Machu Picchu

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Monday 19th January we had a flight from Lima to Cusco at 5:40am. We were originally going to just bus it but I read on someone´s blog that the bus took about 18hours on a good day and that during the rainy season the road can become unpassable!! The flight only took about an hour and only cost £35 since we booked it in like May last year. Was speaking to someone who was wanting to book a flight but was going to be over £200 since was only a week in advance! Had no problems with flight, fell asleep not long after take off and woke up just before landing. (Turns out the next day all the flights in the morning were cancelled due to fog and only some in the afternoon went). The tour company we booked the Inca Trail through were meant to meet us at the airport but when I went up to the SAS dude they had no note of our arrival, but still took us in the van to their office. Our hostel was just around the corner and just carrying the backpack round a block at the new higher altitude was a mission!! We met up with Stuart and Louise as we were walking to the hostel and they were off to do a horse trek. Our beds weren´t ready until lunchtime so we just chilled at the hostel. In the afternoon Lorna went for a walk around the city and I blogged I think and hung out on the hostel balcony. That night the four of us went out for tea with another guy from our dorm and we had alpaca steak, mine was with peppercorn sauce and it was sooo good. Man I could eat one right now!!

The next day we went to the market around the corner which had all different types of food and house junk you could buy. As we were walking out there was a pig head just sitting on one of the shop benches. The others all wanted to go clothes shopping (llama made clothes like hats and jumpers) but I didn´t want anything and hadn´t seen much of Cusco so went into the centre, which was only like 3 blocks from the hostel and went to the Inca Museum which was really interesting. Had artefacts from the Cusco region and info about Machu Picchu and a massive model of it. Some stuff was in English, the rest I just made up or looked at the pictures cos didn´t want to pay for a guide. Wasn´t allowed to take photos inside and I was a good girl this time. Got to get my photo taken with 2 llamas outside which were better behaved than the camels in Egypt! Since I wasn´t feeling well, and the magic Mexican pills hadn´t done the job I went to the pharmacy and said I wasn´t feeling well etc and she gave me 10 orange pills and 10 blue pills to take one every 12 hours. Didn´t know what they were but gave them a go. Had our meeting at the SAS office that night to get the low down on the next few days and after that went straight to bed but wasn´t a good sleeping night since there was a big party going on in the hostel and people kept coming into the room and turning on the light and not turning it off when they went back out. Was very tempting to be very noisy the next morning!

Wed 21st was the Day 1 of our 4 day / 3 night Inca Trail tour to Machu Picchu. Think there were 13 of us in the group since someone had pulled out, and our 2 guides Pauul and Hugo. Slept a bit on the bus on the way to Km82 where we started from. Stopped along the way for our breakfast and everyone bought walking sticks, except for about 3 of us. Got to the start and gave our bags to the porters to carry, was only allowed 9kg which included the sleeping bag and mattress which came to 4.5kg to start with. The porters used to carry 30 or 40kg but then laws came in that said they could only carry up to 20kg and then 5kg more for themselves. Chris the American guy carried his own stuff, as did the Polish couple though the lady seemed to carry it most of the time while the guy carried the camera! Smart man. Was a good strenous walk and Day 1 is called the easy day! Got a nature tour on the way and saw the cactus the tuna fruit (aka cactus apple) comes from. Had seen ladies selling them on the street but didn´t know what it was so hadn´t tried it. When all the porters went passed us, carrying their 25kg load some were actually running, and some only had sandels on! We all made it to the lunch stop where the lunch tent was already up and lunch was amazing, better than some resteraunt food I´ve had. We got soup to start, which was spiced pumpkin and then main couses were a beef dish and then avacdo with onion and cheese (feta type) and I duno what else in it but man it was good. And then vege and carb, can´t remember if rice or noodles or pasta. After we´d finished lunch and had a sit we carried on and got passed by the porters again who had our tents all set up for us when we arrived at the first campsite. And we got given hot water to wash our hands and face in but was really good for putting your feet into. At lunchtime we´d all been so stuffed we were like oh man I´m so not going to have room for tea and when we got to the campsite it was oo I wonder what´s for tea I´m hungry! We got popcorn and hot drinks and bikkies about an hour before tea. Again it was good kai, soup and then 4 dishes. The toilets were not something you wanted to visit during the day, the one non squat toilet didn´t flush but it got used for solids anyway and was so gross. I woke up during the night really needing the loo but it was raining and dark so figured screw it and went back to sleep. Was no way I was squatting in the dark!!

