The Trek to Machu Picchu

The list of things we had bought to try to make the trek as comfortable as possible was long:

Knee supports
Walking poles
Fleece to replace the one I lost in Pisco
Waterproof overshoes
Water bottles
Snacks
Trekking trousers for Kerry
Sunglasses for me after managing to break pair number 8 in Cusco
Enough ibuprofen to tranquillise a rhinoceros

We were as ready as we would ever be but the apprehension had grown to such a degree that as we sat eating our final meal in Cusco I was wracking my brain for a way out of this altogether.
We had all the gear but our positive mental attitude had completely deserted us.

Kerry had been worried about her knees since we booked this and in the week leading up to departure my hernia had inexplicably started to grumble.
My mind ran away with potential disasters that could befall us so
there was no excitement about what lay ahead, only fear and worry.

We ate on Saturday night before convening with our fellow trekkers for a briefing from Freddie, the man who would be our guide for the next four days.
Despite allowing plenty of time to eat, our meals took an age to arrive meaning we were a couple of minutes late for that briefing.
Feeling self conscious, we slunk into seats feeling fourteen pairs of youthful eyes upon us and tried to digest Freddie's overview of what lay ahead.

One piece of good news that came of that briefing was that our start had been put back from 0530 to 0630. An extra hour in bed at ungodly hours is very much appreciated, particularly by Kerry who is prone to spit venom if roused from her pit even one minute before she's ready.

I slept well that night, though Kerry did not, but at 0550 the alarm went off and we set about our final preparations.
At 0610, with the bed covered in gear, Kerry in the lav and me parading around in nothing but my undercrackers our phone rang.

As previously reported I am not at my sharpest early in the morning. I sought the source of the ringing and looked at it vacantly. Kerry shouted that perhaps I should answer it, a thought that hadn't quite occurred to me, though I'm sure given another five or ten minutes it would have done.

I picked it up and was asked if I was walking the Inca Trail today.
I was!
Who was this sage individual on the line who seemed to know so much about me and my immediate future?

"Your bus is here. Your guide is in reception".

This unwelcome news roused us from our slumber somewhat but we expended as much energy cursing during the next ten minutes as we did sorting our gear out.
What is it with people?Why is it so difficult to be somewhere when you say you will be? To depart at the allotted time?
Timekeeping is the very backbone of civilised society and it's surely no coincidence that the most powerful nations on earth adhere to this mantra.

Having dashed about packing, performing last minute ablutions and sacrificing a guinea pig to the god of kneecaps we were led by a trek porter to our bus which was a couple of hundred yards away.
And empty.

Not only was it empty, there was no driver and nor would one appear for another twenty minutes as we sat like puddings in the front seats.
We finally moved at around 0640, around the block to another hotel for the next pick-up. We crawled around town in this vein for a good half hour making a mockery of our being called for so early.

After much stopping and starting within the limits of Cusco we finally hit the road, bound for a place known as Km82, the start of the trek.
The plan was to drive to Urubamba, take breakfast and make last minute purchases such as water, rain ponchos etc and set off hiking at around 1030-1100.
(in other words, somewhere between 0930 and 1200).

After half an hour the driver asked one of the porters to have a look at the engine through the inspection hatch and there followed much debate and arm-waving. Ten minutes later a rather pungent odour was noticeable inside the bus and soon after that we had pulled over by the side of the road, steam hissing out of the radiator and the driver declaring our chariot a breakdown.

A replacement was eventually sourced but this took an hour and then that bus had to reach us from Cusco.
We were looking at a very late start to our trek.

Porters buzzed about and erected a table with chairs and served a rudimentary breakfast of fruit, bread and coffee by the side of the road.
We must have made quite a spectacle and certainly, the couple of buses of locals that passed by seemed highly interested in our plight.

This impromptu meal was our first opportunity to get to know each other with the predictable topics of: where are you from? where have you been? where are you going? how long is your trip? to the fore.

After watching pigs, donkeys and sheep driven past us by grime encrusted farmers and with most of us having taken a leak behind a suspiciously rustling haystack our replacement bus finally arrived and we were on our way.

We stopped for supplies and for a quick bite to eat, reaching Km82 at around 1300.
There were formalities to complete before we could begin, such as the taking of a group photo on everybody's camera and the officials at the checkpoint verifying our trek permits.
All this takes time, as does sorting out your pack, deciding what to wear, adjusting your poles, getting snacks in an available place.

By the time we were all ready it was 1340 and we were several hours late.
We had 14km to walk to our camp, a walk that usually takes six hours and we had four and a half hours of daylight left.

Freddie set off at a cracking pace and I remember feeling seriously out of breath as we climbed the first gentle incline. My hernia was aching too and Hop-Along Cassidy embellished every step with a sharp inhalation and a crunching sound of bone on bone where cartilage once was.

Day one is described as "easy" in the blurb. A gentle uphill walk albeit at reasonably high altitude. You start at 7800 feet and reach 9800 by the end of the day.
Easy it may be for experienced trekkers, the youthful or for barrel-lunged indigenes who live at these heights.
For us: unfit, creaking, overweight, middle-aged and consumed with negative thoughts, it was not, initially, easy.

But then we began to find our mojo somewhat, worked out how to maximise the effectiveness of the walking poles, took off the stupid sweat-inducing rain wear and got into our groove.
One steep uphill section aside where a depleted Kerry felt dizzy we held our own and it felt good.

We stopped every now and then for breaks, to have a breather, drink, eat and these were opportunities to talk to our compadres.

