We started out with a short cab ride to the local bus station where we boarded one of the most agriculturally smelling buses we have been on so far. We also met up with Gary, the lucky chap who was the only other person in our group...ominously though his name was Gary Fitt, and he lived up to it throughout. After a 3hr ride up to the start point we clambered off the bus and started the important job of finishing our snack pack and finding somewhere to have a pee...easier for the boys than Cath!!
The first portion of the trek was not actually walking, we were mountain biking down into a small town called Santa Maria @ 2000m from a mountain pass @ 3500m. This was supposed to have taken 4hrs but due to some issues with the equipment, gears giving up the ghost after an hour (for the few uphills) and brakes that would have been better suited for a kids trike, we finally rattled in exhausted and dusty much later than planned. After a shower and a beer or two we were ready for bed, no romance here as the three of us were sharing a room...not that we got much sleep as it turned out that the "homestay" that was promised turned out to be a motel cleverly disguised as a truck stop and all night petrol station. Please forgive the negative tone of this part, we were not happy campers and there is not much glossing I can put on the day!!
Our second day started out in a similar tone to the first, this was the main trek part and our guide decided to set a break-neck pace in order to catch his mate up who had started a few minutes ahead of us. This meant very red faces and panting from Cath and I (Gary seemed to take it in his stride but I have already told you his surname) until we reached the other group. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise as Washy´s chum was Percy (I know) who was guiding another couple closer to our pace. Over the next few hours we climbed and dropped and mounted and valleyed and tramped and trekked to our hearts desires, there was some very punishing uphill sections that left you with no breath for the stunning views at the top of each pass. A few stops for water and snacks sandwiched the yummiest almuerzo (South American set lunch) we have tasted on this continent, some avocado straight from the tree and a post lunch siesta in hammocks...ahh hammocks!! The day´s walk ended with a soothing dip in some hotpools but not before we crossed the surging River Urubamba on a contraption that involved you pulling yourself across in a small metal box supported about 30ft up.
We had climbed from where you can´t see the river anymore
Mountain Cath
Then we went round this one
Finally along this riverbed!
A few beers flowed that evening to celebrate the fact that we made it past through our hardest day, we also found the local nightclub in the town we were staying...I won´t make any patronising comments about the quality of the venue but the DJ had 2 cd players on top of each other and his gran sat behind him!!
Our last day of walking was rather surreal, we had to walk along the rail tracks that took us to Aguas Calientes (hot waters in Spanish) but we found to our dismay that Peruvian rail workers don´t space sleepers evenly meaning that our strides altered with each step, very off putting. Thankfully Washy had promised us some fishing and a decent trout lunch halfway up so we bravely marched on...do you reckon this was a large country estate with freshly tied flies? When we reached the trout farm there was a small delay as it was the owner´s birthday (or so we were told) and they had to clear the hosting area of the beer bottles. We then got ourselves psyched up for a spot of sport...off to the lake...um, no...concrete trout pools. We climbed on the walls and were given a giant net with which to delicately locate our lunch. Trying to balance whilst laughing and trying to take photos meant that it took a while before we caught anything but once we did we were on a roll, even having to throw a couple of tiddlers back in. Once cooked they did taste quite good...you know there is a however...however we did have to dodge the mossies attracted by the pigs and other assorted farm animals who became more and more curious about our visit as it progressed.
Lunch!!
After lunch a short trek bought us to our destination with enough time to check into our hostel and have a look around the town and pop off a few emails..."just a quick note from Machu Picchu.." We met up with Washy for an amusingly average dinner and to say our goodbyes as we were to get a new guide for the next day, it is here that I can change the tone of this post, almost! As you can guess we were not particularly impressed with the service provided by the guiding company so far as to be honest they were rubbish, our guide Washy did his best (even walking through a fever on the last day and a shot in the bum as a result) but this was the price we paid for not being able to sort everything out months beforehand and paying about 3 times as much (but you definitely get what you pay for here!!) And we did have a lot of fun and met some very cool people, much of the amusement came from comparing horror stories with other groups!!
Now I can gush...Machu Picchu was a highlight of our whole trip, we decided against the pre-dawn 1000 step challenge seeing as they now had some fancy shuttle buses leaving just in time to get to the top. We had got up and hurriedly dressed at 5am to ensure a view of the sunrise, we were in and climbed to the corner of the mountain where everyone get´s "that" photo in plenty of time to get a quick history from our guide, if you are interested then here´s the wiki - link
Here comes the sun
It really is a magical site and a magical sight to see the sunlight come over an adjacent mountain slowly illuminating the buildings and terraces and unlike our experience in Angkor Wat it is big enough to "hide" the amount of people there so we got some photos that looked as though we were amongst a few select visitors. One of the added extras that some people chose is to climb the pointy mountain, Huayna Picchu, that you see in the background of the iconic pictures. Only 400 people are allowed to climb this each day due to the small path up and down as well as the lack of room at the top, well not ever wanting to miss out on stuff Cath and I got in the queue and were lucky to be nos 180 and 181 up. It took about 50 minutes of hard climbing and a bit of rock scrambling to get there but the views back across the site and surroundings took what little breath we had in our lungs. The route down was no less precarious but we made it safely and took great pleasure in the faces of the people coming in the other direction and gave a few nearly-there´s where needed!!
Top of the world!
WooHoo!!
This was quite a distance out - Peru, health and safety...I think not!!
Gary, Gary and...um Cath
We reached the bottom at around 10am where we bumped into Dan and the boys who had done the real trek, they looked awful but told us they were pleased that they had made it over Dead Woman´s Pass and we spent a good while swapping stories and chatting on the grass taking in the day on top of the world!!
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