Road Trip Chile!

Our journey by jeep began on the 20th October. We named our jeep El Poderoso - The Powerful One. Yeah! It is an awesome little jeep which has so far taken us 1800km around Chile. We had initially wondered whether we were doing the right thing by hiring the 4x4 which cost more than a city car... how right we were! If we had taken the cheapest option we would probably now be stuck on a dirt track not far from Santiago. The 4x4 has been invaluable in helping us traverse over rocky tracks, muddy paths and volcanic ashes.

We began our trip by heading from Santiago to Vina del Mar and Vallparaiso - two of Chile´s most fashionable beach resorts. As we sped along the motorway we quickly realised two things... 1. our car is a gas guzzler, 2. the motorway tolls in Chile are rather expensive. As we didn´t want to be confined to a view of the motorway for two hours we veered off-track and headed on a well-paved road to the coast, for free. We arrived at our destination and quickly changed plan - the two coastal towns looked like the coast of Spain - very built up and not the quaint rural ideal that we had been expecting. No problem though as we hadn´t taken the bus and were now able to go where we pleased in our little jeep. So off we went. We headed further up the coast, stopping along the way to marvel at the huge Pacific breakers:

As we watched the sunset turn the horizon a dark pink we wondered where we would be sleeping that night (´no problem if we don´t find somewhere´, we thought, ´we can always sleep in the car!´) but as we are fairly civilised people we decided to search for some kind of cheap accommodation. We checked into a small B&B and crashed for the night.

The next day stocked up on our staple diet of of chocolate chip biscuits, bought a flask for hot water to make tea, and headed on our way along the coast. I was driving this time, getting used to the righthand side of the road and Al was navigating. We stopped on various cliffs along the way to take in the beautiful views.


That day we had a route planned on the map, about 100kms or so down the coast. The plan was to eat some good fish along the way for lunch and stay somewhere nice by the beach. This all worked out well except that we underestimated the time it would take us -especially as the chosen route took us through the forests, up mountains, through fields, all on dirt and stone tracks. Luckily we had hired a 4x4 as a city car would not have made it anywhere. However it took us about 2 hours to travel 25 kms on these roads and so we quickly had to change our plans.



A major incident ocurred on one of these roads. It was dusk, the sun was low in the sky, shining through our windscreen and blinding us. We were driving slowly on a dirt track through someone´s farm, waving at the locals unloading carts of produce. All of a sudden Al breaked hard... I heard a loud BANG like a balloon popping. Al stopped the car with a look of shock on his face. I looked around to see... a chicken... flapping its wings, its legs and body useless, trying to crawl to the side of the road. It was pretty horrible and we were both shocked. There was no one around and we had no choice but to drive on after the chicken passed away. It was a very sad moment for us. Al has been renamed ´The Chicken Killer´ and everytime we see a chicken now I tell him to be careful. The chicken itself was a very stupid chicken as it actually ran infront of our wheels of its own accord, maybe it had been a suicidal chicken. Many animals seem to have death wishes, we´ve narrowly missed chickens, birds who just dive at your wheels, and dogs who decide to run across the road just as you are passing. Anyway I am carefully monotiring the sides of the road now to ensure that nothing like this happens again.

The Chicken Killer and I eventually found a small town to stay in, Constitution, there isn´t a lot happening there but it is on a beautiful stretch of coast so in the morning we went to admire the views.



We made our way to an island just off the coast from a small town where there is a colony of seals. One had died and been washed up on the beach and a group of vultures were circling it, it was pretty gross.



Our journeys took us across from the coast to the Andes where we visited National Park Laguna Laja, a park with a lake and volcano which we decided to climb.



I was driving at this point in 4-wheel-drive mode across rough terrain - a proper off-road experience and it was awesome fun. We made our way up to a small village at the foot of the volcano, it was deserted, except for some tumbleweed that was there too. We headed up the black banks of the mountain, Alex was powering ahead while I was taking a more relaxed approach. It was a difficult climb as the sides of the volcano were covered in a black ash/sand and every step forward was followed by half a step sliding back.

Eventually we reached the beginning of the snow which continued all the way to the top of the volcano. This was an exciting moment and we celebrated by making a little snowman who we named Snowman Sam. Al is pictured here showing him the lake below:



He was quite a smokin´hot snowman and I hope he´s still there.



Our journeys also took us to another national park, Lago Conguillo. A large lake surrounded by monkey puzzle trees growing up the sides of the snowy mountains which overlooked the park.

Most impressive is the gigantic volcano which is the first ting you see as you drive into the park, surrounded by monkey puzzle trees, with a small puff of smoke rising from the crater. We were literally the only people there. We picked a trail around the lake and went on a walk, jumping across small wooden bridges and climbing over fallen tree trunks. We continued, by car, through the park to a larger part of the lake, The road through was terrible and if it had not been for our hardy 4x4 we would not have had to turn back. At times half of the road completely disappeared so we were completely tilted over trying to dodge the huge potholes, rocks and unearthed tree trunks in the way.



We eventually reached the lake and it was truly impressive to behold. The mountains rose vertically over the far side of the lake, covered in snow and low cloud. We sat on the black sand on the shore for a while and just took in the beautiful scenery.


After a while we moved on, it would be getting dark soon and we needed to find a place to stay for the night and we were still in the middle of no where. We found the right dirt track to exit the park and headed on our way, passing fields of lava rocks, black and barren terrain and very imposing.

Our next destination was a touristy but very charming little town called Pucon on the banks of Lake Villarica. We found a great youth hostel, designed in chalet style and made of wood, it was very clean and cosy with wood fires, a huge kitchen and even provided slippers to the guests to keep the carpets clean. It was really great and what was especially exciting for us was the prospect of being able to cook for ourselves again! After two months of eating in restaurants for every meal we couldn't wait to put some good old pasta on the hob.

Pucon is situated in beautiful countryside and next to another amazing volcano so we decided that we should do something active. The owner of our hostel suggested that we hire bikes and provided us with a map marking out a biking trail so off we went. Our bike ride took us across country roads, over fields, up steep hills and finally to our destination, another lake surrounded by mountains. It was a very challenging ride and there were times when we thought about turning back, but we peddled on. After reaching the lake Al took the opportunity to venture into the icy waters... veeery slowly. He then enjoyed a cup of tea from the thermos afterwards. We began the slog back and were slightly concerned to see a sign that said 'Pucon, 25km'... 25km of main road I hasten to add. It was a tough slog back, two hours of gruelling peddling, cars whizzing past us, the hot sun beating down on us... I honestly wasn't sure if I would make it. However we eventually made it back safe and sound, swearing never to desert El Podoroso again. That night we rewarded our aching muscles with a trip to the local thermal baths - the hottest of the baths reached 45 degrees! Very hot but so worth it, and the next day our muscles only ached slightly.

We were keen to get further south and having seen quite a few lakes now we decided to do the 300kms in one go to reach Puerto Montt, home of the Navimag ferry to bring us to Patagonia. A packet of chocolate biscuits later we reached the town, took a walk around the fisherman´s market and found the ferry terminal. Unfortunately we hadn't done our research and didn't know that the weekly ferry left that day and we'd just missed the boat. We decided to book for the next Monday and spend a few extra days on the island of Chiloe. Before our island adventure we decided to see one more lake, the biggest in Chile and the third biggest in South America, Lago Llanquihue.
Again a very beautiful lake but unfortunately the weather had turned cloudy and so we missed the mountain views we were hoping for. On the plus-side Al bought a fishing rod so that he could indulge in his new hobby however found that he needed to buy a year-long tourist fishing license for £30!! We decided to head somewhere where we could fish without a license, somewhere a little more secluded... so off we headed to the island of Chiloe.

