cusco and the lares trek

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so been in cusco for a while now....well in fact i´m on my trek t the moment but as it happens there is an internet cafe near some ancient incan ruins...obviously. or maybe they were more advanced than anyone ever believed!

carrying on from the last entry i guess the first thing is the 19 hour coach ride. suprisingly not too bad at all. as expected i slept for most of it and the rest of the time there were films on anyway. getting hostel in cusco was no problem and its a pretty cool place. nice and friendly and sociable. needless to say there have been numerous nights on ther lash, no matter where you go there seem to be backpackers up for partying....awesome.

cusco itself is a really nice little city, much nicer than lima although you do constantly get propositioned for massages. i´m not sure if thats a good thing or not! i tell you something though, getting around is a mission! not because its hard to find your way or because everything is spred out...its the altitude- absolute killer. when you first get here you ar knackered after about 10 metres! let alone going up hills or steps. luckily when feeling lazy or drunk a taxi only costs about 50p

started my trek on the 17th...its not the inca trail but the Lares Trek. apparently very similar but with much less tourists. in fact i am the only one on this trek and we havn´t come accross any other parties along the way either. day 1 was pretty hard going to start with. the first half of the dy was all up hill but when you get to the first moutain pass the view makes it worth it and the feeling of walking downhill becomes lmost euphoric!! luckily we have had donmkies and lamas to carry the majority of the gear otherwise god knows how i would have made it!

day 2 of the trek was unbelievable. i´m not sure i have ever been so short of breath or had such a deep burn in my legs. trekking uphill to 4700 m was no easy task i can tell you!! basically stopping every 10-15 minutes to regin breath and to get rid of severe pains in the thighs! feels like quite an achievment to sit down on peak that high and take in the vistas though. i´ll try to get some photos on once i get my film developed (yes i still have a camera that takes film, i´m keeping it real and taking it back to the old school). once gain going downhill felt great! i´m not sure how many kms up to this point but in total it will be 29km and the biggest part is done.

day 3 (today) has been much more leisurely! just an hour and a half walk into the small town of urubamba where we met our driver. we then drove halfway to ollantaytambo, the sight of some ancient inca ruins and this internet cafe. had a tour round the ruins, how they built these places is amazing. there must have been constant flaunting of health and safety regulations. honestly, i doubt there wa a single hard hat in sight! but seriously, they drgged 100tonne stones from 8km awy because they didnt like the ones that were sitting right there! this meant dragging them on rollers in teams of a couple of thousand and stopping a river, piece of piss!

so just waiting for my train to aguas calienbtes now which is the town where we will stop for the night before going to macchu picchu 2moro. the liter translation of aguas calientes is hot waters- you guessed it there are hot springs. i shall be going for a dip in an attempt to revie my legs.

until next time readers!

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Comments

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I'm surprised at the internet cafe by the ruins but like you say, they could have been around for years....hahaha bet you wish you'd done more work on your pins in the gym now... I couldn't walk all that without crying for sure. Looking forward to seeing the photos!! alls well here, out of a job in may/june with almost 4 months wages in my hand yay!!! just in time for tokyo, might book it one way and work my way back.... we'll see. take care xx