Our group comprised of sixteen people. As well as us there were:

Alex & Brenda - holidaying 20 somethings from NYC

Matthieu & Giorgia - honeymooning Italians on a 2 month jaunt to Ecuador, Peru and Colombia before upping sticks and moving to the USA

Per & Erik - Swedish uterine brothers. Per travelling for three months, Erik holidaying for two weeks in Peru

Natalie & Andreas - 20 something Germans in Peru for three weeks

Sarah & Royce - from Utah, in Peru for two weeks

Kyra - Sarah's best friend, on a three month trip to Peru & Bolivia

Derek - San Franciscan 24 year old, three weeks into open-ended world tour

Mikos - gregarious Aussie one year into 18 month trip

Nicolas - 34 year old Frenchman, five months into a two year trip having sold his business

A cosmopolitan and interesting bunch, I'm sure you would agree.

Our pace was such on this first day that we completed the trek just as darkness was falling, thus shaving a full 90 minutes off the usual time.

We saw a tarantula on the path in the final few hundred metres and tried not to think about what creepy crawlies would be prowling about outside as we got things shipshape in the tent in the near total darkness.

At 1930 we were called to the dinner tent and served a sumptuous feast, miraculously prepared on a 2-burner hob and wolfed down by our ravenous group.

Knowing we were up at the crack of dawn and that tomorrow would be a very difficult day, we turned in at 2045 but sleep was often interrupted by discomfort, not least because our tent was pitched on a slight slope.

At 0530 we were woken by the melodic tones of a flute being played. Normally I would have delighted in this but as it was the cause of my involuntary waking I only wanted to source the person responsible and insert their instrument somewhere where only bum notes would be possible.

Outside, the porters were beavering around making tea, breakfast, packing up and preparing for the next leg and bringing us bowls to wash in. I sat in the tent in a daze, knowing that I had but fifteen minutes to get my act together but singularly unable to determine how to go about it.
Kerry meanwhile was bemoaning that we were here at all and laying the blame for our being so squarely at my door.

After a lovely breakfast of pancakes with caramel we set out on what is described as a "challenge"; only 10km but the first six uphill to a height of 13800ft followed by a 4km descent down irregular steps.
Kerry had been dreading today for some time and struggled over the first kilometre or so, falling behind everyone else and wheezing as though she was about to breathe her last.

After our first pitstop though she felt better and we maintained a healthy position in the middle of the pack.

We set off on the final leg of 'Dead Woman's Pass' and had found our groove to such a degree that we held off the challenge of at least half our group and reached that summit in high spirits.
We even had time to chat to a couple of fellas half way up, discovering they were good old Devon boys, from Yealmpton in the South Hams.

If anything, the crucifying descent down all those steps was harder than the lung-busting climb.
Irregular steps and an uneven surface called for 100% concentration which was tiring in itself, without considering the assault our knees took.

I was so happy to reach camp that day though we were ridiculously early, the days trekking ending at 1320.

With underarms and groins humming with malodorous offence, Kerry and I caused quite a stir by electing to bathe in the nearby stream.
I'm not sure if it was the sight of our near naked bodies or the fact that people wanted to see two lunatics sitting in glacial melt water at nearly 13000ft but we certainly drew quite a crowd.

My pain was twofold. After ten seconds submerged, the freezing water was causing me to think that having my fingernails removed would be a pleasant alternative. To compound my misery, when I could take no more and made for my tent to warm up I was bitten on the legs a dozen times by mosquitoes.

Dinner that evening was accompanied by rum hot toddies, joke telling and ghost storytelling by our guides.
Freddie proved to be an hilarious raconteur, having us all in stitches with his overuse of premodifiers such as "super cool" and "mucho" which, twinned with his accent and mannerisms made for a hoot.
Herlin, the other guide and of 100% Quechuan stock, provided a slightly more sober but fascinatingly traditional antidote to Freddie's more cosmopolitan antics.

Fun as it was and stunning the night sky looked with almost full moon and no light pollution, we turned in at 2030 and slept like logs until our 0500 wake up call.

More able to galvanise ourselves this morning, though still with vitriol emanating from at least one of us, we were breakfasted and away by 0620.
Today was a humdinger, a 16km trek taking in four Inca archaeological sites and, at last, an opportunity to walk on the original Inca trail. Up until now we had used new paths, made to protect the fragile originals.

It was a tough day today; hot, hilly, rough terrain and lots of steps. Nevertheless, we felt good, felt in fact that we were getting stronger each day and were delighted that the painkillers were keeping knee, hip and hernia pain at bay.

Then, disaster.

Right at the end of day three, as we dragged our weary carcasses down the last hundred or so steps into camp, Kerry misjudged a step and twisted her left knee.
She hobbled the last few yards using her walking poles as crutches and hoped that a night's rest would enable her to walk the remaining 7km to reach our goal tomorrow morning.

That evening we were invited to club together to tip our porters and chefs for the service they had provided.
Some of those guys have carried 25kg day after day for twenty years and one of our guys was a remarkable 59 years of age. It was humbling for all of us gringos, clad in our designer gear and backpacks watching these guys carry three times the weight we were and skipping up and down the paths that so challenged us.

Over dinner I suggested we club together further to provide a thank you to Freddie and Herlin, a move that caused the tiniest bit of friction in our ranks, money being the emotive subject that it is.

After another good night's sleep we were roused at 0330 on the final day to ensure we would beat some of the crowds at Machu Picchu.
Can you imagine how awful it is to emerge from your tent into the pitch black, damp jungle with rain lashing down at this hour, particularly if your knee is apparently immovable and you have a 7km walk on rough ground ahead of you?
Vindication surely for my most vehement early morning tongue lashing of the trek.

We set off at 0420 and walked precisely 200 yards before stopping at a checkpoint which would not open until 0515.
I may have remonstrated with Freddie about this had I not been in zombie-mode.

The rain stopped and day broke and our group stormed off to get a good position at the sun gate, a renowned place to get your first glimpse of Machu Picchu.
Frustrating as it was, I stayed with Hop-Along Cassidy and nursed her through that lonely hour walk.
Fair play to the old girl, she did it and I don't recall her griping for more than 75% of the way.