Santiago

Arriving in Santiago was like a breath of fresh air after the terrible food and accommodation of our last three days in Bolivia. We arrived across the border into the little town of San Pedro de Atacama, a very pretty border town in the Atacama desert. We could have stayed longer but as we were keen to see some different scenery, and as San Pedro is quite touristy and expensive, we took a bus to the nearest town with an airport, went straight to the airport and jumped on the next flight to Santiago. The alternative was a 24 hour bus ride and although the flight wasn't cheap it was worth it to arrive in the city that evening.

Santiago is an excellent city. We arrived in the Bellavista district which is buzzing at night and found some accommodation in a great youth hostel called the Bellavista Hostel which is just off one of the main roads and very lively. We spent our time walking around, visiting the Plaza de Armas to send home one of our many important packages full of souvenirs and we went to the main market which is crammed with fish restaurants all vying for your custom and selling the most delicious fish imaginable. After not really eating for about 5 days this was highly exciting for us.

We decided to take a trip to the Santiago zoo which was in our neighbourhood. It is a really awesome zoo with some cool animals including a mean looking puma which stared at Alex and licked its lips...


and some cute white tigers which were my favourite:


On one of our evening strolls we climbed one of the hills surrounding the city where there were fantastic views:




We completely loved Santiago, but it was soon time to move on. We wanted to explore more of Chile on our own and the idea came to us... why not hire a car? This would give us the freedom we want to go where we want, take photos of what we want and really see the country rather than be tied down to someone else's timetable. So we did a bit of research on the internet and within a couple of hours Budget Rent a Car had dropped off a neat little 4x4 at our hostel door. Bring it on!!!

Uyuni Salt Desert

We booked our tour in La Paz and headed down to Uyuni by luxury tourist bus overnight. The bus was very comfortable and we slept well... for about two hours until we hit what the travel agent had described as 'a bit of a bumpy road.' Sleep was impossible as our bus shook and rattled its way down a pot-hole filled dirt-track. Every single part of the bus was vibrating at such a volume that you could not hear yourself think. It really felt as though it was about to fall apart and I was sure that my brain was being damaged. This continued for several hours, until we finally arrived in Uyuni at around 7am.

We jumped off the bus, dazed and deafened. A number of tour touts had gathered around the bus to 'greet' us and we were soon surrounded by a group of them, offering us various tours to the salt flats. We politely declined but there was one very persistent tout, a man from Brazil, who kept asking us if we wanted a tour. Each time we politely said no and each time he kept hanging around us. He then turned to us and asked us which tour company we were with, “that's not important to you” said Alex, to which the tout took extreme offense and told Al that he was obnoxious and had a problem. At that point another guide came up to us “Veronica and Alex?” Presuming this was us we turned to the guide with eagerness... “you're with us, follow this man to the office”... he was pointing to the Brazilian... damn. We reluctantly followed him and set our bags down in the office where we had the chance to refresh after our journey. Uyuni is a bit of a one-horse town, filled with tour agencies and we didn't find anything to do around the streets. Our office filled up with tourists waiting to depart and eventually the time came. We were asked to stand next to the jeep and sign our names on a form along with our food requirements. As our experiences of Bolivian food had been pretty dismal Al decided to tick the vegetarian box to avoid any dodgy meat. The tour guide took one look at this and said "Vegetarian! Oh! You are not in this car, you must go to that car...” and he pointed to a white 4x4 that looked... well let's say it had maybe just passed its latest MOT... Our driver introduced himself as Marin and we quickly found out that he did not speak English, no problem though as I have Al as a translator. We sped round the block to another office and in piled five other people, two Swiss girls, two German guys and an English guy so we were a very Deutsch speaking car on this tour. We hadn´t booked with the same tour company as them and were confused as to how we had ended up in the same car as them. Eventually it turned our that our tour company shifted us off to fill in the spaces in another tour company's car, something which regularly happens. We were sure it was because we had ticked the vegetarian box. But we liked our group and so off we went.

We sped across the stretch of desert before the salt flats to our first stop which was the 'train graveyard'.

For some reason a load of old steam trains have been dumped outside Uyuni and it has now become a tourist attraction. On first site it was indeed impressive and we were keen to find out more from our guide. In Spanish he told us “it is five hundred years old.” We all stopped to think about this... it seemed unlikely.
“Are you sure? How old?” Al asked, in case he had made a mistake, although the guide was speaking in Spanish.
“Since 1500” he replied.
“So the Bolivians were more ahead of their time than we thought... they invented the steam train and then kept it quiet from the rest of the world for three hundred years” we all laughed. “Or maybe Pizarro conquered South America by train!” We decided that our guide was probably not the most intelligent of men.

Eventually we arrived at the salt flats and it was indeed amazing. The white expanse stretches as far as the eye can see, blending into the horizon. The desert is also surrounded by mountains and volcanoes which look impressive in the distance. The salt looks like snow, but is in fact a giant lake, created from a volcanic eruption which caused a salt lake which then evaporated. We were also interested to find out that the lake is over 100 metres deep, however the hard salt surface is only 15 metres deep. It seemed very solid though so we didn´t worry.

We visited a small 'island' covered in cactuses which rises out of the salt desert, it was very beautiful and on climbing to the top of the island we could see just how vast the salt flats actually are. We stopped with around 20 other jeeps to have lunch. The meat eaters had llama steak which looked like it had been hanging around someone's cupboard for quite some time, and Al and I had... rice. Note to any vegetarians out there - Bolivia is not the place for you.


After lunch we did the touristy thing and ran around and posed on the salt flats making optical illusions, it was really good fun and everyone was really enjoying themselves. Being on the salt feels like you are in another world.








We heard a loud ´beeeep!´ our guide was hurrying us on so we jumped into the car and raced across the salt desert. We were unsure of what our next stop would be but it seemed like the guide was in a great hurry to get us there. It turned out that he was in a hurry to get to the hostel where we arrived at 4pm, we were to say the least pretty p-d off with him. The hostel was a small shack made of blocks of salt and we slept in dorms and shared a bathroom between about 20 of us. It was incredibly basic and very cold! As we had no desire to hang around there we all decided to go on a walk. We headed up the mountain behind the hostel to get a better view of the salt desert and the tiny village below. It was a fun walk and we spotted some local wildlife along the way. After dark we arrived back to dinner and huddled round a small salt table. We had been told that the food would be basic and they weren´t kidding. We had soup for the first course, and chips and... a fried egg to share for me and Alex... the difficult vegetarians. The meat-eaters had chicken and we were a bit jealous. Our guide doubled up as cook and waiter and he must have been sneaking some vodka in the kitchen between courses because we was really wasted by the time we had finished... or maybe he had been smoking something slightly stronger because he was actually smiling at us by the end of the meal. It was pretty entertaining and by the end of the meal we had to ask another group´s guide what the plan for the next day was because our guide had gone to bed.

