What’s your version of Drunken Baptism? Salkantay Trek Part 2:

4am. It’s dark. I hear chickens. Ok, where am I? Oh yeah, totally authentic steel frame and plywood Andean hut. Bloody hell, just remembered, we hiked over a mountain yesterday. Hmm. Better check the appendages. Arms? Check. Legs? Yep, check, legs are there. Knees bend. Good. They don’t hurt, that’s pleasantly surprising! Toes. OW. Ok, don’t bend those. All in all though, body parts are less achy than I was expecting. Don’t have to be up for a few hours yet, might try and get some more… SHUTTUP CHICKENS!!!! Ok, forget that plan.

5am. Light creeping in from under the sides of the hut. Are those slugs? Yep. Great. Slugs on the ceiling. There’s a flickering light coming from the other side of the hut. A mobile phone! That means Katy is awake. Amoroso will be round with Coca tea soon. Mmmmmmmmm Coca tea. Should probably get up and get dressed. As much as Amoroso is a seasoned professional, a naked hairy Brit at 5am might be a bit much. Ok. Getting up, need to wake up and switch out of first-person narrative mode anyway.

Day 3. Katy and I crawled out of our authentic Andean Hut to be greeted by clear blue sky and the Sun beaming down on the tips of the mountains behind us. Feeling orders of magnitude more human that we had felt the night before we joined the rest of Team White Chocolate, the team name having been near unanimously agreed upon the whilst at the top of Salkantay the day before. Oxygen deprivation is a funny thing. It was reassuring to hear the rest of TWC™ complaining of aches and pains from Day 2’s ordeal and we all looked forward to the ‘considerably less arduous’ day 3.

On paper, Day 3 was to entail a half-day steady downhill trek to our next camp site, the Jungle Domes (whilst this sounds like a zone on the Crystal Maze, it sadly isn’t that exciting), followed by an afternoon excursion to the Hot Springs in Cocalmayo de Santa Teresa. We also said goodbye to Darwin, our horseman at this point. From here on out, everywhere we were headed was accessible by road of train, so the mules (moolees) were no longer required. We set off about 7am, the clear skies and lower altitude making for an almost perfect morning. We left our campsite via a back path taking us down a short drop to the river running around the campsite, crossing the raging torrents on a reassuringly solid wooden bridge.

Up the other side we joined a dirt road which, by the standards of terrain we’d be used to over the last few days, was like joining a motorway. We followed this road for about 40 minutes as it meandered down the valley, all of us in good spirits and chatting away, soaking in the views of the mountains around us. Near the low point of the valley we broke off from the road and followed a path down across the river where it was joined by a tributary, the swirling waters making for a great scene. Over the bridge and up in to the jungle on the other side, we continued up for another 20 minutes then down steeply for another 30 minutes. This was now just starting to look like a Peruvian ‘considerably less arduous’. But still, we persevered, and about an hour after leaving the road we found ourselves at a small clearing down near the river.

After a quick pause for some water and to slap on some more sun cream, we continued following the jungle path that roughly followed the bank of the river, only to encounter an another Salkantay trek group (I don’t know there team name, but it certainly wasn’t as awesome as Team White Chocolate^TM). Turns out the path ahead had been blocked by a landslide in the night and so that left us with no choice but to double back on ourselves. Climbing back up the hill with the sun beating down, the previous days exertions began to catch up with us and by the time we got back to the road we’d fallen some way behind. Amoroso, noticeably more anxious about time-keeing than he had been the previous day (we were now 2 hours behind schedule after all) negotiated with a local in a pickup truck to give us and a straggler from another group a lift to the next rendezvous point, a roadside restaurant and shop with a covered structure on the cliff-side of the road.

From here, we had a clear view of a huge landslide blocking the road ahead. Apparently this one had happened several weeks ago and was the reason for our diversion to the jungle path on the other side of the river in the first place. Once the rest of TWC^tmhad caught up (Come on guys, we’re waiting here!) Amoroso stated in no uncertain terms that we were not crossing that landslide. The locals had created a small footpath across the landslide, but it was barely the width of a microwave and very unstable looking (you make think that a strange analogy, but the AirBnB I’m sitting in right now is fairly baron and devoid of familiar small objects approximately the width of the path in question for comparative use). The alternative route we’d be taking involved using a rope-drawn cable car to get across the valley, each crossing taking 2 people at a time. With 3 or 4 trek groups queuing to get across, this was going to take some time. Wanting us to get a head start on the rest of the group, Amoroso sent us over first, instructing us to continue along the path towards another small clearing with a couple of houses in it.

The heat of the day increasing and the blisters on our feet worsening, we trudged along the path. Stiff upper lip and all that. Fortunately, this section was relatively flat, although we had to take the odd detour through the undergrowth where the path had been washed away by the river. An hour later, after another trip through a waterfall for an involuntary foot bath we found ourselves at the clearing Amoroso described (We hoped) and waited for the rest of TWC to catch up, keeping ourselves entertained by playing with a puppy in the meantime. 15 minutes later TWC was reunited and we continued along the path, now a good 3 hours behind schedule.

