This journal entry will be a mishmash of Cusco and our adventures of getting to Machu Picchu, but hopefully with a couple of well positioned headings the thread of the story should remain traceable.

CUSCO

The bus from La Paz was uneventful, except the random stop the bus took to allow all the unsuspecting passengers watch the roadside slaughter of a lamb, something that took both Em and I unpleasantly by surprise. As Peru is now in its tourist "high season" Em, Carol, Leo and I had booked a hostel called Casa de la Gringa (direct translation is "House of the Foreigner") as recommended by a couple of fellow Aussies who had stayed there to ensure that we had a bed for the evening of our arrival - it is a thoroughly nice hostel and great place to organise an Inca trek through. We arrived at the hostel late on Thursday the 19th June and were thankful that our room hadn't been taken by any stragglers arriving sooner than ourselves. It was straight to bed that evening with the knowledge that on the morrow we would set out to organise an Inca trek to Machu Picchu in time to return to Cusco for the national party of "Inti Raymi" on the following Tuesday the 24th June, a tight timeline but one that we were determined to fulfil.

We sat down with our hands wrapped around a mug of coca tea, a measure taken to prevent frost bite in one's precious phalanges, the following morning and quickly came to an agreement that an alternative Inca trek was the only viable option. "The Inca Trial", as you might have heard of, is just one particular route, albeit the main route used in the day by the Incan Empire, between Cusco and Machu Picchu. There are many other alternative "Inca Trials" that are far less popular and far less expensive, with the added benefit of being less trampled, that are also genuine Inca trade routes from Machu Picchu. We shopped around a little to ensure that we weren't getting our pants pulled down over the price from Casa de la Gringa, but by mid afternoon on the Friday we had organised a trek to Machu Picchu through Casa de la Gringa that would get us back to Cusco in time for Inti Raymi - we were all well chuffed with our days work. The trek was to leave the following morning at 7:00am Peruvian time, which basically means anytime after 7:00am. We had little time to explore or experience Cusco itself before our trek, but we made plans to do so after our trek (scroll down for next "Cusco" heading for more tales of this loveable little Peruvian city).

MACHU PICCHU

Our trek was supposed to be a 4 day, 3 night trek but we had organised to bus one section of it to condense the experience into 3 days, 2 nights to get us back to Cusco for the party. We met our guide, also Alex, in the morning at about 7:30am and boarded the bus for San Luis, about 5 hours away from Cusco for our first days activities, which was not actually a trek but instead a 65 km downhill bike ride. The first 10km of which were sealed bitumen roads and thoroughly enjoyable to navigate at speed, although not the most conduscive method to savour the splendid view. After the 55 kms of bumpy dirt roads we were all glad to reach Santa Maria, our designated stop, at about 4:30pm. From Santa Maria we had to board a bus to take us to Santa Theresa. This is usually a 30 km walk that is taken on the second day of the four day "Jungle Trek" however, we had sacrificed this days exercise to return to Cusco a day earlier. The bus ride as it turned out was one of those experiences that if you knew prior to boarding the bus what you were getting yourself into, you might choose not to do. The bus was an old rickety thing that shook and rattled more than any vehicle I've ever laid eyes on, and to add to the passengers' concern we were accelerating at insane speeds around blind corners with 100m sheer drops awaiting any mistake made by the driver, to whom we had naively put our lives trustingly in his hands. The upside of this experience however is that we arrived to Santa Theresa without mishap, no fatalities were recorded, thankfully.

Dinner in Santa Theresa at about 6:30pm, then off to the hot springs to soothe the shaken joints after a long days riding over corrugated dirt roads. Dinner was a somewhat solemn affair, as a guide for one of the tour groups ahead of ours died in a tragic accident, and he fell 10m into a river and later died at the scene. Our guide, who knew his fellow guide, told us that he had never heard of any deaths from tours of The Sacred Valley. We all hoped the hot springs might raise our spirits after this saddening news. The hot springs are natural pools of hot water that had been harnessed and feed into several beautifully designed rock pools, some of which are about 100m long. The temperature is spot on, just like a hot bath, which is critical as the outside air temperature when we dragged ourselves out of the water at 9:00pm was stingily crisp. The morning we awoke for a 4 hour walk to Agua Calientes (literal translation of Hot Water), named as such because it also is home to some hot springs. Agua Calientes is less famous for its hot springs; it is more commonly know as town at the base of the Machu Picchu ruins. We arrived at about 1pm or 2pm and desided to take the option walk up Putukusi, a mountain that has a view to Machu Picchu. This walk raised the heartrate and filled an afternoon with lovely views until dinner. At dinner a real conundrum awaited us, our guide (Alex), informed us that our train ride to Cusco the following afternoon, scheduled for after our visit to Machu Picchu, was overbooked and we had to cut our time at Machu Picchu by several hours in order to get an alternative train that would drop us off at a pick up point where we would catch a 6 hour bus to Cusco (via the same precarious road described above). Many travellers were in the same position as us as there was an exodus of people from Agua Calientes on the 23rd June to get to Cusco for the big party. Such is life I suppose.