The next two days entailed driving through barren mountainous terrain, filled with desert, volcanoes, geysers, wildlife, red and green lakes filled with flamingoes - it was truely spellbinding to behold. Our car frequently needed attention from the driver, and every now and then he would stop it in the middle of the desert and lift up the bonnet to examine it - rather worrying in a place where the temperature can get below 20 degrees at night! It became very cold indeed, both day and night, and our second night was spent sleeping in our clothes and hats and gloves. By the end of the tour everyone was sniffing and coughing.



On our second morning one of the group asked the driver what the temperature was... quite a strange question, however it received an even stranger answer: "eighteen below one" he said in Spanish... We tried talking to him and asked him if he liked his job - "it's a job" he mumbled... not really what you want to hear from your tour guide of 3 days.
On the third and last morning our guide was being suspiciously nice and guide-like to us, short of asking us our names he actually asked Alex what country he was from and which football team he supports. We felt that he was trying to 'earn' his tip a little too late in the tour and we no one was inclined to part with their hard-earned cash, he did provide us with a great topic of conversation though and maybe we should have tipped him for that.


The journey was truly spellbinding, following the ever-changing scenery from a white salt desert to rocky wasteland to sandy desert dunes. Our travel buddies were great fun and we really had a fantastic time. Nothing could have ruined the magic of the salt flats for us, not even a moody guide.

When we were dropped off at the border of Chile in the middle of the desert, it was with a slight sadness that we said goodbye to the spectacular and wild scenery of Bolivia, but with eagerness in our hearts that we jumped onto our next bus and sped on to our next country and next adventure.



Oh and let´s not forget Pepe who we forgot to photograph in Manu, he enjoyed the salt flats too!

La Paz

The journey to La Paz was an interesting one. At one point we had to cross part of the lake by boat, as did our bus as you can see!

Arriving in La Paz was a little stressful, it's a very dangerous city and we didn´t have anywhere to stay. We got a recommendation on a place to stay (Las Brisas, Calle Illampu) and it's worked out well, the hotel is great, clean, not bad value and the staff are really friendly. We went for a stroll around town to find somewhere to eat which was surprisingly hard and returned to find that all the night markets had opened up on the streets surrounding our hotel. We are staying in the heart of the market district so it is very happening. We are also right next to the Witches Market area where they sell delightful artifacts such as llama foetuses - pretty disgusting and we have to walk past these everyday. They have a certain smell to them, a bit like a musty incense (probably coming from the shop) and I don´t think I´ll be able to use incense again now.

La Paz is a really poor city though, on our drive into the city we passed a lot of very shabby districts with unfinished houses and grafitti everywhere. Many of the houses are built out of mud and they stand side by side with large skyscrapers. There are many impoverished indiginous people who sit on the side of the road selling their wares or begging and racism is a hot topic here (as you can see from the grafitti).
La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at around 3,800 metres and is built in a valley surrounded by snowy mountains. Walking around can be difficult, as it was in Cusco, and the air quality is poor which makes it harder. It is very difficult to find somewhere to eat in La Paz. That may sound strange but on our first night we walked around, scouring the streets and at least 3 neighbourhoods for somewhere that looked acceptable, we came across one cafe that served good, if not a bit bland enchilladas. Since then we have had to consult the guide book more than we would normally do to find food. We also tried searching for a place to have a quick drink on our first night but it is very difficult to do as there are no bars or pubs here. The Bolivians like to drink though and on Sunday they have a day off work and let their hair down a bit. Makes it a bit more dangerous for us tourists at night though so we retired early... in fact when the sun goes down at 6.30 you have to be quite careful on the streets and watch out for shady characters. We haven´t taken our camera out much here so don´t have that many great pictures.

Yesterday we visited Tiwanaku, pre-inca ruins near La Paz and apparently the most important archeological site in Bolivia. Unfortunately they haven´t excavated everything yet and what they have found has been transported to various museums in La Paz so there isn´t an awful lot remaining at the actual site. Also they are attempting to recreate what the site once was, but out of mud instead of the original stone. Funny how centuries ago they used better building materials than they do these days.
There was a small museum which showed an example of the mummification of bodies practised by the Tiwanacans.

Today we will be heading off to Uyuni to visit Bolivia´s famous Salt Flats desert, ending in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The pictures will be stunning and we´re pretty excited. Keep tuned!

Isla del Sol, Lake Titicaca

Today we visited the Isla del Sol, an island on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. It is said to have been the birth place of the Inca Empire, before they established their capital in Cusco. We caught our boat at 8.30am, passing the Bolivian Armada on the way - as you can see it´s a force to be reckoned with - and arrived at about 10 for our tour and hike. A tour guide greeted us and we decided to join his group, although as with most of these guides it´s a bit hit and miss. We visited some pre-Inca ruins which were quite well preserved, we saw the temple of the sun that the local people now use as farm-land, and a Puma-shaped rock which the Inca's worshipped. After this we hiked 11 kms over the whole island, heading both uphill and down in the hot sun. The views were beautiful, the dusty brown island sloping down into the cool blue water of the lake. Lake Titicaca is vast, spanning thousands of square kilometres. The weather was glorious, it was chilly at first and we had to wear our woolly hats, but soon it became very hot and sunny with a cool mountain breeze. Perfect weather. At one point, as we were walking we heard a sound like horses running over the hill, we looked around but nothing was there. We carried on walking but heard the noise again. We then noticed a patch of plants moving rapidly and realised it was a small tornado moving over the land and picking up all the plants and anything else in the way (a pair of trousers drying by someone's house) and throwing them into the air. It was a bit eerie and we were the only ones around to see it.



A couple of hours later we arrived at our destination with around 1 hour 30 mins to kill before our boat departed and found a small restaurant with a fantastic view of the lake and islands. There was an old hippy playing a guitar outside the restaurant and he invited us to sit down and sing some songs with him, we sort of declined in a reserved British way but he insisted. We went into the restaurant to look at the menu and order some food and drinks and were greeted by a small boy of about 6 years old who showed us the menu and took our order. Being served by a child was certainly a first for us. He dutifully bought our drinks out on a tray and set our place. Very sweet. Our hippy friend, Eduardo, pulled up a chair and two other English people sitting nearby were pulled into the group guitar and panpipe session. It was all pretty funny, especially when our new friend started impersonating Elvis complete with a thick Bolivian accent. Then he began to play the panpipes while the English guy sang Beetles tunes, it was pretty cool and definitely a 'traveling moment'. After a while we checked the time and to our alarm realised that we only had half an hour until our boat left and our food hadn't even arrived. We went to alert the chef that we needed the food straight away and our soup came out. We slurped it down quickly and went back to alert the chef that we needed our fried trout immediately. Ten minutes later it still hadn't come, I went into the kitchen to see what was happening only to be greeted by the 6 year old boy (he wasn't the chef incase you're wondering) to explain in broken Spanish “vamos in cinqo minutos para el barco!” We had 10 mins before the boat left and if we missed this boat we would be staying on the island for the rest of the night. Eventually it came but we had to shove it into plastic takeaway trays and run like the wind to catch our boat. As we were leaving our drunken hippy friend started to ask us about Princess Diana and asked us for our address in the UK, very bizarre, he also told us that he was a millionnaire with lots of money in the bank... we would have loved to stay and chat but unfortunately still had to run down a mountainside at 4,000 metres altitude to catch the boat. We thankfully made it with a couple of minutes to spare and ate our trout lunch ontop of the boat on the way back – we've both agreed it was one of the best lunches we've had in Bolivia so far, if not the most stressful. Unfortunately our dinners haven't been as successful, the food in Bolivia is nothing to rave about, but you live and learn... and learn to keep a packet of chocolate biscuits in your bag just in case!

