From 1st-4th I completed a 4 day Inca Jungle Trek to Machu Picchu with Dan, Sam and Matt. I had such a good time even though it was bloody difficult.
The first day was Mountain Biking where we spent 2 and a half hours whizzing around 2500m downhill. I did get a little over excited at one point when racing Matt around a bend and executed Face Plant #4 with absolute grace and style, landing with the bike on top of me in a nearby ditch. Luckily I've managed to escape with nothing but a few rather large and impressive (if I do say so myself) bruises on my upper thighs. Silly em.
The rest of the evening was spent chilling with the 3 spaniards in our group (Jose, Carlos and Jose Carlos - how cool is that?!) attempting to speak Spanish/English to each other, until the others got back from rafting. After dinner we were joined by the guys and the three dutch girls in a our group and we decided to have a bit of a sing song until it was just Sam, Dan and I keeping everyone awake with our extremely tuneful drunken renditions of Jack Johnson and Tracy Chapman.
The second day was probably the hardest as we had to walk around 10 hours, mostly uphill and my asthma decided to be a cow. However the views and scenery were 100% worth it; it was totally incredible. Pretty cool to be on the real inca trail too!
The Hot Springs at the end of the day were SUCH a relief as we girls could finally chill out and watch whilst the lads, somehow still full of beans, decided to throw each other around.
Day 3 was ZIP-LINING 150m above the tree tops. Wowzer, it was AMAZING!! Its so high up it's completely surreal.
That little black dot in the sky. That's a person.
After that we only had 3 more hours walking until we arrived at Aguas Calientes and much to my delight it was almost all flat along the train track. I did however discover from our guide that I had left my steroid inhaler at the previous hostel, meaning I was to miss two doses before climbing Machu/Huayna Picchu the next day. Oops.
At 4am the next day we woke up to the unwelcome sound of our various alarms. By this time I was pretty terrified that I wouldn't make it by my lack of inhaler, whilst being completely exhausted and covered in bites and blisters. I don't think anyone has ever been less inclined to Machu Picchu.
However once we got started up the bazillion inca stairs up to the top, my spirits began to lift as I realised it wasn't actually so bad and the excitement sank in that I was going to watch the sunrise of the Sun Gate at Machu Picchu. How very gap yah. It was absolutely incredible too.
I have to say Huayna Picchu was a little bit more of a challenge but the overwhelming feeling of awe that you get when you reach the top is unbelievable!
That's Machu Picchu looking teeeeeeeeeeeeny tiny from so high up!
Us lot with the Picchus in the background. Look how high we climbed!!
We stumbled down just as the sun was setting and managed to catch the train back to Cusco just in the nick of time.
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