Day 48 - San Pedro

After a manic weekend after the trek, doing far too much bad stuff and drinking way too excessively, a few of us decided to try San Pedro. For anyone whose heard of it, its the juice from a particular type of cactus which, after being boiled for 14 hours, becomes a very potent drug. Now, I'm not happy with handing over 30 quid to get high, but seeing as this is the same cactus juice that the incas used to heal themselves (from things as nuts as cancer!), I reckon its worth the money to shift my cold and have a fun day.



The drug basically puts you "in touch with nature". Whatever that means. With fear in my eyes (we were told it lasts up to 6 hours, which is pretty scary if you're wasted), we hailed a cab with our guide, Valeria, and headed to a forest bordering the ancient inca site of Sachsayhuaman, where we saw the festival 2 weeks ago. We trotted through the forest to a quiet patch, where we sat down and she unveiled a rug's worth of crystals and carved wood. Nervously, we down a glass of thick, egg-white like liquid which tasted rank, and waited out 45 minutes for it to kick in.



As soon as we were allowed, all holding out stomachs because it induces vomiting, dan shot off to through the forest and found a tree. We caught glimpses of him dashing around, dragging his fingers through the grass. Suzi was next, who vanished into the distance. I was feeling something, but nothing special. I took a walk, felt a bit stoned, but generally fine. Dan was meditating with his head against a tree. Not interested in talking to me, he was staring at a pine nut. I found suzi, lying down beneath a small 5 foot tree in the sun. again, we chatted. but she was far more interested in watching the sky.



Valeria was wicked. She asked me how it was going, and I told her it wasn't really doing much. She made me sit it out for 2 HOURS until I could take another glass of the stuff. I whiled away the time walking around the forest, climbing over rocks and exploring the amazing scenery. But when 2 hours was up, I went for another glass of the good stuff. and THEN it kicked in.



Within about 10 minutes of drinking it, I found myself a tree to sit under. Its hard to explain, but here goes. Basically, the cactus juice makes you go mental. You become like a kid. Everything is fascinating. You can stare at the bark of a tree for 20 minutes without getting bored. Your skin becomes SUPER sensitive, and you just wanted to rub yourself against anything you can find. The noise of the trees blowing sounds like monsters stomping through the forest. Dark areas out of the sun make you fear for your life, and shadows are more fasincating than going to a gallery. It literally turns you into a nature lover.



I sat myself down beneath a tree and spun out. Its not a "trippy" drug. It just makes you feel quite wasted and alert. I sat down and smoked a cigarette and stared at the shadow. It was actually the most amazing shadow I had seen in my life. 20 minutes later, I stubbed another cigarette out on a tree root, then apologised the tree for 10 minutes because I had hurt it.



I found this shadow of two trees that formed a cross on the ground, so laid down with my arms out on it. Looking up at the trees blowing in the wind, it felt like I was underwater, and the trees were swaying in the water's current. I was totally with it, just LOVING it. I found an old rusty can, man-made, and ran from it. Fear. And then I went nuts. I took my shoes off because the feel of moss beneath your feet is the BEST feeling ever. I crawled on my hands and knees to Dan's sanctuary, where he was meditating, and tried to crawl into his bush. He told me to stop, but I didn't. Stomping aruond the forest, everything was AMAZING. Bark was amazing. Twigs were amazing. Leaves were so colourful. The sun was my friend. And the feel of trees brushing on your face is UNREAL.



And then I found my tree. Right, I'm not one to talk to plants. But THIS tree, I talked to for 20 minutes. It was covered in scaly bark, like paper. And the tree, whlst not speaking words, TOLD ME it wanted me to get rid of the dried paper bark. I stroked it gently, asking if that hurt. I knew when it hurt, so stopped and moved onto another part. 20 MINUTES. I'm a nutter. The whole time I knew it was nuts. But I knew the tree wanted to me help it. Apparently Suzi could hear me rubbing the tree from a mile away. It was nuts.