We awoke at 4:00am to start the walk up to Machu Picchu to catch the sunset. The walk is about an hour or so and is somewhat strenous, as it is just stairs straight up the side of the mountain of Machu Picchu (which for a piece of trivia means "Old Mountain"). The walk was eery, it was dark morning with a low fog that smeared the views on the ascent up the mountain, and as it happened it also shaded the sunrise which never eventuated. Upon arrival at the entrance to the Machu Picchu ruins at 6:00am I quickly realised that all was not well as I had a high temperature (possibly from the climb), insane amounts of sweat dripping off me and an unstoppable urge to visit the loo, which I did numerous times throughout my Machu Picchu visit - just my lukc, haven't been ill the whole trip except on the one day I visit Machu Picchu, thankfully Carol had a nausea and diarrhea tablet that put a cork in it for the remainder of the day though. Whilst I flounded around the loo, Em and Leo raced up Waynu Picchu (translates as "Young Mountain"), a sister mountain of Machu Picchu that has tremendous views of the ruins. The photos looked amazing from up there, and Em confirms this - something I will just have to miss out on I suppose.

After Em and Leo returned from their Waynu Picchu climb we all rendezvoused to meet our official Machu Picchu ruins guide, who walked us around the ruins that I had been perusing whilst Em was climbing Waynu Picchu. Despite its grandeur Machu Picchu was probably only inhabited for about 50 years after it was fully constructed. The resident Inca people fled the majestic city about 1550, only 100 years after the first stone was laid, as news reached the city of the approaching all conquering Spanish. Ironically the Spanish never discovered the city and only the local residents and farmers knew the location of the old city that lay in ruins amongst dense jungle. It was 'rediscovered' (to the western world) in 1911 by Hiram Bingham with the help of a local farmer. The following years of excavation and clearing bought to light the awesome nature of the city, but also, it was suspected that many of the relics left behind by the fleeing Incas in 1550 we stolen or confiscated, as yet to be returned to the Peruvian people.

Interestingly, it has never been fully understood what the motivation was to build Machu Picchu, it has been theorised as a place for Incan royalty, a place for spiritual study and even as a prison. Whatever the motivation, Machu Picchu (which actually wasn't the city's original name, nobody today knows what it was called) is a breathtaking place that is one of the few things in life that actually does live up to the hype around it. I can only hope that its registration as a UNESCO Heritage Site can help to alleviate the wear and tear that the heavy tourism is having on the site, it would be such a shame to destroy this fascinating historical city.

CUSCO

We eventually returned to Cusco late on 23rd, the journey home was nothing if not frustrating as we had to share a tiny bus with 7 Israelis - 1 of these Israelis was the most annoying wench I've ever meet, she winged about everything for 6 hours. Still we got to bed on the 23rd ready for the big party of Inti Raymi that we had planned so much around. I awoke the next day with the most ferocious diarrhoea that I have ever experienced, so I was not going to be attending the party, instead I split my day evenly between the bed and the toilet - the joys of travelling. Em and Carol went and experience Inti Raymi, and whilst it was interesting by all accords, it wasn't cracked up to what we had been told. Still, Em had a great day.

The next couple of days in Cusco were spent:

• Drinking and dancing at Mama Africa's and Uptown (two bars in Cusco)
• Enjoying a café run by an Australian (Jack's Café) that had a few comforts that we had been missing, coffee especially
• Shopping in the many markets in and around Cusco
• Meandering the streets of this beautiful city
• Inca museum

All in all we had a great time together in Cusco and Machu Picchu. Now we are heading back to Bolivia to visit Copa Cabana and see Lake Titicaca. From there Em and I are heading south to Salar de Uyuni and onto Santiago to fly out on the 7th July.