Cusco

A very tired, sore and smelly Emma returned from the inca trail to a nice hot shower and a comfy bed. The next day I took pretty easy, went for a bit of a wander around Cusco, which is quite a small town. Had a massage (ahhh), very nice dinner and then went out for a night of free drinks! The bars and clubs in Cusco compete for your patronage by offering you free drinks and entry to their places, but they also have really long happy hours or two for one deals, its very easy to stay out all night, which I did, well till 4:30 am anyway. I had also booked in for a bit of white water rafting for the next day so I was feeling a bit seedy at 9am when we were picked up. It was a nice day though and was worth it, I managed to forget my headache for a few hours!
Tommorrow is another long drive, to a town called Chivay where we will hopefully be able to see some condors in the wild.

Machu Picchu

So Cusco is a really nice place, very tourist orientated though, but it´s not too bad. One night here and then an early start off to begin the famous Inca Trail.
I´ll apologise now, I´ve pretty vague with the names of places that were part of the inca trail, there are a lot of little campsites along the way and other small archeological sites that we visited, some I can remember, most I can´t.
Our first day started in the sacred valley, over looking the city of Cusco, there is still a lot of excavation that can be done so it doesn´t look like much but walking through parts of it is still quite spectacular.
The most impressive was a building that was designed to represent lightening, which was a important sign of fertility for the Incas. A quick stop at an alpaca and llama farm we then went on to a couple of other archeological sites which involved a bit of a climb, but were quite interesting places.

We spent the night in the last town before the actual inca trail started, a few families have rooms set up in the area for travel groups, it is normally a quiet town except the night we stayed the locals were celebrating the birth of the town, lots of music and dancing as well as home made fireworks which rattled the windows everytime one went off, right throught the night till early morning!
Our first day on the actual trail was a bit of a workout, but relatively flat compared to the following days.
The most luxurious part of the trail is having a group of porters who carry tents, food and extra gear that you don´t want to carry with you during the day. They run ahead set up tents and cook lunch and then after packing that up run ahead again to the nights campsite and set up all the tents and prepare dinner also.
The second day, our hardest day out of the 3, dead womans pass. We´d decided as a group to complete 2 passes in the one day so as to have only one the next day and get into the town before our last day at Machu Picchu itself. The morning was probably the hardest for me, for some reason the altitude was affecting me a bit, which it normally doesn´t,
I was very light-headed and very out of breath, which is not the best when you have some 2000 odd stairs as well as rocky inclines to climb. The first part or the first pass was through forest, which was quite cold and damp, the second part was dry and hot.
Nearing the end of the dead womans pass I´d finally gained control of my breathing, so had a decent rhythm going, we made the first pass before lunch, so after travelling down the other side of the mountain we stopped for lunch, and then started up the second pass, which fortunately wasn´t as big. We still had to come back down part of the mountain before we could retire to our campsite, just as the sun was setting.

The third and final day of our inca trail experience, was a little less strenuous, were it not for the fact that we were all so tired and sore from the previous days climb. Some more archeological sites to view, and another lunch break, we had one final descent and then a trip along the train tracks to the town aguas caliente, the town at the bottom of Machu Picchu. Because of rain and landslides part of the trail has been closed, normally we would have been able to continue the trail right up to Machu Picchu instead of going via the town but it is impossible at the moment until the damage is repaired.
So we stayed the night on the floor of a restaurant, which was cosy, and left by bus to Machu Picchu 5:30am. Our guide took us in and around the city, and then left us to continue wandering.
We were there from 6am when the gates opened, by 10am it started to get very busy so we slowly returned back to town where we had to wait until 4:30pm for the train and then bus that would take us back to Cusco, we were all very tired but it was all worth it in the end.

