I made it to Macchu Picchu. Yeah

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Well who would of believed time goes by so fast. I have been here for 11 weeks. I only have 3 weeksleft before the end of my Cusco journey. I am having very mixedfeelings about it. In one hand I am ready to leave and start a newadventure, but I will be sad to go, I keep thinking of stuff I stillwant to do and places I want to see. I guess you are always going toget that wherever you go. The house is a little strange at themoment. There are alot of people who are only staying for a week ortwo. Tim and I were talking the other day how we aren't doing as muchwith the new people as we used too. I guess after having such a great<br style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;" />group for so long when you know people are only going to be around fora week or two you don't get as invested. This weekend will be alittle strange as everyone but Tim and myself are either leaving orgoing away on a weekend trip, we get a few new people in, but it willbe a little odd. Also all the boys are leaving, Tim will be the lastone to go on Tuesday, after that it will be a house of girls, that isa little scary. It is hard to believe thatis christmas in less than two weeks. They are starting to decoratethe Plaza, and are putting up a huge nativity scene. They are big onthe nativity scenes, I will get some photo's soon.<br style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;" />So I left for the Jungle trek last Friday morning, really early. Thenight before my tummy had felt a little funny, but didn't really thinkanything off it. We left at about 6am on Friday morning and had abouta three hour drive to get to our first stop, was just to top up onstuff, we then headed off for anther hour before getting to the top ofa mountain that is 4200 meter high called Abra Malaga. From thereyour bike down the mountain to Santa Maira. Just as we started tobike it started to rain, it was a little crazy. You don't need topeddle at all it is all downhill, and windy. Think of the Coromandelon steroids. It was quite fun, but it was pouring down it was so hardto see, then I lost a contact lens, which just made things a littlemore interesting. I decided to call it quits for the bike leg, Idecided that trying to decent one of the steepest roads in pouringrain, with one contact in was probably not in my best interest, so Ifinished up. There was a van that was following us so we could stopat any time. At least I finished after L.A boy who went on and onabout how much he wanted to bike all the way down, but his fingerswere too cold. As my lovely housemate Cara put it, if you reallywanted to do it you would of done it. She was awesome and made it all<br style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;" />the way to the bottom. We made it into Santa Maria where we were tohave lunch, by this stage I was feeling beyond dodgy. It wasinteresting though. I have been in Peru for three months now and noone understands Wheat intolerance, in most cases people just lie tome. However in this town I was trying to explain to my tour guide forthe 5th time, this was after explaining to the tour booking company,ringing the company that I was going through twice and emailing them,and telling the tour guide at the start of the trip, he still tried tofeed me pasta soup. So I yet again trying to explain to this tourguide that I couldn't eat wheat, when the cook, in this random small<br style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;" />town pipes up and say oh gluten intolerant, no problems. It was anice relief. Unfortunately the nice salad he made for me lasted about3 minutes in my tummy before it was the beginning of the end.Officially my rein of stomach of steal is over. The next two days myjungle trek tour consisted of me dealing with an awful gastro bug. Imanaged to sleep it off for the first day, thanks the what drugs doyou have for this game we played. The next day I felt like death andhad to take a taxi to the next town over. Thankfully I had a taxidriver with a brain who quite skilfully managed to save us from twohead on collisions. Crazy drivers! I have vowed to never complainabout the driving in New Zealand and Australia again. I ended up inSanta Teresa at probably the worlds worst hostel. I thought I wasjust being whinny because I was so sick. But when the others finallygot there they expressed their disgust at the place so it made me feelbetter. After spending a day lying in pain, puking and pooping feelingsorry for myself, I wanted just to go home. By the time the rest ofthe people in my group got to the hostel I was over it. The tourguide came in and was quite useless, telling me I had to eat and thatit was just altitude sickness. For about the forth time I had toexplain that I had lived in Cusco for the past 3 months and it was notaltitude sickness given the fact we were 1000mt lower than Cusco, andI couldn't eat because everything I was eating I was puking. Istarted to get a little hysterical, I just wanted to be left alone andgo home, when super Cara stepped in. With inminutes she had helped me move to our new room, calmed me down, gotsome antibiotics and anti nausea in me, and had convinced me that theworld was good and got me excited about the zip lining the next day.We got ready and went out for dinner. I was starting to see thelight. Again we had to go through the wheat thing again. Because ofcause I was wheat intolerant one day but not the next. Got to bed andthe next day I was feeling more positive. Remembered to take theantibiotic but not the anti nausea in time, so although breakfast wastasty it wasn't a keeper. I was still determined to do the zip line.Again my guardian angle Cara was right with me. We had to hike amountain (always with the hiking the mountains in this country) Igot quite dizzy along the way, got the whole black spots and ringingin my ears, like just before you faint, however if you saw thismountain you would know that fainting was not an option. Cara wasgreat and patient and we finally made it to the top where the real funbegan, 4 zip lines over 5kms. The second was quite long and you hadto hold position for the whole thing. However just before I wentacross it started to rain, the vertical kind. As I learned 2 daysearlier I found rain in your eyes is not a good thing. I know Ishouldn't but I turned my head, so that sent me into a spin, I triedto correct and ended up over correction. I felt deflated, I knew thatI would stop short and have to pull myself up the last 20mt or so.