Cusco and Cicada Armarda.

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We had 5 days in Cusco before we started our trek. During this time we looked in the many markets, went the the cocoa museum and the Pre-Colombian museum.

After talking to Adam and Sarah about their trek we decided to swap as it included mountain biking and a bit of Jungle trekking.

We started our trek early on Tuesday and were driven to a high point to start the mountain biking. Unfortunately it was raining so Charlene got back on to the bus to warm up. Stuart soon followed after getting is light coloured linen trousers completely muddy and wet. At the end of the ride Stuart got hosed down to try and clean him up! We spent the night in Santa Maria and were lucky enough to be in a room with a hot shower 😊

The next day we had an early start to trek to the next town. The first part was all up hill. We then got to walk along one of the Inca Trails. After lunch we had a long rest, we then walked along the river to a "cable car" (see the pictures). We were then rewarded with the hot pools and a bus to Santa Teresa our stop for the night. After dinner we went out with a few of the group to the local night club - as soon as we walked in there was a power cut, but that soon passed and the music was back on again.

The third day had a later start. In the morning Stuart went zip lining. We then went to the hydroelectric for lunch. After lunch we walked along the train tracks to Aguas Caliente, where we would spend the final night. Another power cut meant we had dinner by candlelight accompanied by lots of insects! We had an early night as we had to get up early to go up to Machu Picchu.

As Charlene was feeling lazy we got the bus up, once the park opened we went in with our guide and had a tour around some of the ruins. We then had time to walk around by ourselves and climbed Wayna Picchu. Afterwards we went back into the town to have lunch and wait for our train back to Ollaytambo, and a bus back to Cusco. We arrived back late tired but happy.

The next morning we left early for Puno, where we would spend our last night in Peru. On the way to Puno we got to stop off at some sights, including a church and some more Inca ruins.

Our next stop would be Copacabana in Bolivia, will write about that next time.

Enjoy xxx

p.s sorry for any spelling mistakes!

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