The sun gate was a bit of a letdown, fogbound for all but two minutes and then we only got fleeting glimpses of our mecca.
Off we all set again then and, another hour later, we were there, we'd made it, Machu Picchu - Wonder of the world.

It's an awesome place, marred only by the thronged hordes clambering all over it. I feel that trekkers should be given the place to themselves for one hour, by way of acknowledgement that they've yomped here.
Open the doors to the day trippers a bit later and give us guys the run of the place - we've earned it.

Built during the 14th century, Machu Picchu was the place where the greatest Inca minds convened to experiment, study and enhance the Inca culture. It was their NASA or Oxford, a great seat, Plebian free.
Accessible only by foot from Cusco, the Spanish never discovered it and as such it is the most intact Inca site.

An American academic called Hiram Bingham, in Peru to document the life of Simon Bolivar, heard rumours of a lost city and changed tack to set out to find it.
This he achieved in 1911, being directed to "the old mountain" by the local Quechua farmer.
"The old mountain" in Quechuan is "Machu Picchu".

A wonder it most certainly is but it's under threat from the amount of visitors it receives. The site slips 2cms every five years due to the amount of people who come to see It. It's doubtful that numbers will be regulated though as it's the number one cash cow in the country.

Despite being somewhere so wondrous, all our group concurred that the early start, masses of people and the effects of four hard days on the hoof combined to make it difficult to fully appreciate.
The low cloud too, which rarely lifted, also seemed unfair after all our endeavours.

We had a goodbye lunch down in the town of Aguas Calientes with most of the group returning to Cusco and a handful of us remaining there overnight, bathing our aching limbs in the hot springs there.

Next day we caught the train down to Ollantaytambo on which I met a fascinating triumvirate of Marko the Canadian photographer, recently of Easter Island, and two effervescent Indian girls before taking a collectivo back to Cusco.

Mission accomplished.

All that remains now is to make best use of our remaining seven weeks before we fly to Oz to be reunited with the lamb chops.

South through Chile?
Bolivia - Paraguay - Brazil?
Argentina and Uruguay?

Decisions decisions.

Cusco

Trepidation
(noun)
1. Tremulous state of fear or agitation appertaining to future events.
2. State of mind of female member of our party for the six weeks since booking the inca trail trek

It was with great excitement that we disembarked from our overnight bus in Cusco on Tuesday morning, not least because of our desire to breathe clean air after our enforced 14 hour incarceration surrounded by the aroma of vomit.

We took a cab to a room we'd earmarked for it having views of the city and cooking facilities but, commensurate with many such attempts, we found it to be full.
(On several other occasions we have discovered hotels to no longer be in existence)

This meant we had to source a room, a heinous endeavour when shattered from an overnight journey and forced to contend with cobbles, steps and altitude.

We tried several places, for Cusco is nothing if not awash with lodgings, but turned down the first half dozen for various reasons.
Too dark, too skanky, owners too weird, too many steps up which to lug her ladyship's weighty case.

With desperation setting in we happened across a very nice place with a deal-sealing balcony overlooking the rooftops and out to the mountains. As we are staying put for five nights, plus returning here for a couple more nights after visiting Machu Picchu we figured we needed to push the boat out somewhat.

And push the boat out we have done in Cusco, an unavoidable consequence of visiting this gringo infested metropolis and of needing to kit ourselves out for the trek.

We drew up a list of things we needed and set out to source them, taking in some breathtaking Inca stonework and fabulous colonial architecture as we went.

From our hotel to the main square, the Plaza de Armas, we walked through a narrow cobbled street which is flanked by some of the most incredible stone walls imaginable. That they are mortar free and have survived two devastating earthquakes suggests that these masons knew a thing or two about architecture. The spaniards realised this and used Inca foundations for their own buildings.

The altitude here of 11200 feet was causing us to be quite breathless at times so we tried not to overdo it on that first day.
We did successfully purchase walking poles though, the single most important bit of kit to help us tackle the ever-larger-looming monster.

So what is this Inca Trail then? Why has it reduced Kerry to a haunted shell of a woman and begun to fill me with a greater dread than returning to Blighty?

Essentially it's just a long walk but it's the fact that it's undertaken at such altitude and on rough ground that's concerning us.
The highest point we reach is 13800 ft, immediately followed by a descent of 1000ft - down uneven and irregular steps. This day is known as "The Gringo Breaker" and encompasses, possibly prophetically, "Dead Woman's Pass".
The fact that we're camping out for three nights isn't making us feel any easier, nor is the fact that of the four knees we will be relying on to carry us these 30 miles, two are totally shot, one is a bit iffy and the only 100% knee sits about 18 inches away from a hernia.

It is fair to say that we do not feel in the rudest of health and a quick look at the list of our fellow trekkers, age range 20 - 31, only makes it worse.
I pray that we're in a group of salad-dodging, heavy smoking sedentary types whose idea of exercise is to change channels on their remote control.

We spent another full day kitting out, buying snacks, paying the balance of the trek and making trips to the cashpoint to finance all this, all the time offering polite "no gracias" to the incessant hordes of pedlars in town.

Massage, rain poncho, bottle of water, incomprehensible wooden egg, pen with a knitted figure atop, photo of a lamb with a little wooly hat on, you can have it all in Cusco, and you will be asked if you do approximately every thirty seconds.

It's an exhausting place, for several reasons.

One good job we did get done was to post a parcel of unwanted things home. I wasn't totally surprised that we liberated over 6kg of clothes and souvenirs from our cases and I now look forward to carrying Kerry's case upstairs with merely a wince as opposed to a teeth-gritted grimace.

