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Published: October 13th 2008
Thursday 28
An early bus ride, and I mean early …up at 4am for breakfast at 430am to line up to catch the bus at 5am. This was so that we would be up at Machu Pichuu to catch the sunrise. I think this was the final straw for Jackie. By this time her cold had got considerably worse. (we still don’t know whether it was entirely altitude induced or she picked up a bug…we later found she still had the cough once we got back to sea level) and she just found the early start too much. On top of the early start, once you get to Machu Picchu the first part of the guided tour involved a lot of walking up hill which she found extremely difficult and the day for her just seem to deteriorate.
After our tour finished we found it was still only 930am and found that Waynapichuu beckoned. Only 400 people are allowed to climb Waynapichuu a day. 200 between 9 -10am and 200 between 10 -11am. As it happened they still had some spare tickets for the 10am start, so off we went, 4 of us. Malcolm, Yasmin, our guide Fernando and
me…not that I was feeling particularly energetic but I figured if Malcolm was going to do it then so could I. Remembering that we had just walked up Mt Warning prior to heading off overseas I was a bit half hearted about hiking up this mountain. I made enquiries as to whether the trail went straight up or switch back only to be told that it was switchback but they neglected to add that the switchback was mostly stairs!! I am now glad that we decided to take the train instead of doing the 4 day Inca trail. Oh well, we did it and I am glad we did it although half way down the mountain we were attacked by a zillion mosquitos and since I was the only in shorts by the time I got out the repellent I was covered in bites. They were only little red dots with hardly any reaction around them and they weren’t itchy which surprised me but this wasn’t to last too long because a week later they were raised welts and itchy as hell especially when it got hot or after a shower.
After our mammoth effort up and down the mountain
we decided that we didn’t need to do another stroll around Machu Picchuu so we headed back to the bus to take us back to Aguas Calientes. We rented a room at the hotel for half a day so that Jackie could rest up, then it was back up to the train station to catch the train back to Cusco to get in about 1030pm. After our early start and the trekking up and down the mountain side all we wanted to do was sleep our way to Cusco but this was not to be. Once again snacks were provided and then just as we were about to settle in to sleep all the way to Cusco, on came all the lights and we were entertained by the train staff who did a very lively fashion parade unfortunately all the clothes paraded were very expensive so weren’t enticed to part with out money. Finally made it back to our hotel in Cusco and fell into bed about 11pm.
Friday 29
A day to relax and enjoy…so did the only thing one could do after such a strenuous workout the previous day and that was to go and
View from our hotel at Aguas Caliente
this and the preceding 3 photos should have been in the last bloghave a massage. Before we did this, we had one more site to see and this was Saqsayhuaman, an old Inca fortress guarding Cuzco. Many tourists remember the pronunciation of the place name by thinking of "sexy woman"...
So far the massages haven’t been all that fantastic…certainly not to the standard I am used to with Al. Nevertheless, it was still relaxing and my muscles didn’t complain too much. Malcolm and a few of the other Intrepidites went off to have a Shamanic reading done…I guess it’s one of those things, you either believe, otherwise it’s just a great waste of money…
Of course there is never enough time for shopping so raced around like there was no tomorrow since this was the last place to buy up cheap alpaca goods, leather goods and jewellery.
Dinner was at another local Peruvian restaurant. The food can be a bit hit and miss, it’s more a case of closing your eyes and pointing and then taking what comes. Most of the time what we have ordered has been delicious. The one thing we are having a lot of trouble with is the size of the meals. The trouble is not the
waiting for the bus at 5am
definitely not a 'happy camper' eating of these huge meals but the weight we are putting on from eating them. Doing a few little treks here and there just isn’t the same as the 3 or 4 paddling sessions we did a week! One thing for sure, I am getting the hang of this ‘not cooking’ business. One more sleep and we will be on our way back to Lima
Saturday Aug 30
Up early (once again) for our flight back to Lima. Arriving during day light hours gives a whole new perspective to the city. We think we have the traffic all sussed and even think we could manage to drive here although one of the real problems are the number of one way streets and the fact that they don’t signpost them… very well. Most of the streets signs are attached to building and the one way arrow is posted underneath…so it makes Actually I don’t think I have seen a country with so many one way streets. A GPS would be invaluable here, shame there isn’t any satellite coverage. Time to relax and unwind and catch up on all the washing(just send it all to the ‘lavanderia’ all washed and
folded and even ironed if you would like)…now this is another thingI could quite easily get used to as well. One finally Intrepid farewell dinner back at Nanto (world famous Peruvian chef) and we are at the end of our tour.