Bolivia - Copacobana - Lake Titicaca

“Copa, Copacobana...” we made it across the Bolivian border and have since been chilling in this beautiful little town on the edge of Lake Titicaca, It's a little hippy town where the locals sell handmade jewelry, shops are called 'Su tienda amiga' (your shop friend) and the tourists stroll around, take trips to Isla del Sol and climb the nearby hill to watch the sunset. It's super-chilled and has given us a good chance to unwind after two days of solid bus journeys from Manu to Cusco and from Cusco to here.

Lake Titicaca is the highest mountain lake in the world. It is on the border of Peru and Bolivia and is surrounded by mountains and hills. It is really beautiful. We originally took the bus to Puno, the town on the Peruvian side but it was really horrible and as soon as we arrived we were surrounded by a mob of touts trying to sell us bus trips and boat tours to the floating islands (islands that loads of tourists go to to take photos and buy lots of overpriced souvenirs – not our cup of tea) so we hopped on the next minibus we could and crossed the border to Copacobana, Bolivia.


We relaxed in the morning, taking in the sights - lovely church, street markets, and for lunch we headed to a beach shack for some fresh fried trout and a glass of beer. We were befriended by a Bolivian, Cesar, from La Paz who bought us two large bottles of beer that we really didn't want. He had had a few too many and started chatting to us, while his friends watched probably embarrassed, telling us “Welcome to my country!” and that if we ever had any problems we should call him as he is a policeman and if anyone gives us problems he will put them in prison, he even showed us his ID (which oddly had a different name on it from the one he told us). It was all a bit bizarre, but he was a genuinly friendly guy, as we have noticed about a lot of the people in Bolivia. We eventually managed to escape and had to face a steep climb up the hillside with a stomach full of beer.
Perched on the hill overlooking Copacabana there is a little cemetery and you can see a stunning sunset over the lake which we did this evening. Really beautiful.

Amazon Adventure - Manu National Park

Day one (03.10.08)

The journey from Cusco to the Manu National Park in the Amazon was a long, bumpy and at times hair-raising one. Eleven of us (2 Spanish, 2 Italian, 2 Swedish, 1 Argentinian and 2 Peruvian guides) sat in the mini-bus on what appeared to be a suicide mission on the driver's part. We swerved potholes and landslides, drove on the edge of breath-taking precipices and narrowly missed other cars and lorries on the road – for 8 hours. We drove through the mountainous Peruvian countryside, past old and young people working on the land, building their mud brick houses and herding cattle, sheep and pigs out of our way. The journey was interrupted at points with cultural visits to some pre-Inca tombs, a village called Pancantamba, a town at 4,000 meters altitude, which is famous for it's fiestas and which is a trading point between farmers and people who live in the jungle. The town was very quiet and we walked around and just observed local life. On arriving at the entrance of the national park our guide informed us that we would only be entering the beginning of the forest, and that the largest area of the forest was banned to tourists. That area is home to native tribesmen – some of whom are believed to be cannibals, 3 different types of deadly poisonous snakes, flesh eating diseases and a whole host of other scary plants and animals that can easily injure or kill unwary tourists. Tourists are also banned because the smallest cold/flu can wipe out hundreds of tribesmen who have different immune systems to us. He also assured us that there were plenty of dangerous things to watch out for in the area that we were entering, So we descended into the 'cloud forest' driving down and down for hours into the jungle. The views were stunning – whole mountains covered in dense jungle and valleys further than the eye can see. We eventually reached our drop-off point and walked to a small platform to do some bird watching. Al and I aren't the most avid bird watchers but it was nice to see this bright red bird, called Cock of the Rocks, which is the national bird of Peru. However after about ten minutes we had seen enough and waited patiently for our fellow travellers to finish – we were there for around an hour - definitely too long to watch any one animal, let alone a bird. We then took a nice night time stroll down to our hostel, observing various butterflies and insects along the way. group of bats began to fly around us and our guide cheerfully informed us that you can get vampire bats in the jungle that do actually suck blood from their victims – great. Our hostel for the night – or should I say shack – was pretty scary. We had mosquito nets over our beds but the rooms were open and exposed to anything that wished to crawl or fly in. I decided that as I was in the jungle I would get over my fear of insects and get on with things, poor Al though who has a phobia of spiders found it particularly difficult. Sleeping was difficult, once you are in bed and have tucked in your mosquito net you can't easily get out and I had left my earplugs in my bag so it wasn't a very restful night as the jungle is alive with the strangest sounds at night and I kept thinking something was in my bed although there was nothing there... I hoped.

Day 2 (04.10.08)