Anyway, I snapped out of it after a while. It was all too much. Decided to go on a mission into the dark patches of the thick forest. It was scary, but I did it. Got caught by two people whilst i was stroking a rock with my foot for 10 minutes. that was embarrassing. and then I had a 20 minutes conversation with a park ranger who wanted to buy my iPod. The whole thing was nuts. and I was wasted.



I also found this amazing piece of string. Now, its just a piece of string. nothing special. but man, did I bond with it. From that moment on, if someone had offered me 200 quid for that piece of string, I would have said NO. It was mine. I loved it. Suzi acquired a rock. Dan some pine nuts. And dave found a hole in the ground, which we are convinced is a passage to the underworld. nothing else would explain it.



and then the laughter started. Dan and I laughed for about an hour. Then we crawled over to Dave, who laughed with us (he's been away for ages on his own, psycho). Then suzi. the four of us spent 2 hours rolling around on the floor, stroking rocks and trees, sniffing bark, rubbing ourselves in mud. Climbing a 2 minute hill felt like climbing everest. the whole world looked like a set from a movie. And as soon as the sun went in, it hurts your skin.

I wrapped up super warm when the cold set in, and we headed down to the inca moon temple. in silence, we crossed fields and streams. water doesn't feel like water. it feels like air. unreal. laughing some more, we approached the moon temple, where we all fell completely silent. Suddenly, my sensitive skin transformed to sensitive hearing. the sound of two rocks rubbing together felt like needles in my ears - in a good way. I spent 20 minutes rubbing rocks together. The vibrations in my fingers made me go crazy. We dashed away from some men with beers, for fear of having to talk to them, and crawled into the hollow moon temple. Whilst we were each hugging rocks, dan touched some toilet paper, and the laughter started again. And we headed, wasted, down the long road back into cusco.





The whole thing was nuts. Ultimately, its just a trip. Comparable to taking acid, but without the hallucinations. But the feeling is magical, and totally safe. You become a part of nature, and feel like you've never seen the world before. Everything is fascinating, if its natural. And you feel clean and wholesome. It didn't shift my cold, but now when I look at tree shadows, I feel something different. Its way more exciting these days.



Unfortunately, everyone else came back to sanity long before me. I was sat in a restaurant about 8 hours after starting on the juice, and I was still going mental. Colours on the walls were changing, and eating food was just weird. But by the time I woke up the next day, things were amazing. I made it back to the hostel at 10pm, where sam was drunk on rum. she'd decided not to come with us, so stayed at home and drank rum all day. we laughed some more, then she headed out. And after a weird nights sleep, I awoke a new person.



If you're in Cusco, and you have a spare day, get down and dirty with some san pedro. Its a totally unforgettable experience, and will probably change your perspective on nature forever. But then again, its just a load of cactus juice. the rest you make up in your head.

Day 41 - The Inca Trail

Day 1

After much deliberation, 5 of us booked ourselves on a 4 day hike to Machu Picchu, taking in a day of mountain biking, 2 days if hiking, a day in the Picchu. All accompanied by a guide and 3 porters to carry our tents and make us food. Total cost - US$ 170 (about 340 quids). Pretty steep, but the majority of that is the cost to get into the park, so we were happy to pay.



And so we set off, at 8am, headed for one of the highest peaks in Peru, so that we can cycle downhill for 5 hours. The tour company was pretty rubbish that we booked it with - constantly telling us what we wanted to hear and not actually delivering what they had agreed. So after a hectic public bus ride up the mountain, we got dropped off at the top (except charlotte who can't ride because she hit a park bench whilst cycling down the Death Road in Bolivia) and began our descent down the gravel road the spirals from the cold peaks down to the hot and humid peruvian jungle.



