Yesterday we arrived in Lap Paz, Bolivia after another interesting journey! We left Cuzco to head through the border, expecting the journey to take ´no more than 7 hours´. 12 hours later we arrive! There were protestors blocking the road between the Peru-Bolivian boarder and La Paz so after stopping for a few hours we finially made it to La Paz, and I´m not too impressed from what I have seen so far! Its pretty dirty, polluted and very busy...lets hope that the rest of Bolivia is better over the next 10 days!
Since the last update I have made it along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, it was the BEST thing I´ve done so far...we had rain every day either morning or evening, no shower for 4 days and the toilets were disgusting, but still it was incredible! The first day we started at around 8am and had to pack up our duffel bags and begin the walk, the porters are unbelievable, each carrying 25kg and practiaclly running the whole of the trail! The first day was pretty easy, after a few hours of walking we stopped for lunch (best food I´ve had so far!!), each meal starts with soup and then we had rice or potato (standard Peru) with chicken or trout etc. Every day we had breakfast, snacks, lunch, afternoon tea and then dinner! The porters all run ahead and set up the tent for lunch, we then eat and start walking and they pack up and are soon ahead running onto set up the tents at the campsite. The first day we got to the campsite at around 4pm ish and played cards before dinner and then bed at around 8pm. We were up the next day in the pouring rain at 5 ready to start treking, the second day was by far the hardest with around 4 1/2 hours hiking uphill to Dead Womans Pass, after that it was downhill for another couple of hours before stopping at the campsite for lunch, we didn´t do any more walking that day and so celebrated with a beer at the campsite. Day 3 was definitely not to be underestimated though! We woke at 4:30 and arrived at the campsite around 3pm that day, however we did stop for breaks and lunch where we met the porters and they presented us with a cake they had made....not sure how they made it at 4000m using camping equipment but it was good! The final day was another very early start at around 4am where we had to walk to the sungate to see our first view of Macchu Picchu and the sun rise, we arrived at around 6:30am and took the first photos, after that we walked the final hour to Machu Picchu where the whole group was re-united (7 did the Inca and 7 did the Lares Trek). The Inca Trail was probably one of the hardest things I´ve done yet with all the rain and over 5000 steps but was SO worth it!! That afternoon we left Machu Picchu and headed back to Aguas Calientes for lunch and free beer from our tour guide, before making our way on the train and bus to Cuzco. We arrived back at around 7:30, had quick showers (amazing after 4 days!!) and got ready for a night out and salsa lessons. Was a very drunken evening and very tiring after being up since 4am...we then had a couple of days in Cuzco to recover before heading onto Puno and Lake Titicaca.
Lake Titicaca is the biggest high altitude lake and is pretty impressive, we visited the floating islands of Uros where people live on reed beds and then headed onto a small village to stay with Peruvain families, this was an experience! There were two people to a family and on arrival they set up a game of football (rest of world vs. Peru) and then dressed us up in local clothing and taught us to dance. After this we headed back to our Peruvian families houses, our family had 7 children in a very small house, we couldnt all eat in the kitchen together and there were flies everywhere!! The houses are made out of mud and we didn´t have water plumbed in, just a bucket to flush the toilet, even so it was a good experience. The next day we had to spend the morning with our families so Helen and I were taught to tie up the sheep up and then headed out on a boat with the two eldest children and attempted standing rowing (at 4000m above sea level its not easy!). We then had to make our way back to Puno for our final night before the journey to La Paz.
Last night was our tour guide Rudy, and tonight we meet 4 new additions to the next tour (4 people are also leaving :( ) and meet the next guide for Bolivia, he has big shoes to fill as Rudy was really good and super helpful! We have a couple of days in La Paz, and leave on an overnight bus to Sucre on Thurday. So leaving a few days free we had a night out last night and have done nothing today which has been great. Tomorrow we are up early for a full day cycling on the Death Road...most dangerous road in the world! Then after that think we are heading on to do a 3 day 4x4 desert excursion to the salt flats in Bolivia, should be good!
I´ll try and add photos on here soon but internet has not exactly been speedy so far and makes this almost impossible!
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