We took a bus - the most luxurious bus we've ever been on - to Cusco. This pretty little city exceeded all our expectations. It's a really beautiful place in a natural bowl, with a large main square containing 3 huge churches, and lots of narrow cobbled streets full of pretty little houses and interesting shops.It's quite touristy, but that hasn't spoilt the city at all. In fact it's the most attractive city we've seen in South America. In all we spent 6 days in Cusco, during which time we saw 3 more parades, and had a really good Indian meal (our first for 6 weeks or so).
But our main focus was the dilemna of whether or not to do Inca trail. Liz in particular had wanted to see Machu Picchu for years, and we were biooked to do the trek, the dates for which could not be changed. We'd paid a sizeable deposit before leaving the UK, which we didn't want to lose, but the remaining cost was significant too, and we didn't want to waste more money. The trek covers 26 miles of steep, high altitude terrain over 4 days, but Liz was still finding walking up small hills difficult on her lungs, and Marc had developed a sore throat and seemd to be getting Liz's lurgy. Luckily the company we were booked with gave us an extra 24 hours to decide whether to commit, before we paid our money. In the end we decided to go for it, thinking it's the the things you don't do that you end up regretting, not the things you do.
The following day we were picked up before sunrise and taken to the trail head, where we met the rest of our group. We had our passports stamped with an 'Inka Trail' stamp and set off while the rain poured down around us. Thankfully the first day is also the easiet, and we made camp in good time. We were surprised how good the food was - delicious 3 course lunches and evening meals, all cooked in a tent on portable equipment. The camps themselves were very basic, but the views were second to none! That night we were introduced to the support team. There were 17 porters, 2 guides and 2 cooks to assist our group of 12 tourists. Sounds like overkill, but all 33 people needed food, tents, sleeping bags, clothes etc to last 4 days, not to mention the tables, chairs, stoves and gas bottles. We came to realise what an amazing job the porters do. After we left camp, they would pack up, take all the equipment up the same trails that we were struggling up, set up the next camp and cook lunch before we even arrived. Then they'd do it all again before we reached the camp for the evening. They are some seriously fit people - they put all the tourists to shame!
The second day was the one we were all dreading, particularly the climb up to Dead Woman's Pass, three quarters of a mile vertically above our first camp. Unfortunately one of our group was sick, and had to return to the start, so the 11 of us remaining set off. The trail went relentlessly and steeply uphill for 5 hours. This was a real struggle on Liz's lungs, and it's amazing how debilitating the altitude is. Near the top we were going just a few yards at a time before having to stop to catch our breath. Luckily our guide was very supportive, despite us lagging a long way behind the rest of our group. Eventually we reached the top at 4215m. The views were amazing, although at times we were in the cloud. After a long break to get our breath back we set off down the other side of the hill, thankful to be going downhill at last. We were incredibly relieved to reach our second camp, because it was almost all downhill from there.
Day 3 was a breeze. A few climbs, (long and steep by normal standards, but easy compared to the previous day) followed by lots of downhill sections through beautiful terrain, in bright sunshine. This was interspersed with several smaller Inka ruins and sightings of humming birds along the trail. We were amongst the fastest in the group downhill too, so didn't have to worry that we were holding everyone up again. All in all an wonderful day!
On the final day we were woken at 4am, and left the camp in the pitch dark to reach the Sun Gate, overlooking Machu Picchu, just after sunrise. It was cloudy when we arrived, but the cloud cleared almost immediately, revealing Machu Picchu glowing in the golden light below us - really magical. The last couple of hours walking were a doddle, as the 'lost city' got ever closer. It took a few hours to explore the whole site - it's really impressive, much bigger than we expected, with incredible views. Nonetheless we were glad to leave, as seemingly millions of tourists arrived.
We took the bus to the nearest town, a spa town without any road access, but with a railway line down the middle of the high street. We had lunch and a very well deserved beer with the rest of our group, followed by a soak in the outdoor hot pools, more beer and an enormous sense of achievement. We nearly missed our train back to Cusco when one of our group developed some 'toilet problems', but we found the energy from somewhere to sprint through the town to the station in the nick of time for the 4 hour trip back to Cusco. Boy did we sleep well that night!
Over the next cuple of days we relaxed, planned the rest of our trip, and visited a couple of other Inca sites. The name of one - Sacsayhuaman - amused us: To pronounce it's name you have to adopt an exagerrated latin accent and say 'Sexy Woman'. Despite this, these other ruins paled into insignificance compared to Machu Picchu.
We were sad to leave Cusco and knew we had a lot of travelling to do in a short space of time afterwards. We had a real flying visit to Lima - we fle out 24 hours after flying in, just having time to walk alomg the cliffs overlooking the Pacific near our hostel. Then we flew to Ecuador, our last new country. But that's the subject of the next instalment...
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