AspiringNomad

I finally find myself time to write about the insane 9 days I have just lived whilst I wait for my friend to get a tattoo in Malqui Tattoo in Cusco. I have about an hour and I think I might just be able to jot down just a few things that I have done.

The previous 9 days have been spent in Cusco and the area surrounding it. I arrived to Wild Rover hostel last Wednesday night and had time for a couple of beers with some old friends before heading to bed. The plan for the first day here was to get the trip to Machu Picchu booked. Its a fairly complicated process. As of 2017 the UNESCO site became more regulated as the number of tourists was exceeding such numbers that the grounds of Machu Picchu were physically sinking. Therefore, unless you prebook weeks/months in advance it isn’t guaranteed when you will get your ticket, what time or what route you will be seeing one of the 7 wonders of the world until the day before.

Callum and I decided to do the Jungle Trek which started on Saturday. It meant we had an extra day to spare so we booked a tour on the Friday with our friend Karol to Rainbow Mountain. On the Thursday afternoon, Karol, Max, Callum and I got an UBER to a location about an hour from Cusco to get on some ATVs and drive around in some of the most picturesque mountains I have ever seen. There is no journey taken that doesn’t present with vast mountains, some snow capped, some dotted with alpacas grazing and some with shear cliff faces. I couldn’t ever get bored of it. That evening, we said goodbye to Max and treated ourselves to a Mc Donald’s (the first one of my trip). I opted for the classic Big Mac Combo with a Coca Cola. It was an early night as we were due to be picked up for Rainbow Mountain at 4:30am the following morning.

Rainbow Mountain sits on the edge of the Andes and was about 3hrs away on the bus. One thing I have realised is that as a backpacker, although you lose out on sleep from all the partying, you more than make up for it on the bus rides during the tours and trips! We stopped for breakfast en route and eventually arrived at the foot of Rainbow Mountain. 1.5hrs up to 5000m above sea level left me breathless again but in the best way. Even all the tourists queuing for a selfie with alpacas couldn’t distract from the beauty of the mountain. It looks like a painting! We spent some time at the top before heading back down and back to Cusco.

That evening, we headed to Limbus Rooftop Bar/Restaurant that I had seen on Instagram. It was so nice to look out over the city with a Pisco sour (new favourite drink), eating civiche with two of my close friends. Cusco is the nicest place I have been to so far and my love of the city was confirmed after listening to live music in a local bar with more pisco sour followed by dancing with the locals in a courtyard that had live traditional peruvian music! The people playing on stage were dressed like your average 50yr old man but their musical skills were incredible!

We headed back to the hostel fairly early as we were due to start the Jungle Trek tour to Machu Picchu at 6:30am the following morning.

I should probably write a whole separate blog about the Jungle Trek as there is a lot to discuss from the trip, but I’ll try and keep it short! Once we booked our tour on Thursday we were informed that there was only going to be 3 people on the tour… including Callum and I! Fortunately, we met our tour friend at the briefing on Friday night. Matilda, from Sidcup in London was up for a laugh and a good time. I knew that we were in for a fun 4 days!

After being completely exhausted from mountain biking for about 1.5hrs, we had a short time to chill at our hostel in a ghost town called Santa Maria before being whisked off for white water rafting. We were greetied by the Peruvian Rafting team, who were all dressed up for Halloween. There was a local filming our ‘reaction’, I am not sure where the video was going, but they were probably a bit disappointed, as our expressions were more confused than anything else. They kitted us up and topped it off with our very own Halloween masks. Completed baffled as to what was going on and still having photos taken of us, we hopped into our rafted and headed down the river.

That evening, Maltilda, Callum, our guide Jimmy (I don’t think that is his real name) and I had a few cervesas from the corner shop opposite the deserted hostel. This ended in a small altercation after the maths became a bit too complicated for the two women in the shop. Callum ended up having to write down some long calculations on a bit of paper to explain that they were the ones who owed us 4soles and not the other way round. The long hand maths and broken Spanish was hilarious to watch, but we managed to confuse them enough to get our 4 soles back! To explain quite how ridiculous this was, 4 soles is less than £1. But it was the principle! The next day, we headed on our 8hr hike along the inca trail. The blazing heat and dehydration was not ideal for a long hard hike but we eventually made it nonetheless. We were helped along the way at the Monkey House by having two shots of tequila at about 10am and big helpings of coca leaves to help with ‘altitude sickness’. Although there are no toxicity properties to the coca leaf, it is meant to help with the type of exercise were doing, I’m not convinced it helped with anything, but I couldn’t feel my left cheek for a while!

