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Published: September 28th 2010
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Photo 1
Doug and I on my birthday After 5 superb weeks in America which included an amazing eight nights in Vegas, Doug and I left America and flew to Peru on an empty plane via Panama to Lima. We landed in Lima about one o clock in the morning of my birthday and checked into our hostel. The barmaid noticed it was my birthday and gave me a free beer, a lovely gesture normally, not for me, I hate beer so I gave it to Doug. Suprisingly cider hasnt made it over to South America yet.
On my birthday the highlight was lunch and getting my hair cut. The woman cutting my hair barely spoke a word of English and my Spanish is non existent. I just showed her a photo of when it was short and let her chop away. It wasnt a complete a horror show which is sometimes all you can ask for. I did panic when she bought out a cut throat razor. In the evening Doug and I went out, we went to a club full of locals, we had a decent night considering, we decided to leave when the western music stopped and they started to play Latino. I dont know what
Photo 2
Me and Doug in our horrific trousers we were hoping for in Peru.
We spent a total of four nights in Lima which is far too long, there really wasnt a lot to do and the weather is constantly cloudy. The aforementioned barmaid was also the most annoying person I have ever met, we booked our bus to Cusco and cursed ourselves for staying in Lima so long.
The bus to Cusco was 22 hours so we decided to pay the eight pounds more and go VIP, we were still in Vegas mode. The bus looked pretty plush but the next twenty two hours were not fun. I had bought some sleeping pills for the journey. Obviously the transaction between me and the pharmacist was just shouting and pointing, her in Spanish me in English and ended with me laying on the floor pretending to be a sleep. I later found out that I had bought the equivilant of redbull not sleeping pills. Needless to say I didnt get much sleep on the bus. Doug was in a lot worse way, the whole journey to Cusco is up hill, this had a disatourous effect on his frail little body and he spent most of the night in
Photo 3
Machupiccu the toilet. We were also awoken by Mexican wrewsting cartoons on ths bus at 7am which was not welcome.
We had booked into a hostel in Cusco for a week, the hostel was pretty decent and there were some pretty cool people there. However the majority of people seemed to be wanna be hippies with fake dreadlocks and silly multi coloured baggy pants on. Not my audience. We booked to do Machupiccu. Did we go for the nine day hike? No. Did we go for the four day hike? No. Did we go for the one day option? You got it. We travelled down to the foot of Machpiccu and spent the night there. We had to be up at half 5 for the walk and the tour. As my mother and Nan will verify when we have to be up early, we dont sleep. I had about two hours sleep, still managing to sleep in. We got up in the end and attempted to walk up to Machupiccu. The altitude and lack of sleep did not help our ascent. We got about a fifth of the way up and decided we were better off getting the bus. So we
walked back down. The guard at the gate to Machpiccu was cracking up when he saw us, he had waived us through earlier and just pointed to the buses. We got the bus up but were late so missed our guide. Our ascent was not helped by the fact that neither Doug and I had any of the right clothes. I had bought the worst pair of jogging bottoms ever produced in Cusco and only had plimsoles on my feet. Not exactly trecking gear.
Once at Machpiccu, I was honestly blown away, I can safely say I have never seen anything like it. It´s the sort of place that a photo cant do justice to. It is obviously full of tourists, but it doesnt take away from how mindblowing it was. As we had failed at everything that day we took it on ourselves to walk to the sungate which had some amazing views. It was so worth going and possibly the best thing I have seen.
We went back to Cusco, where we meet an Australian couple who we spent the next few days with. They were a credit to Australia and we really enjoyed spending time with them.
The fact that the guy Jeremey loved all sport really helped. During the end of our week in Cusco we found out that Ray (The guy I went travelling with previously) was going to meet us in Brazil and not only that had sorted us free accomodation. I was delighted.
After a week in Cusco we left to go to Puno. We had a couple of days relaxing in Puno in which time we went to the floating islands at Lake Titicaca. Whilst it was a complete tourist trap it was still very impressive. There are about one hundred islands upon which approxiamatley a thouand people live. The islands are made of reeds from the lake, and the families get about by boats made of reeds. We spent some time speaking with a family, they lived on the island and made money by selling tat to tourists. They had a seventeen month old son called Christopher who I immediatley had a connection with. I spent about two hours playing with him and chasing him around (not in a weird way), he had such better balance than me on the island it was embarrassing. I asked our guide if women give
birth on the islands, they do. I was stunned.
We left Puno and made our way across the border to Bolivia where we had just under three weeks to spend until our flight to Brazil...
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