Sunday Aug 31
Tour has finished and we are all quite exhausted, much more than we realized. Jackie has a cough that is not entirely due to altitude so she has started on a course of antibiotics which should help. Her idea is always to be on the go but I don’t think she realizes how hard we have been pushed on the tour, so it will be nice to have time to unwind. We aren’t able to stay at the same hotel so it means packing up and relocating. We have moved to Jose Antonio on the advice of other Intrepidites, which is closer to the beach side of Miraflores. Jackie is much happier with our 4 star hotel. I don’t think she quite liked the ‘comfort’ on our tour.
After settling into our new hotel we met up with 5 other Intrepidites to go and visit the Acheological and Anthropological Museum. The taxi system is
quite different in Lima… once you have a taxi you negotiate a fare and you had better know your prices otherwise you can get ripped off. Once the fare is negotiated it doesn’t matter if the taxi doesn’t go the shortest route or gets stopped in traffic or gets lost you only pay the price you negotiated. One thing we noticed, the taxis they don’t always know where they are going and sometimes we would find ourselves parked on the side of the road while the taxi driver conferred with other people. This happened on the way to the museum… we took off in two taxis and we got there at different times, both taxis got lost and in fact one drove through a really dodgy part of town where the driver had to tell our friends to lock the doors, put up the windows and hide their bags! After wandering around for a couple of hours and getting ‘museumed out’ we headed off down to China town for lunch. This was the usual late lunch affair and once again our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. The amount of food that came out could have fed 10 people instead
of the 5 that ate. China town here is like china town everywhere they all have shops selling everything and not that we needed an excuse to shop but next door to our restaurant was a shop selling pirate DVD’s and how could we resist although we did show restraint and only bought 10. They assured us they were in English but we are still to try them out.
Bon voyage to Tony, Esther and Jasmine….now we were 5
Since we ate so late we didn’t need to have dinner.
Monday Sept 1
Took a walk downtown to Larcomar..which is a ritzy part of Miraflores. Jackie wasn’t feeling too well so she went for rest and we went to see Carl Lundgren, a NSA chiropractor in Lima. As it turned out, our guide, Fernando lived quite close by and his mum just happened to have back problems so we took her along as well so Malcolm could adjust her. It looks as though Carl will have a couple of new patients. Said goodbye to another couple of Intrepidites…down to 3.
Tue Sept 2
Went to see the Museo de Oro del Peru in the morning
which we found quite fascinating although there is much debate as to whether the pieces in the museum are real or fake. Even so it is all well presented with an English audio explanation. The rest of the day was spent at Polvos Azules….I thought we were going to get good bargains because the first time I went there it was awash with just about everything shoes, clothes, suitcases, bags, electronic goods and DVDs but upon returning and starting to price things I found them quite expensive, so ended up buying nothing.
Wed Sept 3/Thurs Sept 4
Up at 5am for our 7am flight to Santiago. I think Jackie is over all these early starts but the trip for her is almost finished so she is soldiering on. Arrive in Santiago to a dull, overcast day where the temps are a lot cooler than in Lima. We are back to wearing our featherdown jackets. We had no idea of where to stay and just took pot luck with one of the hotels that the airport ‘hotel service’ provides which turned out quite good for us. It was an apartment with kitchenette/little lounge/bedroom and bathroom. By this stage we
had been overeating for at least a month so it was nice to be able to do your own thing. Next day was spent walking around the city and talk about coincidences…out of a population of about 5million people we happened to run into the fellow who booked our hotel for us.
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Sue Treadie
Susan Storr
Wow!
Heh Lesley, that looks like some climb! Sue