Machu Picchu then into the jungle

View from our hotel balcony in Coroico. Sam insisted on a nice hotel after the mountain biking!

A waterfall and small lake for swimming.
Drinking poison in the jungle.

Sam, before the worlds MOST dangerous road.

Not so dangerous really.

On Lake Titicaca
Coca Cola is it!



The sacred valley proved to be quite nice. Our first venturing was a day trip to Pisaq from where there´s a gentle stroll up a hill to see some Inca ruins. Around midday on a beautifully hot sunny day, with inadequate water provisions, no sun cream and having not eaten any solids for 72 hours it seemed nothing could go wrong. I thought everything was fine - but Sam turned steadily more courteous during the walk, so I knew something was actually wrong. In fact it was just when the footpath turned into a narrow path cut into a large sheer cliff that Sam`s eyes started closing and she became convinced that a good snooze was the order of the day.

Rolling off the top of a bunkbed is one thing, but while Sam was stretching and eyeing the ground for a soft spot I was having small vertigo issues with a sheer drop two feet to the right.Anyway we survived, and the Inca ruins were the Inca ruins so I took some mandatory photos. A bit like Snowdon we were disappointed by the number of unfit big camera wielding tourists at the top, but the large road nearby did enable us to take a taxi back down.

From Pisaq back to Cusco and the next day a local bus to Urubamba and collectivo (a clautrophobes nightmare - small van many people) to Ollantayambo. There we discovered all six allocated seats on the´backpacker´ train were sold out for the day. Rather than pay $20 for the hour and a half trip we were forced to take the luxury train ($32). In spirit we were walking the Inca Trail as we chugged along eating our complimentary lunch and drinking our ´free´ drinks.

Aguas Calientes (the ´village´ at the foot of Machu Picchu) is the original tourist trap ... hence our very nasty room costing a tenner,and all our hard bargaining achieved was some money off at the expense of no breakfast. The half hour bus trip up the hill cost $12 each and the entry price was $25 each. Fortunately they hadn´t yet thought to charge for each photo taken - as that would have been the most as that would have been the most as that would have been the most expensive cost yet.

So Machu Picchu was impressive, for the setting more than the mass ofInca stone work that makes you think of Welsh mining villages. On every side, and all the mountains surrounding, the drop to the river below (more than a thousand feet) was sheer. The Inca´s clearly had no imagination as to what would happen if they went for a wee at night and took one step too far.

Aside from taking photos we went for a wander to see something billed as an Inca bridge. This involved yet more walking on footpaths a couple of feet wide and with a somewhat dramatic drop. I was fixated on making sure I wasn´t going to stumble. Also I took a liking to the various plants on the nearside of the path. Sam appeared to start yawning quite a bit, and with hands in pockets was actually looking down over the edge. She´s obviously a bit short on imagination too.

The Inca bridge was plainly a form of ritual sacrifice for the Incas. Our path stopped within sight of ´the bridge´ and from then on the path is the cliff after someone nail filed a ledge into it. The bridge was a plank of wood over a gap where the nail file had obviously become too blunt.

So back to Cusco (this time being able to get the backpacker ticket) and onto Puno by Lake Titicaca (the highest navigable lake (blah blah) in the world). Puno is a bit of a dump - however it was very good to be out of Cusco. In Puno people were friendly, the food (trout) was lovely (we actually managed to find some vegetables that weren´t deep fried), it was thoroughly relaxing. Maybe we were expecting too much from Cusco, it´s a characterful colonial town but it was tourist hell.Not a moment passed without hassle from someone, the shops were dedicated to expensive tourist goods, no-one - tourists or locals alike -seemed that friendly. So in Puno we both relaxed for the first time since, I anyway, was relaxing too much on the coach from Arequipa.

We only spent a day and a half there, the full day we went on a boat trip out to see Los Uros people. They used to live a quiet and harmonious life on islands of reeds in Lake Titicaca. Now they sell nick nacks to the tourists who come and visit them and take photos. I did get some nice photos, but no nick nacks - the worst kind of tourist for them. After Los Uros we motored on through and out of the reeds for flippin´ ages to a random island (Isla Taquile) to be intrusive to the locals there. This time we did come away with nick nacks (and some very tasty goats cheeses andwiches) so I´m sure we´d be welcomed back.

We has a small surreal moment leaving Puno for Copacabana in Bolivia. Having woken early, scoffed breakfast and generally rushed around to catch the bus in time we raced out of the hostel and jumped onto a three wheeled bicycle where we were serenely taken to the bus station. All a bit Monty Pythenesque.

If we were relaxed in Puno we were sleepwalking in Copacabana. The food was gorgious (trout again), there was no hassle from anyone, we could point and even touch local tourist products and not be jumped on by all six shop owners previous poised at strategic points. The town was pretty and oh so cheap. Our hostel room cost two pounds forty and had lovely lake views. We were deadset on taking a pedalo out onto the lake (though no-one else seemed to .. the backpackers were all too cool). Unfortunately we opted for a nice walk up a large hill on the day we arrived, and it was genuinely too cool the following morning.

Both of us were (and are) really keen on making everything in Boliviaappear positive - we really want to like it. Unfortunately La Paz is putting a strain on our optimistic outlook, perhaps like any major city would. We arrived on the 6th and, after some very flawed map reading (not helped by the absence of street names) we became fairly well acquainted whilst still carrying our rucksacks up and down (it´s very hilly) streets.

The hotel we plumed for (the Continental) is a fairly eccentric place. We were offered (for nine pounds) the penthouse containing dinningroom, two bathrooms, a kitchen and three bedrooms. Naturally at nine pounds we said no thank you! (In fact Sam thought the place was just to creepy and was bound to be haunted - more imagination here than when on scary cliff paths).

We departed La Paz two days later via mountain bikes down `the worlds most dangerous road` blah blah. It drops from just under 5,000 metres to 1.5k metres on a rough (sand and stone) road ... unsurprisingly cut out of the side of a sheer cliff. It took six and a bit hours from top to bottom, and speaking of bottom ..... anyway, it was a rough and dirty ride. I definitely put it at the top of my positive experiences so far list, and it`s at the top of Sam`s lists too - though not necessarily thepositive one.

We spent four nights in Coroico (the bike destination) as it was a lovely quiet hilly country village with great views and good healing powers for sore behinds, arms, legs etc. Presently we`re continuing down the worlds second most dangerous road in a jeep. Rather than spend 17 hours on a bus bound for the Bolivian jungle we`ve opted for a tour that travels through the Bolivian jungle on the way to the same destination as the bus (Rurrenabaque). Today is a jeep but for the next three days it`s a boat and tents (and monkeys and big creepies and strange noises in the night etc (nb not a reflection on my diet)).