We awoke early to the sunlight and breakfast and headed off on a long walk down the road to spot some interesting animals... we didn't see too much: some roadkill – two snakes that had fallen victim to some mountain bikes which passed us, some insects (none of them deadly) and some black birds with a bright yellow tail. We were slightly disappointed but we were now going to head even deeper into the jungle so who knows what we will see later?! In the van again heading deeper into the forest we passed a small bread-making shop where our guide stocked up on provisions and we all had a snack of toasted cheese and some chirimoya fruit- really good.
We also took a look at the local guinea pigs – being fattened up for the next fiesta. Our next stop was a coca plantation where our guide explained to us the origins of the coca leaf and its role in Peruvian culture. It has been used since pre-Inca times to control the effects of altitude sickness and give farm workers energy and contains lots of vitamins and minerals. Some people actually live on it. On the down-side it is leading to deforestation of the rainforest as people clear away the trees to build coca plantations as these are quite profitable. The government tries to regulate the production of coca due to pressure from the Americans but most farmers grow it for legitimate uses – it takes a few kilos of coca leaves to make about a gram of cocaine.
Next it was time for the river rafting – woohoo! We all got kitted up and jumped into the raft for what was apparently going to be an easy ride down the Rio Madre de Dios – an estuary of the Amazon river about 100 metres wide. After a briefing in Spanish as clear as the muddy river we set off with our instructor. With all our might we fought the rapids and cross-currents, with metre high waves tossing and turning our boat in the air, close to capsizing. Surely this couldn't be grade 1 rafting! The water was a murky brown colour and soon we were all soaking and the boat looked as if it was going to sink. The scenery was amazing, by far the best way to see the wild jungle is from the river. We gazed at the river bank, cutting its way through the land, covered in jungle, rising up into mountains. But each time we stopped to appreciate the scenery we would be urged on with “vamos vamos” from our instructor. Eventually we landed soaking and muddy, yet safe, in a small port.
We were ferried into another, more stable boat, and began the last leg of our journey to Erika Lodge. We settled into our rooms and had a hot shower – hot water! - the height of luxury and something we weren't expecting!
Our lodge was based in the jungle, impossible to reach by land, only water and we were one of a few groups who were staying, each group bringing with them provisions for our cook Gloria to make our delicious meals. We were very isolated but in a great position from which to see lots of wildlife. We ended the afternoon by taking a walk for a couple of hours through the nearby jungle. We were full of excitement and enthusiasm – intrepid explorers entering the wild jungle for the first time! I decided that this was the moment that my whole slight obsession with Discovery Channel and Animal Planet had been gearing up towards. Real life exploration!
The jungle was dense and dark and damp – like in the movies. Trees were competing for sunlight and creepers and vines were handing down to the ground blocking our paths. We climbed up the side of the hill prodding some holes in the ground hoping to find tarantulas, but sadly none came out to greet us. The air was humid but not too hot and the strange calls of birds filled the air – some sound like police sirens, some like people laughing and others like large drops of water hitting a pond – Plop!
We saw a huge black ant – apparently if these ants bite you (which is common) you will have a fever and paralysis of your bitten limb for 24 hours – scary stuff! We also saw a worm that disguised itself as a stick and a yellow bee – which stung Juan, one of our group. The animals here aren't friendly!
Before we could see any really exciting animals we heard the sound of rain in the distance. We turned back to make our way quickly to the lodge – once your clothes get wet here it takes days to dry them out due to the humidity. We were close to the lodge when it hit hard – huge drops of jungle-sized rain splashed around us 'run!' we cried, pushing and shoving the slow-movers out of the way (Al and I quickly made it to the front). We raced down the steep now-muddy banks which we had earlier come up, ducking and diving from the vines and various insects that got in our way. We all went up to the lookout point watching the river swell and the trees being pounded by the rainstorm. Oh well, nothing to do except open a couple of beers and have some hot popcorn and wait for supper to be ready. The sun went down and although we were being attacked by all manner of moths and other huge flying insects which had gathered around the light we were all pretty happy to be in such a cool place. That night we closed our rucksacks against spiders, quickly went to the outdoor bathroom which is a scary place at night in the jungle (I had a frog hopping around my cubicle which was quite alarming), and tucked our mosquito nets into our beds. We settled down for a good night's sleep – trying to ignore the wild calls of the nocturnal animals around our rooms. Then... suddenly in the middle of the night, as everyone slept silently, we heard frantic screaming – not from an animal but from a grown man. “NO! NO! NOOO! NO! NO! NOOO! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!” It was the sound of a man facing certain death and shouting without dignity or shame at the prospect of meeting his maker. I lay there in terror – was it a tarantula attacking and dragging him back to its layer?...had he seen a snake hanging from the ceiling? I waited in fearful silence. Al's bed was right next to the room where the sound came from, separated only by a thin wall. What was running through Al's mind?... a group of cannibal savages from the forest come to capture some tourists in the middle of the night! When the shouting stopped Al asked if all was OK and got a quiet reply in the affirmative so he concluded that the man was having a bad dream..... we all tried to go back to sleep, but lay there for hours, still fearful of what else was out there in the dark. The next morning everyone was whispering to each other - “what happened, what was the screaming?” One of the Italians had thought it was someone attacked by a puma while going to the toilet in the night, he had been so scared himself that the final “NO!” was actually screamed by him! Juan, our fellow Spanish traveller owned up – he has a sleeping disorder which prevents him from controlling his movements and voice during deep sleep. He can never remember his dreams but his wife has had to prevent him from getting up and walking around or screaming on numerous occasions. Pretty scary stuff. We all laughed at how crazy our imaginations had been that night, everyone had imagined a different terrible fate for the screaming man.

DAY 3 (05.10.08)

That morning we were awoken early by more shouting - “Monkeys!” We all rushed out of bed, shoved on our clothes and ran out to see the cheeky primates. Our guide took us up a nearby hill in the forest and there we saw a family of wild monkeys swinging from the trees. The fathers were carrying the babies and he explained that this is because the mother's get so injured during birth that they often cannot carry the baby monkeys on their backs at first. After breakfast we got kitted up for our canopy swing – this was something we'd all been very excited about, swinging through the treetops. On our way there we saw one of many termite nests. Our guide opened up a hole in it and ate a couple of the ants! - apparently they taste like mint and that natives eat them for dessert. Al and I gratefully declined when offered one. We saw a tree full of fire ants, the ants live on the tree and protect it from predators by attacking anything that comes close. It you tap on the tree all the ants come running to attack you, it's pretty cool. Apparently natives use the tree as a form of punishment for people who have been bad. They tie them up to the tree naked and let the ants come for them. We climbed up and up to the heights of the great forest, tripping over tree roots and other plants as we went. We reached the first platform and had a briefing from our guide. Check out the cool video! Al doesn't like heights and so wasn't looking forward to his first swing, but after experiencing the exhilarating rush as you slide off the platform and swing through the tree tops, admiring the stunning scenery as you go, he was converted. There were four different swings and an abseil at the end. It was seriously good fun. We returned to the lodge knackered and promptly all fell asleep on the chairs in front of the river. We were awoken to a splendid feast for lunch, a large buffet with lots of food, enough for seconds and thirds. It was brilliant! Chicken in sauce, rice, potatoes, corn, cheese fritters, salad platter, boiled eggs and watermelon to finish. Potatoes are indigenous to South America, there are over 700 different varieties and being half-Irish I was naturally interested in this fact. They also eat a lot of rice as a staple, introduced by the Chinese in the 1930s. Al and I ate so much that we promptly crashed out for a long siesta. We were awoken for our next excursion, a trip to a different part of the river to spot some animals. We were beginning to wonder if there were any animals at all in the Amazon, we'd seen more on a walk in the park in London than on our trip. We jumped on our boat and off we went to a nearby bank, there we got off and began a 30 min walk through a different part of the jungle, covered in muddy swampland, which eventually led us to a large lake. Unfortunately they didn't have the right number of rafts for us (we were now 6 – Al and I, the Spanish couple and the 2 gay Italian men, one who never said a word and one who was quite fat and talked lots, plus 2 guides) so four of us crammed on to one raft, with one on another raft and one of the Italians (the fat one who carried a small umbrella with him) on his own raft as all the other rafts sank when he tried to get on them. Our raft of 4 was sinking further and threatening to capsize at any slight movement so Alex was shifted onto the raft with the quiet Italian who was shifted onto another raft with his friend although he had to stand. It was quiet bizarre. Eventually they were dropped off on their own on a small bank at the other end of the lake and their boatman returned to the small jetty to collect a more sturdy boat. All a bit of a palava.
Meanwhile myself and the Spanish couple enjoyed a nice relaxing trip on the lake and Al had his own private raft. We watched some massive birds that lived on the lake called Stink Birds – they look like Camden punks and eat rotten fruit and ferment it in their mouths so that predators will not want to approach them due to the bad smell. Unfortunately there weren't any caymen (alligators) around and we didn't see all that much other than birds.

After we disembarked from our sinking rafts two young boys ran up to us, they had caught a small emerald toucan, quite a rare bird. But they wanted to sell it to us and I think the bird had been injured which was sad. On our way back it began to rain which was good because loads of frogs and toads came out, including this massive one we saw. Apparently if you lick them they are hallucinogenic, although as our guide quite rightly pointed out you have to be hallucinating to lick one in the first place. The journey back was beautiful, it was dusk and the mountains were black against the indigo-blue sky. The river looked grey and we sat back as we watched the fire flies on the banks. We had a few beers and some popcorn as is the thing to do in the Amazon before supper
then went to bed very early, exhausted from an eventful day, and hoping that there would be no more screaming events that night.