(About three hours latter I released that I had actually grazed badlyone of my arms, Cara was all like put this cream on it YOU are notgetting anymore infections, you have Macchu Picchu tomorrow, and mywatch strap had been burnt to the skin Cool Scars) After that littlelittle adventure I had two more zip lines. So much fun. Then wereplied of a platform, if that is what you want to call it, (Peruviansafety standards compared to N.Z a country that I thought was relaxed,yeah in comparison N.Z is super uptight, and I think I am o.k withthat) down 50mt to the ground. It was supper fun, but my tummy wasall like what are you doing, do you have no respect. First you poisonme somehow now you turn me upside down inside out and all around. Idid reply with did you like that well buddy we have 1/2 an hour of Peruviandriving on a dirt track how do you like that. It didn't, when we gotstopped for a passport check my powerade was used to help regeneratethe local forna. We got to where we were having lunch, moreantibiotics and anti nausea (by the way thanks Chell, however I am nowdown to 2 tablets) and yet another random person in the bushunderstanding wheat intolerance where my tour guide was trying to feedme a sandwich. I was not looking forward to the upcoming hike alongthe railway when other people in my group announced that they weretaking the train as opposed to walking for 4 hours. It didn't takemuch convincing for me to decided to take the train. I could walkalong a train line for 3-4 hours in the rain along a train track, or Icould take a train, yes call me Sheldon, I love trains, they are cool. And I got to ride on a train. The views were amazing, and seriouslyif I were creating the tour I would encourage people to take thetrain, everyone who walked it didn't really take in the scenery and ifthey were tired when they got to Aguas Calientes. It is a great placeand I wished I could of spent more time there. As it was we had tosit around for 1 1/2 hours for our tour guide to pick us up. Aftergetting to the hostel a few of us decided to go to the hot pools, itwas nice but apparently it wasn't as nice as the day before. We allwent out for dinner and it was great to be able to eat a full meal,then a snack buying mission and early to bed for a early start thenext morning.We got up at 3.30am on Monday morning, that was not the most pleasantexperience. Got all our stuff ready and headed down for breakfast.For the past two mornings we had had really good breakfast, eggs orpancakes, and fruit ect. This morning before we were due to do a hike up 1800 stairs, Then a day hiking around a mountian.and they weren't providing us with a lunch, we got bread and jam! Itreally didn't make sense. I had to settle with a banana. I wasreally less than impressed with our tour company. They were reallydisorganised, there was a huge lack of communication and if theydidn't know something they just lied then changed their story. Ourtour guide was pretty bad, he seemed way out of his depth. I defentlay won't recomend that company, but the Jungle trek is seriously cool. There are heeps of companies to choose from I just we just struck a bad one. So after aless than substantial breakfast we headed off. Only four people inour group decided to walk up, the more sensible of us decided to takethe bus up. It is about 1 1/2 hour walk up about 1800 steps, and itwas so foggy you couldn't see anything. I was still feeling quiteweak so I wanted to conserve my energy for the rest of the day. I amso glad I did. When we got to the top it was quite foggy and youcouldn't see much. Our guide met us at about 6.30 where we startedout tour, it went on for about 2 1/2 hours and was quite interesting.As the morning went on the fog started to lift it was like watchingMacchu Picchu waking up. The views were spectacular. After the toursome of our group went to climb another mountain, While we werewaiting for them I decided to go to the toilet. Cara said she wouldwait for me, poor girl ended up waiting over an hour. I got lostheading back to the toilets, then I just got lost in the scenery. Itook so many photo's but the place was spectacular. After I got backand had a little nap we decided to head up to the Sun Gate. This isthe entrance that the people doing the Inca Trek come through, It isa spectacular view of Macchu Picchu. It was a great day. It is hardto describe what the place was like. The photos came out good but itdoesn't give you the feel of place, it was truly magical. We decidedto descent around 3:30 ish, it had been a long day and we still had1800 steps to climb down. Poor Cara had been having trouble with herfoot, she had hired some boots and they didn't fit right and hadsomehow hurt her foot. So on the way down she was in a quite a bit ofpain. By the time we hit Augas Calientes we were all bugered andsore. We ended up just finding the closet decent looking restaurantand sitting down, We had a few drinks and some food, before heading tothe train station to head back to Cusco. The train ride was fine, butit stopped at Ollantaytambo so we had a mini bus drive us home. Yetanother fine example of fine Cusco driving. This time we almost wentover the cliff on the wrong side of the road because the driver wastexting. Needless to say I got no sleep on that part of the trip, butyet again somehow got home safe

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Photos

Walking up the Inca stairs
Technically I have walked along the Inca stairs and entered through the sun gate.

Where are the Oompa Lompa's
O.k is just me, but I remember a certain Roald Dahl book, Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and how there was a Chocolate River. Also how Willie wonker got the oompa lompas from South America. Wonder where the oopma Lompas are hiding!