The Path continued to wind its way through the jungle, up and down, zig-zagging side to side, crossing more streams until we arrived at an elevated section with a clear view downstream. About a quarter of a mile ahead we could see a wooden suspicion bridge. ‘That’s where we are crossing back’ Amoroso said. Before we could make it to the bridge however, we had to traverse another landslide that had taken out the footpath, smothering it in rocks and fallen trees. This was easily the most unnerving part of the trek so far, edging across the churned-up landscape trying to find the rocks that didn’t wobble when you stepped on them and holding on to hiking poles for dear life. Once we reached the bridge our bodies and minds were really starting to feel the strain of this considerably less arduous day and the sight of the steep climb on the other side of it was just too much. Marley, because she’s awesome (and seemingly some sort of superwoman), ran ahead to grab some blister treatment packs for us from Brandon’s bag before returning with the news that, with the impeccable timing usually reserved for the arrival of good guys in action films, at the top of the climb a minibus was waiting to take us on to the jungle domes. According to Amoroso we were still the best part of 3 hours trek away from the Jungle domes and we wouldn’t have reached there much before 5pm, without having stopped for lunch and having long exhausted our food and water supplies.

About 2:30 we finally made it to the Jungle domes and to our awaiting lunch. A quick turnaround in the domes, which look something like Dalek head sunk in to the ground, and we were back on the minibus headed to the hot springs about an hour up the road. After the ‘considerably less arduous day’ we had just had, the hot springs were absolute heaven and we spent well over an hour letting the warm waters soothe our aching joints and muscles. There are 4 springs in all, with the hottest at about 47/48C and each subsequent pool a few degrees cooler. Between the 3^rd and 4^th pools were a set of outlet pipes which poured water on to a stone bunch, wide enough to allow about 6 people to sit on them and shower (bathing suits on, of course, or rather ‘nuse clothe of bathes’ as per the rules). The site was exceptionally pleasant, set on to a gentle hill with a sheer cliff forming the back wall against which the pools were built. Around the pools were flagstone pathways and flower beds with 2 sets of loungers under painted steel awnings and just the right number of security guards to be reassuring rather than unsettling. The hot spring were frequented by a varied mix of locals and travellers of all ages, including a trio from Bournemouth who were doing Salkantay with a different tour company and who’s guide had made them cross the landslide we had taken the cable car to avoid. Seems we made the right call opting for one of the more expensive tours.

Muscles and joint soothed and spirits lifted, we all convened in the make-shift bar area to enjoy a very well-deserved beer whilst Amoroso regaled us with stories of life in Peru and the underhanded behaviour of tour companies he’s worked for in the past. Our drive back was upbeat, owing in no small part to the alcohol coursing through everyone’s systems. Now that we were all that bit more familiar and at ease with each other, we began sharing stories of drunken antics from our teenage years, leading Jo to ask the question ‘So [in England] what’s your equivalent of Drunken Baptism?’ To my mind, this is the finest question every asked by anyone, of anyone, in the history of the English Language. The high spiritedness would not last however; dinner that night was marred by a bitter division in TWC over whether or not Nicholas Cage was conventionally attractive. Before going to bed, Katy and I decided to take Amoroso up on an offer he made to us earlier in the day for a shortcut the following day that would cut the day in half and see us skip a 750m climb and descent to the ruins of Llactapata.

As Day 4 dawned, whilst we wiped ourselves clean of the condensation that had dripped on to us during the night, we quickly concluded that we had made the right decision. Despite the wonders of the hot springs and Marley’s blister packs, we were still very much worse for wear and so were relieved to be facing only a 10km steady incline rather than a 12k steep ascent and descent; and then a 10km steady incline. Waving goodbye to the rest of TWC for now we were left at the Jungle Domes for a few hours before being tagged on to the private tour of a strange Mexican couple and their guide Geordie. We boarded the minibus with Geordie, the strange Mexicans and the crew of porters transferring our belongings and set off down the winding, single trac dirt road for about 20 minutes before grinding to a halt. Up ahead a group of 30 or so locals were running ropes up and down into the undergrowth just of out view and a JCB was parked diagonally across the road. All of the Peruvians on our minibus promptly jumped out leaving just ourselves and the strange Mexicans completely clueless as to what was happening. Shortly thereafter the police showed up and amongst a sea of Peruvians gesticulating, shouting and pulling on ropes what was transpiring ahead just became even more unclear. 15 minutes or so after we’d stopped and the issue apparently being unresolved, everyone simply shrugged, dropped what they were doing and went back to their vehicles to carry on about their day. As we started moving again and passed the scene of the commotion, we looked down the bank to see a minibus about 40-50 foot below. From what we could understand from the conversations being had by the Peruvians, it had gone over the edge the night before. As to why they suddenly decided recovering it was a waste of time? No idea. Survivors? Not a clue. Katy and I looked at each other, gulped, then checked that our seats and seatbelts were firmly attached and stopped looking out of the valley-side window.

A couple of hours passed, and we arrived at Hydroelectrica, so named because it has a hydroelectric power station (see, Spanish is easy!) From here we walked along the railway line that follows the Urubamba river upstream around Machu Picchu Mountain, giving us our first tantalising views of the citadel. Our destination was a 3 hour walk away, the small town of Aguas Calientes. So named because there is hot water (I suppose any langue is easy when the place names are so unimaginative). For perhaps the first time in the whole of our time doing the Salkantay trek we weren’t the slowest ones as the strange Mexicans routinely dropped behind causing Geordie, Katy and I to stop and wait for them. Not that we were complaining.

As we approached Aquas Calientes we dropped down from the railway line to join the road by the entrance to Machu Picchu. Aguas Calientes is only accessible by train or on foot, the roads here are a closed system which basically entails the zig-zagging road up to the citadel and the short bridge connecting to the road in to Aguas Calientes. How did the buses get there in the first place you might wonder? Nobody knows! But given how expensive it is (£20 each for a round trip) to use them, I assume the were flown in on gold-plated Chinooks.

