Plans and Machinations

So we have decided what we are going to do with ourselves for the last leg of our trip. Our original plan was to fly from Lima, Peru to Salvador, Brazil and beach-hop our way down the coast to Rio and then fly home. Turns out we will have to pay nearly 500euro for plane tickets and then we will still have to spend 2 weeks in beautiful but expensive Brazil. Our second plan was to go to the coast of Peru and laze on the beaches there. Thing about that plan is that the beaches in south Peru are not supposed to be great and would involve a 2 day travel to them and then back to the airport at the end. So we came onto a great plan this afternoon, well I actually thought of it last night but I did not think Cathy would like it until she suggested it herself today. What we are going to do instead is head back east to Bolivia, to Santa Cruz to be precise. We stayed there before in a really nice hostel with a pool and everything. Its around a constant sunny 30* there and we can just relax and do nothing for 10 days in a cheap, cheap country before flying out of Santa Cruz airport to Rio and then spending 3 day there before coming home. Sweet as bro.

Macho Pikachu

Well bejesus begorrah, just finished what was definitely the most physically strenuous 5 days of my life, 60hr weeks working in NZ construction yards included. I meant to write a smaller post before i left but a weird Dutch guy kept talking to me about all the kids he's had with different Peruvian women so I just ran off to bed since i was getting up at 4 the next morning.

Arrived in Cuscu, Peru last Monday and after settling in the hostel, which actually has hot water (luxury), we set off around town trying to see if we could organise a trip on the Inca trail. As we went from place to place we realised that it was hopeless, all the tickets were sold until the end of July. We said we would just try and organise an alternative. Eventually we found this place advertising a 5-day/4-night hike that winds through the mountains for 4 days and then ends up at a town at the base of Machupichu where you stay for one night and then spend a day in the ruins. It was $190, expensive things are always in US dollars, but we got it for 180 using our bargaining skills. Everything was included in that, transport, 4 breakfasts, lunches, dinners, tents, mattresses etc. It was only after we were hiking for a while and got talking o others in our group that we realised how good a deal we got, they all spent more than $300. We got it for cheap I think as it was late Monday evening and the tour as leaving Tuesday morning, a little commission for the agency is better than none. The high price also meant that we were the only backpackers doing it, the rest of the group was between 28-44 and we had 2 doctors, a lawyer and a chef.

In the 4 days of trekking we usually got up at 6 and started walking at 7. We would walk for around 10 hours in total and cover around 20km. So that only 2kph I hear you say. Well what made it so god-awful hard was that our lowest point of trekking was at 6000ft and we were trekking up and down and around mountains, the average height was around 10,000ft. One particularly grueling day we went from 6500ft, up to 14,000 and then back down to 6000ft. Our legs were like jelly and every breath was tough. At that height even turning over in your sleep makes you breathless. I am actually really glad that we spent a few days in La Paz city in Bolivia as thats around 11,00ft and even though i had a headache for the first 3 days it definitely helped us acclimatise. After walking more than 80km in 4 days it was definitely needed.

On the end of the 4th day we reached the town of Agua Callientes at the base of Machupichu and we were put up in a hotel with real beds for the night. The plus of that was kind of negated by the fact that we had to get up at 4 in the morning to start hiking up to the ruins at the summit. It took us a little over two hours of trekking up stone steps cut through the jungle but we finally got there and queued up for the opening at six. It was a pure misty morning and because we were some of the first there it was pretty class, all shrouded with cloud and empty. Later on we decided that we cant get enough of the pain so we climbed up a nearby peak and got a real good panoramic view of the city, pictures will be up next week. At around 11 we had seen everything we wanted to see and all the fat, old american tourists were beginning to arrive so we dumped those losers and headed back down to a humoungous lunch that we very much deserved. So ends the amazing story of Paul's masochistic week in Peru.