Another job completed was for Kerry to formally resign her position of employment which was being kindly kept open for our return.
Having agonised for many months, she finally decided that this trip should signal the turning of a new leaf though quite what that will be is as yet unknown.
I have mixed feelings over this. On the one hand I support her desire for a new challenge and for her to seek fulfilment; on the other the prospect of a homeless and jobless partner doesn't seem particularly appealing.
I state here that if she takes to pushing cats around town in a shopping trolley with her tights around her ankles whilst muttering to herself then it's probably all over between us.

Having got our trekking house in order we went on a trip on Thursday to the Inca sacred valley.
This started out at a jewellery factory (groan) and then the colourful market at Pisac before taking in the ruins of an Inca fort at Pisac, ruins at Ollantaytambo and an incredible colonial church at Chinchero, built and adorned with frescoes in 1607 and untouched since.

It was a beautiful day and we had a great guide in Carlos who gave us a full insight into the Inca world and the places we were gawking at.
It was a long day though; pick up at 0830 and dropped off back in town at 1930 so we were utterly cream-crackered by the end of it.

Despite this, and the fact that we had that overnight bus journey, sleep has been hard to come by here in Cusco.
For various reasons we both keep waking in the night and then lie here for hours unable to nod back off.
The trek playing on our minds is partly to blame but my needing to expel gallons of pee every couple of hours isn't helping my cause.
I read that altitude can make you go a lot and I would very much like to vouch for the accuracy of that statement.

We did another tour yesterday, a half day jobbie which took in five Inca sites in and around the city.
It was all good, though the highlight was undoubtedly a place called Sacsayhuaman which was a fort overlooking the city when the Spaniards arrived. The amazing thing about this place is both the size of the stones used and the way they fit together so beautifully, without mortar, that you cannot even insert a sheet of paper in the cracks.

Archaeologists do not know how this place was built, a "history's mystery", not least because the Spanish knocked most of it down to build their own houses.

That sort of wraps it up for Cusco, pre trek.
We have to go along to a meeting tonight to pick up our kit bags and sleeping bags and mattresses but other than that we're lounging about in a state of semi-catatonic apprehension.

Ok, enough negativity, time for positive thinking.
We're going to do this, we're going to flourish and we're going to watch the sun rise over Machu Picchu.

Now, where's that travel insurance document? I need to check the maximum height we're covered for for an airlift off the mountains.

Back to the continent - Lima to Pisco

Having scaled such giddying heights by virtue of our sojourn to Easter Island, we were conscious that we could be left feeling a little flat on our return to the mainland.
In an effort to arrest this potential descent into turgidity we decided to invest some shekels in 'adrenaline tourism' and have just had one of the most exhilarating and diverse weeks of the trip.

We landed in Lima last Sunday night at 2310, well beyond the witching hour whereupon all gringos become fair game, particularly those arriving by plane and looking all lost and out of their depth.

If our German friend from a couple of weeks back is to be believed, venturing into these hellish streets after dark is on a par with mincing around the prison showers whilst continually dropping your soap. Sooner or later you are going to be taken from behind, manhandled, relieved of your prized possessions and long lamenting your folly.

Not wishing to run that particular gauntlet, we engaged some altogether more legitimate undesirables; the official taxi rank of Lima airport.

We'd booked a room close to the airport and though it was probably within walking distance in daylight it was obviously a taxi job given the hour.

Having paid 50 soles (£12.50) for the 18km journey to the airport a week ago we were disgusted to be asked for that same amount to travel around the block this night.

Yes, we know it's night time, yes, we know you're all going to charge the same, yes, we know you have us over a barrel because the option is to take our chances in the mean streets.

Within five minutes we arrived at our hotel and we slept solidly despite the constant noise of traffic and planes.
The tranquility of Easter Island seemed a world away, which, I suppose, it was in so many ways.

Next morning we took a cab across town back to the Miraflores district for just 25 soles and began the search for another room.

We found a hostal online, The Angels Hostal, and thought we'd give it a bash. It looked ok and had decent reviews and had the all-important cooking facilities, so important if I wasn't soon to be up on some rice induced felony.

We rang the bell and went inside, led by a dreary looking woman into an equally misery-inducing foyer.
The room she showed us was woefully inadequate for our needs and a world away from the pictures we'd seen on the net.

As we left to go back outside into the throng of Lima and resume our search I noticed a sign welcoming us to the "Lex Luthor Hostal".
We were in the wrong place.
'The Angels' was next door, much more palatable and so we had no hesitation pitching up there for the night.
It was a mild embarrassment that it shared an entrance with Lex Luthor and the dreary lady would be roused from her chair to let us in on occasions over the next day or so but them's the breaks; if you run a hovel you must expect people to go elsewhere.

Here's an idea: tart it up a bit, paint it, invest in the place, make it look less like Stalag 17, SMILE occasionally.
We are continually amazed how little thought goes into accommodations around the world. It's so easy to blow your opposition out of the water because such a large proportion don't appear to give a monkey's.

Anyway, having seen a fair bit of Lima when last we were here and not really having the stomach for much more walking around large cities we settled on a spot of paragliding as the perfect way of wiling away a glorious spring afternoon.

For the uninitiated, paragliding is a sort of horizontal parachuting. You jump off a cliff, catch the thermal and, by skilful manipulation of the chute, float around for as long, as high or as low as you want.
I saw some guys sailing along the Devon coast once and vowed to have a go when I got the opportunity.

We were of course on a tandem chute, each paired up with a fully qualified pilot. Unfortunately, the type of individual employed in this capacity is liable to be so pulsing with testosterone that during your twenty minute flight you are subjected to tales of alleged bravado, derring-do and such innuendo that you want to laugh in their face.

