So..good news and bad news today.
Good news: I´m back on my laptop! A somewhat more helpful guide/translator and an hour with an electrician and for two pounds I´m back. It´s not perfect but it´ll last a month. Some photos going up now and I hope to get more up tomorrow. So look for a deluge of photos and hopefully postings to bring me up to date. (Hurrah!)
Bad news: It´s looking increasingly likely that I´ll be spending tomorrow morning in a Bolivian hospital having a broken, fractured or hopefully just badly bruised wrist taken care of.
Having said that, tonight is a big night out and perhaps some whiskey and hopefully Guinness will cure all that ails…
19.19 La Paz, Bolivia Saturday November 08.
Alright so, backing up! After Pisco and the Huacachina oasis, (posts to follow, it’s saved on my laptop) we reached Nazca.
Continue reading ‘Hammer strikes the metal and it makes me believe’
Fucking hell. I don´t know what´s going on but I can´t get any of my photos of my cameras. I´ve got the afternoon free and the plan was to sit here and sort some stuff out but I´ve spent the guts of an hour trying to get some photos posted up with nothing but frustration to show. Stupid internet cafes, stupid broken cables, stupid third world.
Okay. Sunday afternoon and I’m sat in an internet cafe in Cusco. It’s not a bad place but for some reason my camera won’t connect at all and so no photos. Annoying. I’ve spent about an hour fighting with the machine but of course it’s in Spanish and it’s locked down a little so I’ve had no joy at all.
Aside from having a backlog of photos, I’ve got a backlog to get up here (I’ve even started writing again!). With luck I’ll have a power cable in 5 days and then I’ll be back. I’ll be much happier then! I’m feeling a tad down at the moment and writing would be good. This net cafe is nosiy and hot and I have a few things to do before dinner and so I don’t want to get stuck in now. Also I have three entries saved on my desktop and I want to get them up before I get too far ahead of myself.
Tomorrow it’s onto Puno and then 2 days and nights on Lake Titicaca where we stay on one of the many man-made islands (floating reeds). This should be good but the significant downside is a complete lack of electricity and phones and radios. Not good! With luck I’ll be back in Puno sometime on Wednesday afternoon at which point I run for the nearest internet cafe to find out if the Americans have fucked up again.
Then Thursday it’s another new country (and a walk across a border - yay!) and off to one of the capitals of Boliva, La Paz.
For now it’s the pub for dinner and some well deserved drinks.
18.05 Cusco, Peru.Sunday November 2nd
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.
Oh yes. Found Guinness in Peru today :)
I am alive and well and in Cusco/Cuzco/Qusqu in Peru. Tomorrow morning I start a trek from 82km over 4 day trek along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. After spending the past four days at high altitude (3200 - 4900 metres) I’m alot less worried about this as the only side affect has been strange dreams and a small headache but with of course the shortness of breath expected at such altitude.
Net access ain’t the best and I’m way behind. I’m offline for most of the next 10 days, we get back from Machu Picchu and head into the Amazon for a few days.
More down the line.