The descent was amazing. Riding through fords where the waterfalls crash onto the road (paved to prevent erosion). There was a proper sense of fear too - the cliff edge next to the road fell for, at places, hundreds of metres. Killer. Andy got a puncture within 10 minutes, which the guide couldn't fix so Andy did it for him. Then again 10 minutes later. So the four of us bombed it down the mountain, leaving the guide behind to hitch a ride with the broken bike. Kinda careless, seeing as any one of us could have injured ourselves on the way down and the first aid kit was still with him up the top of the mountain, but nevertheless, we made it down safely.



Frodo, our guide, joined us a whopping 2 hours later (from the back of a pickup truck) and after telling us we were HOURS behind schedule, we rode in the pitch dark along the dirt road for 2 hours to Santa Teresa. Sarah cried. Frodo had no torch. And when we finally found charlotte, we found out that she had been left on her own for HOURS. Well organised, clearly.



Tried to call tristan (it was officially his birthday in the UK at that point), but without reception, and with the "international" payphone not working for international numbers, I marched behind the others to our campsite across a proper "indiana jones" style broken footbridge over a river. One at a time, in case it collapses. Risk limitation. But over the bridge, things began to look up. Pushing jungle branches aside and creeping along an overgrown path, we were all getting well excited about sleeping in the jungle. But once again, the tour company lets us down. Our tents were pitched on the CONCRETE garden of someone's house, accompanied by a rooster (that started crowing at 2am right through til morning) and a squat toilet with a plastic sheet for a door. No bushes to go and hide in here.



Day 2



This was by far the best day of trekking EVER. Not including the Picchu, of course. So, at 6am we tucked into some omlettes, made by our porter/chefs, then set out in search of some hot springs, several miles further up the river. We started by bombing across the river in a basket, pulling ourselves along as we dangled over this enormous ravine. I went last, partly because I was crapping myself, but it all went to plan.





We started ascending this mountain, where you could see the trail we were taking bending round the sheer sides hundreds of metres above us. Hard work uphill, but we stopped to steal some fruit from a very sweet local orange farmer, and had a weird encounter with a tiny monkey, that like eating baby bananas. Me and him got on like a house on fire. I love bananas.



Next came the scariest part. The path weaves around the actual side of the mountain. We're talking about a path about 3 feet wide, on the very edge of a vertical drop which would clearly result in death, and we're stood there with massive backpacks and rubbish hiking boots. It scared the shit out of me. But was amazing. I handled it well, only really slowing where parts of the path had eroded away and we had to step over 4 foot gaps. I kinda lost it when the rocks underfoot got slippy too. We then descended to the banks of the river, where we went for a freezing swim (I didn't) in a cascade and then tucked into a heafty lunch. I then fell asleep in the sun. a hard life.









3 hours of trekking along the banks of the river later, passing broken railway lines (destroyed by the El Niño of 1990, along with hundreds of lives of local people) and massive boulders the size of houses, we found ourselves at the edge of nightfall and in some steaming hot springs drinking beer and eating popcorn and empanadas. We watched the stars come I, I showed the guys how to spot some constellations, and whilst I was swimming underwater, the others all saw a shooting star. Gutted from peru dot com. I love shooting stars. We racked up a camp fire and listened to some music before hitting the sack in our tents, right on the river bank. The whole day was special. Including the relatively good nights sleep I had.







Day 3



Frodo, our dude, promised to show us some AMAZING inca ruins that had just been discovered. So we hopped into a van and rode to the base of a huge mountain, covered in jungle foliage. Apparently, the ruins were at the top. How annoying are the Incas. Anyway, we started the hike. Uphill for 4 hours. We'd been told that we could buy bottled water EVERYWHERE along the trek. Fact was, we couldn't get it anywhere. so we're there, on the side of a mountain, with no water, drinking mossy brown rank water out of streams. Good work frodo.



