Hola mis amigos- el camino inca

The inca trail was an unforgettable experience. Much too much to write about now on my phone so for the full story you'll have to wait till we're back. Here is a brief story and some photos of Machu picchu for the moment.
Day one was a gradual up hill for about 6 hours after an early start and breakfast in Olyamtatambo. we met our group and got into the swing of using walking poles. Day two was the hardest day steep up hill for the whole day reaching the pass at 4215m above sea level! Luckily we were able to take plenty of rests.
Day three was the longest at 15km, but plenty of ruins to stop look at , two more passes and a beautiful Quechua ceremony on the mountain top.unfortunately it rained most of the day so we were very wet when we got to camp. Day four saw us arrive at the sun gate to Machu Picchu after a 3.50 am start . The mists slowly cleared a we descended and the enormous ruins opened up before us. Its to hard to describe just how amazing it all was.
A very challenging and rewarding experience. I'm so glad we did it!

Today we're off to the Amazon!

Love Gem and Jez.

We're about to be ruined

Getting cosy with Cuzco had been awesome! The last two days we have been checking out the Sacred Valley of the Inca.

Last night for dinner we decided to get all Peruvian so we ate alpaca, trucha (trout), cuy (Guinea pig), and drank pisco sours and Gem ended up with the worlds biggest glass of Peruvian wine. Cuy is a local speciality eaten on special occasions. It was a bit weird as it came it while with its teeth still in its face. It tasted ok. The alpaca was amazing, it tasted a bit like beef but a bit gameyer. Pisco sour is totally yummy and heaps of restaurants try to lure you in with free ones.yum

We've done two tours of various inca ruins. To Qorikancha, Pisaq, Ollamtatambo, Chinchero, Moray. The inca ruins were awesome but they really liked stairs! We learnt heaps about the incas and the local Peruvians. Did you know they have over 2500 kinds of potatoes! And heaps of different corn! Moray was an incan agricultural test site to grow different kinds of plants at different altitudes. It even had a tropical microclimate to grow coca.
At lunch there was a bilingual talking Macaw that said "hello" and "ola" to us.
We also visited salt pans at Maras where they dry salt.
Every stop had the obligatory craft market which have Andean ladies in traditional dress selling handicrafts and textiles. Gem of course is a total sucker and bought a beautiful blanket. I'm sure it'll fit in my pack somehow. all of us also now have llama hats or in Meredith's case a bear hat so we all look quite the part! This morning we also visited the workshop and she showed us how the spinning colouring and weaving is done.

Tomorrow we begin the inca trail to Machu Picchu, at 5.20 am!! Four days hiking up to 4200m at the highest elevation.
See you on the other side
Love Gem and Jez

PS pics are:

Qorikancha (Santo Domingo church on inca foundations)
Cuy for dinner
Maras salt pans
Moray
Ollamtatambo

Santiago to Cuzco

Sunday
Well we've made it to Cuzco which seems like a really cool place.the hotel we're staying at is super amazing and right in the historic centre.

We had a but of an adventure getting here this morning, there is something to to with daylight savings that we still don't really understand...its real but it not so google doesn't know about it our something? but it meant that the taxi we ordered came at what we thought was an hour early at 5am! Then we got to the airport and discovered our flight was an hour later than we thought. Very confused but we made it fine in the end.cut it a bit close in Lima be cause the domestic check in line was huge, skulled our drink bottles to get through security and arrived at the gate just a few mins before boarding!
I had heard that the views on the flight into Cuzco were pretty awesome, we couldn't see much cos of cloud but it seemed as we came into land that we were very close to the hills which was impressive!

This afternoon we're all just taking a nap after a nice cup of coca tea in the courtyard downstairs on check in. From our window we can see a church which I guess we'll visit tomorrow. Cuzco is at high altitude so we're gonna be taking it very easy the first few days.

Monday
Taking it easy was sure right...we woke at lunch time after sleeping for 16 hours oops! But we feel awesome now and have had a super what's left of the day. Went for a wander round the streets just generally checking out the place. Its so cute, really narrow cobbled streets with high inca walls on either side and doors, peep into the doorways to see sometimes shops sometimes secret garden courtyards.
The altitude is making us all feel a wee bit weird, tingling fingers mostly and out of breath walking up one flight of stairs . It feels a bit like being drunk!! Hopefully a few days here will be enough to acclimatise before the inca trail cos that's a lot of stairs!!

Cos i can't figure out how to label the photos on my phone the pics are:
View from out hotel window of Santo Domingo
Narrow Cuzco street
Plaza de Armas (main square) by night
Llama cup of coffee!!

Love Gem and Jez

And we're back!

Gem and Jez are travelling the world once again!
This time its a five week trip around south America. We'll be travelling with Meredith and meeting up with Mark later on.
Right now we're sitting in Auckland airport waiting to leave, so far we've had a five hour delay so its not a great start but chilling with a glass of wine watching the planes is nice  :-)
Hopefully we'll have enough opportunities to get wifi and update pretty often. Facebook rules the world now much more than it did when we were last travelling so well prob also be posting on there.
Love Gem and Jez