After a long and boring bus journey, made especially long when our bus broke down for two hours in the middle of nowhere and we survived between lunch and dinner on a snickers bar, we finally arrived in Cusco :-)!! Tired and starving we checked into our hotel and went to find a burger restaurant recommended on tripadvisor. To get to the restaurant we had to pass through the square in the centre of the old town and it looked amazing all lit up. One thing we did notice though was almost everyone we saw was a tourist and the city centre is solely set up to accommodate us! After a burger and two rather strong Pisco Sours it was off to bed for a good nights sleep!

The next day our mission was to lay down some plans for the two weeks we had in Cusco before our pre-planned Inca Trail hike. After visiting many recommended tour companies and stopping in for a Starbucks to collect our thoughts (I usually don't like Starbucks but it was a little bit of home comfort!) we decided that the first trek we wanted to do was Choquequirao. This demanding hike would take five days and lead us to the Inka's 'Golden Place' or Machu Picchu's sister mountain city. It is not attempted by many tourists as it is a bit of a gruelling mountainous hike but we felt we needed another challenge and isolation from too many other tourists sold it to us!

The Choquequirao trek was to leave on Saturday and we booked it on the Thursday so we spent Friday exploring the town and visiting a museum of an Inka Temple which was converted by the Spanish into a church so you could see the Inka stone masonry mixed with colonial Spanish. It was quite interesting but was really just looking at some walls....That evening we went to meet our guide Jorge (pronounced hor-hey) who explained about the trek and what we would need to bring etc. No one else had signed up to do the same dates as us so we were to end up having our own cook, guide and horseman for the four days, luxury!!!!

The next morning was horrible. They made us et up at 3.30am so they could collect us for the 4 hour drive to the small town in the mountains where the trek started. The driver drove like a rally driver and we were swaying all over the place up and down the mountains. When we finally arrived we unloaded the car, had a quick packed breakfast and started the first day of trekking. This led us 11km up and down before we reached the beginning of the decent into the canyon. The decent was steep and dusty and the lunch break halfway down was very much welcomed. Attilio our chef produced the most incredible food throughout the chef. To give you an example on the first day at lunch we had an appetiser of avocado with sauce followed by soup .... followed by three different meat and rice dishes!! This was the same at every meal so we never went hungry!

Unfortunately the 1st campsite wasn't great. It was right next to the river at the bottom of the canyon on a very dusty, grubby patch of land. There were loads of people camping there as it was a public holiday weekend in Peru. The worst part though was the swarming sand flies. There were thousands and they attack like crazy. Esben even had loads of bites on his face (now he appreciates why I am scared of Mosquitos!!). After another delicious dinner we headed to bed in our tent. At 4am a Peruvian group of tourists decided to flash their torches around and shout waking up pretty much the entire campsite ... Joyful! We were up again at 5.30am for a quick breakfast then it was time to cross the river and start our ascent to the top of the canyon the other side.

Crossing the river was hilarious. There was no bridge as it had collapsed in the rains and a landslide so as a temporary solution they had constructed a 'cable-car' which consisted of a metal cable with a basket big enough for a small child to sit in hanging from it precariously!! Three of us squished into the basket and were flung across the river!!! The walk up the other side was long and very steep. It took us 2.5 hours in total before we reached our campsite for the second night. This campsite was amazing, the views over the mountains were spectacular and there were no insects as it was too high up. There was even a working toilet and cold shower!!! We spent the rest of the second day relaxing, reading and napping in the sunshine.

Another group was also staying at this campsite and we ended up chatting and having dinner together at the campsite table. They were good fun and consisted of a South American and Swedish couple on their honeymoon, an American and Indian couple from Japan travelling the world for a year and a 37 year old Greek dentist who lived in London but was on sabbatical in Brazil for 6 months .... so quite diverse!! It was nice to meet some people and socialise a bit though.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in and then made our way to the site of the Inka ruins. We had thought this would be a relaxed day but we ended up trekking to and from and around the ruins for about 7 hours!!! At the start of the day freezing, damp cloud hung around the ruins and we were not dressed appropriately for this so we trudged around miserably hardly able to see anything. When the cloud finally cleared though it was a fantastic sight. The site was large and you could see the main square, temples and houses including an area of houses where the small people in the town lived!! We also saw terraces where the Inka's had built in pictures of Lamas. The site was large but apparently only a fraction of the huge city they believe is buried under the jungle. In the evening we headed back to camp and had dinner with the group again.

On the 4th day we decided we wanted to make it all the way down the canyon and up the other side to avoid being eaten by insects and having to camp at the horrible campsite. This was tough. We were up at 5am and it took us 2 hours to get down the canyon to the river. Once across we started the first half of the ascent which was steep, dusty and hot. This took another 2.5 hours before we reached the lunch spot. Here we had a three hour break to avoid the midday sun before completing the last 2 hour ascent to the top of the canyon. As we were walking up there were men from the local villages carrying enormous metal pieces of bridge down the canyon for the new bridge construction. They could barely lift the material let alone carry it down and we were both glad we didn't have that job!!

Finally we reached the final campsite, had the last supper and got an early nights sleep before the 11km walk back to the transport in the morning. Weirdly this turned out to be one of the toughest parts for me especially the last 100m into the village square! Exhaustion just didn't cover it. What was slightly annoying was that we had got up early and speed walked to the village so we could get back to Cusco and relax as early as possible but when we arrived in the village our transport didn't come for over an hour after we arrived. Anyway we got in the car and endured to boiling hot 4 hour journey back to town before collapsing at our new hostel.

All in all this trek was a fantastic experience if a bit exhausting!! The next blog will be about the Inka Trail which we start tomorrow. There is a bit of a gap in between where we relaxed in Cusco, Esben got food poisoning and we went to see a lot of slightly dull Inka ruins in and around Cusco!!

Alice
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