Day 2 was meant to be a 5am start, but as there had been a few strugglers the day before we got to sleep in until 6am and started walking just before 7:30am. When you woke up the porters would bring along the wee basin of hot water for washing in. Breakfast was good, and I had my vegemite so had that on the bread stuff. Though there were 6 aussies in our group and they were all ohhhh vegemite, so shared a wee bit with them and with Louise (since she´s a kiwi). The hill we had to walk up on this day was named Dead Woman´s Pass which wasn´t encouraging! Didn´t find out why it was called that though. Some of the walk up was through forest so that was nice and cool. We stopped for another amazing lunch about an hour from the top of the pass. In honour of Sir Ed I was first to the top, after being last to start off, and Louise was second up and Lorna third and Stu 4th - not that it was a race.... but NZ took first place in the team event, Scotland 2nd and Poland 3rd (since the Polish couple were next up). The top was 4215m up and got really cold once you stopped walking! There was a chick up there who I was talking to while waiting and she was 6 weeks pregnant! But still doing the Inca Trail but with a heart monitor. One of the guides arrived and said that we could carry on to the campsite instead of waiting for the whole group which was good since the rain clouds were arriving! It started raining while we were going down and I was good and only slipped once, right before the campsite entrance when I´d seen our SAS dude and went oh yay we´re there and then slip, right onto my butt! My bag stopped me falling right on my back. Got to see a deer feeding near the campsite. And there was a sparrow around the hills that looked like it had a moehawk. That night, after another kicka$$ meal, we got to try a local drink that was warm and tasted like apples and was even better once you added in rum, which bought a cheer from the group. Since I was on some kind of pills I opted for no rum : ( so only tasted it with rum.

Day 3 was a start at 6am again. Got to see various ruins along the way to the campsite, and hummingbirds and pink mushrooms which were cute. Sayaqmarka was a "recent" find and was in pretty good nick. Had loads of holes in the walls where doors or curtains or candels were put. Was a very rainy day that day. There was a rule that you had to move out the way for porters, so if you heard the call from behind "porter" you shifted ur ass quick smart. When we got to the final turn off to the campsite were were stuck behind 3 gabbing aussies and an irish who were going turtle pass, and not moving. Louise suggested we go "Porter" and see if they move, which was a funny idea. A few seconds later the three of them stopped and moved to the side and as we passed them Louise heard the girl ask the other two, are you sure you heard right, they said there was a porter? Was so funny and awesome. Wiñaywayna was our last campsite and the ruins beside it looked like an ampitheatre but was a farming place. Dinner that night was pizza and again, you guessed it, it was yummy! There was a bar so we got to eat at an actual table instead of a camp table, and beer was sold and the table opposite us were having a massive night. Did the group and porters thing after tea to thank them and give them their tips. Our start the next morning was a wake up at 4am so me and Louise retired early and sober leaving the others to carry on, think the latest bedtime was 11pm or around then.

Day 4 was the day. The whole point of our killing ourselves on the 3 day slog to see what 3,000 people a day come to visit (only 500 a day are allowed to do the actual Inca trail which includes 300 porters and guides, so only 200 tourists a day walk there). 4 am was very early, and dark! We got pancakes for breakfast though so that helped! The gate didn´t open until 5:30am but as there are 200 people going to be queing we were there from about 5:15am. I had needed the loo but the toilet queue was long and the bathroom really stunk so thought would be ok until got to the toilet at Machu Picchu entrance. About 30mins into the hour walk to the sungate, it started to reach bursting point so I pushed passed people and motored on. Louise needed to go as well so she missioned along with me. We got to the sun gate in about an hour and the toilets were another 45mins from there!! We didn´t even wait for the rest of the group to arrive, got our tickets from Pauul, took a quick photo and went down the steps in good porter style - running! People were nice and moved out the way when we said we were on a toilet run, thankfully, else I would´ve knocked them over the side in my attempt to get down!!