DAY 4:

I was fairly exhausted having woken at about 4 in the morning desperate for the loo but too scared to go. Eventually after about half an hour of changing position in bed to try and make it go away I had no option but to go for it and race outside in my pyjamas with my boots and torch. I could hear strange loud noises all around me as I raced to the bathroom. I carefully checked the cubicle for frogs or spiders or giant ants and turned off my torch so that nothing would be attracted to the light. I started to sing some jungle songs that had been in my head over the last few days – 'Welcome to the Jungle', 'In the Jungle the Lion Sleeps Tonight', 'Jungle Boogie' anything to stop thinking about killer spiders. Anyway I survived and went back to bed, only to be woken an hour later at 5am to be chased into a boat to do some more bird spotting. The macaw clay lick is an area of clay on the river bank where macaws and parrots go to lick the clay and obtain calcium and other minerals. Guaranteed to see some wildlife. However, following the general trend of our trip so far we only saw two small green birds flying around a bush and otherwise nothing. We stayed for an hour but Al and I had long decided that bird-spotting is not for us. Birds are very nice but sitting and watching them lick a wall for an hour is not really our idea of fun – especially when they don't even turn up! How rude of them, didn't they know that we would be coming to watch them, where were they? I decided that macaws are very inconsiderate creatures and could have spared us a lot of waiting had they just flown down to where we were sitting and performed a little dance for us or something, to amuse us tourists who had paid money to see them. Selfish creatures.
Later on that day we went on a walk, complete with machetes to clear the path, through the forest to see a giant tree that the natives believe leads the souls of the dead to heaven and searched for more wildlife, but found none. Very disheartening especially as our guide had said that he had seen many snakes and even a jaguar on this route. No, nope, nothing, nada for our accused group. We were all in agreement by this point that one may as well visit a zoo or take a walk through the European countryside to see an animal. But of course the jungle is an amazing place for many other things other than just animals, the atmosphere of the place is incredible, the trees, plants, humidity, noises. It really is a very special place. Next we decided to try our hand at fishing. We went wish some small makeshift fishing 'rods' to a local pond to sardines to catch to use as bait for bigger fish in the river. We were unlucky in our quest and moved on to the river using small pieces of meat as bait. It was very enjoyable standing on the bank of the river trying to catch fish. A few times Al had felt something pulling on his string but unfortunately they got away. I got stuck in the muddy banks a few times which was funny but otherwise we were unsuccessful. Oh well, nevermind. We returned to our lodge for dinner – chicken not fish. On our last night Al was very excited to see what he had been looking for on every walk, a rhinoceros beetle. We found it on the porch of our dorm rooms and it was pretty huge as you can see from the photo.
Al was very happy to have seen this. We actually seemed to find most of the interesting creatures that we saw around the cabins or in the loo area. Most of them: giant ant, butterflies, ghekos, beetles etc just hung around the loo block – waiting to scare us in the middle of the night I'm sure.

DAY 5:

We awoke early to leave for our journey back to Cusco. 12 hours by boat (1hr) and bus. The trip was rather quiet at first. We joined up with some other tourists who were at the lodge and were given a large comfy bus which was good. We stopped at a little village to see a local fiesta which was cool.

The locals dress up as Amazon warriors and Spanish conquistadors and do ritual dances. All was quiet during the remainder of the journey until we were within 2 hours of Cusco. Our bus stopped to wait for a group of villagers who were unloading massive boulders onto a truck. We weren't sure what they were doing but we waited for them to finish, gave the children some sweets, and drove on. Soon we reached a huge landslide on the road. A boulder so big that it took 6 guys to try to move it. We eventually managed to pass. There was quite a lot of debris on the road and we started coming across more and more 'landslides', strange as it wasn't the terrain for it. We then remembered hearing that there was a general strike over the south of Peru and figured that these landslides were actually placed there by the local villagers to prevent buses and lorries coming through and to enforce the strike. Our bus driver wasn't having any of it, and although we had to clear away a few more boulders and trees from the road he just drove around the majority of them – off road in our rickety bus.

Our whole Amazon jungle experience was awesome, we had such fun. Although we didn't see really any animals... but then again the jungle isn't just about animals – it's about the huge trees, the humidity, the river, the noises of the jungle and the atmosphere that you don't get anywhere else in the world. Next time we want to see animals though, we may just go to the zoo (!)

Salkantay Trek - MachuPicchu

Day 1: (26th Sep)

Our guide picked us up from our Hotel at 4:20 in the morning and took us to our bus. We found two seats together at the back and sat down – Vix next to the window and me next to a large Peruvian lady. We quickly realized that we were sitting on a public bus and after a long delay we finally left the bus station, the bus packed with people standing in the corridor and the roof of the bus piled with luggage and amazingly the roof of a house. Little did we know then that we were engaging on a bus journey from hell.

To cut a long horrendous 4.5 hour long story short, let me just say that we were driving on the worst imaginable bumpy roads, had deafening music blasting through the speakers, crying babies who had their nappies changed, claustrophobic overcrowding, stifling heat, stuffy air, dirty seats and windows, spiders crawling around, angry passengers shouting at the driver and to make the ordeal worse, we had this experience all in first and sometimes second gear, as the driver was slaloming across the dangerous mountain roads with heart-stopping precipices. Due to all the luggage on the roof of the bus and the amount of people inside, I was sure the suspension had to give at one point and I was convinced that we weren't going to make it out alive and already saw the headlines in the papers – tourists die for being stupid by taking a public bus.

We finally arrived at the end of our bus journey in the mountains. Stepping off was a great experience and I felt like kissing the ground. The mountain air was thin and it was nice and warm. Our guide Eduardo introduced us to our fellow travellers – a couple from London and a girl from Canada, our cook, Guillermo (one of the doziest looking people I have ever seen) and our horse man (whose name we never caught – therefore we refer to him as the nameless horseman). After having breakfast in a shabby looking lodge, where wild chickens were trying to eat our breakfast we embarked on our epic 5 day journey to Machu Picchu. We had full stomachs, no mosquito bites, clean dry clothes, smiles on our faces and a certain spring of anticipation in our step.

Our first day took us through amazing semi-arid mountains until we could see in the distance the famous Salkantay mountain with its decreasing glacier sitting on top.
It looked so far away and little did i know that we would be walking to the foot of this mountain on the same day, to set up our camp for the night. The walk was relatively easy which allowed us to get to know our fellow travellers and guide. On the same trek we were on, there were about three other groups which we would occasionally bump into – but over all the path was empty and it felt very calm and isolated – compared to the Inka trail where you apparently walk in line with an endless amount of trekers. After 3 hours walking we had our first lunch which our dozy cook prepared for us.

Cook pictured in the makeshift kitchen. It was very tasty but nobody was really hungry. We continued on our trek direction glacier and after an hour stopped by a little hut , where a lady was selling warm soft drinks and coca leaves. Vix immediately jumped at the opportunity of trying these and stuffed her mouth with half a bag.

I was more cautious and only had a leaf or two. Soon after Vix started talking lots of nonsense...only joking. Apparently these leaves are meant to be amazing, giving the chewer all the vitamins a person needs and help you live until you're 120 years old...according to the people here. I think all Vix noticed was that she couldn't feel her mouth anymore as coca leaves have an anesthetic effect.


