I caught the bus in the morning from Copacabana to Cusco. On the bus were also the three english guys I had been traveling with before. We crossed the border into cusco and then waited for a commercial bus to come along on which we were going to hop onto. After 10 minutes of waiting the bus arrived and we got on. The ride took about 10 hours, but the ride wasn´t too bad as the bus was quite good. Lunch was a bit silly, including a bag of crisps and a yoghurt drink. When I asked the busdriver whether he had a trashcan for my rubbish he told me to throw it out of the window. The peruvian guy sitting next to me opened up the window, trying to be helpful. Obviously I didn´t throw it out of the window, but it did show how people around here think about waste. Around 19:30 I arrived in Cusco. I grabbed a taxi and drove off to the hostel I had a reservation at.
That night I felt really tired, but a german girl in my room persued me to come and have a drink at the hostelbar. Not being boring as you would expect, I went to go for a drink anyway. Up in the bar were a handful of people. The owner of the hostel, a 25 year old ozzy guy organised a game of killerpool which involves you have to drink when you lose. I me up with the rest of the people in the hostel, which seemed to be nice people. We had a few drinks and suddenly I didn´t feel all that tired anymore. We all went out for a few drinks in town, including the hostelowner. The night became a great night with lots of partying.
The next day I woke up and planned to go and check out the tours on offer in Cusco, as I am basicly here to do a trek to Machu Picchu. George, a guy I met the night before, asked me whether I liked to join him to look for tours. First we went to watch the Portugal – Germany match at a bar though. Once in the bar we all had a drink. The bar owner all made us pick a little paper out of a bowl. Every paper had a name of a player on it. He told us when the player on the paper happened to score that match, we would get a free meal. I grabbed a paper and happened to have Schweinsteiger. George told me I was lucky for picking such a good player. Still I thought Portugal would win though. The Isreali guy next to me grabbed Christiano Ronaldo, so I thought he would definitely get a meal. Then while watching the match, Germany scored a goal and it turned out to be Schweinsteiger who scored it. I looked at my paper and figured I had won. I had a massive free meal while watching the match, which was great. Afterwards we went to hunt for tours. All of the tourcompanies offer the same tours for different prices. Apparently the quality of the tours are all the same, all you really need to look at are the prices. After 2 hours of looking around we found the cheapest tour and booked it with them. That night we decided to hit the sack early, as we had to get onto our tour the next morning.
The next morning we woke up fairly early. We were picked up around 8:00 from the hostel. We then drove off to another square where the rest of our group was picked up. From there we drove off to a place where they picked up the bicycles, as the first day we would go and ride bicycles downhill. We drove about 4 hours to the place where we were going to drive the bicycles from. We had some lunch on top of the hill and then we hopped onto the bicycles and drove downhill. The biking took all afternoon. I was up front together with the guide and George. It was quite a bumpy, but fun ride. Around 17:00 we arrived down in the first town we were going to sleep. We had a beer and a cold shower. Afterwards we went to a restaurant where we had some food. After dinner we sat a little bit longer to talk with some of our groupmates and then we went off to bed, as the next day we had to get up early again.
The next morning we woke up around 7. We headed off to the restaurant for some breakfast and then got ready for the hike. We hiked all morning to a little restaurant in the middle of the jungle. There we had some lunch. Afterwards we walked on again for another 5 hours. By the end of the afternoon we arrived at some hot springs. We went in there to relax for 2 hours or so. Meanwhile we heard the guide of the other group had fallen down from a cablecart that goes across the river and fell 20 meters down on his head on the rocks. Our guide was shocked, as it happened to be his friend and went to try and help. An hour later the guy was brought to a hospital nearby. Our guide told us his friend would probably be alright. Once we arrived at the hostel we heard the guy had passed away in the hospital, everyone was very shocked with disbelieve. Our guide was emotional and no-one knew what to do. Later that night locals came around to ask for money for the diseased person, as the family wouldn´t have enough money to transport the body back to La Paz and to buy a coffin for the 24 year old guide. We obviously chipped in a few Peruvian sol´s, as it was just too sad to hear about all this.
The next morning at breakfast our guide asked for a minute of silence for his friend who died the night before. After breakfast we went on with the tour. We walked for about 5 hours to Aguas Calientes, a very very touristy place, one hour walking from Machu Picchu. We got into our hostel, which was one of the best I had ever stayed at. It was more a very luxury hotel room with ensuite bathroom with a really hot shower. It was exactly what we needed after 2 days of hiking and a day of biking. We freshened up and had a few drinks at the main square. Afterwards we went for some dinner in a nearby restaurant. There we were introduced to a guide who was going to guide us through Machu Picchu. We were also given instructions how to get there and at what time.
The next morning the alarm went at 4 AM. We had to get up this early, as we had to catch a train back at noon to Cusco. We started hiking around 4:30 to Machu Picchu. About 40 other backpackers were up and about around that time and we all hiked up the mountain. The climb was A LOT tougher than expected. They had told us it would be about an hour walking, but noone had told us it would be about 80 minutes hiking upto steep stairs. Sweat was dripping off my back and everyone on the trail seemed to have a hard time getting up there. After 80 minutes we finally arrived at the entrance of Machu Picchu. It was a bit annoying to see a group of people arrive by bus only 10 minutes later, but in the end I was able to say I had hiked up to Machu Picchu all by myself without the need of any other transportation than my own feet. The gates opened up at 6 AM and we were the first ones in. Machu Picchu was still covered in massive clouds, so we couldn´t see much. We walked straight to the end of the ruins to the gate of the Waynapicchu. A mountain next to Machu Picchu which offers amazing views over the valley and the old inca city. At 7 AM those gates opened up and there we had to hike another 30 minutes all the way up to the top of the mountain. Once at the top the clouds started to clear and we had the most amazing view over Machu Picchu. The hassle was definitely all worth it. We stayed up there for about an hour. Then we walked back down to start out our guided tour around the inca ruins. The guide, who spoke perfect english, explained us a lot about the different areas and what they were used for back in the days. It turned out to be very interesting. After about 2 hours we walked back to the entrance to catch the bus back down to Aguas Calientes, as from there we had to catch the train to get to the bus back to Cusco. We all made it just in time back down. We were all incredibly tired. We got back into the bus after the trainride and drove all the way back to Cusco which took about 6 hours. We arrived back in Cusco around 21:30. We had some pizza and then went to sleep as we were all incredibly tired. That night we had to sleep in a tent in the backyard of the hostel, as the hostel was fully booked due to the fact that the next day the Inca festival would be held in Cusco.
The next day me and George woke up boiling away in our 6 person tent the hostel had provided. We had a shower and some breakfast and then went to explore town. On the main square there was a big show being held with shitloads of people in typical peruvian/inca clothing. They were all dancing around with shields and spears. Afterwards the whole crowd moved to a big mountain about 10 minutes driving away. There we watched the whole ceremony from a distance from a surrounding hill. We stayed there for about 2 hours. It was just saw black of people, it was crazy how many people came to see it. Afterwards we went for some lunch in town. Tonight there will be a big Psy-trance party on top of the same sacred hill, which should be an amazing experience as well.
I am planning to stay two more days in Cusco. After Cusco I am going to make my way up to Lima to catch my flight back home. More news soon with the last week of my trip!!
Jun 18th 2008 – Jun 24th 2008
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