The weather was very foggy so we didn´t get to see Machu Picchu from the sungate, so was kinda good we didn´t have to hang around for the others. We´d been told by Pauul that there was only one toilet at the entrance so were fully panicking that someone else would be using it! When we got there they were proper toilets and there were like 8 of them! So neither of us had to wait for the other to go. Was about just over an hour till the others showed up and we got our chicken sandwiches for our second breakfast, and the fog was still hanging around. We got taken around a guided tour of the ruins which included the Southern Cross stone, the three-windowed temple and about 10am the sun got through the clouds which lifted and at 10:20am we got to see "the view" of Machu Picchu with the hill (Huayna Picchu) in the background. Very awesome. The four of us walked back up to the guardian´s hut to get a photo of the whole site and the view was even more amazing from up there. We got the bus down to Aguas Calientes for our buffet lunch and then our train wasn´t until 6pm so had about 2 hours to fill. We decided to go to the hot pools, but when we got there I decided that I wasn´t going into brown swimming pools that looked mingin so went and got ice cream and sat in the sun for a bit (and blogged a wee bit). Got back to the hostel and went to bed was so knackered, didn´t even have the energy for a hot shower but what was one more night really!

The next morning, Sunday 25th, Lorna and I headed off to the bus station to get a bus onto Puno, while Stu and Louise had booked a bus straight to La Paz in Bolivia for that evening, so we said our goodbyes and figured might meet up in La Paz. Got to the bus station and there was a bus leaving in about 30mins which was such good timing as there were only 3 a day, even though the guidebooks said 7 a day. Who knows. So on we went. There was a hail storm along the way and two ladies got on the bus doing the food thing. Normally we don´t bother, but when one of the ladies started hacking bits of meat of a massive chuck of meat that took my fancy. I asked (in spanish) if it was pork and she said no lamb and I was straight away I´ll have some please! Was still warm and came with roast potatoes and was the bomb. Oh by the way I have actually lost some weight despite how much it sounds like I am eating!! We arrived into Puno about 6pm and found a tour company in the bus station that did tours to the Uros Islands for the next morning, and a hotel opposite the bus station to stay in and booked our bus to Bolivia for the next afternoon as well (to Copacabana). Was a very good bus station! The hotel seemed ok until the next morning when Lorna went to have a shower, since agua caliente was promised, and turns out there is no hot water until 9 or 10 am once the sun has heated up the solar panel to heat up the water! Our tour started at 9am so we asked if could have a hot shower when got back and he said sure.

The Uros Islands are man-made floating islands using the reeds from Lake Titicaca. The huts, boats and lookout towers are also made from the reeds. We went to one island and got a demonstration on how the islands are made and got to eat the reed as well. The guide said that the island folk eat the reeds every day and have no toothpaste but never need the dentist cos of the reeds. Didn´t taste of anything really but didn´t taste bad. Got to take a reed made boat over to the next island and it even had onboard entertainment, in the form of two of the wee girls from the island who sang a variety of songs. The dad would tell them what language and they´d sing the song. We got spanish, french, italian and in english we got twinkle twinkle little star, which was so cute (though it was actually tinkle tinkle little star we got, but knew what they meant). It wasn´t sunny when we started out, it was raining and I didn´t get round to taking my hat out my bag, or sunscreen so got a bit burnt! When we got back to Puno there was a lady selling the tuna fruit so I tried one and really liked it so got another one. They were sweet but not too much and had lots of hard seeds in them. Lorna went for her hot shower, but there was still no hot water! Got a really cheap but really good burger from the bus station that had everything, before getting our afternoon bus to Copacabana just over the Bolivian border. Was an easy border crossing again, get off the bus, go into one office to get your card checked, go to the office on the left to get your exit stamp, walk up the hill and through an archway to Bolivia, get passport stamped and back on bus - job done!

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Photos

The porter´s checkin
they have to get their bag weighed to make sure it doesn´t exceed 20kg

Snowy mountain
thankfully we were going the other way

Our trail for the 2nd day
Dead Woman´s pass is the tiny triangle peak in the middle!

Comments

[Katrina]

Avacado? My computer's spell check doesn't like that one!