Aguas Calientes itself is a tourist town. Pure and simple. Its sole reason to exist is as a base for Tourists heading up to Machu Picchu. That said, it’s not too unpleasant of a town. Sure, it’s overpriced and excessively westernised, but it’s nicely laid out, it’s very clean and the central boulevard dissected by a small river crashing down to join the Urubamba at the bottom is flanked with statues, small parks and buildings with lavish facades, which get steadily less lavish the further up the hill you go. A train line also runs straight down the middle of the main restaurant street, making for a pretty novel place to have dinner and empty the content of your bank account. Katy says it’s quite like a typical alpine ski resort town.

Our short-cut had brought us to Agua Calientes a good 4/5 hours ahead of the rest of TWC. Our bags had also yet to arrive, due about the same time. In the meantime, then, we most full use of the shower and amenities at our surprisingly nice hostel, before having a good long afternoon nap. The rest of TWC caught up with us at about 5:30 looking very battered and tired, but with a small Labrador cross they had christened Lola in tow, who had followed them all the way from near Llactapata. Lola became the honorary 12^th member of TWC as she joined us for dinner that night, hiding under the table as we ate. Heartbreakingly she then followed us back to the hostel, but this was where we had to part ways and leave her to get acquainted with her new home town. I imagine there’s worse places to be a dog, although Amoroso informed us that any dogs that wander up to Machu Picchu get rounded up and put to sleep . He may have been pulling our legs, but his deadpan matter-of-fact delivery of this information made it very difficult to tell.

But I digress. I don’t want to talk about the local canines so much that I lose sight of what we had achieved over the the course of the trek, and what was still to come. After 4 days of hiking and sweating and bleeding and using language Grandma most certainly would not approve of, we were here! Machu Picchu was only 1 sleep away.

A very short sleep it would transpire. In order to make the entrance of Machu Picchu at 6am to allow us to see the sunrise from the Citidel, we would need to get to the bus stop in Aguas Calientes at about 4:30am to beat the queues. Assembling in the hostel lobby with our crew of cranky caffeine craving North Americans we set off for the bus stop and a place selling coffee at this ungodly hour. Luckily for us an enterprising local had recognised the demand for caffeine filed liquids at this time in the morning and we able to top up before jumping on the bus. Tyler, Julian Madeline and Machine Webb the unstoppable (who, the previous day, had walked so far ahead of the rest of the group that he’d overshot the lunch spot) decided to make the climb rather than take the bus, so we rendezvoused with them in the queue at the entrance.

With the dawn mist hanging in the valleys and the sun just beginning to break over the horizon, we awaited the opening of the gates. Dead on 6am we were in and Amoroso lead us quickly up a steep staircase to the west through a bank of trees, allowing us tantalising glimpses of the Citadel, up close for the first time. Doubling back along a set of agricultural terraces, we came to a large artificial plateau by the guard house – one of a handful of the buildings around the site that had been fully restored to aid in visualising Machu Picchu during its heyday. This vantage point gave us our first uninterrupted view across the whole site, a view which left everyone in silent awe. The dawn mist had now condensed in to thin, patchy clouds which hung over the ruins and clung to the steep slopes of Huayna Pichu mountain behind. The sun was now creeping over the mountains to the east and illuminating the top of Huayna Pichu, as well as the snow-caps of the mountains in distance to the west. Behind and to the sides of the ruins a ring of mountains covered in lush green vegetation formed a natural amphitheatre, but on an epic scale, and the patchy clouds drifted serenely between them all helping to provide a sense of the sheer scale of the vista.

It was one of the most perfect scenes Imaginable, accentuated by the weather which, with the clear air, sunshine and sporadic clouds drifting gracefully over the ruins, could not have been better. We could all have spent hours standing there watching the scene slowly change throughout the day, it was really that stunning. After a good 15 minutes of snapping photos and soaking up the views, Amoroso led us up to a slightly smaller level populated by a spittoon* of Llama’s to give us a short history of Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is in fact the name of the large mountain to the south of the Citadel, with the ruins straddling the wide ridge of land connecting Machu Pichu Mountain to Huayna Picchu. The name Machu Picchu is used for the ruins as the original name, as well as the Citidels original purpose are, sadly, lost to History. During the Spanish conquest, it is believed that Machu Picchu served as one of the final hideouts for the remaining Inca’s. In an attempt to hide it from the Spanish whilst retreating they torched the city and allowed the jungle to overtake the ruins. Archaeologists point to the high concentration of ash found in the soil at the site to support this theory. Whatever the truth of what happened or why the Citadel was abandoned, the attempts to hide it worked as the ruins laid undiscovered to the outside world until the early 20^th Century, known only to a few local farming families. After their rediscovery, the quickly became a site of archaeological significance and then later a tourist attraction. In 2007, Machu Picchu was names one of the New 7 Wonders of the world, a source of great pride for Peru.

*Yes, that’s right, I googled ‘collective noun for Llama’s but sadly they don’t have a word more interesting than ‘Herd’. Lamenting this, some random internet user on a forum I stumbled across proposed the word ‘Spittoon’ for Llamas, Alpacas and Vicuñas and I rather like it so have chosen to adopt it here.

After our brief history lesson, it was time to bid Amoroso a very fond fair well as we had a mountain to climb (quite literally). As part of our entry ticket we also had access to Machu Picchu mountain, but the entry window was only open between 7am and 8am. Owing to the narrow, winding and at times precarious path upwards, there are a limited number of entrances spread throughout the day. On the wall of the control booth was a sign stating that a trip to the top should take about an hour and a half. Given our current physical state that was optimistic. The climb, with several stops for water, sun cream, a quick snack and to catch our breath took the best part of two and a half hours. The path mostly consisted of original Inca steps and stonework, many of which were worn, uneven and at times very steep. Furthermore, the climb was on the East side of the mountain, putting us squarely in the sights of the now fully risen sun and the heated air currents rising out of the valley below. About three quarters of the way up we bumped in to Julian and Madeline on their way back down, who uttered those fateful words ‘you’re nearly their’. As they had an early train to catch this was our final goodbye to them, which is probably a good thing, as we were still about 50 minutes from the top and we would have needed to have words later! Nicholas Cage level words!!!

