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Made It
Machu Picchu and a couple of tired super mountain hikers Well we had a right good few days out there on the Inca Trail - super perfick it was - top weather, great guides (we never grew tired of our guide calling us his 'super mountain hikers') and a top banana group made for an uber good trek. Each day was pretty hard going what with being up high and with the heat and all that but the trail was excellent and the scenery was amazing pretty much all of the time.
We were really well looked after on the trail too. Each day our super porters woke us up with a warm coca tea and then laid on a right good spread of a breakfast - then we would set off on the trail leaving said porters to pack up camp (tents - dining shelter - kitchen shelter) - the porter chaps would then leg it quick smart (with seriously big bags on their backs), catch us up, pass us and then set up for lunch (full dining shelter and cooked meal) ready for our arrival. This process was then repeated in the afternoon as the chaps got ahead of us again to set up evening camp. It's pretty
Mount Veronica
As seen from day 1 on the Inca Trail humbling when you're struggling away up a pass with your little back pac and your goretex boots on etc - when a group of chaps come running past you with enormous packs and with just trainers on and even flip flops some of em!! Machu Picchu was dead good too - great location that ancient Inca City - it used to be very isolated and remote all tucked away deep in the Peruvian Andes - them Conquistadors (Spanish dudes with guns who came and took pretty much all of south america into their empire) never did find it. It's not so isolated these days though as they've built a road up to it for the many many buses that bring in the non trekers.
Back in Cusco - ancient Inca City and former Peruvian Capital (the Spanish wanted the capital to be a port so they founded Lima as the capital) - we did a bit of chilling out and had a look around. Unbelievable beauty in Cusco - it's one of those places that's dripping in gorgeous lovely historical buildings - mega nice squares everywhere and lots of pretty cobbled lanes going this way and that - a
Tent City
Janine gives a wave from our tent very nice place. It's got some cool bars and restaurants too - we went in one that has tables that are made up from old style bath tubs with a glass top - inside said bath tub are fish swimming around! cool man! We also managed to get hold of a good old dish of pie, chips and gravy in an english pub.
We left Cusco for Lima - can't think of anything nice to say about Lima to be honest. For 9 months of the year it's covered in a thick grey mist for some reason - it was misty while we were there. The only redeeming features that we made note of were Mcdonalds, Burger King, KFC and Dunkin Donuts and in a junk food 24hr frenzy we dined in every single one of the aforementioned eateries (burger king twice!) :-). It was junk food heaven for these two restaurant fatigued travellers......oh yeah. Fueled up on more additives, preservatives, E numbers, saturated fats and sugars than even your average american citizen we headed off up the coast for some detox and some beach time.
To get away from the misty coastline in Peru you have to
get up north so that's what we did - right up there to a place called Mancora we went - just below the Ecuadorian border. We got ourselves a great place right on the beach (great pool, beach side bungalow with outside hammock - all that jazz) where we stayed for a super whopping 8 nights - and that's the longest we've stayed anywhere on this trip (previous record - 6 nights - beach resort in Cambodia). Oh yeah - we were ready for a rest from all that trekin and travellin so rest we did. Not much to report from Mancora really - basically we did sleeping, eating (lots), drinking (a bit), swimming and walking up and down the beach looking at the super big and nice looking Pacific ocean - it was just great. They had those birds there too - the ones that dive into the sea to catch fish - we liked watching them do that - loads of em dive bombing those unlucky fish.
Yesterday (Tuesday) we left Mancora and headed over the border up into Ecuador and into their biggest city - Guayaquil. It was very hot and humid there - we liked
it. Today we flew up to the capital city Quito which as the 2nd highest capital city in the world is a cooler place to be. We watched the footy (Man U v Chelsea) this aft and tomorrow we're going to fly to LA and then onto Vegas on Friday. In Vegas we gonna catch up with friends and family (extremely exciting), we're gonna party and then we're going to get married (cos we wanna be togever) and then we'll party some more...........yeeee haaaaarrrrrrrr watch out Las Vegas for here we commeth.......................
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