Cusco

After an uncomfortable 16 hour bus journey (baby crying for entire journey and seats that you slipped off) we reached Cusco.
Our hostel was out of town, up hundreds of steps so good training for the inca trail trek!
We spent the day wandering around the town, nice cobbled streets but full of tourists.

We were recommended an inca trial trek which included trekking through the jungle as well as the inca trail, bike riding, hot springs, zip wires and were lucky enough to book on the next day. With an early start ahead we found an english style pub (to terry's delight - i have never seen anyone happy reading a menu) had dinner, packed a day bag for our 4 day adventure and went to bed.

The Inca-jungle trial included 4 days, 3 nights. 3 different hostels as you make you way to the main focus - Machi Picchu.
We had a really good group of 8: 2 young lads from chile, 2 girls from argentina and a french couple.

The main activity of day 1 was a 40K downhill bike ride through the mountains.....

Day 2 was hard work. We left the hostel at 6am, we trekked up the mountains, through the jungle, through inca remains, visited monkey houses and walked in the blistering hot sun for 10 hours (with only a break for lunch).

Monkey House...

However at the end of our trekking we were rewarding by relaxing in the natural hot springs... lovely!!

Day 3 we opted for zip wires. this included 6 zip wires between the valleys of the mountains

was so much fun.......

After the zip wires we trekked for another 4 hours to our last resort - the town just outside Machi Picchu.


Day 4 we are woken up at 3.50am to leave the hostel at 4.15am. in the dark and cold of the morning we took a 30 min walk to the entrance of Machi Picchu, before climbing the 1200 stone steps to the top! Terry was on a mission and was the 8th person to reach the top. i wasnt far behind and we both made it up in less than 50minutes which was way better than the average time.

terry always walks faster than me... ha ha

We had a tour for a couple of hours before being let loose to explore for oursleves. Being so high in the mountains it was so foggy until about 9am so we didnt actually get a full view until later in the morning - but it was well worth the wait.
machi picchu was amazingly beautiful....

After a full day of exploring the Inca ruins we made our way back down the 1200 steps and got some dinner before catching the train and bus back to cusco - naturally shattered from our exhausting but amazing 4 day adventure.
needless to stay we slept wel before catching yet another bus to Puno.