Peru

So feeling very sore and tired from our death road experience, we boarded the truck for another day, on our way to leaving Bolivia we stopped at ancient ruins, Tiahuanaco, which though associated with the Incas is believed to pre-date them. The same guide that had taken us aroung La Paz wandered around the ruins and through a museum explaining the relics scattered around the site.
After lunch we crossed the border into Peru, at times skirting around Lake Titicaca. Our first night was spent in a town called Puno, pretty, but quite tourist orientated. We left the next morning for a cultural experience and a half. A quick ride in a bike-taxi (not sure what they call them here but think rickshaw) to the local port we did a bit of shopping for gifts, then onto a boat and out onto the Lake Titicaca. Our first destination was an island called Taquille where we ate lunch and played soccor or volley ball with the local kids before boarding the boat again and landing on our final destination for the day Amantani island.
We were greated by the locals with a song and dance and then billeted out to families for the night, Maria our mother took us to her home, mud brick abodes, and after watching a game of soccor against the local men and our boys (we lost of course-altitude) we sat in the kitchen and had a glass of red with Maria´s husband and were fed a lovely meal.
After dinner we were dressed in traditional costume, very full skirt, embroidered blouse, tight sash and black embroidered shawl, the guys had it a bit easier in a poncho and beanie! and taken to the local hall where they were holding a fiesta for us, not a huge one, local boys playing in a band, girls leading the dancing, which got a bit frenetic at times. It was a lovely night and the next morning we were served breakfast, said goodbye and boarded the boat again for our return to Puno.
On the way back to shore we stopped at some smaller islands that are made completely of reeds. It´s quite an interesting sensation walking on a couple of metres thick of reeds that can be moved when ever the inhabitants want or need. The houses are made of reeds too and they even have boats, more decorated with weed than made from, that we cruised around bit in one too.
This is my last night in Puno, tommorrow we drive to Cusco, which means Machu Picchu is very close.

Death Road

So 2nd and last day in La Paz was spent as a day bike riding, on what is famously known as Death Road. Our group was picked up and driven up to a spot at the top of some hills some 4600 mts above sea level, where we were kitted out in semi-waterproof top and bottoms, gloves, helmet and bike. We were then told to go for it! The first part was still on bitumen so it was pretty smooth sailing, my front tire blew out within the first 5 mins, but the guides swapped my bike with a spare from the entourage of mini-busses that follwed so it was all good. We passed through two police chechpoints, which were quite close together for soem reason? as well as some slow trucks, a scary experience, and then hit the only up hill part of the ride, which I struggled with, partly cause of altitude, partly because my bike wouldn´t stay in gear, very frustrating. Halfway up we hit thick fog which at times turned into light rain, poor visibility and freezing wet. By the time we got to the top of the hill we hit dirt or rather mud, which officially signified the start of Death Road.
The guides split us up into three groups, i sat in the middle group and off we went. The road is quite narrow, there´s room enough for only one large truck or bus to pass through, on your right is cliff face, on your left is cliff edge. Apparently before the road was widened slightly and rules were applied, there were at least 30 deaths a month! Hence it´s name, now there´s lucky to be 5 deaths a month which seems to be a good thing amoungst the locals!
So still in thick fog we descended down the muddy road, dodging large rocks, bumping and skidding over all the others, we had regular stops to allow sensation and control to return to our hands, along with the stops to allow trucks or busses to pass. We just kept going down, hairpin turn after the other, at some point we passed underneath a small waterfall-more wetness teamed with head to toe muddiness, it was still such an exciting thing you didn´t really notice. Once we had descended far enough to escape the cloud you could really appreciate the view, the area is quite dense rainforest in some parts and in others terraced hill side where mainly coca is farmed. (Coca leaf is leagal in Bolivia, the only place in the world)
Continuing down to drier road we stopped for a quick lunch, getting really sick of ham and cheese sandwiches, and continued to our final stop, the very small town Corioco just 1000mts above sea level. 65 km and 6 hours later, my arms felt like the muscle was going to come away from the bone, my left knee throbbing from a small tumble and freezing wet and muddy but I had finished, survived the Death Road.
We were rewarded with a hot shower and buffet dinner and then the drive home, back up Death Road! (pictures to come)