That evening we arrived to the hot springs and following some more cervasas, a lively Jimmy took us to the local ‘club’. We turned up to a building which looked closed with a group of Chileans that we had met whilst walking through town. Jimmy asked the owner to open everything up for us and so we willingly followed in to an empty club with a small bar, a speaker and a stripper pole in the middle. After a few more drinks we were all talking it in turns to spin round a pole and attempt to salsa dance with the Chileans! A completely unexpected, random and great night in the most unassuming small town of Santa Teresa.

The next morning we woke up to a 6am alarm. Callum headed downstairs to see if Jimmy was alive after we left him at the club the night before. He was no where to be seen so we spent a few more minutes in bed. About an hour later than scheduled we suddenly heard Jimmy’s voice shouting from the corridor ‘vamos chikos!!’ (This was his favourite thing to say over the course of the 4 days)

After breakfast we slowly made our way up to the ziplines. Not knowing the extent of our hangovers yet, we got into the upside down position and flew across the valley. Callum soon realised that this perhaps was not a good idea as he almost threw up as they unclipped him from the zipline.

After we endured a fun but tough zip line experience we headed to our final destination- Aguas Caliente. The town closest to Machu Picchu. Unfortunately, during this walk, Callum couldn’t keep it together quite as well as the zipline incident. A mixture of heat, exercise, and a hangover ended up with him throwing up over the edge of a bridge. A spectacular place to be ill and fortunately there was no one else around other than me. After being in some unfortunate states myself a couple of times this week, I felt we were now even!

We brighten up after a couple of hours and a stop at one of the shops en route and eventually made it to Aguas Caliente. We were all exhausted after the previous 3 days but were very excited for Machu Picchu the following day.

The queue for Machu Picchu tickets took a total of about 2hrs but we were very lucky to get the route and time that we wanted. We decided that we had earned a massage and booked in at one of the cheapest places in town. It ended up being the most chaotic massage experience I have had! The CD player kept skipping the ‘relaxing music’, I had my masseuse change over half way through, there were about 10 people who worked there in this small room along with us 3 on beds separated by a curtain. The staff were talking the whole time (so much Matilda asked them to be quiet) and my masseuse only did the left side of my back! Callum completed unaffected by it all fell asleep on the bed after about 2mins. The snoring just added to the hilariousness of it all but at £12 we didn’t complain!

Machu Picchu was exactly what I expected and more. We arrived at 6am. The clouds were still hiding the site and the surrounding mountains but as they cleared they revealed the most spectacular views I have ever seen. We spent a few hours at one of the worlds wonders, and it was soon time for us to head back to the town to catch our train back to Cusco ready to celebrate Halloween.

Callum and I were due to join some others that we had met along our travels so needed to get back to Cusco, have some food, check into our hostel and grab some Halloween costumes on the way. Neither of us anticipated how busy the town of Cusco would be and this unfortunately ended in us having a mild breakdown on a street corner. With all our luggage, clutching onto our Llama hats (Halloween costume) almost being ran over by buses and cars, locals were dancing in the square behind us, the church bells started playing and the over stimulation, tiredness and excitement for the evening meant we were hysterically laughing as we patiently waited for a taxi… that never turned up!

After a grueling couple of hours we eventually made it. We met up with everyone else at Wild Rover and had a great night out.

I realised the following day that I had been awake for 25hrs the day previous. It was one hell of a day but we needed some time to recover.

Over the next few days, I had to say goodbye to my friends again as they headed off to Huacachina and off on the Salkantay trek. During this time, I managed to recuperate, get my hair cut, get a pedicure, and arrange with Emily and Anna to head to a town slightly north of Cusco called Pisac.

I now have come to the end of my time here in Pisac. (Apparantly 1 hour in a tattoo place is not enough time for me to write in my blog). We’ve had a great weekend in this super hippy hostel owned by a crazy, opinionated, and quirky Argentinian man called Ivan. He built the whole place himself over the last 5 years and has some questionable house rules, but we had a great time nonetheless.

In a while, Emily, Anna and I will head back to Cusco. Emily and I are going to then get a night bus to Puno to organise a homestay on Lake Titicaca.

I’ll try not to leave it too long to write in my blog again! The next one, I promise will be shorter!