Hey guys, sorry for the absence but I've been on the Inca Trail - the famous 3-4 day trek through the mountains. What a trip - this trip takes you over 'Dead Woman's Pass'- at 4000 something metres above sea level on the 2nd day so you definately feel the altitude here. It was certainly an experience. The 1st day was quite tiring. We bough walking sticks to help us on the trek and we had porters with us to carry our sleeping bags, tents, cooking equipment etc. We did see some trekkers carrying some of their own gear but I would have been dead by now had I attempted it. The cook that was with us was fab! 3 course meals all the way!! And we drank plenty of Coca tea (kind of tastes like green tea) but this is the stuff cocaine is made from. In it's natural form it is great for altitude, increasing oxygen levels in your blood and generally gives u more energy to keep going. We also had coca sweets which taste like toffees and for the best effects you actually role up 10-15 coca leaves, put a bit of catalyst inside which looks likle a piece of rock and make a small parcel out of it then stick it inside your mouth to one side, slowly chewing and swallowing the juices. It's not the best taste, kind of like putting a tea bag in ur mouth but it does the job. Luckily we were all already pretty well acclimatised because we'd been in high altitudes in mountain towns like Arequipa for about 5 days before we started the Inca Trail, walking around and getting our blood used to the thinn air. If we hadn't done this, we would have had problems breathing and would have felt sick, dizzy, tired and out of breath almost immediately when trekking. So on the first night of the Inca trail we camped in this field with horses. There was a shop there so we had rum and coke and played Uno (such a fun game) and the guide - Alex kept making up rules as we played along. Alex had a crush on Patricia (Ant's sis) and the other guide, Louis had a crush on me but they weren't bad looking so it wasn't that bad!

Me and Patricia bumpeds in2 the local kids and when I said my name was Reshma they kept saying 'Reshmacha' and laughing. I was baffled as P said that Reshmacha was not a word in Spanish so when we asked the guide he told us that adding the word 'cha' to the end of a name meant that they trust you. I was so flattered that kids that I don't even know felt that they trusted me. Later I figured that maybe it had something to with the fact that I'm the same skin colour as them so that's why they trusted me- I don't know. The sexcond day of the Inca trail was the hardest ' a constant 5 hour uphill slog and I'm not talking slight slopes ' I'm talking big MFing steps and steep climbs. The beszt method to go up was at your own pace and zig zaggy, finding the smallest steps so the slopes were more graduated. Getting to 'Dead Woman's Pass'was the toughest. this was a very lonf steep climb on a path that hugged the mountain. While I was climbing, I was so wanting to do 1 of 3 things -either throw up, faint or go to sleep there on the path. I didn't do any and ended up getting to the top but I was stepping at 1 inch steps ' just shuffling. The 1 hourwalk down steps to camp after that was no fun ' I felt completely zombified as if I was in a dream and it wasn't really me walking at all. From the other side of the pass we could see why the mopuntain had that name - it was shaped like a woman lying down so I suppose she could've been dead. The 3rd day was the nmosty enjoyable, walking through jungle scenery and plants all the way and there were lots of downs and only gentle ups. At the last campsite we went to the bar and naughtily stayed there til midnight on rum and coke (Cuba Libre is the best!) evenn though we had to be up for 4 am the next day to walk to Machu Picchu for the sunrise. When we actually got to Machu Picchu it's quite hard to describe the beauty of it. It look exactly as it does on the photos but it's real and right in front of u, protected by mountaind all around it it's green and beautiful. Although nobody knows exactly why iot was built o, ourt guide had his own theory - that it was like a place of study, where the best astronomers, agriculturists, highest priests and priestesses would live and study and learn. There's beautiful and amzing objects like a rock in the shape of the Southern Cross constellation which points exactly South and a rock shaped like the mountain behind it and even a sunn dial with the 13 degree axis of the earth - how the hell did they know all that, I just don't know.

We'd made up a song for the porters in the tune of the football song 'There's only one David Beckam, 1 David Beck-ham' But instead of those words we'd sung 'There's only 1 set of porters' . When we actually breathlessly arrived at Machu Picchu, guess who we bumped into - Cameron Diaz! She was filming a documentaru there. She szspoke to us for a while and asked us questions about the trail. We were filmed too so u never know, I may be on tv again. She asked us what was the most important object for the Inca Trail and at first we said the sticks, but then 1 of teh girls Gale mentioned Rum and Coke! I saw Cameron for the second time around the site and her and the camera crew recognised me and said hi! I was chuffed. It was really surreal and definately a bonus of the whole MP trip. So when we were having group pics taken, the song changed to 'There's only one Machu Picchu'and then 'There's only 1 Cametron Diaz'- we were in hysterics. So all in all a great trip. Goping to Lake Titicaca tomorrow to stay with a family and dress in traditional costume and dance the local dances so I'll have many more stories to tell when I get back.

Love Rish xxx