Cusco and the 4day Inca trail hike

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South American trippe

Part 1..the Cusco & machu Piccu stuff


The general overview and first rather wooden blog...more work will be done on the next ones..I pwomise

random general stuff

1) Its damn cold in Cusco and wet oftentimes
2) I did indeed get altitude sickness..cracker of a headache and a weakness about the body
3) there are a fair few people knocking around here travelling, some good ones and a fair share of duds who seem to want to convince the peruvians they can be more peruvian than they..
4) The reputation of the irish as drinkers is known by peruvians, even those with only a few words of English. As if in response some of the younger irish I met on the first couple of days keep that rep up sticking to the pubs all night
.....being a relatively easily spottable paddy there was a mild curiosity on the inca trail as to what I was about.
5) its been fairly mellow..no boozing as of yet..
6) Again...its cold...I had to buy extra clothes..goddamit
7) they really could use more western style toilets..that above all else is the biggest hurdle for me

Here follows the chuck I had written about the first week...consider it a practice run in terms of flow

The city of Cusco situated at around 10,000 ft is a fairly lively touristy type of place. Coming in Jan the beginning of the rainey season means rain at least twice a day and at night. After suffering through a number of mornings with altitude sickness, I took things quite easy as I wanted to be at my best for the Inca trail to the lost city of the Incas Machu Picchu. I booked into a dorm room in Loki Hostel for the first night but the shock of having everything in a bag..trying to organize it so I didnt have to open it for every single little thing, the lack of space, privacy, need to look out for valuables and passport at every turn and any modern toilets turned me off of that fairly quickly and I bunked up in hotel in a single room until I could get my bearings and get used to the travelling lifestyle.
This proved inspirational for an additional $15 I could get myself in gear with some comforts.

I did the city tour which consisted of Inca ruins which either had been pilfered to build other buildings by the spanish or that had been used as foundation material by the spanish such as a cathederal built upon the temples of the sun and moon.

Destruction of the Inca sites became something of a trend in everything that we saw on the tour and what disconcerted me was the fact that when they spoke about it they always were quite neutral sounding about the whole thing speaking as if it had happened to someone else.

These events included the slaughter of the Incas, (their betrayal several times) and their subjugation including a law making each tribe wear different european clothes so they could recognize and control the tribes..poor sods, doesnt sound like they ever put up a proper fight...if it was me id be tempted to sound a little more peeved.

The Cathederal is the highlight of the town having been built on (i beleive) an Inca site. Its huge with all of the standard cathederal fare including an excessive number of alters. The paintings were all done by natives and there are little touches of Inca style in some of the standard religious paintings such as Jesus on the cross is shown wearing a dress with native style bow legs, the last supper features a guinea pig on the platter and there are serpents around the place interwoven in some the other religious pictures. Placed there apparently because this attracted the locals to the church to go catholic while maintaining some of their old symbols.

b]Inca trail 4 day hike

The Inca trail 4 day hike is indeed exceptional and the best way to head towards the lost city. As its rainy season we saw a fair amount of rain the first day but were blessed that it happened only at night for the remainder of the trip. I didn´t hire an extra porter for my bag thinking it would be great exercise for me but after the first day of sucking wind at 11,000 feet with a heavy backpack I soon changed my mind for the second and third days. second day is killer no matter how fit you are with 5 hours of straight climbing of Inca stone steps which comprise the trail to a peak at 14,000 feet. Having no bag and having chewed half an acre of cocoa leaves I made it trudging and stopping every 20 yards or so, just like everyone else, to the top although many people were almost broken by the climb especially those with their bags.

Following a two hour decent of stone steps we camped at 13,000 ft in a beautiful valley of sorts with amazing vistas surrounding, the movement of the clouds which are at eye level through the mountains combined with the backdrop of snowcaps and water falls is truly breathtaking.

After more rain that night the next day ..3 was all downhill on damp stone steps heading down through jungle like terrain. The steps are incredible steep and very off putting and there are millions of them in an Indiana Jones style, think lord of the rings and the decent into the mines of Moria..those kinds of steps but outside.

After an eternity of cursing and much careful treading we decend 1,200 metres to the last camp site before the final couple of hours trek to the city itself the following day, we luxuriate in the western ..almost style toilets at this camp. Up before 4 the next morning we make the relatively easy 4 hour trek to the sun gate which overlooks the city of Machu Piccu. It certainly is an amazing site up there in the mountains and the benefit of having done the trek is that it now has some context, the only downside to this is that it becomes part of the trek and you dont have the same wow factor as those who have just showed up on the bus..

Highly recommended ..at all costs try and go when its not raining as you will be at one with the rain in the clouds.. that day slept 14 hours before making it back on a slow ass train to cusco...replete with traditional dancers and people flogging alpaca..goaty thing..sweaters

Quick word about the group..generally nice people some mexicans, a maltese couple and two american jewish college guys calling themselves friends but both gay as christmas even though at least one hasnt come out of the closet yet..oh well hopefully they will work things out for the best...

- One very large shout out to the porters who ran (literally) everthing that us tourists puffed up and down and fretted about. Watching them was another amazing aspect to the trek.

later
bjl

ps- Ill post some pics when I find out how to do it.

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