Anyway, as the day grew older it got colder and we finally arrived at our camp site just after six as it was already getting dark. It was bitter cold as we were at an altitude of 3,800 meters and it was also extremely windy.
We helped our nameless horseman, guide and cook to put up our tents, had dinner and went for a little stroll through our camp to look at the stars. I had never seen the southern hemisphere's skyline and was impressed at how many stars you can see – including a well defined milky way. So we went to sleep in our tents. We were warned that temperatures fall to minus 10 degrees Celsius, so being well prepared I put on my tight long-johns, my tight thermal long-sleeved top, super-thick socks and my Peruvian woolly mountain hat.
I looked like gay little Santa's helper and Vix looked like a geeky caterpillar – but we didn't care because we weren't going to be cold during the night....and how right we were. So I crawled into my sleeping bag and fell asleep immediately. Half way through the night I woke up because I felt like I was melting away. I was sweating like a pig and wasn't sure how this could be possible. So I started to crawl out of my bag (very difficult in the dark as I was trying not to wake Vix up) and started taking my seriously thick socks off. Half an hour later I was still sweating away like cheese left out of the fridge on a summer's day. So I decided to crawl out of my bag again and stay out this time, as there was no need for a sleeping bag when you're dressed like a gay elf. Anyway, I'll hand over to Vix now who will be telling you of our arduous and perilous journey through the mountains on our quest to Machu Picchu.

Day 2: (27th Sep)

Alex forgot to mention the ghosts of the valley of Salkantay that haunted us throughout the night – the Mexican woman who killed her children and now wonders through South America crying “where are my children?” (you can hear her voice on the wind at night... or when Alex decides to imitate her just as everyone in the camp is going to sleep) and the infamous El Chupacabra (in English “goat sucker”) who decays people's bodies, although with a name like that there must be more to the story. Hmmmm... anyway. The next morning we awoke at 6 to brekkie and the prospect of 9 hours trekking and reaching 4,800 metres before lunch. A very daunting prospect. We began the stiff uphill walk, our legs already aching from the day before, at a brisk pace. We overtook a few groups of climbers who had left earlier than us, and spurred on by this success we raced towards the mountain.
Then we saw it... a near-vertical path ascending the Salkantay mountain. 'God help me!' I thought... what was equally discouraging was that the two other girls in our group were discussing their training practices for the trek which included marathons and vigorous gym workouts... when I admitted that I hadn't prepared at all it was greeted by startled faces, but also encouragement. We started the steep ascent. One foot infront of the other, slowly but surely. Each step was harder than the one before and the thin air made us gasp for breath. I thought I wouldn't make it, but the snow-covered mountain ahead (and Al telling me to hurry up) spurred me on.
An hour and a half later I saw the summit, 4,800 metres right below the glacier. It was truly amazing, at the top of the pass you can even hear avalanches from the mountain thundering away through the cold air – many have tried to climb this mountain and died in the process. Needless to say I wasn't going to climb any higher.
We all felt that we had achieved something and everyone was smiling.
Pepe enjoyed it too, but he didn´t have to walk.

After a break and some photos we began the descent. Downhill all the way now – yippee!! We walked down through the mountains, the scenery developing into barren land with huge boulders and craters surrounding us – it looked like the moon. As we were walking we noticed a huge eagle hovering a couple of metres away from us, one metre above the ground, searching and diving for food – it was amazing. We eventually reached a huge plain and sat down for lunch by a small river. The kitchen was a rock and the sink was the river – very basic, but a good hearty meal after our climb. Over the next four hours we descended from the plain into the high jungle, passing small houses built under rocks,
where the inhabitants work on the land, heard cattle or just sit and stare at passing trekkers. The jungle scenery was amazing – huge mountains covered with vines and trees, decsending down into a chasm with a small river at the bottom.
Al was stopping every few minutes to get out the binoculars and try and spot a bear or a puma by the river, but no such luck. After a few more hours we eventually arrived at our campsite at around 5.30 absolutely knackered from such an active day – downhill isn't as easy as it seems by the way!
We all decided that – first thing first – we should have a beer at the campsite 'bar' – a small shack with a tin roof. As we were sipping the cool beer and congratulating each other on a successful day we heard the ominous crack of thunder in the distance. Then... the rain began. And once it began to rain it rained and rained and rained, interspersed by claps of thunder and flashes of lightening. We were particularly worried as we were sitting under a tin roof – we could already see the headlines: “Group of stupid tourists killed by lightening while sheltering under metal roof.” Before it got dark we had to race to our tents to collect torches and make sure there were no leaks, and race to the 'toilet' – small shack in nearby field composed of hole dug in ground. The rain was so hard that other campers were digging canals around their tents to try to channel the collecting water away and the local dogs and chickens were sheltering around our feet. Dinner was an interesting affair with the sink being outside of the shack that was the kitchen.
The chefs were running back and forth to the sink covered in plastic sheets and running with the food to the various groups of trekkers. It was hard to sleep well that night with the rain pounding on the tent and the prospect of waking up in a pool of water and we were praying that the morning would bring us slightly better weather. We turned off our torches and put in our earplugs... darkness and silence descended.

Day 3: (28th Sep)

We awoke to splendid sunshine, beautiful mountains and a hearty breakfast of pancakes – happy to be fairly dry, but dying for a nice hot shower and change of clothes. In high spirits once again we headed off on our third day of walking. The route from the campsite took us down a steep jungle path, down into waterfalls and cascades, crossing small makeshift bridges over ravines.
Alex and I were particularly energetic this day, powering ahead of everyone else, up and down the narrow jungle paths, making room occasionally for groups of donkeys laden with camping gear and backpacks that were trying not to fall over the edge. At one point we passed a terrible smell – like rotten fish – our guide told us that a horse had recently died here, falling off the narrow road, exhausted from carrying a heavy load. At times the road dissolved into nothing – just the hillside - and it was a wonder that the groups of horses made it past these points at all. After 5 hours we made it to the awaiting buses which ferried us to the nearby village for lunch. There Alex came out of the toilet with a big smile on his face – it was the cleanest toilet anyone had seen in days and everyone quickly queued to see this marvel – which after a few visits was dirty again. We said goodbye to the nameless horseman who headed back all the way with the horses, and were taken from there to our campsite near St Theresa town and hopped into our swimsuits – waiting eagerly for our visit to the local hotsprings – our first chance for a bath in days. The hotsprings were truly amazing – it was like a resort – different baths of different sizes and temperatures in the ground, the biggest about the size of three large swimming pools. The sides of the bath had been built with stone but the bottom of the baths were still natural sand. It was one of the most amazing experiences ever – lying in boiling hot water, staring at the sky and mountains surrounding us – really amazing! We returned to our campsite squeeky-clean and had our supper while trying to fight off the cheeky monkey that lived at the campsite.
His name was Pancho and he was indeed very cheeky, trying to climb into our tents and steel stuff – very cute though. There was also a strange sound at the campsite – a very loud, constant high-pitched sound that resembled a UFO hovering above us. We later discovered that this noise came from giant insects that look like three-inch hornets which live in the trees. That night was a little scarier than the first two – being in the jungle were were paranoid about mosquitoes and other insects and I kept feeling as if I was being bitten during the night.

