arnika round the world

The last 2 days have been filled with buses, and taxis and vans…I left Cusco early friday morning to get to Puno which is by Lake Titicaca. The bus ride was interesting and I sat with these 2 super hippy canadien ttravellers, they didnt go to machu pichu because it was too touristy instead went off into the hills around it for  week and just wandered around with random people living there. awesome. And I had this crazy little kid come sit next to me who smelt worse that anything and had a crazy withered hand. He kept tapping my arm every few minutes and pointing out things to me like cars, trains, buildings….weird. Spent the afternoon just walking around and getting some food. As I mentioned my eftpos card wont work so I rung the bank back in NZ and tried to explain it to the lady “my card isnt working”
“well just come in and we´ll replace it”
“Im in Peru…”
“Piha?”
“No Peru”
“Parnell?”
“NO, Peru as in south america”
“hmmm well thats a problem, try again tomorrow otherwise I dont know”

wow thanks for your help….

anyway still havent tried it but have travellers chequee so I should be sweet. In the morning I went on a tour to los Uros, these floating islands made of reeds. They only still exist because of tourists so it was like a bug museum a but stange but still interesting. Evenything is made of reeds and the island s need another layer put down every 3 weeks to stop them from rotting away. We went on a reed boat and ate reeds, very weird.

I was planning to catch a bus to La Paz but there were no tourist buses going in the afternoon so they told me to catch a public bus to this place and another bus to the boarder then to La Paz…sounds easy enough. Well publuc buses are a lot different to tourist buses, much much smaller…only a 2 hour ride to the boarder though then I had no idea what to do but this guy in a bike taxi thing took me to the boarder and showed me where to go and where to change my money. Going through the Bolivian boarder was interesting. 5 huge guys with guns took me into this little room and went through my day pack, taking out all my money, taking photos of themselves with my digital camera…when they found my british passport that was a big drama trying to explain the I had 2 in my no spanish. Eventually they let me go, gave me a hug…interesting experience. From there the taxu guy dropped me off a pointed to these vans who were yelling ´La Paz´so I just jumped in one. They put my bag on the roof and I had one of those moments like what the hell am  I doing…but we got to La Paz only a couple of hours. Then I had the address of this hostel and the van dropped me on the side of the road in the middle of the suburbs in the dark, pointing to a combie van and said it would go there. Super. luckily there was a guy who spoke english with his girlfriend who said theyd come with me and show me where to go. So they tooke me right to the door of the hostel which was so lucky because im not sure what I would have done otherwise! So then I get in the hostel and its full!! But again luckily there were this group of america girls who live in bolivia with the peace corps and had a spare bed in their room so I stayed with them and went out for tea to this super flash, and super cheap restaurant. Soooo made it to Bolivia, La Paz is totally crazy lots going on so just going to wander for the day.  Everything is so cheap itas great! 

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/arnika/files/2006/04/DSC00679.JPG
Our inca trail started and ending a bit differently than most, but was in essence the same and I made it! for those of you who dont know anything about probably the most famous trek in the world. Its a 4 day trek through original inca trails and ruins ending up at Machu Pichu the mother of all inca ruins in Peru. There loads of regulations now and you have to go in a group and theres only allowed to be 500 people on the trail at one time (thats 200 trekkers and 300 porters). My groups was really awesome and the company (peru treks and adventures) was the best. You can hire porters to carry you r stuff but I carried all my own things (mainly cause Im too cheap to pay for a porter) but they do carry all the food and tents. anyway when my alarm went off at 5.15am I suddenly thought that this was a bad idea, 4 days walking, getting up early, in the rain, walking up hills…i probably would have stayed in bed if I hadnt paid so much money for it! It was a couple of hours drive to get some breakfast and pick up last minute essentials like cocoa leaves, ponchos and walking sticks, yeah we were all looking totally awesome.

The bus was supposed to drop us off (our group of 16, plus 21 porters) at the beginning of the trek BUT because of landslides its couldnt make it down this little road so we were dropped off about 12 kms from the start! luckly we got picked up by this little cattle truck so theres about 34 of us and all our gear in the back of this truck heading down this dodgy road. It was instant bonding though and was much more fun than sitting in a bus! The first day was about 5 hours, mainly flat, walking through big mountains and ruins all around. Very beautiful. At lunch time we dumped our stuff and sat on the ground ready for sanwhiches or something but the porters (carrying about 50 times as much stuff as us and running the track) arrive before us at every stop and set up tent with tables and chairs and cook the most amazing food! we couldnt believe they could make that sort of food when your camping! We all felt kind of guilty about this sort of luxury trekking but it was nice. Despite there being so many people on the track you dont actually see many other people as everyone is spread out, so its really awesome to be just surrounded by mountains and the occasional alpaca wandering past.

There was a lot of rain during the 4 days but it was better that walking in the sun. The 2nd day is about 5 hours up hill, notoriously hard and we were all freaking out about it. It was hard…super hard, just all these steps. It was such a relief to get to the top finally! its at about 4200meters so your really high and the altitude does make it a bit difficult to breath. From the top it was a 2 hour walk down hill, also pretty hard but luckly had my walking stick! The 3rd day was beautiful, long but amazing scenery and heaps or inca ruins. A bit of up hill but not as intense as the day before. We spent most of the day litererly walking in the clouds. The way down to the camp site was by way of 2336 steps, the steppest, biggest most dangerous steps Ive ever seen. Plus it was raining, im suprised none of us broke our ankles. The end of that day really seemed to go on forever but we did make it eventually to the last camp where there is a bar and buildings! very exciting. The porters always run ahead of us to set up lunch and our tents for the evening. They even come and wake us up in the moring with tea in bed! The last night we got a big ti´p together for them and the guides and did a big thankyou, it was really nice to be able to thank them all personally as they do soooooo much for you. The bad news however was confirmed that night, the last day you wake up at 4am to get to the sun gate and walk down into Machu Pichu but due to land slides that part of the trak had been closed. So we couldnt walk into Machu Pichu, which is the whole reason for the trek. We were all gutted but nothing we could do about it. We ended up still walking up a t 4am and walking a couple o f hours, but down to the town instead along the railway lines and caught a short bus up to Machu Pichu, so not the same but not too bad. Didnt take away the amazement of MP. Its huge and the clouds just wash over it all morning then lift later on. We did a bit of a tour then sat up on the terraces over looking the ancient city feeling very proud of ourselves, we had survived! It was one of the hardes t things ive ever done but was amazing, will put up photos soon. Our group was great 13 brits, 2 Norweigians and me, all lovely people and we had a great time together. Im so stoked ive done it and now feel part of the ´cool group´who has made it through, and we all definitl y fel t superior to all the general tourists who catch the train there. We may had smelt and looked worse but it made the whole experience more rewarding! so that was the inca trail. Currently in Puno still needing to catch up on sleep. Eftpos card has decided to stop working so a bit worried about what Im going to do a bout money. Have backup so im sweet for awhile. Stupid banks. Off to Bolivia tomorrow!

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