We finally finished the 650m ascent at about 11am, thoroughly exhausted from what was, In my opinion, the toughest climb that we had done during the whole trek. Although that probably would have been true of whatever the last thing we did happened to be. The climb was worth it however, the view from the top was absolutely incredible. The mountain top allowed for a 360-degree view of the surrounding landscape with Salkantay visible to the south, the great sprawling extent of the Andes to the east and west and Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu to the north, which we were now steeply looking down upon. Katy was particularly inspired by the view from the top, so much so that she asked me to marry her. I’m sure it would have made for a somewhat different blog if I had said no, not to mention a very awkward descent back down the mountain, so it’s a good thing I suppose that I agreed. In all seriousness though, it was a wonderful, if slightly surreal, moment and I don’t think there could have been any combination of moment, person and location that would have been more perfect.

The descent was, as has been established on previous occasions, worse that the ascent and not helped by the grinning giddiness of our recent change of relationship status (If only we still had Facebook). By the time we finished hammering our knees and ankles down 2600 or so steps we’d exhausted our water, our snacks and most of all our legs and we set at the edge of Machu Picchu bathing in the sunshine just happy to have the weight off our feet and watching a storm roll over the mountains in the background. We’d hoped to explore some more of the ruins, but we were just too wiped by this point and, annoyingly, there are no shops, cafes or toilets within the Machu Picchu complex, meaning you have to leave to use the facilities just outside the gate. For a while, we simply sat and enjoyed the moment though. We were weary, battered, bruised and burned out, but we’d done it, we’d trekked Salkantay and climbed Machu Picchu. There was something eerily poetic about the sight before us, Machu Picchu is glowing sunshine, the golden rocks glistening and the vibrant green vegetation neatly segmenting the site, with the dark clouds, flashes of lightning and sounds of thunder rolling around the mountains. Our thirst and exhaustion got the better of us and we begrudgingly left, boarding the bus back down to Aguas Calientes mere seconds before the storm rolled in our direction and the heavens opened.

I take it as a sign that the Gods approved of our decision. Thanks Gods. Thods.

P.S. Tyler and Webb aren’t a couple, they are friends travelling together. See guys, told you I’d get to that 😊

White Chocolate presents: Nicholas Cage. Part 1.

It’s just ticked past 9am on our first morning at our latest stop; an AirBnB in central Puno located just off a street filled with nothing but party shops… oh, and an army training centre. Katy sadly has picked up a cold and is bed-ridden and I’ve just got back from the shops to acquire paracetamol and other goodies for her. We’ve both been up since 5am. We were awoken by the usual cacophony of fireworks and car horns. However, Puno added a small group of men dancing to very loud music in the street, a marching band, and a van that sells mystery juice that plays an out-of-time, out-of-key 15 second audio loop that sounds like it’s been lifted from an early 90’s children’s toy, to the mix. Still, it wasn’t all bad, the early start allowed us the opportunity to see the gorgeous sunrise over Lake Titicaca from our 6^th floor apartment. But anyway, once again I’m getting ahead of myself. Enough about Puno for now.

It’s been an uneventful week, with the exception of climbing a mountain, trekking through the jungle for 5 days and visiting Machu Picchu, it’s been somewhat unremarkable. So don’t expect this to be a long post. I jest, of course, it’s been an incredible week. We’ve been pushed hard, seen amazing things, shared incredible moments, and met wonderful people and it’s an experience that will be with us for the rest of our lives. To be honest I’m not sure where to begin, other than to say that after everything we’ve been through this last week our 6^th floor apartment feels more like a 60^th floor one.

The evening before our trek started we went to the offices of the tour operator ‘Salkantay Trekking’ for a briefing, an opportunity to meet our fellow trekkers and our guide for the next 5 days, a warm, cheerful and informative man named Amoroso (whose name, as helpfully pointed out by one of our fellow trekkers, literally translates as ‘Love Bear’, a name to which Amoroso was somewhat ambivalent). After an in depth discussion of the trek and what to bring (not that we had time to buy anything we didn’t have by now anyway) and signing away our ability to hold them accountable for anything stupid we might do to ourselves, we were loaded up with duffle bags to pack for the trek and sent on our way, being instructed to be ready for collection from outside our flat at 4am the following day. Goody!

The following morning, bleary eyed, disorientated and ignoring the endless stream of Taxis waving, flashing and beeping at us, we boarded the bus at what turned out to be a Peruvian 4am to be whisked away to our trek. Heading west out of Cusco the drive was a refreshingly pleasant one, Amoroso provided us each with a blanket and we were treated to a great view of the sunrise flooding over the mountains and into the valleys, with Salkantay Mountain looming in the distance as we meandered towards it. About 2 and half hours after departing Cusco we stopped at a small bare-bones concrete and brickwork restaurant in the middle of a corn field overlooking the valley we had just ascended for a much-anticipated breakfast.

