Hola¡ Excuse the strange/lack of punctuation.....
Love Cuzco¡ But not the altitude. We are about 3500 metres above sea level which basically means walking down the road leaves us out of breath. Theres so much culture here and the buildings are amazing. Today was the first real day we went out and saw Cuzco, I have been a bit ill since the TREK TO MACCHU PICHU¡¡¡¡ Here goes...
So the first day we are driven up to about 4500 metres and are given some dodgy looking mountain bikes and are told we will be cycling down about 3000 metres. At this point we are in the clouds, surrounded by mountain tops. The first 15 minutes of cycling pretty much involved me screaming the whole way and not being able to see because of the clouds whilst moaning about how freeeezing it was¡ But once we were below the clouds and i had got used to cycling on a cliff edge, I absolutely loved it. I still screamed the whole way though. We cycled through the seven springs, got absolutely soaked, and then it dawned on me that i didnt have a change of clothes, yay¡ After we reached a little village called Santa Maria, the group got to know eachother and the boys played football with some locals. After a scrummy dinner we all headed to bed.
The second day of the trek was possibly the hardest, worst, and best day of my life. 8 hours of solid trekking through the jungle in the sun with a rucksack on getting eaten alive by mosquitos-one on my face which is always lovely-was not my idea of fun. By the 6th hour I was ready to give up, basically cried but kept on going¡ Hitting the 8th hour, I hitched a ride in the back of a Peruvians truck and enjoyed the view¡ I met the rest of the group at the next village, Santa Teresa. Looking back, the walk was actually amazing. We walked along cliff edges, ate loads of random fruits that our guide took from the trees, saw a little old lady making coffee halfway up a mountain¿¡ It had become pretty clear that another girl and I did not have the trekking abilities of the rest of the group¡ After checking into a pretty gross hostel that looked like something out of a psychological thriller, we all went our for another scrummy dinner and I tried Alpacha, which is like a llama. It was goooood. Then we all went to the ´discoteque´¡ It was sooo random but everyone came out of their shells and I witnessed some pretty crazy dancing from the rest of the group. Id say that was one of the funniest moments of the trìp.
The next day we had the option to walk for 2 hours OR go on the biggest zip line in South America¡¡¡¡ Hmmmm hard decision. There were 6 zip lines going from one mountain to the other, it was soooo much fun¡ It was pretty scary knowing that the only thing stopping you from falling 1000 metres or so was a small clip¡¿ That was my favourite part of the trip, maybe because I didnt have to use my legs. Then we walked AGAIN along the river through a valley but i actually really enjoyed it. The scenery was ridiculous. You get immune to it after you see it all day every day, and no pictures can quite capture it which is a shame. So then we arrived at Aguas Calientes, a strange touristy, theme parky feeling town at the base of Machu Pichu mountain. It was early to bed that night as we had to get up at 3am¡¡¡
We were climbing the mountain by 4.30am and i have never been more determined and more sweaty in my entire life¡ it was over 1000 steep and wobbly steps to the top, but we couldnt believe it when we arrived¡ I felt so relieved and so proud that I had made it and that the last 4 days had all been worth it. Machu Picchu was just like you see in the pictures, it was absolutely insane. And so interesting. So we spent the day wandering around chasing llamas and taking in the views. I cant really describe it so take a look at my pics.
It was quite sad to say goodbye to our trekking group, it had been a tough and fun few days, and I will never experience anything like that again in my life. Coming back to Cuzco felt like home, although the last few days I havent really been able to get out of bed, I suspect I ate and drank some dodgy stuff on the trek. Anyways, I hope this isnt too long to read so I will stop now. Adios amigos xxxx
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