"The Inca Trail is a piece of cake, but how big is the cake..."

We arrived in Lima and after a few days of wandering around the district of Miraflores and sourcing new hiking gear we met up with the group that we would be joining in the Inca Trail hike.  Christine in particular was nervous about how the hike would go after reading about both the fitness level required and the effects altitude sickness could have on people doing the hike.  Finding out that one of the couples on the hike had been training for a year (!) didn´t help.

It was too late to turn back, so we apprehensively joined the group on the journey to Cuzco.

Arriving at our hotel we knew the altitude had hit us when we were out of breath and our hearts were thumping after a few flights of stairs.  We were told we would get used to it after a few days.

After being told that it would be best not to drink any alcohol at altitude, we were offered the local drink of Pisco Sour.  We started with the ingredients and made the cocktail ourselves.

Pisco, egg, syrup and lime juice



A lot of shaking

 

And you have the final product..

 We then moved on to a G adventures sponsored project where local ladies produce one-off items of clothing and souvenirs using Llama and Alpaca wool.  We learned about the full process from producing colourings through to weaving etc.

And met some of the locals..

Later we travelled to the Sacred Valley and had a practice mini hike to some old Inca ruins.  We were told that most Inca towns had been looted and demolished by the Spaniards.

Day 1:  Start of the Inca trail.  We still have smiles, energy and are clean...ish!

An early animal sighting

After a few kilometres we were shown a map of the route.. there appeared to be a lot more ups than downs.



Note the altitudes on the left

Scenery at the end of day 1, time to set up camp.

Day 2: Also known as "the hard day"..

Uphill for 5 hours.. lots of steps, but look at Christine´s fake smile for the photo..



We finally made it to the top of Dead Woman`s pass (4200m high).  It was a tough slog, but we were pleased to be at the top, although the clouds could have had better timing..

Day 3: starting a new day of hiking at 5 am.. looking good despite no shower and a bit of altitude sickness.



The snowcapped mountains were spectacular

Although the scenery was sometimes obstructed by mist..

Our spirits were kept high by our mad tour guide, Percy.  We have a video of him playing the Andean flute if anyone is interested :)

Day 3 was a much nicer day with lots of downhill and the chance to play category games and enjoy the Andeas forest.

At almost the end we were offered two options 1) Go right to the campsite or 2) Go left and up to another archeological site.. We chose 2 and were rewarded with this:

and this..

At our last campsite, we weren`t far from the locals..

"What are you guys doing here?"

 Where the llama lives.. Pretty nice

Day 4 - 3am:  Still no shower, and beating the rush to Machu Picchu (our final destination) by getting up "early"..  Headlamps were required again..

It was a very cloudy start to the day, and as we had been really lucky with the weather so far, we were worried we wouldn`t see anything once we got to Machu Picchu.  Thankfully the sun came out around 10am (after being up for seven hours) which made for lots of great photos of Machu Picchu.

Quick history lesson: The Incas built this city during the 15th-16th century for the Inca "royalty" and other important people at the time.  It was one of the few places that wasn`t found and destroyed by the Spaniards and was found by an American explorer in 1911.  At this time it was overgrown and he spent years uncovering the entire city.  Items of interest were taken by the Americans to be studied even further, and it is only now that Obama has started to return these items to Peru.  Archeologists are still finding new artefacts now as well, including clay pots etc.

All of the stones used in the "lost" city were taken from this quarry.  They still hadn`t finished, hence lots of rocks are still here..

More alpacas found here, this guy was very friendly..

Even though we`d reached our destination, there were still more stairs to climb..

Then we returned back via train and bus and there was still time to catch some more beautiful scenery..

This just about sums up our Inca Trail trip, although we have 100s of photos if anyone is interested :) 

The guide said at the start "The Inca Trail is a piece of cake, but how big is the cake..?".. So it turned out that it was a pretty big cake, and it's probably one of the hardest things we have ever done, but it was very rewarding and well worth the effort.  We hope to find a chocolate cheesecake as big as this some day..

Kings Cross, Hyde Park, Soho.. hang on, which way did we fly?

