dave bushe dot net

I’m fractured from the fall

12:28 am Friday, 31 October, 2008

I am alive and well and *way* behind on my updates. I am back in Cusco and in a shitty shitty internet cafe.

I´m going to take the unusual step of skipping a few days ahead so that I can tell you that I conquered the fuck out of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and it was everything I hoped for and then more.

I´ll talk more about it later (when I have a computer that I don´t have to wait for it to show my typing) but the final day we get up at 4am. It´s dark, of course, and it´s lashing rain and I mean lashing rain. I´ve been ill for a couple of days, I´m not keeping down food and I´m starving. So, it´s dark and cold and wet and most people are miserable.

I on the otherhand have already decided that this is going to be one of the best days of my life and nothing can get me down. Repeated abuse from most of the camp about my cheerfulnes and optimism (yeah I know, shocking huh?) just makes me feel better. It is the perfect way to start the day. Maree is the only person who is on the same wavelength (posting on people to follow at some point, more then) and so we set off sneakily calling out “porters” to get the slower folks out of the way so we could overtake.

So we power on non-stop mainly in silence, lost in thought, anticipation, adrenalin and indeed exhaustion. We reach the steps below the Sun Gate. 50 steep steps and let me tell you you ain´t seen steep till you have seen these. We scramble up and the rain stops…but the mist remains. So slightly disapointing that we don´t get a first view down over the city. There are still photos of course and then another fast pace down into the city.

We are there before we realise it and the mist remains but the mist is moving (and actually, cloud is possibly a better term) and thinning and we start to see the city take shape and it´s breathtaking. It is every single thing you could hope for and then more.

So then a good chunk of the day is spent on a tour, exploring and a final climb to Waynapicchu to look down over the city.

The day is amazing and let me tell you that the beers on the train back towards Cusco have never tasted so good.

Lots lots more and of course some photos to follow down the line.