For example, when Kerry was getting into her harness she was instructed to "put her tits through there". When she looked a tad surprised at this he replied
"Oh you don't mind me calling them tits do you?"
"Now, put your ass in here. So, are you here alone?"

Once her tits were harnessed to her pilots satisfaction they were ready and I watched as they inched towards the edge of the cliff. I was momentarily worried that they seemed to plummet like a stone but a couple of seconds later they swooped up and out towards the ocean, Kerry's a-whooping carrying back to me.

I was away within minutes, off the cliff and away down the coast for maybe half a mile, up over the seafront buildings and then back in the direction from whence we came. Lima seafront is magnificent, particularly when viewed from a few hundred feet up whilst suspended from some nylon ropes and a chute.
I can certainly see the attraction in this sport.

My mid-air conversation was also mammary centric as my pilot regaled me with takes of his incredible womanising, all made possible due to his amazing dexterity with his wing.

"That rooftop down there, you see the pool? One day I was flying here and a crazy party was going on with six gorgeous girls. As I flew by one of them flashed her tits at me and when I flew round again they all did so. One shouted that if I could land on their roof I could have her. That turned into one crazy orgy but two days later I got suspended for landing on a building, but hey! It was worth it man."

I told him I work in an office in a country where it rains for 300 days of the year. "We make train timetables man, posters, leaflets. We deal with printers, we go to meetings dude. It's like, crazy."

Tit!

Neanderthal ramblings aside, the flights were a fantastic experience.
Afterwards we ambled a short way up the sea front, a beautiful place with ornate gardens and parks, great views out to sea from the cliffs and well-kept buildings.

With Lima done we set out on the next leg and settled upon Pisco as our next port of call.
From here we could visit the Islas Ballestas, part of the Paracas National Park and home to all manner of species of birds as well as seals, sealions and dolphins.
The other boon about coming here was that it was only four hours by bus from Lima - a cakewalk.

Just off the Pan-American highway, Pisco was almost wiped off the map by a huge earthquake just five years ago. 80% of the town was razed to the ground and as you can imagine, right now is a boom time for the building trade.
Things happen slowly in South America; rebuilding, clearing up rubble, rehousing those who lost everything, those sorts of things.
This means opportunistic crime is a way of life for some and a steady stream of idiot tourists with their money belts swinging about is manna from heaven for these people.

We're the other way; ultra cautious to the point of paranoia. For anyone to rob me they'd have to untuck my shirt, prise their mitts down my ever-tightening waistband and brave the horrors of my undercrackers to even reach my money belt. If they got that far the chances are that the double assault of the 'Pepe Le Pew' odour and the seven months worth of bacteria it harbours would surely do for them.
My money belt is not known as "Rot" for nothing.

We took a room at a lovely little place in the centre of Pisco, a place where we could cook and Kerry could drive us both to distraction with her incessant sneezing on account of her hooter taking exception to an unspecified flower in our midst.

We booked a tour for the following day which would see us picked up from our hotel at the ungodly hour of 0715. I didn't question why it needed to be so early but the reason became apparent once we reached the dock at Paracas at about 0800.

When we booked the tour and were shown pictures of the boat I assumed that there was one such boat per day. We were met at Paracas dock by approximately 200 other gringos and a good twenty or so boats. A large, chaotic herding of us all onto various craft commenced and there followed a two hour tour of the nearby islands to see the wildlife.

It was nothing if not cooling on the water, the mainland in this neck of the woods is parched to the extent that only around 20mm of rainfall occurs annually.
(I have sweated more than 20mm on this trip.)

We saw the aforementioned seals, sealions, enough birds to run the risk of having a fishy and semi-liquid 'pat' on the back and, possibly the highlight, a colony of penguins.

Once we'd had our two hours on the water more van loads of tourists were showing up for their turn. It's certainly big business and perhaps the nickname of the Islas Ballestas of "The poor man's Galapagos" is responsible.

We had half an hour to kill before the next part of the tour so we had a quick coffee and then did a bit of haggling with an amusing woman for a new bag for Kerry.
Oh! Women and bags.

I don't mind really, I had a great haggle with the woman and actually gave her the original asking price even though I beat her down a bit. It was so cheap to start with it didn't really matter.
I also figured that if Kerry carried on sneezing I might be looking for something to put over her head so this might come in useful.

The next three hours was spent driving around the desert to various viewpoints before winding up at a seafood restaurant for a late lunch.
I had something called a ceviche here, a lunchtime staple since Mexico but something I'd previously avoided having seen Kerry blanche when she tried one back in Honduras.
She had one mouthful and then proclaimed it revolting and an affront to her tastebuds and that put me off somewhat.
I'd been thinking I ought to try for myself though and here was my chance.

I was a bit apprehensive. Raw fish marinated in lime juice with raw red onion, particularly when denounced so animatedly by your beloved is easily preconceived as being something that will make you gurn and recoil.
It was a pleasant surprise then that I found it absolutely delicious and cursing myself for not trying it sooner.
Kerry had a fish curry and once we'd eaten we were back in the van and away to Pisco once more.

We left that van in a hurry on arrival, enough for me to leave my one and only jumper on the seat much to my irritation.
I hadn't realised that just yet though, I was too busy wrestling Kerry out of the way to have first go on the kazi, my raw fish speeding through my digestive system at a rate of knots.

The attractions come thick and fast in this part if Peru. Our next stop would be at an oasis in a desert, a perfect place to relax for a couple of days.

Huacachina and Nazca

On Thursday we made our way back to the Pan-American highway from Pisco and took a bus the short hop to Ica. Our goal was a couple of days at nearby Huacachina, a tiny desert oasis town with a population of just 200.

Formerly a bolt hole of the well-groomed, this quaint and quirky little place which features on the back of the 50 soles banknote has become a real gringo-tastic place and firmly on the tourist trail.

