Well havent I got a lot to tell you! We arrived in Cusco, Peru and got a taxi to our hostel which was pretty nice (breakfast was good for once) and we ended up in a dorm with two English northern lads who were pretty funny, as they would say 'raight wasters tho' on the 'slash' every night and they said 'mint' after EVERY sentence. Humorous. Peru is a lot different to Bolivia in that most people speak English and its a lot richer and the roads are better. Its looks like Bolivia after a makeover.

I'd turned up a couple of days before to acclimatize before my big 4 day three night Salkantay trek (alternative, harder version of the Inca trail). I was in a group of three.. a couple (one Indian, one Polish both living in London). Soph had decided to hang back with the boys and do a bit more of Bolivia and do her trek later (dont worry the parting was quite amacable). So yeah me and these two and the guide Elmer, not forgetting the horseman Chino (in Peru anyone with slightly asian eyes or in fact any asian of any variety are nicknamed Chino (which means China) much to my amusement). I tried to explain 'racism' but Chino seemed to love his nickname haha. There was also a chef, a porter, two donkeys (one of which i named smokey (fav), two horses and a mule.

The first day was fairly easy, up and down and flat with AMAZING views (im trying to put photos on facebook but it takes like 10 minutes per picture), but the two others DIDNT MAKE IT.

Right I better explain what I was dealing with here...

Basically they are 'spiritualists' (not religious) but they dont believe in any drug use (medicinal or otherwise), nothing with chemicals in and only pure foods. I thought oh fair enough healthy, meditation whatever.. and then they WHACK out we believe all foods are inpure except raw fruit and vegetables. Oh god. So you expect to trek for more than ten hours a day for three days on a piece of mango. Furthermore, the sun was superstrong but they wouldnt use suncream, mosquitos ahoy, wont use repellant, and they suffered super bad from the altitude and wouldnt take the tablets required. They believes that if you have pain its because theres a toxin in your body NOT because your brain is swelling from the altitude. My personal favourite was 'if you eat right food, nothing can touch you, you cant get cancer, you cant get malaria. I was like 'well if you get Falciparum you'll get a blood clot in your brain and you'll die'. Reply 'I no believe'. Oh god and the chanting.. at meal times they made us hold hands and around the table and chanted and ummmed and ahhhed.. all I can say is thank god they had their eyes closed because me and the guide could barely contain the laughter.

Yeah so now you've got the background you'll realise why they didn't make the easiest day 1. We had to leave them lying on a rock (possibly meditating) and practically ran the last two hours to camp to get a bus to go pick them up. The food tho was awesome, we had a three course meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner which is a lot of food because altitude completely kills your appetite. But it was all good tho.The first night was FREEZING because we camped at the bottom of two snowy mountains. The scenery was amazing.

The second day was climbing to 4600 metres which is high and and after the first five minutes they hired horses so didnt do that day either. Im not gonna lie it was bloody hard work! And when you get to the top you realise you have another 9 hours of walking to the next camp. Hardcore. I tell you what tho I slept like a baby. Every day we had to get up at 4.30am and go to bed at 8pm, apart from this morning which we got up at 3.15 so if I sound a little strange its because im shattered!

The third day it was the chefs birthday and he baked US a birthday cake with 'Have a good journey' written on it. They were all so lovely, they called my championes (champion) because I was the only one in the group that could eat, walk or do anything normal haha. It was a lot easier the final day, only 6 hours and we were supposed to walk through forests but there had been many landslides so a lot of the way was blocked so we walked the road which was just as epic view because we were so high. We had our final fairwell meal and said good bye too everyone, I really didnt want to leave.

It was weird normally I get a bit moany about certain things but I literally felt elated the entire time, I loved getting muddy, I loved walking for a ridiculous 55km in 2.5 days, I loved sleeping in a tent, I loved the cold. It was weird. Oh yeah and the couple believed that certain things were very powerful and give you energy.. quote 'I do not need food, I just ask mountain for energy and it give me' .. 6 hours later ' I asked mountain for energy and it no give me I dont understand why'.. 'maybe I was stealing all their mountain energy coz I felt great in comparison to them. Ha, maybe mountains dont like to be asked. Either that or I ate like a pig.

Ermmm what else .. my guide was awesome as I spent most of my days with him or walking ahead in solitude (which I really enjoyed), he was trying to teach me more Spanish and I taught him important English phrases such as 'cheers me dears'. 'sup' and 'alright'.

Im sure I've missed loads out but I could go on forever about how good it was. Today we hiked up to Machu Pichu at 4am (in the dark) to miss the crowds.. except of course, standard, we walked the wrong way along a railway track for thirty minutes until we realised that Machu Pichu is probably not inside a tunnel. We found it eventually and it really was everything people rave about. I'll let the pictures do the talking on that one (If I ever get them up).