Peru - Ancient ruins, Lots more walking, More food poisoning

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Soo, we spent the first couple of days in Cusco doing some light exploring, eating Big Macs (HELLO macdonalds hehe), and sussing out a decent tour operator to do the jungle trek to Machu Picchu. Then buying our supplies to get us through the trek.

Cusco itself is not a very big town, but is the jumping point for doing Machu Picchu tours. The main plazas are gorgeous, and very well maintained, but walk further then 7 blocks in every direction and you see the real Peru - back to unfinished mudbrick housing, and lack of modern day amenities.

We had decided that we didnt want to wait around and spend the extra dosh to do the real Inca Trail of Machu Pichu, mainly because you need to book that tour in advance, and we didnt know what date we would be getting into Cusco to do the trek.

So, the jungle trek was 4 days of some intensive exercise. We had decided to go with a tour company recommended by the lonely planet, called ReservCusco. They were more expensive then others, and to be honest im not sure the $50us more was actually worth it. But they were good. Our guides were great - funny and very informative.

Day 1 - we rocked up at the tour office at 8am, met the other people on our tour - 4 french gals, and 1 french guy (they were all mates and aged from 22-24), as well as our two tour guides. And we left Cusco in a minivan. After an hour or so we got out and hopped on mountain bikes and rode for a few hours. I think we covered 45 km or something like that but it was mainly downhill so no dramas. Then we hopped back into the minivan and we were taken to our stop for the night. A little town called Santa Maria. A verrrry small little town, only a couple of streets wide. We caught up with some mates who were on another tour, staying at a place on the next road and watched a game of mixed gringos-locals football. And then watched the all-local game, which involved a lot more skill hehe. Dinner was cooked for us by the homestay and it was actually pretty good. We had an early night since we had an early morning start and a lot of walking ahead of us.

Day 2
The next day we started off walking pretty early (5am) and it was all uphill. A 4 hour slog through jungle, coffee plantations, coca leaf plantations, and walking on one of the inca trails. It was hard going. And HOT. We had a break for lunch cooked at a local restaurant in the middle of nowhere, then continued on for another 3.5 hours of hard trekking up and down hill. At one stage we were walking through a field of weeds taller then hayden and so overgrown, the pollen went everywhere and stuck to everything. (i couldnt stop sneezing or itching). Hayden and i were always ahead of our group because we find it really frustrating to walk slowly. By the time we were on the last stretch, our old injured joints were feeling the ache from the constant walking so we started running instead. The rest of our group thought we were insane when they caught up to us - they thought we were running to get more exercise hahaha.

Immediately after lunch, with the prospect of another 3.5 hours of trekking ahead, our friends from the other group flagged down a car and got a lift to the overnight town stop. As they hooned past us honking and jeering we were thinking 'ah ya slackers, so lazy, come all this way and then dont even walk it'. 2 hours later we were thinking they were the smart ones. hahaha. It was a very long day of walking - a full 7 hours walking, and a long 10 hour day between start and finish points.

That night we stayed in another small town called Santa Teresa. But this place had a few more streets then the last town, and even has a street with a discotech. Hehe. Sooo with the frenchies, we decided we had to try the pisco sours since that is the Peruvian national drink. We found a place with happy hour and got stuck in. Where we were joined by some of our mates off other tours. The night turned into a long night of happy hour drinks, followed by a visit to the discotech. Very funny times. Especially Hayden knocking back tequila after tequila with our kiwi mates Sam and Andy. There was a rather vertically challenged local and Hayden decided it would be funny to pick him up and swing him around. The guy loved it, kept coming back for more, and then a couple of other locals started lining up waiting for the 'Hayden Ride'. Hahaha.

And thenthe boys decided it would be hilarious to dance on the rooftop rafter support beams while the locals all screamed in fright, thinking the crazy gringos might fall off and break their necks. It was even funnier when we got back to the lodgings and Hayden decided he needed to throw up in the garden. After throwing up he got into bed starkers, only to decide he needed to throw up one more time, so he stumbled out into the garden again, threw up, and then lay on the grass ... completely naked. I couldnt get him up, and definitely couldnt carry him back into the room. So I left him there and checked on him 30 minutes later. Still passed out. Deciding i couldnt really do anything I chuckled to myself at the thought of the frenchies and our guides waking up the next morning and seeing hayden naked and unconscious on the grass. But luckily for him, he woke up and made it into bed, with the only downside being a lot of mosquito bites on his behind. hahaha.

