Machu Picchu we had been up since 4am so we were a bit tired. We had a two hour tour of the site which thankfully i managed to stay awake for. It'd be a bit of a waste spending 4 days hiking somewhere and not being able to stay awake for the main event!Â
Feeling a bit shattered we headed back to Cusco on the train. The next day I was really tired but Flo from the GAP group and i had arranged to go horse riding that afternoon so I dragged my aching body out of bed to spend 4 hours getting more muscle pains from horse riding. We did have fun though. Being an inexperienced rider i got a big wimp of a horse but together we explored the mountains around Cusco, visiting Inca ruins and caves on our way!Â
So that was the Inca trail and Machu Picchu.  An amazing experience which i'd recommend to anyone who fancies the challenge. It's a beautiful place and well worth the effort!Â
Heading to Lake Titikaka next.   Hopefully that'll be a bit less strenuous!
Hasta lluego. V xÂ
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