The attraction? Well, that would be the enormous sand dunes that surround it. It's the Chamonix or the Aspen of the sand world.
"There's a sand world?" I hear you ask.
There is: sand boarding and dune buggying is big here and, if you've got the ability to drag yourself up the 300-400 feet high dunes then you're in for a real treat as you career down them on your waxed piece of melamine.

We had real bother finding a room here but eventually struck gold proving that patience is an oft-rewarded virtue.
What a joy to laze by that pool and periodically plunge into it when the seatrng heat of the desert got too much. Kerry even got her air bed out and floated around.

When we popped out for some provisions we saw a camper van with a web address on the bonnet and found this to belong to a French couple who are touring the world in it for two years with their kiddies of three and seven.
Reminded me of Mexico in 1999. Ah! Halcyon days.

After a day and three quarters doing precisely zip we convened with some other people for a two hour, sunset dune buggy tour.
What a hoot this turned out to be.

Resembling a metal-framed charabanc, crossed with vehicles from the film "Mad Max", our 12 seater buggy growled into life sounding like something about to tackle the drag strip at Santa Pod.

We were pinned into our seats as our maniacally grinning driver drove at speed across, up and down dunes. It was like being on a roller-coaster only with much more grit in your mouth.

Screams from other vehicles could be heard across the desert and every now and then we caught up with other buggies at prescribed photo stops.

At one of these, atop an 80ft high dune, the drivers whipped the sand boards out and we were invited to take the plunge.
We went down on our bellies first before having a quick go standing up; not recommended unless you have above average coordination and balance. (We don't).

We went down three such slopes before being driven to a fourth, an absolute monster. A lady went before me and by the time she'd stopped she was but a minuscule black dot below us. I went next and then Kerry and once we'd all done it we were back in the buggy for more roller-coastering around. All in all it was a brilliant couple of hours entertainment.

Having no cooking facilities at this particular accommodation, we had to go out and face the trauma of a restaurant meal afterwards.
I know eating out should be a joy but it's actually come to being preceded by a groan these past weeks and
whilst our food happened to be fine here in Huacachina it was the fact our meals didn't come together that got our goat this time.

This has happened quite a lot in South America so perhaps it's no biggy here. We find it a bit irksome though. Who wants to sit like a bookend whilst their partner tucks into a hearty repast?
We are only grateful we can't have a cup of tea here. They'd probably put the milk in before the sugar for God's sake!

The other notable aspect of Huacachina is the proliferation of backpackers who have gone bush and apparently settled there at least semi-permanently.
They're easy to spot: dreadlocks, bare feet, bongos and probably selling jewellery.
I can't make my mind up what I think about these guys. On the one hand I'm full of admiration for them having the cajones to do their thing; on the other I think they're conforming to a ludicrous cliche and they should at least put some flip flops on, the floor is burning hot.

We left Huacachina on Saturday and made the two hour journey to Nazca, home of the famous desert artwork, the origins and meaning of which are essentially a mystery.

It was very hot on the bus and I was grateful of it being half empty so I could sit near an opening window.
When it's boiling hot I tend to hang my head out of the window like a dog, much to Kerry's amusement.

We disembarked from the bus into a minor dust storm and made for a restaurant across the road. It was one of these places with a glossy menu with pictures, a treat for the linguistically challenged, and I selected tasty skewers of meat, salad and Inca Kola to wash it down.
I didn't know why I didn't recognise the name of the meat but names keep changing all the time as we travel. It's dark meat so it's either lamb of beef. Lovely.

As I chewed I couldn't decide. Definitely not beef but not sure it's lamb either. It was only when we went back for an evening meal that I read the menu again and realised that I'd eaten cows hearts.
Really though, all food is as disgusting as you want it to be. (You ate a chicken's BREAST? Oh my god, I'm going to hurl).

We booked a flight over the lines for Sunday morning and I think the guy who made our booking was a bit wet behind the ears. He kept asking in the back office for prompts but was quite clear, when pressed, that our payment covered everything, nothing more to pay, "have a good flight".

On Sunday morning we were collected from our hotel in a van reminiscent of the A-Team and driven to the airport.
Before we set off we noticed a familiar looking camper van parked nearby and we went and introduced ourselves to the intrepid Frenchies and their two sprogs.

On arrival at the airport we were directed to a booth to pay an airport tax of 25 soles each, a total of about £12.50.

"Ah, no, we have already paid" said Kerry.
"No, everybody pay tax" retorted the perplexed looking official.

By chance our young booking agent appeared so we reminded him of our conversation yesterday and, following his getting a dressing down, we were waived through.

At the next desk we handed our tickets to an official and were asked for our passports.
Passports? Nobody said anything about bringing our passports. We're flying in a 20 mile loop over the town in a tiny prop plane, not crossing continents on a jumbo.

"Everybody show passport señor. No passport no fly."

Turning again to our chap I asked him to intervene once more and, severe ear bashing later, we were through to the waiting area.

Our plane turned out to be a six seater, two pilots and four passengers. Our fellow line oglers were from Stuttgart and the chap, who sat next to me, was a leviathan. I've always thought that my thighs were erring towards the telegraph pole end of the spectrum but next to his mine looked like pipe cleaners.

It was an atmospheric and bumpy ride, hot too once the pilots had shut the windows for take off, but fascinating to see these lines.
To be absolutely honest they were a lot less visible than I was expecting and it was as well that the pilot was pointing them out as we went. That shouldn't detract from the fact that at an undetermined time in the past, somebody created these huge images which can only be appreciated from the air.
This begs two key questions: how and why.
That scholars have puzzled over this since their discovery in 1941 suggests that we may never know but it's interesting to speculate.
The general consensus now is that the images represent an astrological calendar but was ancient man so obsessed with the passing of time?

