On the Inca trail, just.

Peru is quite an amazing place what with its mountains, beaches, deserts and jungles around each corner. Maria and I tried our hardest to see as much of possible and nearly died of exhaustion doing it.

I guess on of Peru's greatest treats is Machupicchu, one of the 'modern' wonders of the world. Home of the Incan nobles some 400 years ago the 'lost city' perches eerily on the top of a mountain in central Peru. It is here that the famous Inca trail terminates and here where millions of tourists flock each year - including us!

Having arrived in Cusco to witness the Inti Raymi festival and the sacrificing of a llama to the sun god I hung around for a week of Spanish lessons and we booked onto one of the Machupichu tours. Ideally we would have loved to have done the famous 'Inca Trail' tour but sadly numbers are limited and the tour is booked up about 7 months in advance i.e. there was no chance of us getting on it. There are, as always, a number of other options for the tour operators to charge you for and we opted for the 'Jungle Trail', a 4 day, 3 night adventure.

Day one was a 5 hour mountain bike ride down a mountain. Well if I'm completely honest it was actually down a road on the mountain but as they hadn't finished building the road then I'm going to file it away as a death defying downhill adventure, or something like that. By the time we'd reached the bottom of the oh so steep mountain we were ready for our ice cold shower and our beds.

Oh I nearly forgot, Action Man who I have been carrying around and taking photos of since the start of the trip met a new friend in the form of a cheap Peruvian Barbie doll.

Day two was a nice leisurely stroll through some bloody big mountains. We passed through a deserted town and were lucky enough to be doing the trek during the time of year where fruit was plentiful. It was a lovely hike as all around us were oranges, pineapples and avocados growing everywhere and within easy reach. Before we knew it the fruit was doing a good job of distracting us from the arduous climb we had just started. Well almost.

We were climbing up towards the Inca trail which would take us up to about 2,500m. As we reached the trail we realised how amazing it would have been to do the full trail. Cut into the side of the mountain (a long way up) was the path, all 3 foot of it! It snaked around and rose and fell with quite a scary pitch at times and for some of us it was a little too much. One girl was not quite expecting the path to be so narrow and high and had some big problems getting down it was OK because with her boyfriend on one side and me acting the prat on the other we managed to distract her long enough to get to the next bit. Oh and as you may recall in a previous post I don't like heights either - it's amazing how a distraction helps!

Oh and it was officially my birthday so a few drinks were had and a very naughty action man got caught with his trousers down!


Day 3. More fruit, hot springs and a jump in a river. Oh and a very long walk along a railway track.... with trains on. At times it was a little like the film Stand by Me.

Day 4, and an early start. 5am and we were already walking up the biggest staircase in the world to get up to Machupichu before sunrise. We arrive at the top, get met by our highly annoying new guide and await the sunrise.

'Where is the best place to see it' we asked. He took us to some random part of the city which was strangely away from where everyone else was going at that time in the morning! He then forgot about the sunrise and it was only when I said 'so that must be the sun over there then' he remembered we had all asked him to let us get prepared with our cameras! I realised it was not the best place for the sunrise and stirred up a mutiny within our group.

Before he knew it his group had halved and we had raced off to the other end of the ruins for some better shots. It was a fantastic place with some fantastic views. If anyone gets the chance to go to Peru then book ahead and get on the real Inca Trail, it would be fantastic . Fantastic! Oh and get there early for the sunrise, it's worth it and there are less tourists.

Oh and action man got into trouble with one of the guards for pulling a moonie with Machupicchu in the background.

It was worth it though... we got the picture!