This was the first real opportunity we had to get to know our fellow trekkers. As these were the people who were going to be waiting for us to catch up for most of the rest of the trek, it was very important to get off on the right foot! According to Amoroso, Salkantay Trekking always try and put similar people together into groups with a maximum number of 10 for each trek. The principle divider between groups is language, but after that they organise by factors they think will best allow people to have a positive experience; so there will sometimes be 10 single men, 10 single women, younger groups, older groups, student groups and family groups. According to Amoroso family groups are the worst as you can never make the all happy at the same time. In our case, we’d been grouped with 4 other English-speaking couples* in the mid-20’s to early 30’s, all of whom were noticeable fitter than we were, being much more seasoned travellers than us. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a tick-box for ‘slow and plodding travel noobs’ on the sign-up sheet. Our group consisted of two pairs of Americans; Joe and Ashley from Arkansas and Webb and Tyler from Colorado, and two pairs of Canadians; Madeline and Julian from near Toronto and Marley and Brandon from British Colombia.

*Don’t worry Webb & Tyler, I’ll get to that.

Stomachs filled and acquaintances made, we jumped back on the bus reaching our drop off point for the start of the trek around forty minutes later. Once the bus was unloaded, the mules were saddled up and the hiking poles were assigned, we set off on our way. There had been no going back for some time now I suppose, but now there really was no going back!

Our first hike, a sort of ‘baby’s first hike’ was three hours in all, taking us up-hill for about an hour and then following a water course (in to which I dropped my hiking pole, first fail to me!) for a couple of hours, arriving at our base camp for the first night shortly after midday. Our homes for the night were ‘sky-domes’ each shaped like a large igloo with clear glass allowing for a glorious view of the night sky (weather depending) and an unnecessarily small doorway. After offloading our belongings into our sky domes, we went to the on-site cafeteria for a lunch which was way better than any of us were expecting. Each group of 10 trekkers has, along with its own guide, its own cook, porter and horseman, all of whom make the trek with us ensuring our belongings arrive safely at our next destination and that we get a good hearty meal when we arrive, and boy are they hearty!

Stomachs refilled and all of us very pleasantly satisfied with the quality and quantity of our meal, we gathered our poles and ponchos (a flurry of showers meant this loathsome but annoyingly functional piece of cheap plastic was called for) for our afternoon’s activity, a trek up to Humantay Lake about 2km to the north and 300m further up the mountainside. Unlike Baby’s First Hike where we stuck together as a group, the steep and relentless ascent to Humantay very much sorted the wheat from the chaff as Webb and Tyler sailed up off the hill and Katy and I began to drop back with everybody else strung out between us. There was no rush though, and more than anything we didn’t want to overdo it today with the 22km hike over Salkantay the following day. For a little while Marley hung back with us for moral support, and to inquire as to our thoughts on Brexit, before chasing up to Brandon again as he had their water.

A small side story here dear readers: When we went to Greece a few years ago, a matter of weeks before the EU referendum, the locals and other holiday makers we would get chatting to would, upon finding out that we were English, invariably want to know our opinion on Brexit. With this experience in mind and with Brexit imminent (possibly) I was expecting similar during our time in South America. Maybe not from locals, but certainly from other travellers. Anticipating this I had prepared answers to the question, serious answers for when I felt like discussing it and asinine answers for when I didn’t (I intend to claim that the UK voted Brexit to annoy the French (Unless I happened to be talking to French people, in which case I would say it was to really annoy the French)) But no, 5 weeks in to our time in South America and not once had we been asked about Brexit. Not, that was, until we were hauling ourselves up a mountainside sweating profusely and barely able to catch our breath.

An hour and a half after setting off up Humantay we bumped in to Tyler on her way back down. ‘You guys are so close, it’s just around the corner’ she said encouragingly, although our time in South America had quickly ingrained in us a scepticism of unqualified adjectives such as ‘close’. Fortunately however, ‘close’ turned out to be true, which is good because otherwise Tyler and I would have been having words that evening. We rounded the corner and followed the stream flowing out from the Lake and saw the rest of our group standing on a bank overlooking the water.

The view was absolutely worth the climb, Humantay lake is a vibrant, almost glowing turquoise glacial lake formed in a long thin valley just below the snow-line. The sides of the valley are steep, with lush green vegetation lower down towards the lake and thinning off higher-up giving way to grey and black rock then the brilliant white of the snow-cap. The day we were there was overcast and so the snow-caps disappear into the cloud layer, adding an almost ethereal sense that the mountain could go on for ever. The valley edges are tallest towards the mountain end of the lake and so a near perfect V is formed with the streams running off the glaciers above trickling down the middle to join the lake. A young couple took the opportunity to get engaged shortly before our arrival, and who can blame them? Not many places trump this in the ‘oh yes darling well we got engaged at X’ game. After about 30 minutes of taking in the sights we decided to head back down, ending up in a conversation with a guy from Sao Paulo called Lucas who runs a balloon factory! We’ve decided if Brexit really goes south, we’ll go and work for him.

That evening, over another splendid meal we did that cliché thing that Brits, Canadians, Americans and all other Anglosphere residents always do when they first go to know each other and compared notes on linguistic differences, before moving on to the light-hearted subjects of gun culture and political polarisation (spelled with an ‘s’ guys, not a ZEEEEEEE). Amoroso joined us for dinner to inform us that we would be heading off at about 6:00 the following morning, so we’d need to be up at 4:30 to get breakfast and get our stuff together. He would, at least, be bringing us Coca tea first thing, so it wasn’t all bad. With a long day ahead of us we decided to get an early night and headed to bed about 7:15 to enjoy some of Julian’s 90s disco music from the neighbouring sky-dome. As night set in the temperature dropped quickly, and so Amoroso also supplied each of us with liners to go inside our sleeping bags. Tucked up cosy and warm in our glass igloo we waited for the power to be turned out around the site so we could see the stars only to realise that the condensation building up would prevent that anyway. At one-point Katy was forced outside by nature’s call and got a view of the stars uninterrupted by steamed up sky dome and said it was absolutely breath-taking. I very nearly got up to take a look, but by then I was sleepy and very snug and warm in my multiple layers. Besides, the stars have been there for millions of years, they’re not going anywhere.