Anyway, with that box ticked we hit the pool at the hotel and wiled away the rest of our time in Nazca swimming, drinking frozen lemonade and lounging about in the stifling heat.

Our passage out of here was to be a first: to Cuzco on an overnight bus with beds. Still congratulating ourselves on how far we've come since the chicken buses of Guatemala as we boarded, we were utterly crestfallen to realise that a 'bed' on a Peruvian bus is merely a reclining seat.
Ok, it was more comfortable than a non-reclining seat but 14 hours in a confined space with 10 Koreans breath, feet and farts, a vomiting child and with nothing to stop your head lolling was far from the image I had conjured up beforehand.

No matter, we're here now, 11500 ft up, breathless and eagerly anticipating the wonders that the Andean highlands will afford us.

Rapa Nui

It was with some relief that we left the lunacy of the Inca Bates motel and made for Lima airport, despite our flight time of 0150 meaning we would effectively miss a night's sleep.
The taxi to the airport went via the seafront, six miles or so of Pacific sunset and surf dudes 'hanging ten' before we turned inland to reach Jorge Chavez international.

We were rather early, so much so in fact that we had around seven hours to kill and this we did by eating ourselves stupid and then wandering around duty free looking for a bottle of perfume to replace the one Kerry left in Zorritos.

After what seemed like an eternity It was finally time to board and I was amazed to see so many people at our gate. I had half expected a tiny plane with just a few hardy and intrepid travellers for company but it seems Easter Island is on many people's radar these days.
If it means anything to you we flew on a 767, a pretty big plane with seven seats across and something like 200 seats in all.

We had a bit of a sleep on the plane but succumbed to lolling neck syndrome, thus waking approximately every thirty seconds. When we did finally pass out the stewardesses brought round roast chicken and potatoes so if we got above a couple of hours each we'd be surprised.

No matter though because at 0650 we touched down and were released onto the tarmac at Mataveri airport and stood in line to pass through customs.

Easter Island. What a belter!
I have wanted to come here ever since I saw it on Whicker's World more years ago than I'd care to mention.
I remember Whicker describing it as the "ultimate trophy destination" and it did indeed feel like a prize just to be here.

Just the formality of customs then and we'll be finding a room and settling in for what will hopefully be a wonderful week......

The line to pass customs was long and we were almost at the back of it.
It was also seemingly not moving.
We stood for ten minutes, twenty and then thirty, in which time we had moved forward about a foot.
As we inched forward the sun rose high in the sky, we boiled and our feet ached.
Finally, after 2 hours and 10 minutes we reached the officers and were processed in seconds.
I have no idea why it took so long to reach the head of the queue.

Having no accommodation, we relied on hoteliers being at the airport touting for business.
We declined the kind offer of a tent for a week from one of them in favour of a look-see at a room with another.
The lady drove us, two Japanese girls and a Russo-American couple to her pad and insisted we take coffee and breakfast first.
All very pleasant but after a night awake and/or drooling on our lapels all we really wanted was to see the room and, if we liked it, to get our heads down for a bit.

Our prospective host actually had two rooms for us to consider; one at $70 per night and one at $50, the latter being a short drive away on a different site.
Well, the more expensive room was a little spartan to say the least so we held out little hope for the other. I think we made our mind up not to take it when we saw the six local chaps sitting on the driveway freely imbibing hard liquor so in a way it was fortunate that the room wasn't to our liking.

We thanked the lady for her time and set out to find something a bit more suitable and were immediately accosted by another lady in a 4X4 who asked us if we wanted a room.
The room she showed us was a pearler with its sunny aspect and proximity to the pounding waves. That we'd have access to a kitchen was a bonus that we would come to rely on due to the exorbitant price of eating out on the island.

With it now being lunchtime we sought sustenance and after a brief misunderstanding with the toothless sextuagenarian who ran a breakfast shack in the grounds of our digs we came to a completely unpatronised restaurant. Having ascertained it was open, we perused the menu and were soon offering apologies and hurrying out of there quicker than you could say "portion of chips, $15 US".

Maybe they were served on the heaving bosom of a naked virgin or came with starter, accompanying steak and as much drink as you needed to wash them down, I don't know.
What I do know is that I ain't paying $15 for a plate of chips.

We found somewhere slightly cheaper but lunch still cost nearly $40.
Next stop: supermercado!

Back at the gaff we succumbed to exhaustion and passed out for three hours before getting up at 1900 to cook some pasta.
Whilst eating we met Elizabeth from Stockholm and Stefanie from Dusseldorf, two single travellers who had hooked up here on Easter Island.

The weather wasn't very nice on Monday so we went to try and get some money having failed to do so yesterday on account of both island cash points being out of order.

We queued for a good half an hour only to be told that the foreign currency exchange closed twenty minutes previously.
We must come back tomorrow, before 1130.
Luckily we'd changed some money with a Chilean lady at the room so we had something to keep us afloat.

That afternoon, with the weather still pretty ropey, we set out on a three hour hike to visit Orongo, an ancient village where the bird man cult was played out each year.

I'm jumping a bit ahead of myself by mentioning bird men and cults. So you can understand what I'm blathering about, here is a potted history of this remarkable island.

At a time unknown for certain, but probably around 500AD, a group of people sailed (probably) from the Marquesas Islands and landed on this uninhabited land. Estimates for the length of this journey range from 15-30 days, depending on favourable winds, currents and the protagonists seamanship.
The leader of this incredible voyage, Hotu Matu'a, became king of the new found land, as did, in turn, his direct descendants.

As the population grew it spread around the island and in about 1000AD the first statues were hewn out of volcanic rock and erected overlooking the island's clan's settlements.
They were images of their ancestors and the idea was that they would watch over the living and protect them.