So we arrived in sunny Sydney where we stayed for just over a week. 

It just happened that the Melbourne cup (horse racing) was on the day we got there.  Even though we were miles from Melbourne, everyone had the day off, dressed up and were celebrating in style as if they were there.

Posh lunch party in the Botanical gardens

People watching the races on a big screen near Circular Quay

Great signage on the way to town!

We found a few very useful free (!!) city tours.  Here we were walked around town and told about some little known Sydney facts. 

For example this is a statue of Queen Victoria´s dog with a famous Australian radio DJ providing its voice asking people to donate coins in its fountain.  The voice even ´woofs´ if you put coins in..

Outside the city hospital there is this heldiggris (lucky pig) which drools and grants wishes (apparently)..again, if you donate coins.

There was also quite a bit of street art around, including these bird cages and accompanying bird noises.

We also caught up with an old friend from the China tour, Vic.  We spent a day walking a costal walk between Bondi and Coogee beach.


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The scenery on the walk was really nice and made for some fantastic photos...

..and opportunities to mess around with the camera.

Sandstone rocks everywhere..

We obviously also visited the famous landmarks several times, including the Sydney Opera House.  We were incredibly lucky and excited to find two shows in the Opera House that were right up our street. 

The first being a talk with Prof. Brian Cox about his usual space stuff as well as some new animal project snippets.  He was awesome as usual..

The other show was an amazing presentation (as part of the ´Graphic´festival) from Pixar by Lee Unkrich (who directed Toy Story III!)!  It showed the full film lifecycle from storyboards through to lighting as well as funny outtakes.  He also showed the most amazing short film called Partysaurus Rex (here is just a small taster as I can´t seem to find the full version, probably not available yet):

They were very strict on taking pictures during the presentation, so this was the only pic we took.  The auditorium was very impressive too!

We then braved another walk to Manly which was a couple of hours through forest terrain (always on the lookout for creepy crawlies) and beaches.

When we got back we rewarded ourselves with some lovely steak in our local pub.

It had been many years since we´d both last visited.  Everyone seems to exercise more and everything seems twice as expensive compared to last time.  Oh, and we saw Charles and Camilla drive past us in their car..

Vic, thanks for the company and the term: slosh it out! :)

Until next time, G´day..

We have now arrived in Singapore, please keep your seatbelts fastened until the engines are turned off. Anyone found trying to import drugs will face mandatory execution...

Other than the scary announcement we were met with a clean and friendly Singapore.  We were also greeted with the worrying realisation that it was Christmas soon!  (lots of Christmas decorations in 30+ degrees)

It was a very modern metropolis with the usual designer shopping streets and American coffee houses.  We did however find some original street art including the below Transformers optical illusion.

We also found that birds are bigger in Singapore...

On a random stroll along the Riverside we found the 30th annual company dragon boat races, participants included companies based in the high rises around the area including BP, banks etc. 

Note the person at the front who keeps the rythmn by beating a drum.  Some teams seemed more serious than others with full Eastern European warm-ups before the events.

The harbour had lots of nice modern buildings including the below which was also commonly known as the hedgehogs!

The Marina Bay Sands resort and the science museum dominate the skyline.

Who´s idea was it to put a boat on top?

Pretty park behind the Marina Bay Sands...no that´s not the London Eye!

We then looked forward to the famous Singapore Night Safari.

Although the Tawny Frogmouth was only slightly amusing, it became a perfect term of insult between us.

Being at night the animals were more active and keen to find food.  The tiger was fortunate that his food was delivered from above!

SQUIRREL!  A flying squirrel in fact, this was the highlight of the safari although we didn´t see it actually fly.  The size in the picture is deceptive, these were actually huge (5 times the size of a normal squirrel).

Recycling Otter!  At the end there was a show including animals with their trainers with wolves, otters, snakes and hyenas.  The otters were trained to pick up and recycle bottles and cans in the correct bins, an art form many humans haven´t mastered.

We were only in Singapore for a couple of days before moving on to Sydney, but would go back for the food and animal entertainment.  Definately without drugs though!