Nothing’s Familiar

I have been in Cuzco for over 2 weeks now, waiting to do the Inca trail, so when September the 24th arrived I was perfectly happy for Andean Life to wake up at 4.30am to start my trek.

Day 1
After the numerous hostel pick-ups the 14 of us, plus a few porters drove in a very comfortable minibus to our first stop. Breakfast. After 45 minutes of chatting with a lovely American girl called Yen, consuming a continental breakfast (Bread & Jam) and slurping sugary coffee until dubious ´milk´ was added I visited the female toilets and embarked on the bus again for the 30 minute drive to another town where, yet again, I forget the name. I will say this is probably the best town in Peru to purchase wooden walking sticks, coca leaves and if like me you only have 50 sole notes it´s also a great place to purchase toilet paper for the sole purpose to get change to buy the aforementioned sticks and leaves.
Hopping on our bus again we drove over rail tracks, gazed in amazement at the height of the snow peaked mountains, begged for seat-belts as we overtook other buses on blind corners of cliff roads and reversed over and over again to let other buses pass us on most-definite-one-way roads. We arrived at forgotten name place 3, received our sleeping mats and I received my 10 kilo sleeping bag, to which after purchasing some belt strap type things I managed to ´secure´ it to my now over weighted and incredibly uncomfortable ruck sack. (I am sure you will understand that after trekking 28 Miles, with altitudes ranging from 2,450m and 4,198m I was really glad to put my bag down for the final time on the 4th day!)

So, after getting out passports stamped with the first of the Inca Trail´ stamps we headed off over a wobbly bridge to commence our trek.

The first day trekking was relatively easy with frequent informational stops, food breaks and tutorials on how to squash small cocooned insects and wipe their blood on your face (I forget the reason behind this). We also, well, I also played with a piglet and had lunch.

I will briefly explain about the porters and our chefs. They carry 25 kilos, walk very fast and cook the most amazing, un-imaginable 3 course meals, 3 times a day. A insight to what food we had to eat on our trek; fresh soup followed by a main course of meat and rice with stuffed peppers, then for afters pancakes with caramel sauce. Nice.

The remainder of the day involved, believe it or not, walking until we reached our already erected camp site. We all jumped into tents and after eating dinner, we went to sleep at around 8.00pm in preparations for the infamous day 2.

Day 2

After possibly the worst nights sleep I ever had, we had breakfast whilst I moaned to various people about waking up at 1.00am and failing to get back to sleep.
Day 2 lived up to it´s reputation, it was really cold in the morning so we all had jumpers, hats and gloves on. After the first 5 minutes of ridiculous step climbing we all stopped at the top and removed every item of clothing we had just put on!
The remainder of the day involved many ´fake tops´ which, if you are familiar with annoying soul-destroying moments in life you will probably find walking to the top of a massive mountain only to discover another mountain just as large hidden behind it a normal everyday experience. What a bastard.

The last part of the day was walking back down the other side of the highest mountain to our camp site. Down hill, what a blessing!! What a pain in the arse, possibly because I only had 5 hours sleep, sat on and broke my walking stick and felt like my knee´s belonged on a arthritic wooden rocking horse being ridden by an obese power lifter, whilst working on his daily 50 kilo lifts.

I got to the camp, ate tea, slept for 2 hours, woke up in 2 hours for dinner, ate dinner, slept for 10 more hours.

It´s also worth mentioning that on the hardest part of the second day I met two more people who live in Macclesfield, they live on South Acre Drive and know the Mantons, the Grimeses and I used to know their son.
Lynn and Carl Kirby?
When they get back to England say hello to them will you please Chris or Johnny!

Day 3
Another early start, waking up to the sound of rain splashing on our tent, the screams of the brave people attempting to shower themselves in subzero temperatures and a lovely cup of Manzilla tea brought to our tent. Donning my rain coat, rain cover for my rucksack and feeling incredibly refreshed we set off for yet another ridiculous climb up steps so steep they would make Shaquile O´Neil complain nearly as much as we did.
Living in England I am used to rain, so for the 3 hours which is pissed it down uncontrollably I was in my element, because walking at around 4000m above sea level is really tuff on your breathing due to the lack of oxygen, but when it rains all of a sudden you can breathe again, so I pretty much shot up the first few mountains and for the remainder of the day myself and Irish Andrew jogged down the crazy steep steps.
Day 3 was by far the nicest scenery I had ever seen, admit ably it was clouded over 90% of the day but we walked through cloud forests, past ruins, Inca terraces oh and I saw an Andean turkey!
When we finally arrived at our base camp we ate dinner, tipped our porters, guides and chefs (“use donkeys or llamas”) and then proceeded to consume alcohol, blessed alcohol! We also shared some alcohol with Pachamama (mother earth) to thank her in advance for letting tomorrow be a cloud free experience.

