Lares Valley

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Just returning a bit sore after 4 days trekking along the Lares valley. Was all pretty amazing but very tiring. First day got out to Lares, hit the hot springs then did a nice "gentle" 4 hour hike up to our first camp site. Luckily the gods were smiling on me that day and a Peruvian woman appeared out of nowhere selling beer!! After a bit of 5 a side (at 3500m not recommended!!) some amazing food and a very cold nite we set off again. This time it was a 5 hour climb up to a pass at 4700m then another 4 hours back down. Pretty chilly and the climb almost killed a few of us, but all made it safely and had a few amazing views. This was all followed byalot off beer and another cold nite. Have to say personally by the third day i´d had pretty much enough and the views although pretty amazing were wearing pretty thin.

Well arrived in Ollayatamba had a bit of lunch, then went off to wonder around before our train arrived, but found everything to be shut and the vast majority of the town to be sat in the main square. So we just chilled out....After about 5 minutes a police car came screaming into the square with all its windows smashed in followed by about 20 police all in riot gear with tear gas and the lot!!!! We all legged it down a side street and hid in a cafe, appearing after a few minutes only to be approached by hoards of people running away from'police. A few locals got beaten pretty badly and one of the girls in our group got done over with a bit of tear gas but other than that our group was totally unharmed. This al had something to do with prices of lots of things going up and also linked with some national teachers stikes. Not sure who started the fighting, heard rumours from both sides, some of the locals saying they were just being peaceful and the police were just beating on them. But also one going round that a few police had been killed. As i was getting most of this info second or third hand i´m not sure what to believe!!!

Next fun bit was getting the train to aguas calientes for the nite. Due to the strikes none of the 4 trains that day had arrived. We were due on the third train at 5.20pm. However a tain didn´t turn up untill 10.30. By which time we´d turned to our friend rum to keep out the cold. The crush and following stampede that happened when the train arrived was pretty scary. With aimee falling over the bag she was carrying and me almost folowing her. Luckily there was a guard nexct to her and she got hoiked to her feet and i just grabbed her bag and we ran to the train. This ended up with most people sitting on the floor and we finally got into aguas calientes at about 1am. Hit the hay for out 5am start to Machu Picchu.

Early start wanted to get the bus up to see the surise over machupicchu, but had to wait for a few people in our group so we missed it by about 10 mins. I have to say what with being one of the 7 new wonders of the world, i´d have expected to be more excited, but what with being knackered and hung over and also having seen so many pictures of the place i guess it wasn´t that much of a surprise seeing it. Did a tour with our guide dickber which was all pretty cool. Then were left to our own devices till luch. At 11 when all the daytour busses started ariving, we realised how lucky we were to get to the site so early, the place was packed!!

Went back to aguas calientes after lunch and went to the hot springs to soothe all our aches and pains after the treck. (though this only seemed to work for about 10 mins after getting out). Then got back to cusco in the evening!!

All in all if you want to see more andean culture than old inca ruins, the lares valley is def for you also dont have to deal with the vast masses of people you get on the inca trail. The only people we saw were our two groups and just local people. So u actually feel like you’re doing some decent hiking, not just being herded about like a sheep.

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