Wednesday 3 June 2015

Cusco Part I

We woke up in Puno, with very heavy heads. Steph awoke fully clothed with incredibly sore thighs from slut dropping (a modern day dance move). We had to leave at 8am so departure was a little rushed to say the least. Luckily Tom had packed her bag in a drunken state as she passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow. Today would be the day we went on our long journey to Cusco, the cultural capital of Peru. We were so excited about going, especially as Cusco is Henry's home town, and he kept raving about it every five minutes. We had some surprisingly delicious sandwiches at a roadside diner which sorted out our hangovers, and we saw our first bottle of inca cola. It tasted like cream soda and looked like atomic piss.


 We carried on to Cusco where we checked in to our hotel. That night we would meet Carlos who would be our inca trail guide. We were all hungry for dinner as it was early evening by the time we arrived. Henry knew a restaurant that was an eco friendly organic place, so we headed there and had some traditional Peruvian dishes, falafel burgers, plus tasty smoothies with exotic fruits.

We went back to the hotel, poised and ready to be educated on our exciting trek to Macchu Picchu. Susan and Andrew from our group wouldn't be joining us unfortunately, and would alternatively doing the Lares trek. The guides walked in, and all the girls swooned slightly as Carlos, the young and fit explorer strolled in with a map in hand.

Carlos has done the inca trail over 150 times, which actually seemed like nothing after Henry who used to be a guide said he did over 500! He briefed us on what to expect, what to pack, and how to get the most out of the trek! With a few silly questions being asked after, and given our duffel bags to pack our bags for the 3 days, we felt ready to conquer the inca trail! We went to bed shortly after, as the next day we signed up to white water rafting!

The next morning we were picked up by 2 Peruvian brothers who were the rafters who would be our guides. We picked up our gear, and drove to the valley where the river roared. An old man drove us whilst they briefed us in the car, and he turned out to be the brothers dad. They explained how the small family owned company wanted to change the currently bad and dangerous reputation of rafting in Peru. Both brothers trained and worked in rapids in the states, and made us feel incredibly safe and did practice runs of situations that could go wrong, as well as providing us with adequate gear. They are even up for a trip advisor award which they were so excited about. We got to the river, which looked pretty rough, and it made some of the girls a bit scared.


 Thankfully, we  did plently of safety checks before going in. The rapids ranged from grade 1 which is almost flat, to 4. 5 is only for professionals, and 6 is suicide, just to put it into perspective. With Tom being the only boy in the group, there were a lot of scared girls!

From left to right: Melisa, Tom, Steph, Elanna, Susan and Maryanne

  Once in the water, all fear was shaken off  as the adrenaline pushed everyone to row as fast as they could. We got soaked in fresh freezing river water, and there were multiple screams coming from the raft, (mainly Tom). We had a few stops for a break and for the other brother to raft pass and take pictures of us.




 On one flat part of the river, the guide encouraged 3 of the group to jump in to the icy water. Tom, Elanna, and Susan offered, and our job was to save them as they instructed us how to do earlier brief. After a lot of scrambling around the group managed to pull them in. 





There was also another opportunity for us to all jump in, when there was a large 5m high rock that allowed us to jump off whilst they took more pictures. The water was so cold and the current so fast, it's easy to see why white water rafting can be hazardous if proper precaution is not taken. 


After a couple of hours of exhilarating fun, we stopped over and had some lunch, made by the elder brothers wife. It was so delicious and finished off the endearing family feel the company already had. 




They drove us back to the hotel, with time in the afternoon to explore the beautiful Cusco city.

Everywhere you turn, there is incan symbols even on sign posts. There is a beautiful inca murial along the main road, and the buildings have a glamorous white finish which make it look very grand.



Henry proudly showed us the old castle, and then led us to the square where the large cathedral and town hall encase a beautiful fountain laden square.






He showed us where to buy last minute trekking supplies and also the chocolate factory which gave free tours. We decided that was something we couldn't afford to miss, so headed in and walked around sampling coco beans and chocolate liqueurs. At the end we indulged in a hot chocolate, and steph bought a coco butter moisturiser. After this we searched for alpaca wool thermals and mooched around some shops where a stray dog adopted us and followed us for half an hour or so, waiting outside shops for us to come out. We gave him a little cuddle and headed home to pack our duffel bags for the inca trail with very strict weight limits as the porters would have lots of other bits to carry. We packed up and went to bed ready for our inca adventures to start the next day.

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