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.