La Paz

So this time we find Emma in La Paz, a bustlling city, surrounded by hills and mountains. We arrived at our hotel to find that it had been booked out by mistake (some confusion due to two other budget groups arriving an the same day, we were the unlucky last) so we were sent for a bit of a wander to another hotel, which turned out to be ok. The next day I spent the morning on a mission to find myself a warm jacket, it can be quite warm during the day, but freezing at night time and I am not really prepaed for it. Wasn´t too hard, found something to suit my purpose and then went for a bit of a look around the city.
The afternoon was spent on a guided tour around the city and into the surrounding hills, it was quite nice to do such a touristy thing and have everything explained to you. All the monumental buildings, cathedrals, markets and even the different areas of social class, we got some great photo´s looking down into the city.
i haven´t mentioned this before but in just about every main city in south america you will find shoe-cleaning men. Everytime I see one of them I think of you dad, south americans have the most polished shoes in the world (in my opinion anyway)

still in bolivia

I´m going to apologise now, this will be a long entry, internet is very slow in the smaller towns so I just haven´t bothered.
I don´t know if I´ve mentioned the effects of altitude, I´ve not been effected too much, just a bit breathless and lightheadedness when doing a bit of physical activity, some of the group have been worse but here in bolivia I´ve been at the highest altitude for this tour.
So our first stop in bolivia was a small dusty town called Tupiza, we are now staying in hostels and hotels, no more camping till macchu picchu!
The scenery is getting less dry desert but still quite dusty. There was not much to do in Tupiza, it was just a stop off as the distance to our next stop was too long a drive to be done in one go.
Hello Potosi, one of the highest places we stay at, altitude 4070m it´s one of the highest cities. Potosi used to be an extremely rich mining city, the mines are still functioning today, mainly silver, but I´ll get back to that.
After one night in Potosi we went on to Uyuni, an interesting little town that exists because of a large salt lake nearby. We did an overnight tour, driving across the lake to where they mine the salt, a very primative set up, then on to an island in the middle of the lake that was once coral, millions of years ago, and is now covered in cacti.
The lack of perspective due to the vast expanse of white it is a great way of creating silly photos with warped perspectives. We left our hostel early the next morning to watch the sunrise across the lake, really spectacular made even more so by the fact that there was a thin layer of water across parts of the lake, some amazing reflections as the sun peered up over the horizon. (great photos) It was apparently very rare to have water on the lake so we were quite lucky. Then on to a volcano, we walked part the way up to look at an ancient tomb with mummies in pristine condition, then continued futher up but nowhere near the top as it would take at least 4 hours for the experienced, most of us were well and truely feeling the effects of altitude.
Arriving back at our hotel in Uyuni we spent our last night there celebrating one of the guys from the group´s birthday in the hotels restaurant, a famous pizza place who also do the most amazing pancakes, if anyone ever finds themself in Uyuni ask for Minuteman pizza.
Next was back to Potosi, for two nights, we did a tour of the local mine which was really interesting. Our guide was very knowledgeable, we went to the part of the town where miners purchase all their equipment, including dynamite, 96% alcohol and coca leaves. (essential for miners) We purchased gifts for the miners, as we got to gear up in gumboots and hard hats and actually wander through the working mine, giving the miners cigarettes or coca leaves when we bumped into them.
So as I said I´m in Sucre which is the old capitol of bolivia, it´s a pretty town, there´s some spanish colonial buildings scattered around, the low income of this country is still obvious however. Last night we went out for dinner as a group, the food is much better here than Potosi, the cakes and biscuits found all over south america are always good though.
Tommorrow we drive to La Paz, sounds like there´s some fun to be had there, including a four hour mountain bike ride, or should I say descent as 99% of it is down hill. I´ll let you know how I go.