Day 2 then. According to nearly every blog, article and tour operator the hardest day of the whole Trek. 22km in total, peaking at 4630m. Using the previously established BMI (British Mountain index) metric from earlier in this blog; that’s 1 Ben Nevis and 3 Snowdons (plus a handful of London buses to make up the final few meters). The initial climb up to Salkantay pass entails a 7.5k hike with a 700m gain in elevation, before descending nearly 1800m over the remaining 14.5km down to the next base camp. After breakfast and loading up on snacks for the day ahead, we left base camp just after 6am for our estimated 4-hour hike to Salkantay Pass. The initial 3^rd of the climb was a steady ascent following well-travelled farm tracks and for a good while Katy and I kept pace with the pack. The sun hadn’t yet got above the mountainsides and the cloud hung low drizzling on us with just about enough intensity to necessitate the loathsome ponchos.

About a 3^rd of the way up the angle of ascent began to increase and the terrain become more gruelling, intersected by mountain streams with makeshift bridges traversing them. Webb and Tyler flipped on some sort of afterburners and went off into the sunrise whilst Katy and I resumed our usual role, forming a rear-guard action. I thought we might claim we were watching for Pumas sneaking up from behind and therefor we were serving a useful purpose, but I doubt that would have flown.

Still, we slowly and steadily made our way up, beginning now to get overtaken by the mules and porters carrying our belongings, as well as those who had opted to pay 130 soles to ride a mule (in this context, referred to as ‘taking an Uber’) up the to the pass. That felt good! Sure, we were slow, but by Jove we were doing it undo our own steam! We could claim a moral victory if nothing else! Amoroso, with the nimbleness and elegance of a mountain goat flicked back and forth between checking up on us and ensuring the rest of the group didn’t get so far ahead as to take a wrong turn. As we got to about 2/3rds distance the rain stopped and the cloud began to lift allowing us to take off the blasted Ponchos. Even with cloud cover still present, at these altitudes the thinner atmosphere makes it deceptively easy to burn, so we stopped to slap on some cream and remove a couple of layers of clothing. As cold as it was at night, now that the Sun was up and burning off the cloud layer it was warming quickly.

3 hours in and with about a kilometre to go, the clouds started to break enough that we could see the peak of Salkantay mountain (summit height of 6271m, or BMI: 3BN+2S+14LB) mistaking it at first for a strange cloud formation. We caught up with Amoroso at a small plateau with the sun now fully out and giving us a great view of the trail behind us. ‘About 40 minutes to go he said’ as we passed a sign indicating that we were only 200 meters shy of the pass’s altitude. It was from this point onwards though that the altitude really started to kick in. As much as we were now comfortable with Cusco’s altitude of 3,400m (BMI: 1BN+2S), this extra 1,400m (BMI…oh whatever) was really taking its toll. Barely making 10 steps at a time before having to stop to catch our breath, the final few hundred meters were very hard going.

But, with minutes to spare, we made it in under 4 hours, arriving at the pass shortly after 10am. Excitement overtook exhaustion and we got a round of high-fives from our speedier fellow trekkers, none of whom seemed to be bothered by having to wait for us in this kind of location and best of all Alberto, one of the porters, had a cup of Coca tea waiting for us on arrival. Perfect.

Salkantay pass is between the peaks of Salkantay and Humantay, and whilst the cloud had broken for a while a new bank was rolling in and it started to mist up pretty quickly, so sadly we didn’t get the best of views from the pass. Before it clouded over too much though, we were able to see enough of the peak to see the frequent avalanches and rockslides tumbling from the mountainside, the roars of the great movements of earth and ice echoing between the adjacent peaks. Several group pictures, coca tea and arguably the most well-deserved Twix of all time later we were ready to make our descent west off the pass and down towards our rendezvous with the chef for some Lunch.

The descent was uneventful, with the thickening cloud and the returning rain (BOOOO Poncho) there wasn’t a great deal to see. It was just a long, tedious and honestly rather painful descent. When engaging in a trek like this one always looks at the ascents knowing they’ll be a challenging undertaking, but the descents are often overlooked. I genuinely found the descent tougher than the ascent; the constant impacting on the knees, the rocks moving under foot causing the feet to land at awkward angles and the consistent need to look down and focus on each and every step.

After a few hours we made it to a small rest stop for a very much needed lunch break. Following lunch the descent continued for a further 4 hours, although the changing terrain made things a little easier. Where higher-up the descent was over narrow rocky paths through thin grassland and boulders, the lower altitude brought warmer temperatures and the lush, rich vegetation of the cloud forests. The flora slowly grew around us, the calls of the local fauna become more frequent and varied and the mountain streams ensured we had numerous compulsory foot baths along the way.

Weary and battered from the trek, and with night beginning to draw in we staggered in to our camp for the evening escorted by Amoroso in his helpfully fluorescent Green Poncho. It had been a hell of a trek, but we had made it! Day 2, the hardest day, was done, and we’d managed it without the use of an Uber! Our accommodation for the night was ‘Andean Huts’ which consisted of a thatched roof over a metal frame with plywood sides and, again, an unnecessarily small door (I’m thinking shares in Peruvian Chiropractic services would be a sound investment). Still, they had beds in them, and right now that was the only thing occupying my mind. After a short dinner exhaustion took over me and I headed for bed whilst Katy took the opportunity to have a shower. Before going to sleep Amoroso had some good news for us! As the following day was considerably less arduous, we could afford to have a bit of a lie in, only need to get up at 5:30 the next day.