Day 4: (29th September)

The next morning we were awoken by the cheeky monkey climbing on top of our tent – Alex was mean and pushed him off the top of the tent and he didn't come back. We were a bit miffed to find out that we would only be walking three hours that day and that the walking didn't start until after lunch. Morale was low as an argument broke our between Alex and the guide. We weren't happy with the package, and felt that we'd been taken on a bit of a ride (I hasten to add that this was not the fault of the guide who was employed by our tour company, but of the tour company itself – ´Apu Salkantay´ booked online through ´Inka Wasi´ Inka Wasi are pretty bad, wouldn´t recommend them). We took a mini-bus to the next point where we waited for lunch – probably the worst lunch I'd ever eaten, or played with, in my entire life – mutton and cold chips from some road-side shop – yuk! Luckily Al and I were resourceful and bought a fresh avocado from a near-by stall which we had instead (the avocados here are amazing by the way, they are huge and taste so good, much better and cheaper than at home). We began the three hours trek to Aguas Calientes (Pueblo MachuPicchu) along a traintrack through the jungle forest. Walking on traintracks is harder than it sounds, we couldn't walk between the tracks as it was too uneven with stones and the tracks themselves are really unevenly spaced so you can't get up a good rhythm. We had a 'Stand By Me' moment when we had to cross a train-track bridge with nowhere to go if a train came. Luckily no train came although it did come right after we had crossed – phew! At one point Al attempted a feeble train dodge, but quickly jumped behind the bushes – the trains only go at about 30MPH anyway. He also made an experiment with a 0.10 soles coin by putting it on the train tracks and waiting for the approaching train to run over it, it was completely flattened and a pretty good souvenir of the trek we think. We later crossed another train bridge where we could see high up into the mountains. We spotted a small building on the edge of the cliff which our guide told us was the watch tower of MachuPicchu – we were close! We arrived in a small touristy town called Aguas Calientes which is just at the foot of the MachuPicchu mountain.
This town is mainly used by tourists who want to stay nearby the ruins in order to get there early in the morning. Every second restaurant serves pizza and sells pisco sours – which as I hadn't eaten all day was very welcome. We stayed in a lovely hostel with windows overlooking the river below the mountain and had our first decent shower and loo-trip in four days. Morale was still a bit low though – Alex had 83 (we counted) mosquito bites which were red and swollen, it was raining a bit, we were annoyed about how the day had turned out and we were tired. To be honest we were all MachuPicchu'd-out. We'd seen so many posters and pictures of this place and heard so much about it that we were a bit sick of it to be honest. During the evening we had a set-menu dinner in a restaurant with our guide and chef. No-one was particularly hungry and everyone was a bit quiet. We said our thanks and goodbyes to our chef, exchanged email addresses among the group, and headed to bed for our 4am start the next morning. I will now hand over to Al who is going to take you through the next, most epic day.

Day 5 (30th September)

Our alarm clock went off at 400am and we left out Hotel at 420 for breakfast. While Vix was munching away I was busy bandaging my legs and feet to prevent my mosquito bites from swelling up even further and preventing me from walking to and around the historical site.
We left on our trek up the mountain with our flash lights on our head, guiding us through the darkness. It was cold and there were only two other people ahead of us in the distance.

After a while we notice a black limping dog walking next to us... then I remembered the myth of the black dog that our guide told us about. When the conquistadors were pillaging the treasures of the Inkas, they had heard of a place in the mountains where the Inkas supposedly kept their best hidden treasures. Pachacutec, the last Inka emperor never gave away its secret location and the Spanish never found out where it was. But they knew that Pachacutec's pet dog - Machu Wawa had been to the secret location so in an attempt to find the hidden treasures they used Machu Wawa to guide them to through the mountains. Legend has it that Machu Wawa was so upset by the slaughtering of his master Pachacutec, that he took the conquistadors deep into the mountains where they would never find their way out. The Spanish realized that they were lost and tried to shoot Machu Wawa but he managed to escape only with a wounded leg. The spanish weren't so lucky and died in the jungle. It is said that Machu Wawa's spirit now roams through the woods misguiding all travellers so that they never find Machu Picchu. Anyway, Machu Wawa's spirit was by our side but we made sure we followed the proper track. It was an extremely steep climb with giant uneven steps and after four days of trekking this was an extremely difficult climb for us.
As we gradually made it up the hill it started getting lighter and we could see the mountains behind us. It was a misty morning and the clouds were hiding much of the scenery, only allowing us a small glimpse of its full glory.

After one hour we finally made it up to the entrance of the archaeological site soaked in sweat. I had to change the top I was wearing as it was drippingly wet. We were4 upset to find out that we weren't the first but about 50-100 other tourists had cheated and taken the bus up the windy roads. I was surprised and amazed that they weren't ashamed to look us in the eye without hanging their heads in shame – anyone can take the bus up there, but only the true explorers take the original stairway up to Inka Heaven.

On entering the site we made our way through to the other end in order to get our tickets to climb the famous wayna picchu.
The site was very misty and we couldn't see much but what we did see was very impressive. The ruins where much better preserved than what I had imagined and the area was also much larger than what I initially thought.
We met up with our tour-guide, who sat us down for half an hour giving us a brief history of the origins of this place. As he took us through the site telling us more about the history of the place, I started watching a bird glide through the air, as my mind wondered off and the tour guide's voice started to fade away, I imagined I was gliding around like the bird. Everything was very calm and silent and the clouds had started to clear, like curtains opening and unveiling the indescribable beauty of the Andean mountain range. Suddenly the beauty of the place finally hit me. The majestic green mountains with their blue mist giving them a mysterious and heavenly colour together with the thin cool mountain air was without a shadow of a doubt the most beautiful experience I have ever had.
After 4-5 days of seriously testing experiences, with its emotional ups and downs, the sheer beauty of the place and sense of achievement hit me in the face, emotions overcame me and I had to put on my sunglasses to hide the few tears of joy that had betrayed me and crept out of my eyes :.-)

None of the pictures I've seen or taken and stories and descriptions I have heard of this place give it justice. It is truly amazing and surely the most amazing place I have ever been to and can only advise everyone who hasn't been there to go and see and experience this mystical place for themselves. Anyway – we walked around, listened to the tour guide, sat down,
saw some local llamas, took lots of pictures and just enjoyed the time we had there.

11 o'clock arrived and it was time for us to climb up another steep mountain. We only had 1.5 hours time to go up and down, which put us under a lot of time pressure. I made it up in 30 minutes, the record was 18 minutes and the official time is 1 hour. It was scary up there, Vix overcame her fear and battled to the top – I was very proud of her.
It was amazing here too, but it was time for us to race down the mountain, get on the bus to the train station and back to Cusco. We were quite upset that our guide booked the train so early as we would have loved to stay longer, but I really didn't mind, because I know that we will be returning.
Journey back - Peru is so stunning.

Cusco is where we are now – the heart of the Inka empire. We've been here for two days resting. I'm still in awe of Machu Picchu. My 83 mosquito bites are still painful and tomorrow we are off on a 5 day jungle trip. Vix is very excited but I'm not looking forward to all the creepy crawlies. Help me ! Time to say good bye and hope you log on soon for our next journey.