I´m a mere half man. I´d reached that conclusion well before I wound up operation mega beard, watching Inca Trail porters tie half their bodyweight to their backs before jogging past us at 4000m above sea level, but the lack of fuzz to hide my shame behind is a concern. Hi All, we´re back from the truly phenomenal experience of walking the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu. Will try to keep superlatives to a minimum but it was brilliant. You can take the train, but 24 miles of comically varied terrain over 4 days, ascending 1700m (and back down my knees have asked me to stress), camping with the locals and learning how it was all built 700 odd years ago, turns the mountainside city into much more than another set of ruins. How we sneered at day trippers wheezing as they climbed the steps to visit the upper part of the ruins - you haven´t earned the right to puff my friend, now drop and give me twenty. Err, yeah, most of them were Brits. A small selection of the photos are online, but as per usual they´re not going to do the area justice (or 4 days of hat hair for that matter). But why are our outfits quite so special I hear you ask? Well, the daytime temperature swung between freezing (plus wind chill) and a healthy 25C. At night we were still wearing merino base layers and woolly hats in our sleeping bags. You try packing a 25 litre rucksack for 4 days of that, ok? We have saved everyone the misfortune of seeing our rain ponchos mind. Never let it be said that we´re not good to you. Hardest part? You´d have thought 5 hours hiking straight up a 1200m high hill to higher than most ski resorts, but I´d vote for walking down the other side; it was the deep burn and the clouds blowing up the valley didn´t make for the grippiest of surfaces. Most impressive? Definitely the 57 year old porter sprinting past with a gas canister large enough to cook 3 hot meals a day for 20 people looped in a knitted rug tied to his back. As I alluded to, it wasn´t just the temperature making the boys of the group feel less masculine than they did on day one. Finally coming round the corner on day four to see Machu Picchu through the clouds was undeniably impressive. As was the volume of liquid that came out my mouth after medical treatment for the stomach infection I´d been carrying for the duration of the trail. It´s not coincidence that the beard has gone by the way. Anyway, as a result I didn´t get a great look round the ruins, but for us, it was all about the walk there - near desert, snow capped mountains, rain forest, crystal clear rivers and views you never tire of, made for a very special experience. What have we been up to since then? Umm, hanging around in Cusco whilst I eat bread and drink rehydration formula, mostly. But as always, Latin America has seen fit to through in some random festivals. Random in the sense that well, have a look at the pictures - I´ve no clue what the giant monkey-bear had to do with the girls in traditional dress, or the evil pinocciho-masked beer-drinking morris dancers, but everyone seemed to enjoy. But also random in the sense that none of the locals could tell us what occasion the festival was marking. Everyone seemed happy enough that an excuse to drink, party and invite a dodgy band had come up though, so we went with it. I´m not sure we could abide quite so easily with the fireworks though. The were very pretty and the ingenuity unquestionably impressive, but there was a niggling feeling that a 20 foot high bamboo tower, which kids were actively encouraged to run underneath once it had been lit, wasn´t the ideal launch platform for incendiary devices that frankly must have been homemade. It´s wood you bunch of mentalists. Anyway, now that I´ve got that off my chest, I can go back to enjoying the pretty colours and the shiny stuff like everyone else was. And dodging the burning bamboo missiles that were falling in the crowd. Guess that´s why they had an auxiliary barrage of giant rockets being launched from behind the cathedral - make sure people looked up occasionally. That´s practically a health & safety department. When in Rome.

Other random celebrations have covered Halloween of course, which falls on the same day as the celebration of traditional Peruvian music. So whilst anyone over fifteen gathers to enjoy what seemed like a relatively civilised mini-concert, everyone else dresses up and demands candy. So far so normal, but I don´t think anyone mentioned to the Peruvian kids you´re meant to dress up scary, not as Tinkerbell or Batman. Or a Llama. Then ´trick or treat´ apparently doesn´t translate and so to demand sweets, you simply yell "Halloween!". Which took us a touch by surprise, as did how popular we apparently were walking across to the bus terminal. It was only later we figured out that where every American had bought an industrial-sized bag of sugar and was distributing it freely, the assumption had been made that our backpacks were also full of child treats. I can´t think of the Spanish for "no you misguided Peruvian munchkins, can´t you see I´m British and over 12 years old, hence my inherent reserve for any holiday, let alone one centred around begging / threatening strangers for treats, prevents me from participating in any sense, let alone stocking up on 15kg of pure teeth-rot and marching round in public; you fools" off the top of my head but I may have been tempted to say it had I realised at the time. I´m just a touch worried about ´Day of the Dead´ which is due to happen in Arequipa tonight...

Anyway, next up we´re off to the Colca Canyon, which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and from there onto Lake Titicaca, where floating islands made of reeds and then Bolivia await. Never a dull moment.