Considerably less arduous

Yes, those were the words I needed to hear, and I felt asleep with those words still echoing around my mind.

Considerably less arduous…

Considerably less… Well yes, I’m sure you can see where this is going… but that will have to wait for part 2.

Why do they have a dance called sauce?

Well hello again to our several readers! I’m sorry that we haven’t been keeping you up to date with our adventures more frequently, but we’ve just been too busy this week! Actually, that’s a lie, we’ve mainly been lounging around.

About 3 weeks ago, probably still suffering the slight mental impairment that comes with Altitude sickness and certainly under the influence of some form of liquid intoxicant, we decided it would be a good idea to book ourselves onto the Salkantay trek, a 5 day, 45-mile trek through the mountains peaking at 4,580 meters, with the final day bringing us to Machu Picchu. The decision to commit ourselves to this trek came about whilst we were still at Pisco and Soul, trying to work out the most cost-effective way to visit the Incan Citadel. As Peru’s premier tourist attraction and owing to its remote location, visiting Machu Picchu is very expensive. Furthermore, in order to help preserve the ruins, access to Machu Picchu is limited and there are only so many tourist entries allowed each day, serving only to hike the price even higher.

Trying to find a 1- or 2-day trip for a reasonable price was a minefield; Cusco is absolutely jam packed with tour operators attempting to cash in on the lucrative tourist trade, and whilst many of them will offer a great service, there are plenty of rogue traders out there. Reading online, you can get some great deals, if you’re lucky, but many of these businesses have review pages riddled with horror stories of being abandoned in the middle of nowhere or tour buses not turning up or not having the right tickets for the right days etc.

1-day round trips from reputable tour operators out of Cusco are expensive, starting from about £200 each. These also give you only a short time at Machu Picchu itself; the bulk of the time being taken up by the bus ride to Ollantaytambo (probably with another driver with a death wish; since our experience in Moray and Maras, we’ve concluded that tourist minivan drivers are the Peruvian equivalent of BMW drivers), the train to Aguas Calientes, and then another bus ride to Machu Picchu.

2-day trips are equally costly. Going with one of these we were looking at the best part of £600 for both of us. We looked at doing it off our own backs; using a local bus to get to Ollantaytambo, buying our own train tickets, booking ourselves in to a hostel near Machu Picchu and then hiking to the top of the mountain (skipping the short bus ride to the top which, alone, is £15 each. If there’s one thing the Peruvians know how to do, it’s exploit a captive market). However, mainly due to the cost of train ticket (see previous brackets) this worked out more expensive that going with a tour operator.

A half-day spent trawling the internet and getting ever more frustrated and exasperated, we decided to go to the other extreme. If we’re doing Machu Picchu, we’re doing it properly! Hence doing the Salkantay trek, costing about £800 for both of us after applying an early season offer. As this includes 5 days food and 4 nights accommodation, per day it works out at a much better price. I don’t know why I’m justifying this to you, we’re doing it now and you can’t stop us! Or maybe I’m still trying to sell myself on the idea…

All we had to do now was kill some time; during the height of the rainy season in February the trek doesn’t run, starting again for the new season in March. Knowing we were going somewhat over budget with our Salkantay expenditure, we booked ourselves an AirBnB with a small kitchen, allowing us to self-cater for the 11 nights to take us through from checking out of Intro hostel to the start of the trek on March 1^st. The AirBnB we found is a lovely little roof-top flat near the city centre, with views of the mountains to the north and west and the tower of Santo Domingo church peeking up over the rooftops from a few blocks away. The large balcony has a covered area with sofas, table and chairs, kitchen sink, cooker and a very plush washing machine which sings a happy tune to itself when it’s finished a load. The large bedroom with one of the comfiest beds we’ve ever encountered joins off the side wall and the bathroom off the backwall, thus creating the only real downside with this flat; when you want to visit the loo in the middle of the night you have to go outside. Brrrrrr. Still, of all the places we’ve stayed in Peru so far, this has hands-down been our favourite.

So, for the last week or so we’ve been spending a lot of time here, relaxing on the balcony, listening to the music from the salsa classes below (and wondering why they have a style of dance called ‘sauce’), reading, playing cards, befriending the local wildlife (we have a regular visitor, a small bird that Katy has named Paco, who eats all our crumbs), being bemused by the Peruvians obsession with setting off fireworks in the middle of the day, enjoying the sun and then quickly ducking under the cover of the corrugated roof as soon as a storm rolls in. We’ve averaged about a storm a day for the last week, they roll in quickly off the mountains and can come from any direction. 10 minutes after wind, rain and flashes of lighting, it’s straight back to glorious sunshine again. The rapidly changing and unpredictable weather makes us feel right at home (As if to engage in a game of one-upmanship though, as I’m writing this a hail storm has rolled in).

Our only two major excursions in the last week have been a trip to Cusco Park on the hillside near Sacsayhuaman, and to Cochahuasi Animal Sanctuary out on the road to Pisac. Cusco Park is a kind of outdoor museum, with farm animals, a straw hut for demonstrating traditional textile production, a short bridge constructed in the Inca style with grass rope, an aquarium, a series of small buildings with various pre and post-Hispanic artefacts and a separate series of buildings with dioramas of the Inca ruins from the surrounding area. Our guide around the site was a young Peruvian man who didn’t speak a word of English. He came running over to us within about 5 minutes of our entering and, without checking that we spoke Spanish, promptly led us around starting with the huts full of dioramas. Owing to the language barrier we didn’t catch his name, but he was the spitting image of Pedro Sanchez from Napoleon Dynamite, so for the purpose of this blog he will now be referred to as Pedro. Vote for Pedro!

