Urumbamba

Once i left lima and flew to cuzco,, i took the advice of my guide book and went to urambamba a small town at 2600metres to try and combat the dreaded altitude sickness, as cuzco is at 3600m, a lot higher, there i chilled out in this beutiful house called Rumichaca, it was 3 km from the nearest one horse village and i was the only person staying there, i was without doubt the laziest person on the planet limiting myself to a mere 4 hour siesta and 12 sleep a night, but the chilling out was not to last long, i enrolled myself on the inca trail.

for piccies of machu piccu

The Inca trail
The inca trail is a four day trek on the path made by the incas to machu picchu, through the andes.
there are different ways of doing it, but being on my tod i opted to go with a group calld q ente who organize everything for you, from camping equipment to cook you food for you and lug it around, 80 dollars for 4 days was well cheap, there was only 5 of us in the group, me ,ronaldo and mika, barbera and john luke, it was without doubt one of the most magical things i have ever done,on the first day we climbed through little villages and got camped buy 5pm readey for the next day which is renowned to be the hardest,set aroud drank beer and played cards
Day 2 was a 5 am start, felt like old times at work, except a lot colder, as we climbed the clouds cleared and we entered the cloud forest, a bit like a rain forest but a lot colder and loads of moss, we had set the goal of doing two peaks today, the first was 4200m alt, its called dead womans pass, we stuggled but once we were within sight i had a burst of energy and ran to the top, in bursts of course, the second peak was easier, and we carried rocks to the top where you leave them to signify that the hardest part of the journey was over by spitting the coca leave you chew onto the rocks, the coca leave alleviate altitude sickness and give you energy, they certainly work because i ran down most of the way to our camp over looking jungle and snow topped mountains, there was amazing ruins , they were where all the inca magicians worshipped the elements and did ceremoneys, plus we were the only people there , very special,
Day 3 i got up earlier than i needed to to go back to the ruins to take in the dawn, beutiful, from here the trail became an unbroken mossaic of stone forming a very handy path, with incredible mountain views, god knows how long it took then to make it, we camped outside a hotel a couple of hours from machu piccu, got very drunk and learned  4 pretty cool card tricks from john luke, but alas the next day was a 4 am start
Day 4 despite how earley it was a feeling if excitement was everywhere, we raced uphill to catch the dawn coming through the gate of the sun shining dowm for our first view of machu piccu but despite being gloriously sunny on one side of the mountain the view was cloudy, never mind we went down towards it and it cleared to the most dramatic view, because the trekkers get there so earley we have the entire city to ourselfs until about 10.30am when the hords of tourist buses arrive, at the hieght of the season this can be as many as 5000 ut for now we had a tour with just 40 of us, facinating, the incas had sussed out by mesuring the sun that the tilt of the earth was 34 degrees and that north whitch we always think of as being up was down for them, well of course it is they are in the southern hepisphere, mean while the invading spanish still thought the earth was flat, and killed all the itelligent people so they could take over, they never found machu piccu which is why it is so special, as it turns out there are more inca cities as yet undiscovered, there search parties looking for them through virgin jungle, many never come back, spooky

Cuzco, gringo party city.
Cuzco was fun, if a little overun by us gringos, a beutiful plaza surrounded by restarants and drinking holes, lots of happy hour bars so a cubra libre was abot 90 cents, recipe for disaster, i hooked up with ronaldo and mika from the trail, we went out dacing every night, i managed to get a set dj ing in one of the clubs, first time i have tried to mix on cd decks, fun but to be honest disasterous, i cleared the dance floor, they just wanted riccy martin and cher by the time i got on the decks, oh well, at least  tried! i tried to meet rodaldo and mika he next day to arrange to go to la paz in bolivia but missed them so i booked a ticket on the slow train through the mountains to puno on lake titikaka, think thats how its spelt anyway.

for bolivia pictures

Puno and lke titicaka
as soon as i found a hostal in puno i arranged a trip onto the lake to stay overnight with an indian family on one the small island the next day, met two english guys on the boat and hooked up, richard and damien, first we went to a floting island made of reeds with poeple living on it as they have been for hundreds of years, facinating but to be honest its become more of a floating tourit trap being only 30 mins from the shore, went 3 hours further and landed on a very ininhabited island, where the indian families were waiting on the shore to take us to there homes, very simple life, farming community, all very trditional, nothings changed for centuries, facinating , the old man took us down to a hut where tradtional dancing and music was happenin, we rocked away on saturday night until, mm must have been 8.30-9pm then went and crashed out, was a good laugh though.the next day we got taken to another island stunning scenery, deliberated over hats for ages, then went down to meet the boat, but it was gone , we missed it, doh, it seems a different port goes back to puno, so we asked a local, 9 year old to show us the way, strange island, everone talks in whispers, you find yourself doing it too, very strange, ended up blagging a lift on a nicer boat, stretched out on the front with some sounds and caught some rays, most plesurable, tried to find live in puno but ended up drinking with a big bunch of policemen, the 3 of us decided to leave for la paz the next day