And then, just to top it all off, at the top of the mountain, the so-called Inca ruins were BOLLOCKS. *I* could have made better looking inca ruins than those. Were they inca architecture - no? were they even east facing houses? no. Were there even houses? no. They were a few overgrown, rubbish rooms which were so badly NOT inca, that I walked away in disgust and swore at Frodo. 4 hours uphill - I was furious.





but, the one thing that saved the day, was the view. A few miles across the valley from our high-point, was the beautiful southern side of Machu Picchu. I stared for ages. Transfixed. It was huge, and beautiful and fascinating. I was just 24 hours away, but it seemed too much. I was WILDLY excited.



We descended for 2 hours down to the river again, where we were all shattered and thirsty (no streams to drink on the way down). One particular highlight was the scary bridge across (1 person at a time again - killer), and then the most immense waterfall fed by a hydroelectric power station behind the mountain. WE finally stopped for lunch at 2:30pm, at least 2 hours later than we all wanted.



Frodo taught us a little about Inca sacrifices, but we weren't sure if he actually knew anything, or was just making it up. Charlotte, who he had a little thing for, got picked to be scarificed, then we walked up the railway tracks to Aguas Calientes (at the foot of Machu Picchu) for 3 hours.





Once at Aguas Calientes, I finally had enough reception to call the boy, then realised that the hostel we were in had no room, so had to find other places to stay. Killer. But we had our first hot showers and warm beds in 3 days, so it was all ok.

Day 4



4am wakeup call HURT. My bed HURT. My eyes HURT. My feet and my legs and ankles and my shoulders HURT. But today was the big day. Breakfast was horrendous (stale crusty bread ONLY) but was enough to get us on the road by 5:30am. We started the 2 hour walk to the top. Original inca stone steps up, the path was steep and long and hard work. Frodo kept dropping behind, but we battled on. I sweated out of every pore on my body, but HAD to be up for day-break for fear of missing the sunrise. And a hour later, we arrived at the entrace to the park. SOAKED in sweat.



Got my passport stamped with a Machu Picchu stamp (dunno why, but they did it anyway) and we legged it to a vantage point to take some good photos before the crowds arrived. They were already there though. which was a shame.



bumped into sam and suzi, who arrived here on a 2 day trip through the sacred valley, then Frodo began to tour us around the park. It kind felt like he'd never been here before, since he didn't have much to say on any of the important stuff in the park. Obviously, I whinged about that, but luckily Frodo bombed us round quick enough that we could do our own exploration.





we decided to head up Huayna Picchu, the little mountain to the west of Machu Picchu. Apparently its a 1 hour climb up, and because its pretty dangerous, you have to sign in and out of the mountain so that they know who has died when the park closes and people haven't returned. That said, we bombed it to the top. Loads of amazing ruins. A real sense of achievement in scaling the stone stairs, accompanied again by horrendously steep drops to the bottom of the valley. But the place was magical. Used as an astronomical observatory by the incas, Huayna Picchu just grabs you. Imagine the one place where all the inca teenages would go to smoke a spiff - it was here. I sat on the highest point, dangled my legs towards the ground, smoked a cigarette and had a total moment thinking about lucky I am and how amazing this place is. I literally could have sat there ALL DAY LONG. It was unreal.







But all day was too long. and the other guys wanted to see the moon temple. So we descended for an hour and found this wicked carved cave and sat eating apples and applying more bite spray for 20 minutes. Thinking we could keep walking down to get back to Machu Picchu, we were proved wrong, and had to climb uphill for another hour before descending the other side of the mountain to get back home. One final bomb around the ruins and a good long marvel at some of the architecture, we got the 20 minute bus down the mountain and took the train back to Cusco.



Words cannot express how amazing machu picchu was for me. I always knew I would love it. since I read books on it when I was younger, I've always known. the rocks BREATHE history. the whole place is positioned on top of the world and the surrounding are awesome. But the real highlight was Huayna Picchu. From there, the view down to the main park was beautiful. There was just something unreal about the whole thing. And after 4 days trekking, it was the most beautiful landscape we could have dreamt of hiking through. Stuff like this is what I came travelling for. And how chuffed am I that I'm getting to do it all. Get saving and get out here. Its so worth it.