Although he gave us the entire tour in Spanish, we were, more often than not, able to follow the gist of what Pedro was saying. In no small part because a lot of what he was saying was stuff that we already knew: Cusco is shaped like a Puma, the Inca’s built EAT’s, they developed over 2/3/4000 varieties of potatoes (depending on who you ask) and corn, the cabinet full of money, coca leaves and bottles of alcohol are offerings to Pachamama. You know, the usual. #justIncanthings. Pedro concluded our tour with a climb to their adventure play area where we had the opportunity to go zip-lining between the trees. We didn’t partake.

It being the off-season, the park was very quiet and the small workshops around the site where presumably there would be demonstrations of wool dying and weaving were mostly unstaffed, but even so, we got the best part of 2 hours out of it and understood at least some f the things we were told. It’s a pleasant site with a lot of potential to be a really good tourist attraction and at £10 for both of us including a tip for Pedro, it was worth our while.

Our other adventure took us to Cochahuasi Animal Sanctuary, about a 25-minute drive north of Cusco. The only way to reach Cochahuasi was to take a tour on one of the many open-top tourist buses that Katy swore from the moment she saw them that she would most definitely not be getting on. Alas, this was the only way to do it, and it turned out to be a rather pleasant way to see the city. The tour guide, a cheerful and animated guy called Peter met us in the main square before rounding up a load of other tourists for the trip and walking us up to our bus. After a 30 minute pootle around Cusco enjoying the view from the top deck, the bus took us up past Sacsayhuaman and out along the road to Cochahuasi. Peter gave us a running commentary of the sites we were seeing, stringing together the sites with a little history of the city. Of the 20 or so people on the tour, we were the only non-Spanish speakers, but to his credit, Peter spoke great English, never skipped anything, and always ensured we were as well informed as everyone else on the tour. The driving was also very good. Well, it wasn’t terrifying anyway.

Arriving at Cochahuasi our group was split in 2 with Peter taking the Spanish speakers, and a member of the Sanctuary staff, Melissa, taking Katy and I for essentially a private tour of the sanctuary. The site isn’t huge, but the enclosures are suitably large for the animals they keep, and they aren’t overcrowded. All the animals at the site are rescues and some of them come with really tragic stories of cruelty and neglect, such as a Puma that was rescued from a nightclub in Lima where it was used as entertainment, and an aviary full of macaws rescued from smugglers trying to ship them to Europe out of Lima Airport. Where possible, the animals are released back in to the wild, but some are sadly too conditioned to captivity or permanently injured to be released.

In total there’s probably around 80 or so animals on site, ranging from Llamas, Alpacas and Vicunas to Condors, Pumas and Spectacled bears (yes, that’s the bear that Paddington is). Melissa was very knowledgeable, and she walked us around the site for about 40 minutes. The staff are clearly very caring, and the animals are well kept and cared for. Perhaps the most impressive part of the site is the large Condor enclosure which stretches from the opposite cliff face up to the near-end of the site by the road, with the visitor path straight through the middle of the enclosure. Having these huge birds swoop overhead as the staff feed them is an unforgettable experience. It’s just a shame the site is overall quite small, simply for no other reason that that more space would allow them to care for more animals, you can’t help but think that they are forced to turn animals in need away for lack of space.

Just as we finished our tour and got back on the bus the heavens opened, leading me to discover another thing in Peru that wasn’t designed with people taller than 5 foot 6 in mind, as the whole tour group squeezed itself onto the lower deck on the bus. On the return leg of our tour we stopped at a small hut overlooking Cusco where we were given traditional blessings by a Shaman. This allowed Peter to show off another of his talents as he translated from Quechua to Spanish and English on the fly. The Shaman was from a very remote community in Northern Peru largely uninfluenced by the outside world and still very committed to the Quechua religion, folklore and way of life. Whilst this was very much a show put on for the tourist, it was a charming if brief insight in to the ancient customs of this part of the world.

Our final stop was another trip to Cristo Blanco, perhaps serving to underline the fact that we really had done everything Cusco has to offer now. We finished up back in Cusco about 45 minutes later that scheduled, for which Peter was unnecessarily apologetic. All in all, this was a very enjoyable day and, as the trip had cost us just £12.50 for both of us, one of the best values for money days we’d had!

We have ventured out a few times other than that however, mainly whenever I started to get a bit of cabin-fever, we made another trek up to Cristo Blanco to get some practice in before our hike, this time choosing the longer, but considerably less steep, route up via Sacsayhuaman. We had a tasty meal at a vegetarian restaurant with the most disinterested server we’ve ever encountered. We’ve also made numerous trips to the local bakery which does absolutely fantastic pastries and seems to be permanently frequented by every French tourist in Cusco, and we went for an excursion to the market to buy essentials for the trek. For our final proper night in Cusco we went to an Indian Buffet restaurant around the corner from the main square. Sitting on the balcony overlooking Avenida El Sol and enjoying a beer, the incessant beeping of the traffic and the incomprehensible whistles and glow-stick assisted gesticulations of the traffic police, we decided that we had thoroughly enjoyed our time in Cusco.

Salkantay Trek next, so we’re going to be off the grid for a few days, we’ll be sure to do another update as soon as possible afterwards though, so watch this space.