Day 4
“Pachamama is a bitch”
We all stupidly agreed that waking up at 3.30am to be the first group at the check-in point would be a wise Idea, which if the weather was fine it would have been an idea as wise as the wisest man´s wisest thought.
After waiting for the gates to open we burst through them as if chasing a fake rabbit on a track and started to trek the last remaining part of the Inca Trail.
2 hours of steps, slipping and getting shouted at for setting a ridiculous pace we arrived at the ´sun gate´, the place with the postcard view of Machu Pichu. Luckily for us however we got to see the non-commercial view, grey mist.
After relaxing and complementing each other we set off again to the main site wincing our eyes together to see if we had the magic x-ray vision superman had, bizarrely enough we didn’t. So after waiting 10 minutes we bit the bullet and left the high part of Machu Pichhu to check in our bags and get the finally stamp in our passport.
After 20 minutes of relaxing, preparing ourselves to walk around Machu Pichu in the fog I assume Pachamama must have woke up blurry eyed and realised we got her drunk for free so decided to sort out the weather for us. (sorry for calling you a bitch)
As the clouds slowly moved we caught a glimpse of the most spectacular view, Winapicchu and her surrounding mountain buddies. In 10 minutes all the clouds had disappeared and the sun started to burn away at our now mud tanned bodies, it was glorious and defiantly worth the 28 miles of insane trekking we had done. The only problem was though, after 28miles of insane trekking the last thing we wanted to do was walk around and look at the place we had trekked 28 miles to see! But we had come all this way, so we did.

A lot of us climbed Wynapichu, which is the mountain at the back of the postcard view you will have probably seen, and after reaching the summit felt like a relief like no other.

Machu Pichu rocked.

Day 4 (night)

Waking up at 3.30am, walking 2 hours to Machu Pichu then climbing up another mountain, then going out to get drunk until 5.30am the following day isn´t sensible if you were planning to sit on a bus for 15 hours to Bolivia the next day. So I didn´t, I waited until the next day before getting on the bus.

Fin

Sorry about the length of this , if you don’t want to read it all, read this bit first.

“I had a great time”

Speak to you from Bolivia in a few days.

What´s up peeps? Sadly I haven´t got many exciting stories, I have just been relaxing and studying in Cusco, I never thought I would actually sit in my hostel and study for 2 hours a night but I have been, and I have completed 28 hours of intense Spanish lessons.

Cusco is OK, in fact it would be even better if it wasn’t for the bastard touts. I don’t understand why so many people want to clean the 2cm of extruding sole on my shoe. I didn’t clean my own shoes in England when I was earning money, what makes people think I would pay to get my shoes cleaned?

However, saying all this I have been here now for around 2 weeks so is starting to feel a little like home – with added llama.

My budget is getting slowly back on track as I have started investing in bread rolls, tins of “Fanny” tuna (only the English people in this mail will find the funny side to this) or eating at the local market where a bowl of rice, eggs and chips costs 20p.

The other day I had to get up to walk to some Inca ruins, which as the name suggests are buildings which are now ruined, made by Incas. Our planned trek would have allowed us to see 7 of the most spectacular sites around Cusco, but seeing as we were still blurry eyed from the night before we some how missed 4 of them, and couldn’t be bothered seeing the last one.

I have also been on my first trek, organised by my school, it was an 8 hour trek but myself and an American girl shot of and managed it in 5 hours. We then sat at the end of the trek and waited 3 hours for the others with nothing to look at apart from the “Holy Water” at this very religious site. This “Holy Water” is meant to cure you of cancer, aids and free your mind of bad shit etc..

I suppose death from water poisoning is a cure for the afformentioned.

So that’s it, oh, I chatted to two people from Cheshire who happened to live on Beech Lane and drink in the same local as we used to “The Ship”

Ever so sorry I haven’t lost, dropped or broke anything.

Rob.
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(EDIT)
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Since I wrote this draft I have broke something!

I went out for a pizza and meal with my friends from School. After the meal we ventured into a night club, which, bizarrely had walls built by the Inca people. Anyway, after a few cervezas I placed myself carefully on a glass table to chat to a chap from Wales (see where this is going?)
Now either the conversation got exciting or the alcohol I was drinking altered my weight, but, either way the table smashed from underneath me shattering shards of bottles, table and wine glasses all over the club. The best part of this was the music in the club was stupidly loud, yet luckily for me my table smashing antics were louder, so every one in the club turned round and stared.

30 soles to pay for a replacement (4pounds)!

Ciao for now.

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