Day 3
We woke up early again and started more of the trekking, only this time with mild hangovers for all. The first half of the day was all on this rocky road, and crossing a few areas by cable car, which turned out to be rather annoying as we had to wait ages (they can only fit 3 in a cable car) and when hayden and i went across it stopped halfway, and there was no one at the other end to pull the cable, so we had to pull ourselves along. hahaha. Cable car Fail.

After lunch we were walking around behind the mountains on which Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu are atop, and walking through the most jungle, following the train tracks. It really was gorgeous scenery.

We ended up in a town called Aguas Calientes, which is the base point for climbing to Machu Picchu. The town itself was very cute, lots of western-persuasion restaurants, and little crafts markets everywhere. The shower was the main win card for me though. It was the best we had experienced for a couple of months. REAL hot water that was limitless, and excellent pressure. After 10 minutes I called out to hayden that i was sorry but i was going to just stand and bathe in the water for the next 30 minutes. He just laughed. He understood - a nice bed and a decent shower are lifes two simplest pleasures that we have been craving for oh so long now! hehe

We kept tonights festivities to a minimum, since we needed to be up at 2.30am to start walking at 3am up the mountain to Machu Picchu.

Day 4.
After a couple of hours sleep we hauled our butts up, and started walking in the dark to the base of the mountain. We had to be within the first 400 people to reach the top, because they only allocate 400 places a day for people to climb wayna picchu - the smaller ruins atop another mountain next to machu picchu.
So we started climbing up the MP mountain in the dark wearing our head lamps. And climbing, and climbing and climbing. And we finally got to the top, and somehow Hayden ended up number 4, and i was number 5 to the top. Crazy. Except then we had to sit there in our sweaty clothes, in the cold and dark until 6am when the gates opened.

We then met up with our tour guide who was showing us around the ruins for a couple of hours. Of all the tour guides we have ever had for anything, anywhere, this guy was hands down the worst guide ever. He couldnt speak english very well, and made these wierd big mouth movements everytime he said something - very distracting and odd. And he kept talking about the spiritual elements, and how the ruins have a soul and the soul is on fire, and blah blah. It kind of ruined the ruins for us.

BUT the ruins themselves were awesome. Massive structures, lots of history, very impressive, and very maze-like. I actually got lost trying to find my way back to the entry where the toilets were.

But i think for us Wayna Picchu was the highlight. Its another mountain where another set of ruins reside atop. However it is a fair distance higher then MP so you can stand at the top of this mountain and see all of the ruins of MP spread before you, and look down into the valleys and mountaintops surrounding. Very impressive. And a little scary, the climbs and steps were very very steep, with no safety rails, some of the steps were so thin you couldnt fit your shoe on it, I crawled down on my bottom a fair bit, as the drops off the side were sometimes quite a few metres.

After spending a good amount of hours frolicking around all the ruins we decided we didnt want to spend the money to take bus back down the mountain and into Aguas Calientes (we worked out later our brans must have been tired because it was not actually toooo expensive). The trek back down took us twice as long as the climb up. Our knees were so sore and achy each step felt like being smacked in the knee with a hammer. Ouch.

When we finally got back into town we split up to find hostels that would accept ten bucks for a hot shower. The hostel i found led me up to the staff shower, where i hopped under and soaped myself up only to have all the water in the shower completely stop, right at the precise moment i was covered in soap lather. I ended up rinsing myself off using the freezin cold water from the bathroom sink. Fun. But at least i wasnt smelly and dirty anymore 😊

We had to hang around Aguas Calientes till the train ride at 9.30pm. After a 2 hr train ride, we had a 2 hr taxi ride back into Cusco - where our driver kept falling asleep at the wheel travelling at 120km an hour. Hayden stayed awake and kept talking to the guy to distract him.

And then we finally got back into Cusco and our lovely hotel room at 1:30am, just in time for me to come down with a large dose of food poisoning. Thank goodness it had not happened the day before meaning i would have been too sick to climb MP. So instead of sleeping and resting my poor weary body after 4 days trekking, I ended up resting in the bathroom too sick to move. Ah well, thats South America for ya 😊

Of course the next day was our reunion party day with our mates before everyone left Cusco in different directions. I was too sick to go and very disappointed, but was feeling better after 24 hours. So when Hayden came in to change his shirt at midnight before heading to the clubs I got myself up and went out with him. Which was great because the clubs in cusco were a lot of fun and i got to hang out with my friends before we all left. (couldnt drink anything though, but certainly didnt mind).

We left Cusco the next day and went north to other parts of Peru, which will follow in the next blog.

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