All was well for generations but then, due largely to overpopulation, things got a bit uppity.
First of all, by about 1600 ish, they managed to pretty much completely deforest the whole island.
This meant there was no wood for building boats and none for fire. No boats meant no fishing, no fire meant no cooking, no cooking meant rumbling tums and when man is hungry he is prone to go apeshit.

The once peaceful island became a maelstrom with cannabilism to the fore.

The island finally became known to the outside world when, on Easter Sunday 1722 (geddit?), a Dutch captain by the name of Jacob Roggeveen happened across it.
Roggeveen reported that the island was surrounded by standing statues but by the time Captain Cook reached there in 1774 he found them all toppled.

Clan warfare had resorted to the ultimate heresy, toppling the statues of the revered ancestors.
With the old 'gods' denounced a new way was sought among the islanders to determine who should be 'king'.
This gave rise to the cult of the bird man; an annual competition to climb down a 400 ft cliff, swim just under a mile through shark infested waters, collect an egg laid by the sooty tern and return back up the cliff with it intact.
First man back is king for a year and what he says goes.
As for the rest of the also-rans, well, they obviously just weren't trying hard enough.

So, back to the present day, we started yomping toward Orongo in weather that is best described as tropically inclement, missed a turn so we end up walking five miles instead of three, and when we got three quarters of the way to our goal visibility was so bad that we could not see more than ten yards in front of us.
We were soaked to the skin, freezing cold and sliding all over the place on the mud road. We also inexplicably collected stray dogs as we progressed.

We finally conceded defeat and turned back. We flagged down a passing jeep and implored the two Chilean guys inside to give us a lift back to town. They acquiesced and once we'd offered grovelling apologies for caking the rear of their vehicle in half a ton of mud we communicated further via the international language of football. We fairly slid down that road, thanked our new friends heartily and rarely has a hot shower felt so good as it did when we got back to our room.

So far then we'd been here for two days, seen nothing, had no money and, in my case, was showing all the symptoms of the onset of manflu, that well-known debilitating affliction that women are seemingly immune to.

First thing next morning we were determined to get some cash so we were at the bank armed with all possible documentation to ensure our mission bore fruit.
The cash point was still out of order so we queued at customer services to get an advance on our Mastercards.
The unsmiling clerk informed us that our cards were of no use as the account numbers were not of the raised variety, therefore she couldn't imprint them on her manual card reader.
My Barclays card would be of no use either because I haven't informed Barclays that I'm in Chile but luckily Kerry's UK bank need no such information so we withdrew on that.
Sort of.
Customer services provided a chit to say we could withdraw. Said chit needed to be taken to the counter. Yes, that one with the long queue, the one that has sprung up since we've been faffing about at customer services. Oh, and look, one of the two windows has just closed. An hour later we were finally the weary guardians of some Chilean pesos.

We immediately traded some to hire a jeep for the day with Elizabeth and Stefanie and set out to drive round the whole island.
The island is surrounded by Ahu (platforms) on which once stood Moai (statues), most of which now lay face down having been toppled around 300 years ago when everyone here went crazy eight bonkers.
In addition to the Moai there are numerous petroglyphs and in fact, the island boasts more than 20,000 archaeological sites.

The first major site we went to was the Rano Raraku volcano which was where the ancient stonemasons carved the Moai. Scores stand sentinel on the volcano slopes and some even remain half finished indicating an abrupt end to work.

Next up was Ahu Tongariki, a restored Ahu with fifteen standing Moai, a truly awe-inspiring place. We also visited the one beach on the island, a picture postcard white sandy heaven complete with restored Ahu and then we went to Puno Pao, the site where the Moai "hats" were carved out of red rock.
All in all it was a magical day.

I started to feel pretty grotty on Wednesday so we just mooched about but by Thursday I felt a bit better so we hired a quad to go and see the one corner of the island we hadn't yet visited.
We took in the fascinating museum, saw the only Moai with eyes intact and went in a cave that would have been lived in probably as recently as fifty years ago.

The weather turned wet again so we headed home but by the time we got there the sun was out and was broiling us to within an inch of our existence. This gave us just the window of opportunity to try for Orongo again and how we were rewarded. There is a volcano crater there which is now a lake and the blue sea and sky contrasted beautifully with the lush green grass in the village.
Bird Island (Motu Nui) looked utterly impossible to reach and the petroglyphs here were second to none.

Orongo was the site of some pillaging at the end of the 19th century. An American ship came to the island and the crew hacked the village to bits to provide the Smithsonian museum with some exhibits. The English came and removed the most ornate Moai from the island. Now on display in the British Museum, the Rapa Nui name for this one is "The Stolen Friend".

Friday was souvenir sourcing day and after more prevarication than I ever wish to repeat we finally splashed out on a carved Moai which will take pride of place on the mantelpiece we do not have in the home we do not own.

In the afternoon we were tipped off that there was to be a fiesta in town so we went along to be treated to singing, dancing, drumming and displays by local schoolchildren and adult groups alike. This was fantastic entertainment with songs being dramatised by painted fellows wearing little but a pouch to spare our blushes.

On Saturday we split up for the day, Kerry investing an eye watering amount of dollars on a five hour horse riding tour led by the Rapa Nui Casanova (I have mucho women, mucho children. Children in Chile, children in Germany, children on the island) and I hired a bike and cycled round the whole island.
Neither of us could sit down with ease afterwards but we washed down our final meal on the island with enough vino tinto to anaesthetise ourselves somewhat.

With our flight not being until 1815 on Sunday we managed to get a few hours at the beach before we had to pack and go. This was a lovely end to our week here and just the tonic before heading back to the hubbub of the continent.

And that was that. Goodbye to possibly the most amazing place I have ever been, somewhere that is an utter privilege to behold and provider of a tranquility that is difficult to find.

Easter Island will live long in our memories.